12/2/02
Louisville, KY - Turkey Day Weekend 2002. We decided to take our new diesel VW Beetle on its maiden voyage to see if it could really live up to its sticker claim of 42 highway miles per gallon. It did, but what I really learned from this most recent trip was that Amerika is dying and festering with undereducated fundamentalist Christians and crimson-necked ne'er-do-wells.
I don't have any vacation saved up, but a few months ago I did earn a day off for volunteering with the United Way to read to some kids with this super rare disease that deprives them of their genitalia, outer ears, pinky toes, and all body hair. I redeemed the day to take off Wednesday, Turkey-eve, along with Ladyfriend, our 60-pound Great Dane (Devo), and Ricky, whom I spared from hearing the Manifest Destiny crapola that the conformity factory teaches 4th graders on the day before turkey day. Public school Amerikan history often forgets to mention that those good-old pilgrims were the same people, who when with full bellies, were quick to cry out the "savagery" and thus the inhumanity of the natives (and later Africans), thereby negating Christian charity, peace, and love toward them. This gave the thumbs-up to full-tilt Manifest Destiny driven mayhem.
".... the right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federaltive development of self government entrusted to us." John L. O'Sullivan
WWJD? My favorite piece of history that is soon to be forgotten (or buried, or rewritten by the Ministry of Truth and Justice, Directed by John Ashcroft) is the first use of biological warfare by our forefathers. Oh, you never heard about that? Our forefathers, a Brit by the name of General Amherst in particular, first used biological weapons of mass destruction when he issued smallpox-ridden blankets to natives. Don't take it from me though, look it up. But I digress, our trip took us through the heart of what's left of Native America, that's Oklahoma ya'll, and it left me with bad mojo along with the stink of my grandma's cigarettes.
We left Louisville on Tuesday evening and traversed the bottom of Hoosierland and Illinois with ease. We settled in for the night at a Bed Wetter Hotel (that's our household joke-name for Best Western. We also use Pizza Slut and Chuck E. Sleaze when necessary) in St. Roberts, Missouri that was owned and operated by a guy named Punjab. Ladyfriend went to check in while I took the dog to go pee. We tried to sleep well that night, but the microscopic pillows on the beds made for stiff necks and fitful rest. We woke up to find ourselves deep in the heart of everything we fear and loathe. Under the darkness of the night before, we had missed hundreds of cheap billboards proclaiming things like, "28 reputable clinics prove that Abortion causes a 340% increase in breast cancer," or, "The Kansas Expressway and Route 66 Church of Jesus Christ the King says Islam is Satanic." Inspired by the God (mis) quoting billboards of my own town, I'm seriously contemplating the value of putting up billboards all along I-44 that say, "Fundamentalist Christians. Have You Adopted A Crack-Whore's Deformed, Low IQ, Crack-addicted, ADHD Baby today? - God." Better yet, I could make one that says, "Pro-Choice, because you low-rent fugly rednecks fuck too much without protection. - God." To top off the fundi-billboard propaganda machine, (and it is a well-funded machine) Punjab billed us for a holiday fee which totaled $65 clams for a smoke tinged room with microscopic pillows. I made mental note to speak with Punjab personally when we made the return trip. But we were off to eat turkey in Levelland, Texas at my grandma's house and time was short; this was a turn and burn trip. I rarely get Granny's cooking and we had several hundred miles to go along the former US Route 66.
When we entered Oklahoma, I realized I still had the heebie-jeebies from the week before. I was still rightfully pissed off at the Texas Tech football program for taking a prison raping from the Oklahoma Sooners. I kept having this image of Raider Red (the TT cowboy mascot) getting raped by a prisoner in a maroon striped uniform who kept yelling, "BOOMER…ugh…SOONER," with each thrust. OK, last time I updated this shitty column I lied. I said I wasn't going to follow Tech football this year after the Ohio State trouncing. Who knew that Ohio State was that good at pre-season??? Goddammit, the Red Raiders BEAT the University of Texas (then ranked #3 in the nation) and the Aggies (then ranked somewhere in the top 25), had a long shot at a Big XII championship, a short lived top 25 ranking, and therefore a possible BCS bid since the winner of the Big XII gets an automatic BCS bowl berth. Oklahoma killed that long shot with a 60-15 ass-ramming pummeling of Texas Tech. BOOMER SOONER. After the slaughter that was that game, I soothed my angry head with rational thoughts about how good the Sooners really were, National Champ material and so forth, and how I hoped that they would kick ass in the BCS and show those punks in the wussy conferences that the BIG XII South rules supreme. I changed that frame of thought 180 degrees on the return trip through Oklahoma on the Saturday after Turkey Day, but that's skipping ahead. I haven't even breached the subject of Levelland's smoking problem.
Levelland is one of 1000 small Texas towns that flourished during the Texas oil boom and has been on a steady decay since the oil was either capped or regulated out of existence on or about mid twentieth century. For every new building there are fifteen dilapidated ones and for every new neighborhood there are two or three nearly empty shanty towns that were once called things like N-(fill in the blanks)-er Town or Taco Flats by the general populace. Nowadays only those 50 or older still openly call those shanty neighborhoods on the other side of the tracks by their archaic racist names. Those white people 50 or younger in these towns are so much white trash now that they dare not utter a racist epithet of that nature in public for fear that their own trailer park town will also acquire a secret name.
Granny recently bought a small Chihuahua. It's been a good deal for her. The little Chihuahua loves her very much and gets her out and about on a regular basis, which is a grand improvement upon her mobility as of a year ago, but I fear for the longevity of this relationship since her dog has already contracted a bad case of emphysema from the smoking. There's no rival for a self-fulfilling prophesy of a name than that of a Mexican Asthma Hound Chihuahua, especially one who lives with a chain smoker. One of the reasons that my granny has lived as long as she has is because she really doesn't smoke as much as she seems to enjoy GPC 100's as a form of incense. One quick look around the house and you'll find an open pack of smokes in the bathroom, the kitchen, on the kitchen table, in the living room, on the back porch, and in the bedroom. On the same trip around the house you'll find at least three lit, and /or smoldering cigarettes in one or more of the many ashtrays of the household. Everyone in Levelland chain smokes it seems. I would too if I lived there. It's in a dry county, has little or no economy, is surrounded by cotton fields that are dust farms for 6 months out of the year, and because of the nearby oil fields, has a pervasive scent of fart-like natural gas that gets into everything. Why not smoke?
After three consecutive meals of turkey, we decided to go get some Mexican food instead. While eating tacos at this run down greasy spoon joint, four rednecks in a 1976 bi-centennial edition Ford truck pulled up next to my beetle. They crowded around my beetle, took a long look at the license plate on the rear of our car, and started laughing. The filthiest, in a greasy Redman hat (the chewing tobacco, not the rapper) entered first and loudly chuckled to no one in particular, "I dun rant over that there buggy from Kentucky!" I darted outside to make sure that the Redman-asshole didn't fuck up my car. I came back in and shook my head; it was in good shape. He was just being a typical redneck asshole; the type I've learned to ignore or deal with for most of my life. About that time, the cook, a twenty-something white trash girl with a faded and stained Bon Jovi t-shirt retorted, "Good. Fuck that Communist foreign piece of shit." The rest of my non-immediate family, who all reside in Texas, started to laugh off the whole scene, but stopped abruptly when Ladyfriend stood up and shouted to the rednecks and the cook, "What the Samhell did you say you backwardsasscowpokesheepfuckingsonsabitches?" She didn't give them the chance to answer as she immediately launched into her standard five-minute diatribe on the number of Kentuckians who fought and died at the Alamo. I got tense as she started her speech, but relaxed once I saw that the history and logic of her discourse was burning out the chaw-soaked gears of the redneck's minds. The longer she went, stiff fingers pointing, blue hair flapping to and fro, the more I knew that we were ok. Halfway through her speech, my relatives, previously unaware of the historical relationship betwixt Kentucky and Texas eventually chimed in with yells of, "Hell yeah!" and "Tell it like it is!" She ended her tirade with downward fists clenched and a low stare as if triple-dog-daring them to respond. It was Ricky who broke the silence when he leaned toward them, smiled sardonically, and chuckled, "You just got chewed out by a blue haired GIRL from Kentucky!" In unison, the bubbas pulled out their generic cigarettes, sat down, and chain smoked to ignore the scene. Denial is a common social band-aid. We paid our check and went back to my granny's house. The incident wasn't mentioned for the rest of the trip.
Overall, Turkey Day Weekend was a mild success. My beetle tested road worthy and I got to see my grandmother and a handful of other relatives and people I love. I was hoping to see my little brother, but his relatively elderly girlfriend must have talked him out of making the three-hour drive to Levelland. Don't ask. After a bitchin breakfast at a hole in the wall called Vecchios in Abernathy, Texas, we started our 17-hour drive to Louisville through Oklahoma on college football Rivalry Saturday. We listened to the OU vs. OSU game on the radio. You know the game; the one where the unranked perennial bottom feeders of the Big XII South, OSU, kicked the dog shit out of their in-state rival, the OU Sooners. I listened with mixed feelings. On one hand, the Sooners were getting it from behind with no reach around; this made me happy. On the other hand, it reinforced my earlier suspicion that if OSU could beat OU, even though it was an in-state rivalry, then why couldn't Texas Tech, with one of the best offenses in the nation, put up even a hint of a fight with OU the week before? Texas Tech is full of West Texas chicken shits…the same ilk of those rednecks that made fun of my VW. It's no good to focus on the negative though. Texas Tech is going to a bowl game for the 10th consecutive season and can profess to be the best college football team in Texas this year. We rolled through the Great Plains and eventually the hills of Missouri, shuddering at the sheer volume of fundamentalist Christian propaganda littering the interstates of middle Amerika. We decided to stop for the night at the same Bed Wetter Hotel, but this time I decided to talk to Punjab myself. There were more vacancies this time and I told him that we would only pay $10 bucks for a room since he charged us the increased holiday rate of $65 a few days earlier. He pretended to not understand me until I left and returned with my monstrously ferocious looking Great Dane (Devo) pulling at the end of his stainless steel chain. I asked him if pets were ok. Punjab agreed to do business with me. Hotels weren't the only people making off on holiday travelers though. When we left on the Wednesday before Turkey Day, gas prices were fairly normal and consistent across five states. It wasn't so on the return trip. Having all of us holiday travelers by the proverbial balls, gas prices were up a good 30% from Texas to Kentucky. Thankfully, I get between 40 and 42 mpg on the highway. Ahhh farvegnugen (sp?). I wonder what that redneck driving the 1976 Ford will think of my VW after Bubba Bush starts Oil War II and gas prices skyrocket. Selah.
A Dog Don't Lick It's Ass If It's Got….
Louisville, 9/6/02 - Ahhh…Labor Day weekend, the holiday where we celebrate the American worker, and the general, "Goddamn I work way too fucking much for someone else…weren't computers and robots supposed to make this so much easier by now," feeling. Of course, it really means the summer is over and it's back to your cages you slaves!
As is our recent Labor Day family tradition, Ladyfriend, Ricky, and I went camping on a private farm in Ezel, Kentucky with a diametrically opposed group of Unitarian-Universalists and some rednecks that somehow got in the habit of camping with us UUs every Labor Day weekend, but I won't go into that. Although Labor Day weekend is symbolic of the end of summer's sweet pleasures, they actually ended a few weeks ago and three sporting events have startled me into the realization that the summer has ended in an ugly and abrupt way: a Louisville team winning the Little League World Championship, Texas Tech's horrible loss to Ohio State in college football, and the narrowly avoided death of Major League Baseball. I'll start this diatribe by bashing baseball.
I've always found baseball to be masturbatory. Although I enjoy watching baseball live at the minor league level because of it's affordability, close proximity to the action, and foul balls, watching any level of baseball on TV is at best, an excuse to take a nap in front of the boob tube. I feel that same way about golf except that I neither like to play it nor watch it live. In fact I'll say FUCK golf right here and now. I also have an aversion to the Little League brand of baseball because of its loose standards and practices, specifically in what it chooses to sanction as "Little League" organizations. The Louisville Valley team's success made me have a flashback to many summers ago. My aversion to baseball started when I moved to La Vernia, Texas (population 632 at the time) in the 80's. Before my family moved to La Vernia, I spent every eligible little league year playing for outstanding San Antonio teams, with outstanding uniforms, on outstanding fields. When I swung a bat for the Giants, the Cardinals, and the Pirates (all over .500 teams), I did it in a real baseball uniform with leggings, cleats, MLB logo shirts, and a matching hat. When I moved to La Vernia and joined the "Little League", I was on Albert's VW repair team. We had a black baseball shirt with yellow letters that said "Albert's VW Repair", with no matching hat, no baseball pants, or matching leggings. I asked if we were the pirates since we had black and yellow colors. The coach said, "No, we're the Albert's VW team. Deal with it." Nothing against Albert's VW repair, they did good VW work and at least sponsored a team. Worst of all we had nothing more than some orange dirt at the public park for a baseball field. It was a joke league, but it was "Little League" brand sanctioned baseball anyhow. Luckily my Dad and a few other parents worked very hard for a few seasons to build four proper baseball diamonds with fences and dugouts, and a central concession stand. They got all of that built in time for my little brother, 4 years my junior, to play in a first class little league and make to an All-Star team (the kind that plays for the Little League World Championship). Although I played on a sanctioned "Little League" team in La Vernia, neither I, nor anyone on Albert's VW team ever had the chance to play for an All-Star team. Fast-forward nearly 20 years to Louisville, Kentucky, where the 2002 Valley All-Stars (Valley really meaning the redneck, La Vernia-like side of Louisville by most accounts) win the LL world championship. I'm jealous and it just reminds me that summer is over.
Just about the time that the Valley All Stars won, MLB players and owners were bitching and whining like a 12-year-old girl having her first cramps…over their union contract. You know how hard it is to make it on 2.4 million. I have a hell of a time managing on 3.2 million myself. I was hoping that they would have a nasty ass strike and kill off MLB altogether. MLB is nothing but a sloth-like ball of John Rocker's jizz, chewing tobacco, and sunflowers seeds wrapped in money from all of the $8 Bud lights sold at games. A political cartoon I saw with two pigs (one in a baseball uniform, the other in a business suit) hugging and apologizing to each other in a heaping pile of money was the best political cartoon I've seen in years. Speaking of tripe, I've decided to save the $99 I had set aside to purchase the College Football Direct TV super-duper Game Day package, since the team I usually follow, Texas Tech, blew syphilitic goat when they opened against Ohio State. I follow one and one sport only: college football. But, I refuse to pay to be tortured by those shit-kickers from Lubbock this year. Perhaps the shit-kickers from Austin (that's the University of Texas Longhorns folks) will make up for the piss-poor football coming out of Tejas lately.
This summer went by in a quick haze of weird stories from Tonopah and cryptic linguistics from my wife. My ex-wife made my son, Ricky, spend much of the summer shooting rats in a dump outside a trailer park in Tonopah, Nevada. They sell like hotcakes and God-Bless-America-Bandannas, for $3.25/pelt at the Texaco where she works. She and Ricky had an 80/20 split (respectively) on net operating pelt income (revenue less wage and BB gun expense). Apparently my ex-wife is into the child-labor/rat pelt market…again. I'll have to see what kind of violations of labor law my attorney can dig up so that next summer Ricky can stay in Louisville and play in the Valley Little league. When his team wins the 2003 Little League title and Bush comes to town, he'll be the only kid to pick his nose before he shakes Bush's hand; I'll shed a lone tear on camera. If that doesn't work, maybe I'll get Ricky hooked up with the Teamsters or the MLB union to draw up a Writ of Recognition and do some collective bargaining with his mom for a better split. Ladyfriend picked up the bad habit of blurting these weird sayings that are a cross between a Ross Perot quip and a Buddhist meditation phrase. For example, "A dog don't lick his ass if it's got steak," is one of her (and now my) favorites. She also mentions "space feltching" now and again, which is funny, but I try to ignore her whenever she says that one. I guess it's only right of her to have an ass fixation since I now have a case of Cozu-smell that rivals my wife's case that she picked up in Mexico back in April. The Vegas odds makers are paying 4:1 that if I have the Hershey-squirts one more time this week that I'll implode. Since Ladyfriend has the inside scoop, her money is on the Kroger brand Pepto. I keep thinking about the friend of mine who had explosive dysentery in Italy once. He left complaining about his stomach and they found him four hours later lying in the bathroom floor below the halo of diarrhea on and above the toilet. There was a silhouette of his upper torso within the shit spray. Pray for me.
Hail Satan, Pass the Pepto.
7/21/02 - The Summer Hiatus
With Rick off on his summer vacation/adventure, Ladyfriend and I have decided to dabble in the white slavery market for a few weeks this summer to earn some extra cash. (a.k.a. second shift warehouse work involving Labor-Ready temps and piece-work for the tobacco industry sans air conditioning). When this is all said and done (around mid-August) I'll be back at the keyboard on a more regular basis to document the summer's events.
I've also started my first book (a fat chapter outline and proposal so far) and I'm soliciting input from any of my friends (you know who you are) who have played the single parent role i.e. I'm looking for single-parent-specific stories that have after-the-fact humor and/or relevance to other single parents. E-mail me if you want to contribute to my research (radardave1@yahoo.com) you'll get the proper credit too if it ever gets published.
Oh yeah - I had a DSL problem for the last few weeks and had no connectivity...so, if anyone knows the whereabouts of Titus and Hope (address, number, e-mail, etc) let me know. I'll be in Texas in mid August for few days and would like to get together with anyone in the area to do the "BBQ, beer, kids thing". It's been far too long since I've had some serious fajitas. Phildo...going to Tejas anytime soon?
Dave
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Like a Mexican Wal-Mart for the Very Special Love Friends, Songwriting in the Land of the Toltecs, a Whole New Meaning for AEROMexico, and The Art of Mole War
4/15/02
Shortly after the MTV crew packs up and leaves Cancun to verify Jackass episodes in towns like La Vernia, Texas and Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, the Mayan Riviera (that resort-littered part of the Yucatan Peninsula that extends south from Cancun for several hundred kilometers) gets a second wave of “spring breakers.” This wave drops more money than the first wave and drinks as much as the typical teenie-breaker, but tends to focus on scuba diving and bitching about everything in sight. Unfortunately, while we went about that part of the world, we had to ride the buses and taxis, and shop with these Bob and Bettie yuppie motherf***s…until we got to Cozumel.
I’m not that world-traveled, but I do know Mexico. I grew up in occupied Mexico (aka South Texas) and didn’t realize that I was white until I joined the Air Force. I’ve done countless trips all along Mexico’s northern U.S. border in Matamoras (South Padre Island, TX.), Juarez (El Paso, TX), Nogales (Nogales, AZ), and now visited Cancun, San Miguel (Cozumel), and Chichen Itza (aka Chicken Pizza if you ask Ricky). One of the funniest observations I’ve come across is the unique and often entertaining, Mexican Sales Pitch. Here are some of my favorite examples of the Mexican Sales Pitch:
· Almost free today
· American friend, come in my store, is like a Mexican K-Mart
· Would you like some specialized pharmaceuticals?
· (Said to every couple under 35) Honeymooners, welcome to my store
· (Said to every African-American) Very special price for the soul-sister/brother
· Like a Mexican Wal-Mart for the very special love friends
· Of course the water is safe for my American friends
Hearing that last phrase, Ladyfriend and I went to an upstairs, open-air, restaurant and bar on the coastline in San Miguel (the only town on Cozumel Island). The view was beautiful: catamarans, glass bottom boats, and cruise ships floating on the most beautiful water I have ever seen. The weirdest waiter in the universe promptly seated us. In fact, as I looked around the small restaurant, I noted that the whole wait staff was f**ked up. Our waiter wore motorcycle boots, black jeans, and a black leather belt with a giant 6” X 6” silver buckle. He kept his short-order notepad in his a black-leather gun holster (complete with leather string to keep the gun part from flapping against his leg). He wore a white Oxford shirt modified and hemmed at the shoulder to make it sleeveless, and topped off his outfit with a Navy/Yacht Club Captains hat. If his outfit wasn’t enough, he could massacre any American top-20 hit of the 80’s, and his right eye kept a constant fix on the bridge of his nose. Our cock-eyed friend danced over to us singing, “Thriller…thriller night,” and then took our order. I ordered a Dos Equis and the ceviche; Ladyfriend ordered some cheese quesadillas and a glass of “safe” water. We watched as fat guy in a Zorro outfit scared children as he pressured their parents to do tequila shots. Our ocular-challenged waiter brought our food out while whining, “….looozing my ree-lii-jun.” Meanwhile, back at the resort, Rick had mastered the art of ordering “virgin” versions of his favorite frozen adult beverages while hanging out at the mini-club for kids.
Ricky learned his favorite drinks while watching Ladyfriend and I during our first night at the resort. We checked in and then walked about 10 feet to the lobby bar and asked for anything blue and frozen (Nosotros tenemos bebemos azul y frio por favor). Two minutes later, we were hauling our luggage on an enigmatic jungle pathway to our bungalow, while trying to keep the flies and iguanas away from our Blue Hawaiians. Shortly after we unpacked and settled in, we went to a family oriented resort “disco” where you and your children could have pina-coladas (the white frozen drink), strawberry daiquiris (the red frozen drink), or a Miami Vice with Low Pressure (the red, white and blue frozen drink). I was about to start whooping some drunk-ass kids and their parents until I learned that two straws in a cup identifies a non-alcoholic/virgin drink. This is also the place where we learned that if you added “Low Pressure” to any drink, it meant the addition of blue stuff. As good Americans we ordered several red, white, and blue drinks. Other than reef snorkeling with some jackass Yankees in Speedos, we spent most of the resort time at the pool with Ricky ordering virgin Pina-Coladas with Low Pressure from the swim-up bar. We fully expect the Child Protection Agency to haul us in at any time. Shortly after our last night swim before we left for the Mayan Ruins at Chichen Itza, as Ladyfriend mastered the art of balancing a tall glass of something orange and alcoholic on her stomach while floating and looking at the Caribbean stars, Montezuma got his revenge on her with his “safe” water.
In the 45 minutes spanning the ferry from Cozumel to the Yucatan mainland, Ladyfriend had crapped 17 times. Most native ferry passengers referred to her as that “pinche gringa (read f **kin white chick)” under their breath, after her first trip to the can. We were met by our tour-guide at the dock and shown to our shuttle. Ladyfriend started crying when our tour guide Norma told us, “Our chuttle bus has, how do you say, chemical toilet…um…pee-pee ok, poo-poo is no allowed.” I asked Ladyfriend if she could make the two-hour shuttle bus ride to the ruins. She gave me a sickly yet very determined face (for someone who just shit away 15 pounds) and yelled, “I’ll slap a cork in it if I have to. I will see this goddamn Mayan pyramid come shit or high water!” I was thankful that the tour bus was full of German tourists and no one understood that traveling with my wife carried the high probability of smelling an incredibly rank smell caused by a Mexican chemical bus toilet that was made for pee-pee only, no poo-poo, for up to 4 hours (round trip). As part of the trip-package we stopped at various villages along the way to shop, where “piche gringa” did her thing time and again. At one of the stops I pulled Rick aside and asked him for some help. I told him that we had to devise a way to get her mind off of her intestines. We had to be determined to make her trip as enjoyable as possible because we love her dammit. Rick assured me that he had a cute little song that would help her smile again. When we all loaded back on the shuttle bus, Rick stood up and started shouting the diarrhea song.
When you run across first and you feel something burst
Diarrhea ***pfft pfft*** Diarrhea
When you slide into third and your feel a big turd
Diarrhea ***pfft pfft*** Diarrhea
When you slide into home and your pants are full of foam
Diarrhea ***pfft pfft*** Diarrhea
I mimicked the farts along with Rick during the chorus, put my arm around Ladyfriend, and gave her a big smile, “See everything will be all right.” She just glared at me. Then Rick winked at me and continued singing.
When you’re climbing up a ladder and you hear something splatter
Diarrhea ***pfft pfft*** Diarrhea
When you’re walking down the hall and you hear something fall
Diarrhea ***pfft pfft*** Diarrhea
(Then the kicker)
When you see the Mayan ruins and your pants are full of fluids
Diarrhea ***pfft pfft*** Diarrhea
When you go to Cozumel and your trousers start to smell
Diarrhea ***pfft pfft*** Diarrhea
After the last verse, Ladyfriend gritted her teeth and eeked out, “Sit you ass down now.” Fifteen minutes later we pulled into Chichen Itza. For those of you who don’t know, Chihen Itza is the place with the Mayan pyramid you see on the Discovery Channel all the time. It also has the famous ball court where the game was played where winner lost his head. It’s one of the larger collections of Mayan ruins in the Yucatan. It was a place where Mayan astronomers devised one of the most incredibly accurate calendars in the world. Mayan royalty would sacrifice head or heart here for the sake of fertile crops for the people. It is also the place where Ricky hid in a stone serpents head for three hours so that Ladyfriend wouldn’t kill him.
We left the next day on AeroMexico flight 620 and had the unfortunate pleasure of flying with another person who had intestinal problems. Ladyfriend was royally pissed at this Farty McFarter...and rightfully so. She had been polite enough to make a four-hour bus trip without a single gaseous peep while battling the worst case of the Hershey-squirts in her personal intestinal history and now Mr. McFarter kept putting the “AERO” in AeroMexico. It was crazy. The mystery farter would fart, everyone would smell it, and in a rolling unison/wave, 120 some odd people would reach up to increase the air flow on the nozzle above their heads. The for the next 2-5 minutes, you would hear people from all over plane, as the fart passed by them, say things like, “pinche pendejo…maricon…stanky-ass mother-f**ker…Yaysus Kristos!”
The most important thing is that we flew and everyone got home ok. We got back home to find that the mole from last year has returned to my yard. I’m gonna be a napalm laying, mole trapping, sumbitch this year. Until the next.
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Spring is in the Air or Radar Dave's Real Garden or Solicitation of Funds for Shark Fishing in Cozumel
3/10/02
The month of March is always the cold jumpstart of spring. It herks, jerks, sputters and then rumbles the old badass northern hemisphere into the high, holy, mean-green gear...and I'm pretty sure there will be a few naked pagans running around knee deep in the new verdant stuff celebrating the season before the end of the month. Bob-willing, I'll be one of them (figuratively, I'm fat).
My small indoor nursery already has 5 inch squash sprouts and the watercress is coming along nicely. Best of all, the cat now respects the power of the electric fence surrounding my seedlings and has funky twitch to remind her NOT TO F**K with Daddy's little greenhouse. We should have a nice little garden with some neat stuff to share with you this summer. If everything goes well, we'll have some Roma tomatoes, yellow squash, carrots, bell peppers, onions, camouflage melons, watercress, rosemary, and cilantro. You bring the beer and we'll make you a fresh garden sabzi plate. Before we reap what we've sown though, we're going to Mexico.
We used the airline comps from our December 2001 adventure to Tejas to finance our trip to Cozumel during spring break. Ricky and I plan on catching at least one good fish (preferably a shark or a big ass sailfish) that can be mounted above our fireplace mantle. I plan on doing this, and every other thing I do in Cozumel, while holding a fruity blue drink that contains a least two of the following miniature drink accessory items: a plastic sword, a semi-functional bamboo umbrella, a colorful stirring rod, pineapple chunks, a lime slice, or an orange slice. The only real concern I have about this vacation is what to do when I have a trophy marlin on my line and I have to decide between saving my blue fruity drink and catching my future mantle piece. I guess this is where Rick will have to step up, be a man, and reel in Daddy's trophy marlin. Hell, he's the student council rep for Mrs. Farhat's (pronounced Far-hat, but I still refer to her as "Miss FART" to Ricky and really struggle through the quarterly parent teacher conferences) class now. He's up for the task. In order to avoid the sun's harmful rays, Ladyfriend is going to wrap herself in a rum-filled aluminum foil suit topped with a straw hat. We assembled the mock-up suit in the living room, stole the elimination/recycling idea from DUNE, and have patented a Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum delivery system for her vacation pleasure. In reality, this is the only way that Ladyfriend could enjoy the equatorial sun/climate, Mexico, and my blue-drink-toting-ass on vacation. Rick and I came up with the idea of the Foil/Rum (or FUMSUIT as we call it) suit after we realized that ditching her at some ceramic jaguar salesman's hut after the heat exhaustion would not be a very cool plan.
Because of the high expense involved in the development of the FUMSUIT, the planned expense of shark fishing charters, and copious amounts of blue drinks, we are accepting grants to finance our expedition.
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Black History Month or How My Very Special Ladyfriend Got Banned From The Bookstore or the South Will Rise Again
1/29/02 - It's almost February and it's 70 degrees here. Old Ohio-Valley people keep telling me horror stories of the Indian Summer that happened in the winter of '29, the impetus behind the '29 plague, aka, the year the Ohio river froze solid and neaderthals from Indiana slid over to mate with the white women, and everyone got the whoopin cou-phluenzaphyllis. I just think it's a nice break from the Nordic-hell winters I've seen here the past two years. (Remember, I'm from Texas and think Louisville, Kentucky is cold as f**k).
So last weekend, we emerged from our winter holdout to forage for meat and bits of grass among the semi-frozen tundra and decided to go to the bookstore. Locked up in her winter cell, Ladyfriend had been running around the house like a mad bull in heat, in an absolute and desperate need for a day planner/calendar with good prints in them that we could frame later on this spring (we're cheap). Rick and I, afraid for our lives, made damn sure that we got her to Hawley-Cooke (sp?) as soon as the ice-melt allowed us to break the car away from the driveway and clear a path through the 127 anatomically incorect snowmen that Rick has made the last two months. We love her and she needed help.
We hit the bookstore at rush hour. Ricky went immediatley to the Harry Pothead section and ladyfriend made a tight, dotted line for the calendar/chanting monks cds/babies-in-flowerpots section. I went straight to the manager and tipped him a twenty in anticipation of the chaos that was to ensue. Ladyfriend juked and bounced through the calendar section with a fury driven destiny for THE RIGHT calendar/day planner. She moved in a way that screamed Martha Stewart Plays Pinball on Pure T-Toed Kentucky Home-Crank. I overhead her clinched teeth rattle little snippets like, "...g-ddamn Beatles sh*t....who buys this mutherfu*kinsh*t...jesusthisisretarded!" I tried to ingnore the whole thing but Rick kept hollering at me, in the new fiction section, from the Harry Pothead cardboard cut-out across the store, " Dad....Dad....Dad...they have The Sorceror's Stoned!" Ladyfriend still couldn't find THE RIGHT calendar/day planner and shook her white knuckled fist as she shouted back to Rick, "I'll show you the stone!" Rick hung his head low and moseyed over to me in the new fiction section near the door. I assured him that we could make it though this if we ran at the right moment. I've learned, from previous experience, that the best defense is sometimes a well timed retreat. Behind the counter, the manager gave me a dirty look and I knew that my twenty had run out. I pulled out my wallet and waved it at him and mouthed the question, "Five bucks...ten?" He shook his head "no". I had enough of his usury and knew that Ladyfriend's caledar/day planner wasn't worth all this. I turned to go get Ladyfriend when she shouted, " THE BLUE DOG! Ohhhhhhhhhhh how cuuuuuute! For only $9.95" She found a calendar/day planner designed by none other than that freaky excuse of an artist that paints a picture of a BLUE DOG in almost every one of his paintings. She was happy. The manager was freaking out, doing what looked like an adult version of a third grade pee-pee dance. Bubbling, Ladyfriend hopped up to the checkout line at the counter behind a 90+-year-old blue hair. The manager calmed enough to take the blue hair's money when all of the sudden Ladyfriend screamed, "OH SHIT...BLACK HISTORY MONTH!" This was followed immediatly by the sound of :
1. 1,225 African-Americn inspired books crashing to the floor along with
2. 33 African-American inspired trinkets,
3. 3 solid oak mini-book cases, and
4. One (formerly) framed picture of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
(according to the damage invoice).
The "South of the Mason-Dixie line" bluehair, who just heard, "OH SHIT, BLACK HISTORY MONTH," had a Montgomery, Alabama flashback and cackled "yeah, why do the darkies get a national month!" The whole store gasped so hard it made a vacuum- pop in my ears. Ladyfriend turned an evil shade of red and threw a twenty at the manager/cashier as she ran out of the store on her way to the car.
In her excitement about the BLUE DOG calendar/day planner, Ladyfriend had bumped the terribly ill-balanced "February is African-American Month" impulse-buyers display near the counter and almost incited a 90 yr-old woman's desire for a race riot, in the Bardstown Road Hawley Cooke Bookstore. No more, no less.
The stockboy next to Rick and I mumbeled somthing to us about this being, "...the fifth goddamn time that damn display fell over, " as he rushed to pick up the merchandise. I put up the copy of The Quantum and the Lotus that I was perusing as Rick fell on me laughing at the whole scene. That's when the manager cracked and banned us from the Bardstown Road Hawley Cooke Bookstore with a warning about property damage and something about Hitler. I gave him the finger and we went to console Ladyfriend.
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Family Circle
1/4/02 - OK. I don't have wedding pictures as requested, but I do have the long awaited Halloween Evidence. Chief Secret Agent Joey Madsulu (Yeti-Institute for Gifted Correspondance, Dayton Division) beat the shi* out of the detective at the Jefferson County criminal investigation locker and reclaimed our halloween pictures on his way to Cuba to obtain cigars and Soviet sex-toy technology for our favorite pedofile, Uncle Sam. But I digress. I now have the pictures and have uploaded them, for your viewing pleasure, on this very website. They load slow but are well worth the wait. But first I want to describe the hellish nightmare that was the Holiday Season this year.
Journal of Holiday Travel between Dec 21 and 30
12/21 - The kids, MsHellion, and I flew out of Louisville, to Atlanta, with a final destinatin of San Antonio. Meanwhile at the same time on another plane, some dumb pigfu**er was flicking a bic to his C4-stuffed shoe while yelling, "LIGHT DAMN YOU, LIGHT...LALALALALLALALA...oh sh**." When we got to Atlanta, the Delta gate assistant asked for volunteers to get off the terribly overbooked San Antonio flight with a comp for four bologna sandwiches and a foot massage courtesy of Greasy Dan the Foot Man tm. Sickly intrigued, I sauntered up to the desk and volunteered our family to step off the flight for a comp of free lifetime flights and ****jobs for all the adult males at the gate. We haggled tirelessly for 30 minutes and eventually settled on free dinner and breakfast, a night at the Airposrt South Ramada Inn, the early Sunday flight to San Antonio, and $3,000 "Delta Dollars".
Ask me what I think about the Airport South Ramada Inn in Atlanta. Retarded Sloths could run a better establishment. Here are some excerps from conversations overheard or participated in during our stay at the Ramada Inn:
Me- "When does the shuttle run to the airport"
"Whenever...n'stuff..like."
Me- "I'll need two extra pillows and two normal sized bath towels since the linens in this room seem to be specifically designed for people with very tiny heads."
"Uh...we may be able to do that...but it will take a long time."
Me-"Just get them to me before I go to bed in two hours."
"We can do that."
4 hours later - "Here's your pilllow (single, 1, uno)"
Me- "Jesus, thanks for waking me up. Where the rest of it?"
"The rest of what?"
Me- "Nevermind."
Annoying Teenager Girl 1 in airport shuttle van - "You're so stupid. I hate Carlos' cooking. I dont wanna go to Mexico. I hate spicy food. This is sooo stupid. We're flying international so we don't have to wait as long as you people. Shut up and stop looking at me."
Annoying Teenage Girl's Sister - "Uhh..sob...sob...sob...you suck....monosyllabic drivel...sob..sniff....I hate Christmas."
Man at Hotel Bar - "You need some Drambouie, muhhfuu-uh...sheeeyit yah."
12/22 We burned our room at the Ramada and jumped on the shuttle to the airport. We ran off the shuttle, toppling the annoying teenagers as we made our way from the international gate. Because of the pigf**ker with the C4, we had to wait in line for 987 hours to just make it to the security gate where we were strip searched and fondled repeatedly. They made Alisha take off her shoes, hop on one leg, and bock like a chicken. It was a very rude and atavistic scene. We flew to San Antonio, were greeted by my parents, and treated to a very country style lunch at Jim's (the best greasy diner chain in San Antonio). Our days travels had only begun though as we hopped in seperate cars right in the Jim's parking lot and set out on 8 hour drive to the great Oil Barron Fortress and Greater Metropolis of Levelland, Texas. Exciting points along the way included:
Snyder, Texas, Home of the White Buffalo
The wind farms of Winter, Texas (which reminds me to tell Agent Kooper about my idea of an album insert for Blue Goat War with a picture of the giant west Texas commercial windmills over the title "The Wind Farms of Uranus"
The mysterious dead putrfic smell of the Lubbock Power and Light Co.
The mysterious dead putrific smell of Levelland, Texas
12/23-24 Hohohoho, yadda yadda. Chain-Smoke filled rooms, ironed blue jeans with creases, cowboy hat holders, La Vernia.
12/25-12/30 Everyone who is related to me came down with the nastiest virus ever. My Mom curled up in her room and yakked up a small biohazard. I got to visit with the remaining old-school members of the Death Beavers & Auxilliary club. Hope amazed us yet again and produced another handsome manchild despite her terribly disfigured husband Titus. Hope and Titus tied me down, funneled high octance pure grain moonshine in me, and made me listen to a story about a bad carving paying homage to an ethnic surfer. Philp and Heidi told me about their ritual tantric sex and how they moved to Los Alamos, NM in order to perfect their own race of atomic superbeings that will conquer the world. To top the whole trip,Texas Tech lost the Alamo Bowl which proved that bah does equal humbug.
1/4/02 I have bronchitis. Rick has an upper sinus infection and Alisha died of exposure to west and south Texas.
Halloween 1
Halloween 2
Halloween 3
Dr. Dave Chingasa
Yeti-Institute for Gifted Gonzoism
