Post-Groundhog's Day Lament

Huh? Whut? (wipes drool from mouth and rubs red, bleary eyes) Oh, it's you. Good to see you old friend. Sorry I haven't been posting, but I have been cultivating an alcohol-fueled stupor for a few days now and I think I've almost perfected it. God I love Groundhog's Day, but the post GHD depression can be a bit much. After all, I have to wait a whole year for it to return and that can be a bit hard to swallow on Feb. 3rd.

Screw it, I've got enough left over booze to keep me sauced until St. Crispin's Day. I had already purchased an extensive selection of cheap wine for the party-goers who didn't drink beer (who doesn't drink beer?) and Flannery brought home two cases of Budweiser, with two thirty-packs of Pabst Blue Ribbon to chase it with. This was to be a bacchanalian festival. I bought a bottle of rum, gin, vodka, scotch, and bourbon early in the week, all top-shelf, but I made the mistake of taking some of it to Tiki and only the gin survived intact.

I needn't have worried, as everyone brought something to drink and when they left, they left it here. They left an expensive looking bottle of vodka called Vox from the Netherlands. I've learned from Ian Fleming that Russians and the Polish make the best vodka, but I don't see why the Netherlands couldn't make a good one too, as it touts that it's distilled five times. I haven't tried it yet as I'm saving it for a good martini when the mood strikes me.

They also left some beer. Budweiser's American Ale, which I haven't tried. I've seen it on the shelves for a while now, but I've hesitated to buy it because I figured Budweiser would just screw it up. I'll tell you how good it is after I've finished my PBR surplus. Flannery's buddy Jeff (as seen in the post below in my good pith helmet) brought a Belgium blonde ale called Abby of Leffe that I tasted and was deemed "purdy good". Like I say, I'll tell you more about it when my PBR surplus is extinguished.

My good buddy Err (seen in the post below in the Union blue forage cap. He looked so damn good in the thing I sent it home with him) brought four tall cans of Guinness and I couldn't pass up having one of those. I poured it into a cold pint glass and had a moment of silence for those of you that couldn't make it. Then I proceeded to give myself the biggest foam mustache in the room and savored the moment.

The biggest hit of the evening was the bourbon slushes that Debra brought. I had one and could have spent the rest of the evening sipping/munching these, but I knew after one that I should stick to beer, as Groundhog's Day is an endurance event and these would leave me slurry and stupid quickly. I'm not certain that I could describe them better than to say it had the consistency of a finely ground snow cone and a flavor like the touch of a knowing lover. They were that damn good! They will forever more be a regular part of our GHD party!

There were various wines sampled throughout the evening, but my favorite was a marvelous port from Portugal called Cockburn's that my new friend Erich brought. Erich was a high school chum of Flannery's that she hadn't heard from in twenty-odd years. He found her on Facebook and got in touch a few days before the party and she invited him out. He was going to be in town for a few days before he had to fly out to South America for a photo shoot, as he is a professional photographer, but he thought that a Groundhog's day party sounded fun, and would it be alright if he brought his camera along? "Sure," Flannery said.

Now I have to admit that I am a bit camera shy as I believe I have a face best suited for radio. I'm the worlds biggest ham, but I don't really want visual examples of it that could be used against me in a court of law. Erich lugs in this huge backpack and sorts through it for a minute and assembles a camera that looks like it would cost me a years worth of house payments and starts snapping away. At first I found it disconcerting but after a while you just treat it like a poorly timed strobe light. And I'm glad he did. He got some great pics! I'll share some once I sift through all 270 of them.

Funniest line of the whole evening: "I thought you said you were farting feathers!" Only Flannery could misunderstand me so badly. This became the running joke of the evening.

Per usual, we had silly hat night, which was convenient as I gave me the chance to unveil the new Top Hat I got for my birthday. It's cool because you can crush it and snap it out like a magician's hat. The only down side is that it has huge metal springs in it just for this purpose but they tend to dig into your head after a while. Oh well, whoever said great fashion wasn't painful was wrong.

We hopped in and out of the hot tub several times because this is required on GHD but it makes more sense when it is -7 rather than fifty degrees like we had. The neighbors looked at me funny when I fired up the snow blower to clear off a patch in the front yard to park the Jeep and Flan's car, but I wanted to make sure I had enough room in the driveway to park all the cars.

The food was excellent and I ate more than I have in three Thanksgivings. Flannery had originally planned to make BBQ pulled pork sandwiches but that changed when she got to the store on Saturday and realized that the pork would need twelve hours to thaw. The gyros she made instead inspired ooh's and ahh's. She also brought home a two pound box of Swedish Fish. Perhaps she had heard that someone was bringing vodka from the Netherlands, I don't know. I'm just glad she didn't buy sardines.

I was the last one to head to bed as I felt it was important to teach my nephew and nieces how to play the Indiana Jones Lego game so they would have something fun to do while the adults slept late in the morning. The adults slept later than usual but five children in a small house tends to quash most dreams of rising at noon.

Those of us still left from the night before convened in the lodge for morning coffee and rehashed our favorite bits of the wonderful GHD of '09. We finished our coffee but a thirst was upon us still. My sister produced a bottle of black cherry mead wine that she had brought especially for Flan and it was a great way to ease into the morning after. Sweet and warm as it goes down, I'd recommend it for your next brunch, provided you didn't have any plans to amount to something that day.

Lunch was served and it was shortly after this that beers were fished out from the snow-filled Budweiser tub that Flan brought home. It was after noon and refreshments were called for. No sooner did the empties hit the recycle bin than my brother-in-law suggested a return to the hot tub, if for no other reason than to work the kinks out from the night before. The warm water and bubbles managed to transition us all into a deep zen-like state. It may have been the mead coupled with the hot water but I prefer to think of it as zen.

I hated to see my friends and family pack up and leave, but all good things must come to an end.

I was just thankful I had two more days off from work so I could recover.

Doc

Today I Am A Sourball To The World

For some reason, I am just not up for anybody's grief today. You know it is going to be a special day when the first words out of your mouth are, "Get Bent!"
Pass this along to anyone who really pisses you off today.

Doc

The well has run dry...

I am fresh out of ideas. Everything I've written for the past week and a half has been crap and most of it I've scrapped. I am out of stories, jokes, and the general whatnot that you usually find here. The well has run dry.

I've even contemplated doing one of the memes that have been floating around blogdom, but I can't think of anything for them either. I can't even come up with a crappy Youtube video to share. I've been reading your blog but I can't even come up with a comment. I wish I could write like this guy, but I haven't got it in me.

Since I'm fresh out of ideas, I am opening up the floor to anyone with a suggestion. Please help me out of my writing funk. Any-effing-thing at all. I'm going to leave this post up until one of us gets an idea.

I leave you with a weird video,
Doc

Done, With Errors On Page

My computer has been acting up and I'm afraid it it is on it's last legs. It has started to do goofy things it never did before and the hard drive is making noises like I've thrown the transmission into first gear at sixty-five mph.

So if you don't hear from me for a few days, it probably means the computer has given up the ghost.

I'm sure I will feel just like this.

Doc

A Hair Of The Porn That Bit You

In my last post I was calling upon the visitors to our little cyber-bar to see what they would like to see appear here in this little corner of our WWW, as I was finding my creative well, not dry per se, but at least deeper than the rope on the bucket would reach.

SkylersDad was the first to respond with the idea that I compare and contrast 70's mustache and hair porn with the new contemporary clean shaved look.This was to be a challenge. A Challenge of Epic proportions. The Gauntlet had been thrown down. And really? Who am I to refuse a free Gauntlet? If he threw down two I'd have a set, and winter is coming.

After a long period of intense contemplation, speculation, and agitation, I decided that the topic needed to be researched, and thoroughly. How long did I think it over you might ask? Three, maybe four seconds. There are just some decisions that are resolved quickly.

I set about my task.

My research would be much more informative and scintillating if I could have figured out how to turn the "SafeSearch" off. I would have had access to an unlimited amount of naked people from various time-frames. From what I understand, they even have short movies, but this is just hearsay.

I could have discussed how soundtracks could make or break a scene. I could point out the faults of new directors and their choice to make way too many close-ups. I could make some kind of astute comment that the casting of these films is totally reliant on who shows up. All of this and more would have made this article a critic's delight and a readers mouth's water.

But it was not to be.

So, instead, we will have to rely on my faulty memory and compare and contrast the four films of each of these era's that I can recall seeing. Mind you, the sampling is small, but I feel fairly representitive of their time. I recall reading somewhere, "That there is nothing new under the sun" and I think that this might apply to the subject at hand very aptly. People have been doing the oldest dance of man since there have been people to do it, but who could have told Mr. Kodak what his little innovation would be used for.

70's Porn: I have seen "Deep Throat" and "Debbie Does Dallas". I once saw a version of "Behind The Green Door", but it had been edited for t.v., and without the sex, I couldn't follow the plot. It was like watching a familiar play by Shakespeare, but everyone was playing every part and speaking all at once.

The plot to "Deep Throat" was simple. The main character was born a mutant, and her point of satisfaction could only be found at the back of her throat. The fact that her mother helps her solve this riddle, and then finds her a date!?!, is the part I always found the most disturbing.

"Debbie Does Dallas" was very straight forward as well. The cheerleading squad were participants in a school fund-raiser. Something not unheard of in this day and age. They were raising money to send fellow cheerleader, Debbie, to Denver so she could attend college there, and If I recall correctly, join her boyfriend. From my limited research, there was a film made of her arrival in Denver, but the cast could never repeat the magic of the first blockbuster.

In both of the 70's porn movies that I have seen, both make the pretence of making a real, honest-to-gosh movie. They have scenes outside, with dialog. There are minor characters that enter and exit a scene, and at no point do you see them naked, or ever appearing in the film again, yet every character has a hairdo just a little bit larger than the one before them. This seems to be some unwritten rule. And the mustaches! Wow! From elaborate handlebars to walrus mustaches that would have made Tom Selek look like Clark Gable in "Gone With The Wind", these guys displayed some lip-hair that would make a walrus blush. All of them could have made a Clydesdale feel short-changed. They could convince any women to give them a go. They tried very hard to ooze machismo, and that worked for them. These films tended to give the impression that when you weren't in line to buy expensive gasoline, or double-dipping at a fondue party, you were were nailing anything that would hold still long enough.

For something close to a more recent era, I'm afraid my selections are even more vague and eclectic than the last.

The first was a movie that was a collection of scenes from a whole years worth of work from an adult film company. If the collection was the best they had of the whole year, they had a lot of explaining to do to the stockholders. Picture for yourself on one sexual train-wreck after another. If you can see the boom mike in the shot, whatever movie magic you were shooting for is lost.

The other film was "Party Doll A Go-Go; One and Two". By my rough estimate, this film is twenty some odd years old now. I saw it as a double feature on a sleep-over with a buddy of mine from church. One of the most interesting features of the film was the fact that they made no pretence at a plot. Here are these people, armed with no story at all and clean-shaven at every point, and they are interconnected vaguely, and they want to roll in the hay with everybody else. The sets were contrived and false. The part of this movie that makes it stick out in my memory at all is the soundtrack and the dialog. The whole thing was done in beat poetry, with the bongos, slide-whistles, sound effects, and surf music, and that is what made the whole film. I would pay large sums of money for it's soundtrack. It is my all time favorite soundtrack, adult movie or not. It even hedged out "Resevoir Dogs", and that is saying something.

It is a good couples movie.

All in all, I must say this: the 70's porn still retained some small element of innocense, in much the same way as a junior-high dance, or a spin-the-bottle game. Sure, these people were getting naked and "getting it on", but the overall feel was something like tenderness and wonderment. "Party Doll A Go-Go" was alluring in the fact that they made no attempt at making these people "real" in the fact that they had jobs, bills, family, or obligations, but that these were people who were eager to have a go at each other and were willing to celebrate just being alive. The camera often catches them laughing.

The clips movie was a lot like watching an episode of "Jackass" of sex. Everything these people did was simply a dare they undertook for money. It was as joyless and sexy as having a boil lanced. Sure, all the gents were clean shaven and had perfect hair that could not be messed up by even the most acrobatic and violent sex act, the was no hint that perhaps, just maybe, they were enjoying themselves. The only thing that these movies had in common was that they tried to convince you that everyone is having a lot more sex than you, and if the clips film is to be taken at face value, I'd rather not.

Doc

My Life and Times with John Riley

When I was fifteen or so and we had a small emergency at my house. The wooded hillside across the road from our house caught fire. We owned the land and as my mother phoned for the fire department I pictured the whole river valley being just a small blurb on the local news, in much the same way they treated horrific fires out west. "X amount of acres were burned to a crisp, X amount of people were left homeless, and X amount of people died fighting the blaze." I followed my Dad's lead and grabbed a shovel and pitched in.
The fire department arrived to find two ready hands already doing what they had come to do. The hill was too steep and wooded to throw water very far, so it was shovels and nothing else, all the way up a seventy degree grade.
It took most of the afternoon to put the fire out and the valley was filled with smoke for three days afterwards, until the rains came to drive it out. When the firefighters packed it up and went home, it only left Dad and I on the hill. There was a gully that the spring thaw washed out every year and Dad and I found ourselves in it at the end of the day. I sat down to rest and clear some of the wood smoke from my lungs as I leaned on my shovel. Dad stood down the hill from me and announced "I'm going to the house" in the most tired voice I've ever heard him use, "You comin'?"
"Yeah," I mumbled, "after I walk the hill one more time and make sure that everything is out." I had learned my lesson the year before when the neighbors who rented our other house had caught the hill on fire and I had roamed the hill and found several small fires still burning long after the proffessionals had gone home.
Dad wiped the grime from the corners of his mouth and said "Oh you are just looking to get away from me so you can smoke a few cigarettes."
After six hours of wood smoke, the idea hadn't crossed my mind.
He fell silent for half a moment and wiped his eyes. "You got any cigarettes?" he asked.
I had been known in the past to swipe a pack from the behind the seat of his truck a time or two, but it was always at the encouragement of my "ne'er do well" buddies.
"No" I said in all truthfulness.
He fished around in his breast pocket of his shirt and produced a half a pack of Winstons. "Here" he said and tossed them at my feet and turned away and headed down the hill.
Of all the cigarettes I've had over the years, none ever tasted sweeter than the ones I had from the man I admired most. This was his reward for seeing me act like a man when a man was needed most.
I know in today's world that tobacco is the last thing that one should ever give to a kid who is working on being an adult, but at the time, this was a right of passage. This was different. In his eyes, that day I had faced the job of a man and didn't back down. This was a just reward for a young man who had proven himself worthy and who didn't walk away from a man's job.
I managed to puff my way through one cigarette that day and the rest I gave away to my buddies, the way a new father passes out cigars, because I was as proud as punch. From there on out, the old man treated me differently. What I said seemed to carry a little bit of weight, and was not dismissed as the ramblings of a child. I started to work with him a lot more and he would give me a chance to speak my say before he stepped in and delivered some fatherly advice. Like most young teens, I thought that I had the world by the tail. I was wrong, but he always listened, thought it over, and gave me a suggestion from his many years. He never started in with "Damn, you are dumb" as I have heard from so many fathers lately. He cut me a brake and I will always be grateful for it.
I hope you don't have fires you didn't mean to have and I hope you have the good sense not to smoke.
Doc

Great, Huge, Pendulous Breasts

Good. Now that I have your attention, I'd like to talk about the future. Not the future like tomarrow I'll wear this pair of pants and have a muffin for breakfast. No. I'm talking about the next twenty years or so.

I am reminded of that sappy song that says "children are our future and we should let them lead the way", or something to that effect. What we have done, or left undone, has lead us to where we are at this point in time.

For those of you who don't catch the news and don't get out much, let's have a small recap.

We are fighting a war on three fronts. We have an administration that has taken our country and ridden it into the toilet and created such a monumental debt that our great-grandchildren will still be paying for it. We have given a break in taxes to the people who make the most, while the other 9/10 of us shoulder the burden. The working people in this country are working more, only to find their money buys them less. The housing market has fallen, as the price of fuel and energy hover at their highest levels ever. Our education system is underfunded, overworked, and underappeciated. We are the fattest nation in the world. Our bridges and infrastructure are falling apart. We know that should a national emergency arise, such as a hurricane perhaps, the people who need help will get it in a slow and ardious fashion, if at all. More and more of our drinking water isn't fit to drink. Our landfills are full, and some are on fire. Our kids are carrying guns and they don't seem to hesitate to use them. There seems to be a large segment of society that still beats their spouse or kids, doesn't think driving drunk is such a bad idea, or care that what they have done is commit multiple felonies. We are laying off firefighters and police officers in droves. No one can remember what good service is. Most of our population is getting older and is counting on a system already doomed to fail. We find ourselves embroiled in more grief and trouble than WW II or the Great Depression seemed to offer, not to mention our preoccupation with the struggles of various celebrities to stay sober, married, or how well they sang on last nights episode.

If I've left anything out, please feel free to remind me in the comments section.

I've heard alot about whose fault it is, and that to me is as clear as day. So what do we do now? I would love to hear some suggestions. I need something to tell my two little girls in the morning before I send them off to school.

Doc

A Shot in the Dark

Let me just go on record as saying that I love reading your blogs.

Often, it is the big Zen moment of my day.

But I must say that those of you who choose a black background frustrate me.

I understand why you chose black. Black is cool. Black is slick. According to scuttle-butt, black is the new pink, but I wouldn't plan your new fall wardrobe around that.

Black is the color of rebellion, heavy metal music, funerals, and pirates.

It is an obvious and wonderful absence of color. It hints at a lot, without a promise of anything. It is very coy. I've heard that "once you go black, you never go back", as well as should you ever venture away from this you can alway's come "back in black" and make it alright again.

I guess that what I've come to say is this: I have a hard time finding the mouse pointer on your black background. I have to keep swishing it back and forth until it rests on a photo or a clickable link. Then I have to try and aim the pointer for the comments section by referencing where it was the last time I saw it. It is a shot in the dark.

Have you considered the dots background? It would make my life easier.

Doc

The Concept of Kipple

I learned of kipple when a buddy of mine gave me a copy of Philip K. Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" in the sixth grade. The film "Blade Runner" was in theaters and was based on this book. As I knew that this poor country boy was never going to see it in the theater, I accepted the book with many thanks and proceeded to tear through it. It warped me in a number of wonderful ways, and for a long time I would go back and reread it every year. I had to put a rubber band around it just to keep it together. Every Christmas I ask for a new copy as the old paperback finally disintegrated into kipple.

In the film there is a character named Sebastian, a brilliant engineer who helps design the replicants/androids and lives in a vacant apartment building. In the book the character is named J.R. Isidore, a man with limited intelligence who drives a fake ambulance to pick up and drop off electric pets that need repair, and he lives in a vacant apartment building. In the book Isidore explains kipple. Kipple is unwanted or useless objects, filth, rot, decay, or entropy. Kipple is invasive and self-reproducing. Isidore explains to the android Pris that the first law of kipple is "Kipple drives out nonkipple".

I think that may be one of the maxims of life. Life is about fighting back the kipple and trying to bring order to chaos, and driving out the it's degenerative forces. If you quit fighting the kipple, you die and are buried under it.

I thought of this today as I picked up the house. My two kids are fantastic kipple makers. As my Dad used to say "You could mess up a junkyard!", and I believe they could, the little scamps.

Then I got to thinking about fighting kipple. I can think of a few excellent warriors against kipple. The trashman who comes to my house every Wednesday for one. He takes my kipple and puts with it's own kind. Bubs over at Sprawling Ramshackle Compound for another. People can turn into living kipple and as a representative of the armed might of the state, he helps keep this human kipple off the street. Big Orange over at Frying Bacon is a warrior against kipple. He teaches kids how not to become human kipple, and how to use learning as a way to better themselves, and the rest of us how to keep the kipple from out of our heads with his regular feature of "God Talks". I'm sure even Evil Genius over at What I Like About The Universe does his part to fight kipple, although I couldn't cite examples just right here and now. Pezda does it with good cooking. GetkristiLove has been waging her own battle against kipple for about a year now. Cooper Green fights with one of the strongest weapons I can think of, humor. Chris combats it by designing new and better buildings, as well as shaving the cat. Megan joins him in his fight in much the same way I do.

May God bless you, one and all, for the fine work you have been doing.

I'm sure that I've left someone out but it was not intentional.

So tell me, how do you fight kipple? I look forward to your answers.

Doc

Gentle Reader, It Saddens Me...

It seems that the price of beer is going up. In a short article in Newsweek they cite the fact that farmers are planting more corn for biodiesel, and a lot less barley. Less barley, means a higher price for the crop come harvest time. Prices for barley are up 79% in 11 months.

They also mention higher demand for steel for kegs, and glass. The U.S. reports keg shortages as well as the price of the average pint up 3.8%. Scottish and Newcastle, big time brewers in the U.K., raised prices 3.9% in March. In Feb. Hieneken predicted the cost would rise 7-8%. In Germany at Oktoberfest a liter was $10.90, up a dollar from '05. And get this, South African Brewers, yes Miller Beer Inc. has had trouble getting glass as well as having trouble filling orders. To make up for the whole mess, they are going to raise their prices.

Now as I see it, this is a powerful encouragement to start recycling, and if you have an old keg in the basement, you know, left over from your college days, now might be a good time to turn it in.

And if you are like me and get tired of mowing so much grass every summer, now might be a good time to consider having a garden next summer. Just sit down with your loved one and explain how you want to plant the whole backyard in barley so you start brewing your own beer in the fall. Tell them how it can be a project that the two of you can share together and how this will be good quality time. If that doesn't seal the deal, appeal to their logic and thriftyness. Tell them that this will save a lot of money out of the family budget, as well as get the kids "back to nature" and get them out of the house and doing something useful. It that still dosen't quite convince them, then promise to name the beer after them and throw them a party.

If any of this works with your loved one, tell me. I need something good to get Flannery to go for it.

Doc

the tangled webs we weave - part VI

Mandy and I went to the club for the DJ set Chris was promoting. Once again, I happened to get too drunk and stayed way too long...it is now 2:58 a.m.

Darius was there again, too, and I confessed to him how I felt about Chris and without going into detail, Darius told me to give up on it. The hurt I was looking so greatly to avoid looks as though it is the only inevitable end to this. I may be manipulated, "played by the playa", I be mooched from, I may be used. They are not doing very well right now, financially or personally. It is a great time for me to hussle my way into the picture and it is just as horrible a time at that.

So how much hurt can I handle? It is really going to be about her in the end, even though I am a much more dynamic person? Can I just be "flirting friends" until he figures out how much more extraordinary I am than what he has?

There were a lot of people there tonight and he didn't have much time to flirt with me; all we did was play "staring contest" a few times. He watched me dance, like he always does.

We were out in the car smoking before I left and he again kissed me goodbye. Again, he opened his mouth but I didn't open mine. I will next week now that I know to expect that from him and see how far I can get him to go with me. A tongue down the throat would be satisfactory.

The problem for poor Chris is that I'm smarter than him, and the need for self-preservation will prevent me from being manipulated. He needs to be afraid that I may manipulate him, which the more I think about it becomes a better I could have fun with this....and maybe end up with him anyway.

My brain is stronger than my heart, always has been. I will do my best to not get hurt and fight for what I want anyway. I have to fight foreverything else, why not this, too?

The Tangled Webs We Weave: Part V

The bits and pieces I recall went a little something like this:

1. Chris's girlfriend was the first person who saw me when I came in. She told Chris and he came upstairs and I got the hug I've now come to expect.

2. Darius was there...thank God. Chris and his girlfriend would have been the only people I knew then if it weren't for Darius.

3. The Flats looks like a war zone.

4. I interviewed the bartender and the owner for my article on the smoking ban. The input they offered wasn't very good.

5. I started drinking.

6. I kept drinking.

7. Darius told me I am in charge of the food for Organ Grinder's next year and that he will get me a bigger budget to work with. He also said he will be passing the torch to Shana and within the next two years and he will need me to help her.

8. Chris wanted to go out to my car and smoke pot. He asked me several times if I was sure it was okay that Rachel came along.

9. I found out they have been together two years and Chris has a 14 year old son who he doesn't see, I don't know why yet.

10. The club-kids showed up. They know Chris and Rachel somehow; they're cute little raver-kids, about 20-24 years old, ten of them, still trying to figure out who they really are, but not way far off-base.

11. Chris kissed me.

12. Darius called me brilliant.

13. Gina showed up and her idiot boyfriend seemed to be acting allright for a change.

14. I've taken a strong liking to one of the club-kids. Her name is Missy and she's a cute little blonde thing, maybe 20-years-old. I said a few things that made her laugh, she was dancing like a goofball and made me laugh, and now we're friends and we keep pulling each other onto the dance floor.

15. I catch Chris staring at me and ask him what. He says, "Oh, nothing, I was just flirting with you." He told me to pay attention to what's going on around me.

16. I overheard Gina telling Chris how wonderful I am and how my one-liners just kill her.

17. Chris brought his raver-flags. They are white with a large neon pink cross. They look just like the flag of the England National Soccer Team, except the cross on England's flag is red. When I see Chris's flags, I think of David Beckham and Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard and Owen Hargreaves and down the list until I realize I've completely forgotten about Chris.

18. The bartender let us smoke pot on the docks.

19. The music kind of sucked; too light for me.

20. I was wearing a Green Bay Packers T-shirt.

Beware The Ides Of March!

Last night, while I was at work, Big Orange called and reminded me that the Ides of March were upon us and the best thing to do was to keep our collective heads low and have an extra beer. I found this to be useful and practical advice.

I am not a superstitious person, but I have had a checkered history with this time of year. In high school, I prevented a fellow classmate from being stabbed by another classmate. It is the one and only time that your chicken-hearted editor ever swallowed a large, steaming cup-o-fear and didn’t run away, shrieking like a scalded little girl. And what did the stabber call out as he attempted to impale the stabbie, “Beware the Ides of March!” We were in theater class and we had been studying Julius Caesar. In hindsight, we probably should have covered this material in December, instead of the time of year when the actual murder of Rome’s greatest leader occurred.

The stabber was a troubled kid who took a lot of teasing. He was mentally “slow”, not stupid, not retarded, just “slow”. I had tried to be nice to him, and would chat and pass the time of day sort of thing, until he started pedaling his bicycle to my house every day and knocked on the door at all hours. He showed up at a late hour one night and I told him I didn’t have time to talk, as I was just headed to bed. He quit coming to my house after that, but a week later I discovered in my yard a human turd the size of my left leg. I think it was his “parting shot”.

The stabbie was an acquaintance of mine. His mother had been my 7th grade English teacher, and he made the honor role every month. He was a smart guy, at least as far as books went, but just lacked the kind of God given horse sense that most people take for granted. To my knowledge, theater class was the only thing that he didn’t do well in. He couldn’t tell a knock-knock joke, let alone act, but a nice guy nonetheless.

Why the stabber chose the stabbie is unknown. The stabbie had never teased or taunted the stabber. Other than theater class, I don’t think that their paths ever crossed. Maybe the stabber envied the brains and good looks of the stabbie? I don’t know. The point of the story is Scott Muto tried to shiv Tyler Knack with a six-inch buck knife, and I stepped in. I don’t know what the hell I thought I was doing. Scott was a foot and a half taller than me, had me by thirty pounds, and was crazier than an outhouse rat. I wrestled with him and gave Tyler a chance to get away. Tyler, like a dufus, took a few steps away and stared with the look of some one who has just seen a large flock of monkeys fly from their own butt. We wrestled until the teacher returned to the classroom from her midmorning smoke break. Once she entered the room, Scott wilted. Mrs. Moore didn’t break the five-foot mark in height, but she had enough grit and balls from umpteen years in the public school system to make a marine sergeant assume the fetal position and suck his thumb.

I was the only one wounded. I had a scratch on my hand and a sore wrist, Scott got suspended, and Tyler wore that dumbfounded look for a week.

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

I don’t know how long the Ides last. I thought that it was just the 15th, but I guess not. Today, the 16th, in the first half hour after getting up, my children managed to break a very expensive lamp that the wife and I got for Christmas, spill two glasses of milk, and pore out most of a gallon jug of syrup. The battery on my phone reads charged, but only for ten minutes or so. I have thrown my back out moving the picnic table, and while I have never had one, I believe I am developing a hemorrhoid.

Have an extra beer and keep your head down indeed!

Doc

Exile In Guyville

"There are plenty of ways that you can hurt a man
And bring him to the ground
You can beat him, you can cheat him
You can treat him bad and leave him when he's down, yeah
But I'm ready, yes I'm ready for you
I'm standing on my own two feet
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
Repeating to the sound of the beat...oh yeah..."

-Queen, "Another One Bites The Dust", 1980.



I haven't seen Li in forever and am not one to turn down a dance floor, so when she called saying she wanted to go dancing at The Chamber, the local goth night, I wrote it in "the book" before I even bothered calling her back.

Our friend Klaus showed up about fifteen minutes after we arrived. Klaus is an absolute pleasure to watch on the dance floor...Hawaiian shirt, khaki pants and the greatest '80's-rock fist-in-the-air salute you'll ever see performed to German techno. Now THIS would be a party.

And then Rob shows up....this is going to be an interesting night. I know Rob through a different group of friends than the ones I was with, so I had no idea he was going to be there. He showed up by himself to just hang out.

I have been almost/kinda/sorta interested in Rob for almost two years. He spent a year in Florida so I sort of forgot about him...and then he came back. I spent almost a year trying to figure out if I was interested in him or not the first time and just couldn't make up my mind. My friends were getting tired of my indecisiveness, so when he left town it was a bit of a relief. His coming back only started the guessing game all over again. And now, for another year, I've been wondering if I should take him on.

We've been drinking a bit heavily and talking for quite some time and the answers I'm looking for finally show up. I will date a guy who uses drugs because I have no room to talk. But there are limits, and Rob talked about drugs in a way that made it clear to me that his use is beyond those limits. It's a suspicion I've laways had about him but was never able to confirm exactly how much and what kind of drugs he does.

Now I know, and he's off "The List." One down...

So let's replace him with Michael. Rob left the club and a guy I've never met came over and started talking to me. He was awesome. He's 41 years old, originally from Nigeria, was raised mostly in the States, joined the military and spent 8 years in Germany, now back in the U.S. for good and looking to settle down. He's at the club because he loves German techno. He's perfect.

We close out the club and Michael comes out to eat with me and Li and Crystal afterward. He's made it very clear he's looking to settle down and have a family,meaning he wants children. At this point I kind of wrote him off...there's no reason to get involved with someone if you already know they're not moving in the same direction you are.

All of us discuss the child issue over dinner, among other things. He's amazed that I don't want children...can't believe it. He proceeds to tell me all the reasons I should. I politely explain to him that it just ain't happenin'. I leave to smoke, and he asks Crystal and Li if they think my opinion will change over time. Li tells him that I'm 32 years old and if it was going to change it would have at least started by now. Crystal tells him she doesn't know me that well but doesn't think it will happen because I have some very fundamental reasons for not having children. He tells them he's going to try and hook up with me anyway because he thinks I might change my mind.

I tell him I'll see him at The Chamber some time...

Don't Drink, Don't Smoke, What Do You Do?

I'm on medication that expressly exlaims on the label: DO NOT DRINK ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES WHEN TAKING THIS MEDICATION. I ask you: what's a Tiki Girl to do?

I'm not a big drinker, in general. I have a slight allergy to alcohol and drinking always makes me feel uncomfortably warm. And, being a modest creature as well, I'm not inclined to strip to alleviate my discomfort. However, I do enjoy a beer or two on occaision. It tends to loosen me up from my usual self. It's easier for me to make conversation and to feel comfortable in my own skin among people at gatherings. It also helps me completely forget about what's bugging me and frees my inner sprite.

These days, I find, I have soured a bit on the Tiki. It used to be an intimate gathering of friends, plus the occaisional character or two dropping by, that congregated for a few drinks, laughs and songs. Now it seems to be a place to go for an alcoholiday. Some people are drinking way more than they probably should, in my opinion. I can't verify this by personal observation, as I haven't been able to get there for a while for one reason or another, but I have seen the consequences. Maybe, because it's wintertime and there are fewer outlets for stress than in the summer and as a result people are drinking too much. Maybe its alcoholism run amok. Maybe I'm blowing things out of proportion.

I don't mean to slag the Tiki; I love hanging out there. But, in any crowd, I have always been the one who would warn others that if we continue on this path, we are going to be in big trouble. Let's just say I've never won a game of chicken in my life. In fact, I don't think I've even dared to participate in a game of chicken more than once. In any case, I don't know what to do about this. I want to see everyone and I care about them all very much, but I don't want to participate in nor do I condone the overindulgence, so to speak. Forgive me my cautious nature, but I am only saying these things because I care about the Tiki so much. I don't want to see anyone go down in flames because of drinking.

Maybe, though, I need to let my system settle down and find some other outlet for stress, for the time being. I can't keep up with the marathon drinking sessions and I feel uncomfortable being around the over-intoxicated. So, I guess I'll opt out for the time being. Call me when the days grow longer and warmer, when the flowers are in bloom, when the outdoor Tiki is lit with candles, when sitting outside in the warm twilight is its own euphoria and I'll be back with bells on.

Until then, I think I'll just watch some TV.

An Open Letter To Genn6

Please, Dear and Gentle Genn6, respond to questions posed to you in the comments section of "People I Would Like To Buy A Beer, part 13. I am losing sleep and must have this resolved promptly.

Thank you for your kind patronage of Culture of Beer, and we look for answers, at your soonest possible convenience.

Thanks again,

The Management.