A bowl of corn, motherfuckers.

2002

December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January

Is that an erection I smell?

2001

December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January

I'm loaded with tumors darling, and I don't even know it.

2000

December
November
October


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-- The inevitable has happened, and the fact that I predicted it months ago brings me no satisfaction whatsoever. Sunshine had a mini-meltdown over the weekend (aka a theatrical spoiled brat bitch-tantrum) over the depressed state of the shithole campground where they're staying -- and asked Toney if she and Mumbles could "stay" at our house instead.

Toney says "stay with us a while," I say "move the fuck in." My wife likes to play games with words to soften the blow. I told her yesterday she should've worked for Clinton, and that didn't seem to go over too well.

Anyway, my first reaction to this news was to holler and wail like a mental patient, but there's no point in fighting it. It's a lost cause, so why waste the precious energy? Sunshine and Mumbles are going to be staying with us for a while. Like for six goddamn months, or something.

Would somebody drive up here to Scranton and kick me in the nuts, please? I'd really appreciate it.

-- Sunshine was at our house most of the day on Sunday, and I think she's actually getting crazier. She wanted me to check on the fate of the Los Angeles Lakers on the internet "because they don't report on out-of-state teams on television here." She gets about 75 cable channels, including ESPN, Fox Sports, and CNN Headline News. But, whatever. I checked for her, and told her they were down two games to one, and losing in the third quarter of Game Four. "They're playing now?!" she bellowed. "Oh, I really wish they showed games with out-of-state teams here!"

The hell?

Mumbles found the game on TV, within seconds, and instinctively held down the volume button until it was cranked all the way up to Cheap Trick levels. I felt like I was at the game. Then Sunshine began yelling and jumping around the living room as if every turnover of the ball had some direct impact on her continued existence here on Planet Earth. This is a woman who claims to have one teabag-sized lung, or something. She was getting red in the face, pumping her fist in the air, and spewing a litany of obscenities. At one point my mother-in-law screamed, "Jesus Christ! Please tell me that wasn't Kobe Bryant who just threw up an air ball!" I couldn't believe what was going on before my eyes. I whispered to Toney, in the kitchen, "What is this, Hooters?" All that was missing was a basket of hot wings, orange shorts, and celery.

Then at dinner she started talking about the war (!?!) and said something along the lines of, "So what if it's all about oil? We're the biggest and the baddest, we should control all the oil! Why is that a bad thing?" And she continued about how this country was formed with violence and guns, and "that's the way we all are." She pointed a menacing dinner roll at me and Toney and predicted that we'd both fight hand-to-hand if it came down to it. Because we're Americans. I buttered my corn and said nothing, because she's clearly an insane woman. Just a couple of days ago she was pontificating loudly about George W. Bush and his cowboy ways, and how he'll surely lead us down the path to nuclear war. She's like Hannity and Colmes.

-- A new prediction: by fall I will have withdrawn to the point that I never leave the bunker. I will be unemployed and bearded. There will be a hole cut in the door through which bedpans and sandwiches will be passed. Stay tuned for the sad decline.

-- On Sunday we went to the park and walked around, because it was just so incredibly nice out. It was a perfect day, weatherwise, and the park was slammed with questionable people. Andy was acting like his normal self and pulling at his leash, forcing me to walk with my left arm sticking straight out and struggling not to fall down -- as I slalomed through the white trash, fresh from their winter slumbers.

I saw a teenage girl with a kid hanging off her like a koala bear, smoking and sporting a skimpy shirt with the word HOT written across the chest in sparkly letters. I thought about trying to take a picture of her, but her boyfriend, or whatever, looked like he was capable of snapping my spine in two. One got the feeling that he knew his way around the world of bare-knuckles park fighting. And I heard a woman yell, with a gravelly bourbon and Winston voice, at a tiny kid: "If you don't start minding me, your ass is mine!" I also saw a couple of humorless lesbians (once again, capable of dividing my spine) walking matching bulldogs. You can make up your own jokes about that one; it's just too easy to bother.

I had my camera, but I was too intimidated to take many pictures. Hell, I didn't even want to make eye contact with most of those people. Usually that park is calm and quiet and soothing, but not yesterday. I'd be willing to bet the profits at the local Wal-Mart were way down on Sunday.

I did manage to capture this scene from a picnic featuring a couple of portly Scrantonians, and their portly beagle. Please note that the animal is standing in the middle of the picnic table during lunch, and barking at me. It was a close call, but I slipped away unnoticed. The two owners weren't able to swivel their heads around on their sluggish beef necks fast enough to catch me in action. Hooray for blocked arteries!

-- I called my brother on Sunday with my cell phone (free nights and weekends!), and got Willie Jackson's answering machine again. This is the third time I've activated Willie Jackson's answering machine during the past month or so; apparently I didn't program my brother's number correctly into my new phone. "Yes, you have reached the answering service of Mr. Willie Jackson. After the beep please speak into da phone!" I fixed the number, but I may call ol' Willie's answering service every once in a while, anyway. I feel like I know the man.

-- I listened to a metric shitload of drivin n cryin this weekend. It's one of those things that just happen. You can't fight it. I also watched The Sum of All Fears. It's a movie where an atom bomb goes off at the Super Bowl game, but still manages to have a feel-good ending. The 100,000 or so people whose skin flew off their bodies are just kinda secondary to the story. Ya know? Right. And Toney and I watched Trading Spaces Saturday night, as usual. In one episode they were in Florida, and Frank was one of the designers. We always comment on the fact that he's constantly sweating like a sow, and I questioned the wisdom of sending him to such a hot climate. By the second scene, right on cue, he had pit stains so enormous Toney said it looked like he was wearing a vest. The man needs to see a physician, and quick. Holy crap.

-- Here's a glamorous Hollywood actress, fresh from a successful lawsuit against a British tabloid for publishing unflattering pictures of her!

-- I was listening to talk radio from Atlanta the other day at work, Neal Boortz to be precise, and he said that the only way George W. Bush will not be re-elected is if he's caught in bed "with a dead girl, or a live boy." I thought that was pretty funny. Boortz is also the person who introduced me to the phrase "Build a man a fire and he'll stay warm for one night. Set a man on fire and he'll stay warm for the rest of his life."

-- A reader named David sent me a note last week, which must be excerpted here. So here goes:

Loyal reader here. Since the subject of public toilet problems has come up again in your musings, i.e. the man having to take a dump at the Baseball HOF, the presence of e-coli on public toilet seats, and other related problems like the fat, dick-peeking kid at Cracker Barrel has prompted me to write of my own adventures with public defecating...

They had clean public bathrooms in a small brick structure near their shopping area and I went for it. It was while I was in the stall and after I had done my business that the incident occurred. I know I'm giving you too much information about myself but when I wipe I lift my butt off the seat and go in from the back with the wad of paper. If you can visualize, I'm in a squat position. At some point in this process I'm looking down at the ground, and in the process of a wipe, when I notice a hand from the adjoining stall down near the ground, and in the hand a small mirror positioned so that the person holding it can get a beautiful view of my shit-caked butthole.

I'm not the violent type but I felt like I was supposed to go back in there and kick the shit out of him or something. At the very least tell him what a disgusting freak he is. But I did nothing, mostly because I was in no state to do anything for awhile.

I'm sure that must have been traumatic David, but I have a feeling it was just part of the whole Colonial Williamsburg experience. It's well-documented that the early settlers were made up largely of perverts and sex freaks. In fact, Ben Franklin supposedly polished the buckles on his pilgrim shoes so that he could sneak peeks up the dresses of unsuspecting maidens throughout the colonies. I'd be willing to bet the Williamsburg people were just trying to offer an authentic experience, when somebody thrust that mirror under your toilet stall and watched you wipe your ass. Just a theory, mind you.

-- Finally, I'm sad to report that Chris from Boone's excellent Bob Evans adventure is coming to a close. This is the final episode. Chris, thanks for taking the time to write all this stuff down for us. And congratulations on still being alive, against all odds.

More of this stuff on Thursday...

April 24, 2003

A few things:

-- I'm starting to get irritated about the working conditions at my job. They won't let me surf the Internet in peace anymore. They've always had a filter in place that won't allow us to visit anything sports-related on the web, like ESPN.com or whatever. A big red hand pops up on the screen, with the words ACCESS DENIED! written below. It has a slight Soviet feel to it, and makes me uneasy. Sports, cars, and porn seemed to be the subjects that triggered the hand, but everything else was apparently just fine and dandy. Sports, cars, and porn. Since those are not exactly my favorite subjects anyway, it didn't bother me that much. Some of the others bitched about the sports thing, but fuck 'em. Don't they have work to do? The whiny bitches. But now the red hand is starting to get carried away; it's building strength and engaging in an alarming policy of expansionism. This past week I haven't been able to go on eBay, for god's sake, and half.com. How am I to do my shopping? If a rare piece of vintage Burger Chef memorabilia gets past me because of this, I'm going to be really pissed. I'll go all the way to the CEO. This is not right. How can they expect us to work under these conditions?

-- Whenever I see somebody backing into a parking space, I think less of them. I instantly go from the default setting of giving people the benefit of the doubt, to a genuine dislike. I don't think I could be friends with a person who backs into parking spaces. In Atlanta I asked a guy why he did it that way, and he said it was so he could make a quick getaway. See what I'm saying? It's a sure sign of douchebaggery.

-- It snowed here yesterday, on April 23rd. Nothing major, but it snowed nonetheless. It's crazy. I've been thinking about this for a long time, but I might look into the possibility of buying our dog Andy a penguin to play with next year. Since the winter lasts so long, and penguins are seemingly low-maintenance, I think it would be the perfect match. Can anyone help? Where does one purchase a penguin? Can they be shipped? Will I need to store baskets of dead fish in the garage? I'll do some research today at work. If I can stay one step ahead of the Red Hand.

-- I'm pretty addicted to caffeine. I get up early every day during the week, and immediately start in on the stuff. Then I usually sleep a little later on Saturdays, and when I wake up my brain is always pulsating and throbbing, crying out for relief. It feels like my head is actually larger than normal, and it rolls around on my shoulders like a mongoloid's. The pain only subsides after I've had two or three cups of coffee. I should probably be concerned about this, but, truthfully, I don't give a shit. They'll never stop making Eight O'Clock Bean Coffee, right?

-- I'm a little saddened that so much attention has been paid to the war during the past few months, while Cher's Farewell Tour winds down and is hardly even discussed. Do you people know what farewell means?! We may never see her again!!

-- I've been using the word "retard" a lot lately, in these updates. I don't really like using it, to tell you the truth. It's a word that makes me cringe a little, for some reason. Others in this category are fart, cunt, underpants, deodorant, and supper. Make of that what you will.

-- Speaking of retards, I used to work at a horrible place in Atlanta called Gemini Distributing. It was an independent record distributor that's now defunct. I ran the UPS machine in the warehouse, and my co-workers were like something off Green Acres. Every day I was there I asked myself, over and over, "Sweet Jesus, what are you doing with your life?!" When I was first hired they asked me to take a box of CDs to some outfit ten or fifteen miles away, to have them shrinkwrapped. The fact that they didn't even have a shrinkwrap machine at this place should tell you something about the quality of the operation. Anyway, as they were giving me directions to this off-site wrapping house, I could sense everyone exchanging knowing glances; they all seemed to be holding back laughter. I was being set up, somehow. But what could I do? I was the new guy. So I went to this place with my box of compact discs under my arm, and as soon as I walked through the door I was besieged by a herd of four-foot tall retarded people. They were all over me, hugging me and tugging at my clothes. The hell?! It was some kind of rehabilitation center, staffed entirely by the differently-abled. When I got back to Gemini those assholes thought they'd just pulled off the ultimate practical joke. "Did they hug you?," they wanted to know, as tears of laughter rolled down their cheeks. Yeah, they were a bunch of modern-day Jack Bennys there.

-- I was reading Esquire magazine the other day, and there was a Q & A column, where people supposedly write in questions for an expert on all subjects to answer. One question was about catching diseases off a toilet seat. The reader wanted to know if it was possible, or if it was just a myth. Mr. Know It All said that sexually-transmitted diseases are impossible to pick up from a toilet seat, but E.coli and stuff like that can easily be passed in such a manner. He went on to explain that it's not just the seat you've got to be worried about, though. Apparently when a toilet is flushed with the lid up, it launches a spray all over the room containing whatever is in the bowl at the time. So, it's probable that your toothbrush and the sink and the countertop and everything is frequently covered by a fine shit mist. Just something to keep in mind...

-- I received some spam yesterday with the subject line Bring the lube!! I didn't open it, but I assume it was from Capitol One Visa.

-- Check it out. Dan Aykroyd has come through with a contribution to my embarrassingly under-performing Autograph Project. Very cool. Rock on, indeed.

-- Here's a question I've been meaning to ask for thirty-five years: who reads this shit?

-- Finally, I'm excited to announce that the Surf Report t-shirts have been ordered. I should have them in my trembling hands late next week. I ordered three-dozen, half XL, half XXL. Stay tuned for details. If this pans out, I might conquer the beer cozy frontier next. I want to someday have a full catalog of useless shit for sale, like DEVO.

And that concludes another broadcasting day. Have a great weekend, folks.

April 21, 2003

-- Four-day weekends are great, but they really mess me up. Thursday felt like Saturday, Friday felt like I was playing hooky, Saturday felt like Sunday, and Sunday felt like Saturday again. I don't know whether to shit or go Christmas shopping. And I'm tired as hell. Aren't you supposed to come out of these things feeling refreshed and ready to take on the world? I feel like covering up with a blanket in a darkened room. I'm just not familiar with the rhythm of the four-day weekend. I'm sure I could learn though.

-- On Thursday I went to Cooperstown with my friend Steve, and you can read all about that in Friday's update, if you want. I posted it late in the day, so don't miss it, goddammit. 

On Friday Toney and I ran all over town and did some shopping. 

We went to Sam's Club and rifled through a few packets of other people's pictures in the photo department. I love those open bins they have there. You can just pick envelopes at random and check out some stranger's snapshots. We didn't see anything too exciting though. Loads of ugly kids in severe need of soap, a hair brush, and some laundry detergent, and lots and lots of shots of what looked like a military base of some sort. We walked around the store and spent roughly $10,000. In our heads. In the real world we didn't buy anything, except a couple of those big emasculation dogs on our way out the door.

Oh, I almost forgot. While we were there we saw a man wheeling around a large retarded girl on a flatbed cart. She was flailing and rolling around on the thing, and the man just ventured forward, unconcerned, as if he were mowing the lawn or something. Later we saw them again and he had store merchandise stacked up all around her. She was sitting amongst industrial containers of pickles, and large plastic barrels of cheese balls.

We got caught in a friggin' monsoon as we were leaving Sam's (probably for laughing at the girl on the cart) and both of us were saturated to our skeletons. We went to a furniture store nearby, because Toney likes to daydream about having enough money to buy new furniture. It's for the same reason people read novels, and go to movies: an escape from the harsh reality of the physical world.

After we shook off Roy the Overzealous Furniture Salesman, I collapsed a child's bed in the back of the store. Toney was sitting on it, admiring some outsized wall console of some sort, and I plopped down beside her. Nothing happened for about thirty seconds, then everything suddenly shifted left and down, and there was a loud sound of wood splitting. Toney took off, laughing hysterically, and I jumped up and was laughing as well. After I surveyed the area for signs of Roy or one of his henchmen, and saw nobody, I sneaked a peak beneath the bedspread. The shit was exploded. The wooden frame was splintered and shattered and in many distressed pieces. Goddamn. We went straight to our car, and got the hell out of there.

We drove to Wal-Mart, and I felt more at home there. I can't break anything at Wal-Mart, it's adequately outfitted for the dignity-challenged. We also spent a ton of money there. It's funny how that works: we drive all over town, from store to store, and Wal-Mart always ends up getting our money. No matter how hard we try, it can't be avoided. It's like a black hole.

-- Saturday and Sunday were basically spent with Sunshine & Mumbles. They came over on Saturday, and we went to their beautiful campground on Easter, for a cookout. Because of this, I fell off the wagon and had quite a few Yuengling lagers. I'm only flesh and blood here... On the positive side of things, Toney's mother told us a few more Nancy stories worth noting.

Apparently Nancy's so-called husband Banana Nostrils recently went out and bought the Rolling Stones CD 40 Licks and plays it constantly around the house, and sings along and shit. But... when it gets to "Under My Thumb," he's required to skip past it. Nancy feels that the song is sexist and will not allow it to be played in her house. Sunshine says he gets wide-eyed when the song starts up and practically dives for the CD player, afraid she might hear a note of it. I'm not a violent person, but one of these days I'd like to kick his ass. I really would.

Also, the whole gang was going somewhere in Nancy's hippie van, back when Sunshine & Mumbles were staying with them this past winter. As they were traveling down the highway one of the translucent child-beasts pissed all over Nancy. Apparently this is a common occurrence. Who the hell knows? Anyway, Nancy was reportedly "knee to knee" with Mumbles in this horrible vehicle, and she just casually stood up and removed her wet pants. Then she sat back down, and continued on as if everything was normal. Toney's mother began protesting, and yelling for Nostrils to pull over. She and Nancy got into an argument about it, and Nancy called her "sexually repressed" and instructed everyone to just pretend her underwear is a swimsuit. Toney's mother made Nostrils stop the van (he does what he's told), and she traded places with Mumbles, so he was pointed in the opposite direction. Sunshine said she was wearing "tiny little panties... and there was a lot to see." I don't doubt it.

-- Here are a few photos I snapped at the campground where Sunshine & Mumbles will apparently be staying for the next few months. This place is about fifteen miles from our house, but feels like a foreign country. I believe the phrase most commonly used to describe such a place is fucking dump. But, to be fair, they have their camp fixed up nicely, and if you can pretend the surroundings don't exist, it's not too bad.

Sunshine said she watched a couple of kids who live there (most of the people there are permanent residents!?) hunt for Easter eggs in the playground. Their dad went out and hid plastic eggs all over the place, then the kids ran around with their baskets and tried to find them all. The only problem is, the boy is twelve or something, and is taller and beefier than me. He's a big overgrown goofy boy, who is almost certainly semi-retarded. She said he was running around the field in his pajamas, clutching his bright-yellow Easter basket, and couldn't find shit. His little six year old sister found all the eggs, and he didn't find any. Eventually he started crying.

The little girl told me I look like the guy from The Matrix. I said, "Keanu Reeves?!" and she said yeah. So she's obviously not too bright either. I didn't tell her that I'd exploded a bed just twenty-four hours earlier; I didn't feel it was necessary. She also told me she likes the Philadelphia Phillies, and not wearing shoes.

While eating dinner Toney's mother told us the things we need to think about when buying a camper. One was bathroom size. She said that some campers have bathrooms the size of a phone booth and there's not even enough room inside to "wipe." So, when buying a travel trailer, it's important to check for counter space, bed sizes, and wiping clearance. ...Pass the mustard.

We took Andy out to their camp, and he was in a full-on frenzy most of the day. The activity, the food... it was almost too much for him. Here he is checking out my dinner. He kept popping his head out, and it eventually paid off with a sizable load of burnt hotdogs. He's been sleeping for twelve hours straight, since we got home. He can't take it. He looks like a bear rug in our family room right now.

And that pretty much brings you up to date on the weekend. Exciting stuff, huh? 

All that's left now is Chris's Monday morning Bob Evans offering. This stuff is starting to make me a little nervous, to tell you the truth. I thought I was wild. Shit. Read it here.

Have a great week. I think I'm going to order three-dozen Surf Report t-shirts today, so pretty soon I'll have something to sell ya, like Roy. I'm pretty excited. Stay tuned for the details.

Oh, and here's something a reader sent me, with no explanation. Your guess is as good as mine.

OK, bye.

April 18, 2003

I'm going to keep this brief, but here are a few notes about yesterday's religious pilgrimage to Cooperstown, and the Baseball Hall of Fame...

-- Before Steve and I hit the road I decided I'd better check in with work to see how they were doing. It's been kinda rough sailing there recently and, try as I might, I can't really stop worrying about the crap. I figured it would make me feel a little better if the operations manager would assure me that everything was under control. Then I could proceed with the day, devoid of professional guilt and concerns. "How we doing?" I asked, after his secretary finally tracked him down. "Fucked! We're totally fucked, Jeff. That's how we're doing. Everything's really really fucked here." Well, that's just excellent.

-- Last time we went to Cooperstown we stopped at a cool old diner along the way and had breakfast. I love old diners, but neither of us could remember where it was. We were batting it back forth, theorizing that it might be off this highway, or that one, when we saw a Cracker Barrel sign. Screw the diner, I hollered. There's thick-cut smoky bacon ahead!! We don't have Cracker Barrels in Scranton, and just a glimpse of their logo triggers a Pavlovian response in me. I think I briefly lost control of the vehicle.

They seated us at a table situated in the middle of the floor, between a group of construction workers and a family of fatties. The fatties were all shaped exactly alike: perfectly round. There was Papa Fatty, Mama Fatty, and two rosy-cheeked Campbell's Soup kid boy-fatties, and they were all chewing at such a clip it seemed a shame we don't yet have the technology to harness that power as an alternative fuel source. And I noticed they were all chewing straight up and down, like ventriloquist dummies. Usually there's a slight circular motion, but these people were attacking their meals from a strictly vertical perspective. I tried not to stare, but it was fascinating.

After we ordered (I always get the Old Timer's Breakfast, but I order it as the Alzheimer's Breakfast; the waitresses seem to like this) I went to the bathroom to make room for some more coffee. While I was standing at the urinal one of the Campbell's Soup kids came in. He took a spot right beside me, and unzipped. As our culture dictates I stared straight ahead, and didn't acknowledge the fatty's existence. But I sensed something wasn't right. I finally looked to the right, out of the corner of my eye, and the kid was openly looking directly at my dick. He didn't even try to be sneaky about it. What the fuck?! I shifted my ass to a 45 degree angle to block his view, and ended things a little too abruptly, thus triggering some substantial internal burning. What the hell, man? The kid needs some concentrated home-training.

After the dick-peeking family of obese puppets left, the Cracker Barrel staff was clearing their table, and somebody dropped a glass. It shattered on the floor, and I began screaming, "My eyes! Dear God, my eyes!!" and the construction workers all busted out laughing. The restaurant workers didn't seem to enjoy it much, but I was glad somebody was there to appreciate my special brand of "comedy." It was only a few minutes later that I made the decision to end the caffeine intake. I was starting to get a little carried away.

-- Cooperstown was tore all to shit. The main drag through town was full of heavy machinery, and the pavement was all busted up. The sidewalks were lined with yellow caution tape, and there were deep holes here and there. One of the things I like about the place is the feeling that you've gone back in time, to the twenties or thirties. But that illusion is pretty much shattered when there's a goddamn endloader kicking up a mushroom cloud of dust in the middle of Main Street.

Worse, the museum itself is all screwed up. Apparently they're adding another floor to the top of the thing, and many of the exhibits are closed. Last time we were there I remember an incredible display featuring a baseball from every no-hitter game since the beginning of time. This time we couldn't see it, because that wing was closed off. They did give us a coupon good for a free ticket during a future visit. But the construction isn't due to be finished until 2005. That coupon will be long-lost by then.

Whatever. It was still cool as hell. The stuff we could see was great, and fairly mind-blowing. I got to sit in seats ripped out of the old Polo Grounds (they must've had much smaller asses back then), and touch Lou Gehrig's locker door, and a bunch of other stuff that nearly made me weepy. The Baseball Hall of Fame really is one of the best places on Earth, and I mean that sincerely.

I'll use visual aids to tell the rest of the story. These pictures didn't turn out too well, they seem to tilt to the left for some reason, but you'll get a general idea.

Have a great weekend.

April 17, 2003

Instead of waiting until Friday to update again, here's a short entry, and tomorrow I'll tell you about my trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Is that OK with everyone? Excellent.

-- I just started reading Our Band Could Be Your Life, which profiles ten or twelve influential indie rock bands from the 80s, and I'm already learning stuff that makes me scratch my tiny Duke head. For instance, did you know that Greg Ginn, the founder of Black Flag, was a gigantic nerd? Apparently it's true. He was into ham radio, for god's sake, and ran a mailorder business catering to other ham radio enthusiasts. The name of that business? Solid State Tuners. SST. Incredibly, impossibly, it later morphed into SST Records, the legendary LA punk label. Completely bizarre. Just how do you go from transistors and tubes... to Husker Du and the Minutemen?

I remember seeing Black Flag on Night Flight' s New Wave Theatre a hundred years ago, and they scared the living shit out of me. The lead singer was shirtless, muscled, and bald, and they were surrounded by frightening people bent on violence. The "music" sounded like a blender full of rocks, and the bald guy was grunting and hollering like a man trying to shed his skin. The audience members were brutally hurling themselves at each other, and distorting their faces with the kind of fury I'd never encountered in my hometown of Dunbar, WV. At least not since the Dairy Queen closed. I watched, and felt highly uncomfortable. I considered waking up my parents, to see if they wanted to play a few games of Yahtzee or something.

If I'd known they were into goddamn ham radio...

I later bought Black Flag's Damaged album, and liked it a lot. And Henry Rollins (the shirtless, bald, and muscled singer) is always entertaining. But I never became a huge fan of the band. I certainly never saw them in concert; I couldn't have handled that kind of stress. I'm a lover, not a fighter -- it's well-known.

-- Speaking of Night Flight, was that great TV or what? In case you're too young to remember, it was on USA Network in the early 80s -- Friday and Saturday nights, all night long. They showed obscure videos and bizarre movies and New Wave Theatre and freaky cartoons, and all sorts of other stuff you couldn't find anywhere else. I remember seeing a science fiction film from the 50's on Night Flight that was so low-budget and creepy it's permanently imbedded in the east coast of my brain stem. The low budget somehow added to the creepiness; it felt like it wasn't even a legitimate movie, it could've been made by some crackpot with an 8mm camera and an axe to grind in Wisconsin or somewhere. Anyway, Night Flight was a show that you literally didn't know what you were going to see when you tuned in, but could be reasonably sure it would warp your mind a little more. If you have any memories of it, why not share them in the forum? I'd be interested. I'm tempted to say I wish they'd bring it back, but I can't really stay up that late anymore. So, until I get TiVo, screw it.

-- A reader had this to say about this photo I posted a few days ago:

Frightening? Is it really that bad? Just because I required eyeglasses manufactured by the Ford Motor Company, is that an excuse for such hurtful language? I would never stoop so low. I was a young man on the town then, hanging with Iggy, and sporting a large corrective device. Is that so shameful?

-- And here's a rather interesting email I received last night:

I don't think she meant it as a compliment, but I kind of like being called uberirreverent. It has a nice feel to it. Apparently she's pissed about the gargoyle letters. Here's what she wrote when I asked her to be a little more specific with her complaint:

For some reason I'm picturing Betty White. Please note that this classless prick did NOT publish her email address, like I seriously considered.

-- Here's something definitely worth reading. It's an article from an old issue of Crimewave USA, about Mark's appearance on the Geraldo Rivera Show. Don't miss it. This piece caused quite a sensation back in the day, and made Mark an underground star. I think he won the Factsheet Five Editor's Choice award, and the piece was chosen for inclusion in a book about underground writers, or some shit. I don't know. I try very hard to block out all his successes.

-- Finally, Chris has weighed in with a new cast of characters from the later era at Bob Evans, including our own Rocky from the Insane Asylum. Yo, check it out.

And I think that'll do it, for today. I have a little Nancy news, but I'm tired of typing. I'll just seal it up in the Tupperware of Mockery, and break it out next time. It'll keep. I'm off to Cooperstown, NY in about an hour, and I'm giddy with anticipation. The only downside: my friend Steve is, shall we say, in a different tax bracket than I am. He seems to be pushing around an invisible wheelbarrow of cash wherever he goes. So, later today we'll probably be in a giftshop and I'll be agonizing over the purchase of a $5.99 coffee mug, and he'll be on the other side of the room buying Lou Gehrig's brain in a jar or something. But I'm not going to let it bother me. No, I'm bigger than that. And UBERIRREVERENT!

See you tomorrow, or Monday if I get lazy.

April 14, 2003

-- I feel like my contact lenses have been breaded in sand. I think it's the pollen. I've been walking around blinking like a mental patient, and tears sometimes roll down my cheeks at the most inopportune times. At work the other day I'm pretty sure the woman in the cafeteria thought I was crying because they were out of Thousand Island dressing. Nothing good can come from that, believe me. But this is only phase one, and the next strain of pollen on the market will be the kind that makes me sneeze and wheeze and cough and spit. I know how these things work. Phase One: gritty eyes and a general unclean feeling. Phase Two: great clouds of snot-generating hock dust. I've been around the block a few times.

-- Our dog Andy has had a wicked case of gas for the past few days. I think it's the new kind of Alpo Toney bought him, but he can absolutely fill a room with funk. It's amazing that such a powerful stink can come out of such a small animal; it's concentrated like something produced by NASA. He's never really had this problem before, and it worries me.

When I was a kid we had a dog named Scooby Doo whose stunning rectal stench could cause varnish to abandon a door. He farted almost continuously for the last five years of his life. You could actually hear a pssss sound emanating from his ass, as he slept. Sometimes he made ripples in the nap of the carpet. This, in addition to his epilepsy, radical underbite, obesity, and severe skin condition, added up to the perfect household pet. He wasn't very smart either. I remember getting mad at my dad because he frequently announced, "I believe that dog's retarded." I always jumped to Scooby's defense but, in retrospect, I now realize I might've been off-base.

One time my parents had a bunch of people over to the house. I think they were discussing plans for their twentieth high school reunion, so it would've been 1981. The living room was full of people, and Scooby was sleeping behind the couch, out of sight. It didn't take long before he released one of his bunker-busters, and a look of utter disbelief overtook everyone's face. They were all fidgeting, holding their hands over their noses, and frantically surveying the room for the culprit. It's one of those moments that go down in family history; it's taken its rightful place alongside the story my dad tells about one his jokester friends secretly venting his colostomy bag in an elevator full of people. This is my genealogy.

Anyway, I sincerely hope Andy doesn't go down the Scooby road. He's not even two years old. The thought of spending the next twelve years breathing his ass fumes is not a pleasant one. Is there anything I can do to reverse the gastrointestinal damage already done? I need some help here; this is an emergency.

-- Toney and I were at a strange little pizza place over the weekend, and I noticed they had a 20th Anniversary Edition Galaga machine. I've never been much of a video game enthusiast, but I loved Galaga as a Jiffy-Pop haired youngster. I had to play it. I went to the counter and got four quarters, and saw that it now costs fifty cents to play a single game. That's a one hundred percent increase over the good old days. Goddamn! My skills have deteriorated substantially over the years, and it kinda bothers me if you want to know the truth. I just couldn't get a good rhythm going on the firing mechanism; I felt like a palsy patient flailing at the button. By the end I was all sweaty, my muscles ached, and my score was nothing short of pitiful. We stayed there for an hour playing that stupid game, and I actually got worse each time. There was a great moment when Toney was at the helm. A little girl, maybe six or seven, walked up and was watching the action. She finally said, "Oh, we have that game on PlayStation at home, but my daddy is the only one who ever plays it. It's boring." So there you have it, we're Perry Como now.

-- We watched the final episode of Ed on Friday night. It's one of the few shows we watch regularly, and it hasn't yet been renewed for a fourth season. It's probably history. A few weeks ago they moved it to Friday night, the network equivalent of hospice care. I hate that. The main plot, about Ed chasing Carol and Carol chasing Ed etc., is pretty tired and played out, but there are great, strange moments in every episode. The supporting cast is excellent. I'm going to miss my weekly visits to Stuckeyville. Oh, and in case you didn't see it, Ed and Carol are now a couple. It took three seasons to get to this inevitable point, and now the show is apparently over. Maybe it's an appropriate ending? Maybe it couldn't have ended any other way? Whatever.

-- The war seems to be pretty much over as well. Now it's just down to some sporadic small arms fire.

-- Sunshine & Mumbles rolled into town yesterday. This time they brought their trailer, and they're supposedly going to stay in a campground about fifteen miles from here. No joke, they're planning to stay for months. It might not be too bad if we don't have to be with them 24/7, but I'm still not convinced that will be the case. We'll see. It's not as if I have a say in the matter anyway.

Yesterday around noon the phone rang and it was Sunshine. She wanted us to come out to the campground, and see their new trailer and check out their temporary home. I told her we'd be there in an hour or so. Then, before she hung up, she was able to squeeze off a brief burst of bitching. The place is a goddamn dump, she said.

Toney had been there before, but I hadn't. In fact, I'd never even been anywhere near the place. As we drove I felt like we were no longer in Pennsylvania; I had a sense we'd wandered onto foreign soil. Toney instructed me to keep my eyes open for a KOA sign on the side of a barn, it was one mile from the turn-off, she said. We drove and drove and drove, and never saw the sign. Eventually we were pretty certain we'd missed the turn-off. I believe we were in New Hampshire when we turned around.

We kept driving up and down the two-lane road, looking for the KOA sign and/or the turn-off to the campground. We'd go a few miles, turn around and go a few miles in the opposite direction, then do it all over again. "Here we go!" I was screaming, "They're back!!" Finally Toney said a little road off to the left looked kind of familiar, and asked me to take it. I noted, with concern, that there was no sign indicating there was a goddamn campground at the end of that Blair Witch Project wagon trail, but she thought it might be the place anyway.

There was only pavement for the first hundred yards or so, then it turned to dirt. "Holy fuck!" I hollered, as we drove deep into the wilderness, along a half-assed footpath beside a roaring river. In places big chunks of the road were missing, apparently swallowed up by the swift-moving water. I checked my cell phone and it read NO SERVICE. Perfect. We bounced and wrenched our way farther and farther into the woods and, I feared, closer and closer to a violent death.

We finally reached the "campground" and it's a shithole of the highest order. It's basically an open field with a muddy oval-shaped road cut into it, a swimming pool filled with disease-laden black water, and a few pieces of broken, bent, and dilapidated playground equipment from the Eisenehower era. Here and there were faded old travel trailers that are apparently people's permanent residences. Multi-sized sheets of plywood and scrap wood had been affixed to the bottom of some of them, apparently meant to serve as low-rent underpinning. There was shit piled around all these scary-ass dwellings, and if it was metal it was rusted. The cars all looked as if they'd spent some time at the bottom of a lake. "Sweet mother of God," I muttered.

We did half a lap around the Oval of Filth and found Toney's mother and stepfather. Their trailer looked like a jewel in a pile of monkey crap. Sunshine was bitching up a storm. She said she could never stay out there alone, and I wholeheartedly agreed with that. No fuckin' way. It looked like a place where escaped convicts could lay-low for a few days. She told us that the KOA sign was gone, because the campground was no longer affiliated with them. The standards had slipped so far KOA had pulled their name off of it. I looked over at my Blazer, and it had mud halfway up the doors.

I had to urinate like the proverbial racehorse, so I excused myself and made a beeline for the bath house. On my way I encountered a woman with a face as big around as a Frisbee, but with features confined to only a three-inch patch right in the middle. Lots and lots of wasted facial space. She had tattoos and a cigarette and a little dirty kid with a tail in his hair. It did nothing to make me feel any better. It's like the Beans of Egypt out there.

It's going to be an interesting summer.

-- Here's Episode Seven of Chris's Mini-Series of Debauchery. Maybe I'm just a big Mama's Boy, but this scares me a little as well.

-- If you get the chance, watch the Trading Spaces episode featuring Andy Dick. Funny stuff. Conversely, I recommend you steer clear of the Jessica Biel episode, it's one of the dullest things I've ever experienced. The woman has the personality of dirt.

-- Finally, here's a cool new syndicated comic you should check out, called Shoecabbage. It's created by Surf Report regular Teresa Dowlatshahl, and I hope you'll join me in wishing her nothing but good luck with it. Shoecabbage: read it, bookmark it, live it.

And that'll do it for today, boys and girls. I may not update again until Friday, because I'm planning to go to Cooperstown on Thursday. I'm not sure, I'll just play it be ear. In any case, have a great week.


April 10, 2003

-- Were yesterday's shots from Baghdad incredible, or what? The statue coming down, people flinging shoes, kids riding Saddam's head around the neighborhood like a pony from the depths of hell... It was quite a scene. The people there are slowly realizing that this time it's for real, and there will undoubtedly be even bigger celebrations in the days to come. Everybody wants to be free, it's a basic human yearning, and yesterday's party was both timeless and historic. Ya gotta love it.

Or do you?

I was watching at work on my computer, the Today Show somehow, and when the cameras returned to Katie Couric and Tom Brokaw in the studio they both looked ashen and stricken, as if someone had just masturbated across their pancakes. They mumbled something to each other, then took a report from a grim-looking female reporter who appeared ready to kick some ass. She reminded everyone that the people celebrating only represent a small fraction of Baghdad's population, and assured us that there are plenty of others there who still hate Americans. It was very kind of her. She then went on to say that the appearance of the American flag was undoubtedly a sign to many that our country was bent on occupation, not liberation.

I involuntarily made a loud whoa! sound like Silvio, and the guy beside me asked what was wrong. He probably thought a rat had popped out of my pencil drawer or something. I had to turn it off. I can't stand that shit; try as I might, I just can't stand it. You have to be plenty fucked in the head to witness scenes of wild jubilation by a long-oppressed people, and see only negatives. How do people get that way? Is it college? I turned on the 80s Alternative station on Spinner instead, and let Husker Du calm my jangled nerves.

-- One of the best parts of watching the Baghdad celebrations was imagining the reactions of the people who did everything they could to stop it from happening. The compassionate and caring individuals who were concerned and alarmed at this country's rush to war. I bet you couldn't have run a fiber optic cable through Tom Daschle's sphincter yesterday morning. And wonder what that great geo-political expert Jeanine Garafalo was thinking? If we'd allowed the United Nations to pussy around with it, like they wanted, the people in Iraq would still be cowering in fear and taking the occasional state-sponsored chemical bath (did you see that?? fuck!). The UN are like those parents you see in restaurants who keep warning their kids to behave, but never actually do anything about it. "Now Saddam, what did we tell you about hooking up car batteries to male genitalia? If you do that again, we'll be very angry..." Pitiful.

-- Who's next? North Korea? I'm sorry, but that guy doesn't seem so fierce to me. He looks like an incredibly ugly sixth grader. But what do I know about it? This is a little frightening.

-- Enough of that crap... let me tell you about the trips we have planned. Last time I mentioned that I'm feeling the urge to hit the highway, and I'm not kidding. Next week my friend Steve and I are going to Cooperstown, to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I'm taking Thursday off, and I get the next day for Good Friday (whatever that is), so I'm looking at a big honkin' four-day weekend. We're gonna leave early in the morning on Thursday and make a day of it. I'm excited. If you've never been to Cooperstown, you should go. The whole town is like 1936, or something, and the baseball museum is incredible. I hear they have Babe Ruth's skeleton there now, but I'm not sure about it. It's gonna be great, and I'll have plenty of pictures to share.

We're also going back to Cape May this summer, and need to get down to West Virginia pretty soon. We owe my parents a visit. We're going to Cape May with Sunshine & Mumbles, so that could be fun or not. It all depends on the mood of Sunshine; she sets the tone for everyone. I can hear her now: "They call this a beach?" Yep, it'll be a blast. We seriously considered a trip to London in September, but have given up on the idea. It'll be our ten-year anniversary, but the amount of money it would require to spend a week in England makes us both break out in a cold sweat. I think we're just going to spend a few days in New York City instead. We'll do it up right and stay in a fancy-ass hotel, and act like we're rich for a few days. Tipping bellhops and wearing ties... always a good time. If anyone has suggestions for off-the-beaten-path places to visit there, let me know. I'm no expert on the city, or much of anything else really.

So there you have it, our travel plans for the summer. I'd also like to make a visit or two to Philadelphia, to see all the historic stuff like Independence Hall and The Franklin Museum. And maybe a day-trip to Hershey, and a baseball game in Baltimore... We've gotta see this part of the country before I receive The Phone Call, and have to start packing our bags for California again. Time is of the essence, or whatever.

-- Speaking of Sunshine & Mumbles, they're arriving here this weekend. I think they're planning to stay until the fall of 2006. I think that's right. They're bringing their camper and plan to stay at a campground about fifteen miles from here. Why do I have the strange feeling they'll actually be "camping" in our family room within the month? Anyone want to put a dollar on it?

-- I told a friend about this the other day, and he accused me of making it up. But it's true, I promise. Nancy and BN and reportedly attempting to potty-train their oldest translucent son, and they're making him pee sitting down, then use toilet paper. It's fascinating to witness the making of a serial killer, it really is.

--  These ladies seem a little confused.

-- June 17, 2003 is Independence Day. It's the day my three-year contract with CompuServe expires! I'm nearly giddy with anticipation. I'm thinking about DSL, goddammit. I feel like slapping a wall with a shoe, I'm so happy.

-- I'm listening to Huey Lewis and the News. Toney just came in here and said, "What are you doing?" I told her it's Huey Lewis and she said, "I know who it is, but why?" The true masters are never appreciated until they're gone.

-- For those of you who don't bother to visit the the Surf Report Forum, somebody there asked me to post the picture of me and Iggy Pop, that I mentioned last time. Here it is. Please keep in mind that this was ten or twelve years ago, and I've gotten a lot better-looking since then. I also ditched those jelly-jar glasses. Goddamn.

-- Finally, I hate to end this on a sad note, but a great West Virginian has died. Please make an effort to think of him today, as you go about your normal life. I'm certain that's all he would've wanted.

And I think that'll do it. Have a great weekend, folks. See ya Monday.

April 7, 2003

-- We monkeyed around with the clocks again this weekend. Jesus J. McChrist. Is this the real time, or was Friday's time the real time? Which came first? Considering all the flopping back and forth, I wonder if anyone even knows anymore? And does all this have something to do with farming? Is that the origin? I bet it is. A lot of our weird laws and customs seem to be farming or sodomy-based. This one doesn't have a sodomy feel to it, so it has to be about farms -- and how does that effect the modern American, really? The only time I've ever been on a farm in my life was to visit my great-grandparents as a kid, and I stepped in a pile of cow shit that covered my entire shoe. Left foot: blue Pro Ked; right foot: semi-solid livestock waste. I suspect that most of us have similar limited experiences.

I'd like to know more about Daylight Savings Time, the history behind it and all, but I don't really want to spend any time reading about it. Ya know? Hell, I already gave up an hour to it on Saturday night. I just want to know about it; it doesn't seem important enough to invest actual minutes of my life getting there. At this point I should be able to just think about it, and pull up the information. But, alas, I don't know much about many things.

Wonder if there are any of those subliminal tapes available on the subject? I could just pop in a cassette at night, before I climb onto the raised dormancy platform, and I'd know all there is to know about it when I woke up in the morning. If anyone has information on the availability of Daylight Savings Time-themed subliminal audio tapes, I'd be much obliged. Thank you for your consideration.

-- Well, this is getting off to a good start... Shit. I think I'm starting to go stir-crazy. I look forward to the weekend all week, then often find myself bored to the cusp of shitlessness by Sunday afternoon. I really need to get out more. And I don't mean out in the yard. Most of the neighbors apparently maintain their sanity by getting out in their yards and puttering around with various projects, and sporting fashionable gardening gloves and the like, but I think I'd rather give Al Gore a sponge bath than that. And there are only so many stores you can visit, so much war coverage you can stomach, and so much family togetherness you can endure. I think it's why I drink, but I'm even bored with that. 

I haven't had a beer in weeks, and that's a scarier fact than you might imagine. My last refuge is collapsing. It's time for a road trip of some sort; I can feel it in my bones. There's a Springsteen song inside me, desperately trying to get out. Me and Sherry need to drop the top on that old Ford and hit the road out by the gas works, and just keep on driving, Jack. Or whatever.

-- On Saturday Toney had something to do, so I spent most of the day by myself. I cleaned up the house a little, and -- get this! -- went to Wal-Mart to buy light bulbs and a loaf of bread. Yes, I am a modern-day Kerouac: I live life to the fullest. While at Wally World I saw a gigantic display of camouflage bean bag chairs. Are they for the casual deer hunter? I don't really understand. Wouldn't it be a little bulky and noisy, getting those things out to the woods? I also saw a woman with multiple rows of teeth, like a shark. There was no physical way that her lips could meet, because of the sheer number of multi-sized teeth packed inside her mouth. And I heard a black woman talking in such a high pitch it was nearly inaudible to the human ear. It just kept getting higher and higher and higher. At certain points I could only feel a vibration. I really hate going to that place, but you just can't beat their light bulb/bread pricing. There's simply no way to fight it.

After my shopping excursion I stopped at Border's and saw an old guy in a tie-dyed t-shirt showing his teenage son some important CDs. They were standing in front of The Byrds section, and he was telling the youngster about one of their concerts in which a member of the band "was just wild, man." The kid looked like he was sincerely interested in the history lesson, and I thought that was pretty cool. It's what would've happened if Ward Cleaver had dropped a lot of acid before settling down.

I couldn't find anything at the book store I felt comfortable trading money for, so I went to Wendy's to purchase yet another Number One With Cheese, No Pickles, And A Coke. I was there by myself in the house that Dave built, when a minivan parked on the other side of the window where I was sitting. I didn't pay much attention until the side door slid open and twelve or fifteen Mormons came rolling out. It was a scene straight out of a really bad circus; they just kept coming. I sat and watched the herd of well-scrubbed, clear-eyed teenage boys in black suits (complete with name tags) order and eat their lunch and, I'm sorry, but they gave me the creeps. There was something about the wholesomeness and goodness that made me uncomfortable. I worked hard at not making eye contact with any of them, for fear that they might overtake my soul. I experienced a full-body shiver, and called it a day.

-- We rented Sweet Home Alabama and watched it Saturday night. I didn't like it much. Basically it was an hour and half of Reese Witherspoon acting condescending and betraying everyone she came in contact with. There's also loads of stereotyping, but it's not enough to save the film. After it was over Toney and I re-wrote the script right there in the family room, fixed all the gaping holes in the plot, and made it much better. They should've called us.

-- It's Monday, and that means another episode of debauchery from Chris in Boone. Check it out. It's the best one yet, in my opinion. There's a movie in here.

-- Apparently the war effort is going really well in Iraq. We're landing airplanes full of Green Berets at the Baghdad Airport, and our soldiers are cruising through the streets of the capital city like scenes from a Soviet American Graffiti. I know it's not over yet, and I don't want to get too cocky too soon, but I sure hope somebody is keeping a log of all the doom and gloom predictions the hand-wringers made this go-'round. It'll be fun to go back, after the war is over, and read them all. Then we can file it on the shelf right between Afghanistan Quagmire and Risky Tax Scheme.

-- Finally, I'm excited to report that Mark has made a stellar contribution to the Surf Report Art Collection®. Last week he sent me a paper cut-out created by underground music legend Jad Fair. Somehow Mark and Jad are buddies, apparently. Check it out. It's incredibly cool. It now goes into queue with the other pieces I need to have professionally framed, so it can join the permanent collection on the wall of The Bunker. Currently, the collection includes a picture of me sitting on a couch with Iggy Pop, an 8x10 of my boyhood barber, autographed photos of REM, Barenaked Ladies, Soupy Sales, and Carl Reiner, a Replacements poster signed by Paul Westerberg, a giant, tattered Rockpile promo poster, a 1962 West Virginia license plate, a framed Animal House one-sheet, and many other similar items.

In addition to the Jad Fair piece, the items waiting to be framed are:

A panoramic photo of my hometown of Dunbar, WV, taken on September 23, 1924. It's almost five feet wide, and you can plainly see the house where my aunt currently lives. Really awesome. I bought it off eBay for thirty bucks or so.

A Mad Magazine poster showing Alfred E. Neuman surfing on trash. I also picked this up through eBay and there's a photo of REO Speedwagon on the back, for some unknown reason.

Two old Pabst Blue Ribbon ads I bought at a flea market somewhere. One shows a scene from the bar of Gregory Peck's fashionable Santa Monica home, in which they're swigging PBR!

Another Mark Maynard contribution is a great collage he gave me before he left LA. This is one of my favorites. We had a great time during that period, and did some crazy stuff -- like wearing giant sandwich boards in front of NBC, advertising our comedy writing "talents." This is a Mark original, and I should've had it framed by now. Yet another thing to feel guilty about.

The crown jewel of the collection, though, is a poster I drunkenly thrust into the hand of Shane MacGowan beside his tour bus in Atlanta, and demanded he sign for me. It was a night that Toney has listed in the Excel File inside her head, titled Bad Things Jeff Has Done. She can instantly sort it by date, subject, or location. It's quite remarkable, really. 

I went to see Shane at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta with a woman from the bookstore where I worked part-time. Toney wouldn't go, because she hates the man with a passion, so I asked Christina from the store. Before the show we sat in a bar called The Point and drank pitcher after pitcher of Foster's, then continued drinking at the concert. We were blasted out of our minds by the time the show was over, and walked directly backstage as if we belonged back there. The neckless guards looked confused, then just shrugged their shoulders. Surely we wouldn't have that much balls, right? We loaded up our pockets with Guinness, and rifled through somebody's jacket for souvenirs. Then we made a move towards Shane's dressing room and it was made clear to us that we'd better not bother him. There was a hint of Irish violence in the air, so we left. 

We went out back and stood by the bus, with a group of other drunken assholes, until Shane appeared through the back door. Here are the results of that encounter. When I got home I was apparently talking like Dean Martin, and Toney was not amused. And she had another entry for her Excel File.

More on Thursday. Supposedly there's ten inches of snow on the way. I better get to work. Goddamn.

April 3, 2003

As I was saying...

Nancy is pregnant again. Yes, she and her so-called husband have apparently conceived another child in a desperate attempt to doom a girl to a life of counseling and whole wheat pasta. They have two boys, but Nancy wants a girl. In fact, she wants her two boys to be girls, and often makes them wear dresses with daisies on them. If you think I'm joking, you'd be wrong.

I think I mentioned that Nancy recently flew off the handle when a store clerk mistook her sons for daughters and made an innocent remark like, "Oh, I bet your cute little girls will have their pick of boyfriends when they grow up." This pissed Nancy off because the clerk just assumed that her daughters would be straight. Never mind that they're not daughters, they're boys... It all gets very confusing.

Anyway, Nancy told everyone who would listen that the new baby was conceived on the kitchen floor, while she and Nostrils sobbed uncontrollably about a difficult life decision they'd finally made (but not before causing everyone around them contemplate suicide, murder, or both). I asked Toney what they were going to name the kid, since it came about under such unusual circumstances.

Their youngest son is named after a lake, apparently because they frolicked naked with the badgers there, and eventually found sexual congress on a lily pad, or some shit. What will this one be called? Linoleum? DeSpair? How about Swiffer? It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. Needless to say, stay tuned.

-- Speaking of baby names, Toney knows some people with a young son named Guy. I find this to be highly amusing.

-- I saw a woman at work yesterday take a large submarine sandwich into the bathroom. Kinda strange. Do they have picnic tables in there?

-- I never could've predicted that I'd someday be typing these words, but there's a really cool-looking janitor where I work. He has a neck beard. You know, his face is clean-shaven but he has a big bushy beard underneath? It's awesome. He looks like he should be working on a whaling boat off Nova Scotia, or selling cough drops. He's from 1860, I think, sent forward in time to mop floors at a factory in Scranton. He's also short and fat, which only adds to the overall effect. I want to shout Ahoy! to him, but have so far controlled myself. The other day I heard him talking to a less-interesting janitor, and he was speaking some foreign language. Perhaps Portuguese. Wonder if he works parties?

-- I received this email yesterday, from a friend in West Virginia:

Well, I sometimes dream about Robert John "Mutt" Lange, and occasionally Roy Thomas Baker, but never Shel Talmy. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, I'd be very concerned.

-- A reader sent me a note yesterday, to inform me that goddamn Mark "King Of All Fuckin' Media" Maynard is mentioned in another newspaper article. This time it's USA Today. This shit is really starting to piss me off. As usual, Morrissey is correct: we hate it when our friends become successful. 

I get around too, you know.

-- This picture can only be titled Pick It Up, Bitch. There is no other possibility.

-- I answered the phone yesterday evening, and it was one of Toney's old buddies from California. She's a nice person and all, but I have a difficult time talking to her -- and she always wants to chitchat. She calls on her cell phone, usually from the grocery store for some reason, and years ago Toney told me that she microwaves her underwear to cut down on the possibility of yeast infections. I think I have that right... And it's a pretty hard thing to forget. So here's how the conversations usually go:

"Hello?"

"Oh, hi Jeff. How are you?"

"Good, good. (Yeast) How are you?"

"I thought those were buy-one-get-one-free?"

"What?"

"Sorry, I'm at Albertson's How's the weather out there?"

"It's starting to warm up. (Panties) But we had a bad winter." (Popcorn and panties)

"Oh, it's been really hot here... plastic, please."

And it goes on and on like that for minutes that feel like hours. Simply excruciating.

-- Last night I was watching one of the news channels and they mentioned they'd be talking to the brother of recently-rescued prisoner of war, Jessica Lynch. I instantly tensed up and muttered, "Oh no!" They're from West Virginia, you know, and I feared what I might see. We West Virginians are very sensitive about how we're represented to the rest of the world -- after being human punch lines for the last 100 or so years. I was afraid the guy would have a mullet, a cigarette, a faded and stretched Metallica shirt, talk like Goober Pyle, and be sitting on a porch as banjo music played in the background. But he was pretty cool. Intelligent and normal, in regular-people clothes. Whew! Close one. I want to shake the man's hand. Oh, and I'm glad his sister is OK too.

-- Finally, something occurred to me last night. I was watching a report about how both sides in the war are trying to score points with public relations. They're attempting to mold public opinion by influencing the way certain facts are reported, and the words that are used. Now, far be it for me to advise the Iraqis, but I was thinking they might want to start using nicknames. People like nicknames, and it might soften the brutal images we have of them. Like, maybe they could start referring to Tariq Aziz as Tariq "Corky" Aziz? Or Uday "High Pockets" Hussein? Qusay "The Dancing Bear" Hussein? How about Saddam "Catfish" Hussein? I think it might work.

Have a great weekend, folks. See ya on Monday.

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