The Whiskey Rebel's Diary Archive

01-01-08 to 03-30-08

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whiskeyrebel@whiskeyrebel.com

03/30/08

I'm worn out from my school workload. I've got many aches and pains and symptoms including a poisonous puss squirting mystery wound and could sit here and bitch for a couple pages, but I'm not going that direction.

Even though it was one of those rare nights in which it took 3 or 4 beers for it to taste right, I kept at it and am fortified enough to take care of business here.

Tomorrows a big day; even if Ric Flair wins his match at Wrestlemania, he's clearly about to hang it up. I've read comments from a couple other people on the net declaring it the end of an era. Ok, there needs to be an official line in the sand drawn and for me tomorrow will be it for Flair. The last song in his set; any more can be classified under encores.

For me, a fanatical appreciation of Ric has always been a good way for someone to gain at least casual acceptance.

The other side of the coin is the fact that somebody who goes gaga over Chump Hogan keeps me at arms length by doing so.

Heel wrestlers were (as I've written before) my first role models. The line between heel and fan favorite has distorted over the years thankfully, along with my appreciation for them.

I've had lots of favorites over the years from other sports including Bob Gibson, Orlando Cepeda, Bill Laimbeer, Charles Barkley, Bo Jackson, John Kruk and lately Tiger Woods. Ric Flair means as much to me as any three of 'em combined.

Why? What a combination: dress like a peacock to piss off the rubes, win by any means possible and then go party til dawn or later. And the music. Remember, Elvis Presley used the same theme at concerts, who but Flair could get away with it and make it as much his?

I brought my son up to appreciate the Nature Boy. I took him to see him wrestle live when he was probably too young to remember. Oh well, my heart was in the right place. I was swollen up with pride the day Mr. Flair came to my workplace at Tower records for a signing and I got to take Elvis up to shake his hand with a few other employees who were known to be absolute Flair admirers.

Later the boy showed he learned his lessons well. Our "The Nature Boy" song lyric was written by him. If you get a hankering to listen to it today or in the days to come Itty has it up at our myspace "rancidvat2" site. It took us about 4 times as long to record and mix because of the samplings of Mr. Flair we used.

I emailed Dave from the Wrestler Observer a couple years ago and asked him how I could get a copy to Flair. He offered to hand deliver one to him...but I didn't follow up.

Why? I dunno. I'm very natural with most famous people but terrible about approaching a few, and he's one of them.

Yeah, I saw him wrestle live many times over the years. I took Marla more than once. Get this: she shares the same 2/25 birthday with him.

I couldn't handle the way he was treated during his absolute worst years in WCW. Elvis and I both deliberately avoided watching him being a company man and sacrifice his self respect in the line of duty. We couldn't take it.

Vince has been much better to him, although I wish he had been pushed more of course. At least he was kept on the payroll through his 50's!.

I've talked to many people over the years who have first hand accounts of encounters with Mr. Flair. I can't recall hearing of a single instance in which he acted like a jackass. That's in spite of the fact that he used to have to out drive fans who hated him in small towns in the south often. I know of a man who launched a beer bottle through a big screen TV out of hatred for Flair. It hasn't all been parades over the years. He was paid to sell tickets..and that meant getting fans livid with rage during much of his career.

People booed the living hell out of him at cards I attended in Seattle, L.A. and Portland long ago. If you weren't there to see pissed off audiences in the 80's, you really missed something. Every night I attended cards in Portland for instance, security guys had to deal with out of control fans who often brandished weapons or foreign objects.

Flair was the uncontested King during these years from my standpoint. During periods in which he dropped the NWA title, things seemed very strange. It was HIS belt. It didn't look right on Dusty or Ronnie Garvin.

If you got to meet Flair over the years or watch him wrestle live or frequently on pay per view, Bravo. You had your brush with greatness. If you're one of those nostalgic, campbell's soup slurping, thumb sucking, Hogan fans, glorifying cartoon "wrestling"...you can piss off. I'm sure you'll be applauding Cena tomorrow.

We grown up Flair fans will be knocking back double shots like I am right now in Ric's honor! Thanks man.

03/25/08

OK, all of you squat to piss myspace sissies have a good laugh at my expense; I looked at the site created by Itty and was amazed how many people I've lost touch with over the last couple years have been trying to get in touch with us there.

I chalk up at least 3 quality acquantances that I've been connected with again thanks to your fucking myspace.

It's not MY fault that so many people prefer to communicate with us using a site that befits teenage girls.

I can only piss and moan and kvetch about it for so long. THEN it's time to shut up and face up to checking messages there every now and then.

Once again, thanks Itty.

The last couple days have been a real rollercoaster ride academically. I got a frigging "30" on a physics test. Luckily, there are 12 and it will be replaced by my final test grade but still, that sucks and is very disappointing.

On the good side I've maintained a "B" average in German this far, I got an "A" on a paper for my English lit class taught by my neighbor (comparing Brando and Dean to charachters from Hawthorne and Cooper) and am scoring a high "A" in my public history course.

Best of all, I got a notice in the mail today: for the 2nd year in a row I'm going to be awarded the "achievement in History" award at a big ceremony. Last year I thought it was a possible fluke..this year I know I've fucking earned it.

Maybe I can beg Mark to show up and take pictures since he's a student now and knows his way around. It may be the last academic award of my life. My closest loved ones don't turn out to things like this. They take certificates for granted.

Oh well. I know I've paid for it in blood, pain, lack of sleep and repeated humiliation. Nobody but me gives a rats ass, but what the fuck. I'll enjoy it anyway, I'm a fucking LONE WOLF....wahOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

03/20/08

BEST FAN MAIL IN YEARS!

We got booted off of myspace long ago; of course it being a chickenshit site, we were never given anything more than a vague reason, but what the hell...Marla and I HATE myspace. (I might add, our Imac locks up trying to log in. Our pc does too most of the time).

The irony is, we actually went through the motions and attempted to not go out of our way to offend anybody or break any rules.

Our good pal Itty has set up a nice new page that is now complete with music, 369 friends and email and photos aplenty. This is all fine by me, as long as I don't have to deal with it. Beer and Bobo and Mark are all regular myspace users..they love it. GOOD.

They'd be bored by my profile and "friends" at Chessgames.com...that's where I hang out and communicate.

I finally visited it for the first time tonight and answered a few emails.

The absolute best piece of communication came from some jerkoff kid, 17 years old who sent us the following piece of hatemail 7 months ago.

It was titled: "I hate rednecks"

"hows yer sister/wife you nasty inbred people.you say your punk rock? well im sorry, punks arent dirty

smelly reneck cousin kissing retards"

I have not bothered to change the spelling by this young genius, by the way (HELL, I rarely bother to go back and check my own in this diary).

This seems like the sort of thing that SHOULD get you kicked off of myspace, doesn't it? I eagerly clicked on the little pinprick's handle to see if his page could be brought up...certainly he didn't limit his hate spiel to us, some band that's never even performed in his town. My guess is he's sent a slew of it out. So, WHY IS IT JUST US getting the boot? Why not him?

Of course, his page came right up. He last visited his page in the last few days.

This is the sort of little darling who lives and dies for his myspace page.

I'm tempted to ask Itty how to file a complaint against this kid.

But, really...I am thankful for the cliche spouting, unoriginal, dull little puss. It's people like him who have fueled the band this long. Our band engine runs on pure 100% SPITE.

Hatemail is something a band simply can't buy. You can try all you want to offend people and most of the time you'll just be ignored. You've got to have a really deep loathing of humanoids to do what we have done for so long. Email like that perks me up. I feel better just thinking about it than I have all day.

I'm tempted to delete this entry, make a mental note to buy Itty a bottle and thank him...and go back to gossiping over chess opening theory.

Or, I might go check the mail there once a month in hope of more inspiration.

HHmmmm...

03/19/08

I am sad, very sad sitting here thinking about the passing of one of the great minds of professional wrestling: Mr. Gary Hart. A fellow Texan.

A man of true greatness has left us. I will drink a couple too many shots at least sitting here and suffer tomorrow, but if anybody says "Phil, what the hell is wrong with you today" I'll tell them that one of the greats is gone...and I'm gonna salute him.."AWHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"..and if they don't understand what in the hell I'm talking about they can kiss off.

You won't see any mainstream media coverage of his passing, unlike the finger pointing associated with the death of some steroid freaks with comparatively little understanding for the biz and talent and shall I add COOLNESS.

That's OK, the people who matter know what he did.

I don't know enough frankly about Gary's behind the scenes booking work except from what we are told in the great WCCW documentary from a couple years back. Likewise I know little about his work as a wrestler prior to that time. I'm confident that Dave from the Wrestling Observer will include all the details of his lengthy career as a wrestler in his upcoming piece on him.

I do know this, he was one of the most significant, key managers of all time.

When I first saw him I thought he looked a bit plain compared to guys like the Grand Wizard and spoke many words per minute less than James Cornette, but he incorporated ring attire that a real "playboy" might wear (as opposed to a cartoon interpretation) and a more select, sparse usage of words into a knockout style.

This isn't to say that he didn't have a big fucking mouth. He simply didn't use the "wrestling manager as clown" approach in the same way many of his colleagues both memorable and ho-hum did.

I've been watching tons of Abdullah footage lately (thanks Ted). After watching many, many hours, I'll go out on a limb and declare I think Abby for one was never better than when he was represented by Gary Hart.

Hart not only got the fans pissed off at himself, he'd focus on doing what a manager is supposed to do: GET HIS MAN OVER. All you fans of Hart and Abby, think back to the way Gary would lead him to the ring with his custom sport jacket over Abdullahs head. This created a sense of real, imminent danger....YES...THAT"S what seperated Mr. Gary Hart from many of his peers: he created a mystique surrounding his wrestlers that superceded heat against himself. He didn't need to play the clown or the buffoon to do that.

Gary Hart seemed like a pretty scary dude..no, he didn't have a sculpted six-pack or stand six foot eight. He seemed to convey contempt for humanoids in a natural way that clearly has never been the forte of WWF/WWE.

Gary Hart looked like the kind of guy who'd enjoy eating the worm out of a tequilla bottle, just to disgust a bar full of people. Gary Hart had more of a genuine satanic glare and air about him than even the great Kevin Sullivan, if you ask me.

He didn't overdo it on theatrics or costume. He simply came across as a bad man, who had figured out a way to handle maniacal, freak wrestlers.

He was a legit tough guy in one way for sure; he survived the plane crash in 1975 that cost Bobby Shane his life.

Many of his charges were extremely exotic such as Abdullah, the great Kabuki, Muta, Nord the Barbarian, etc. The fact that he dressed more like what you'd expect from a promoter (and remember, the promoter played a more special occasional role in his heyday) or the night manager at a strip club made him stand out from his wrestlers and other managers too.

When Gary Hart spoke to the camera, he seemed to really select his words. This holds true not only for old wrestling footage we have to remember him by, but also his incredibly powerful, insightful words in the aforementioned WCCW documentary. He stole the fucking show as far as I'm concerned. They often talked to six different men about a wrestler or topic involving the company and it seems like every time Hart's comments are the real shit, the bottom line...the ones you remember.

When I saw it for the first time a year or so ago my reaction was, Gary Hart off camera was one of the most intelligent, cool S.O.B.'s I've ever seen associated with wrestling.

I remarked to Elvis at the time, I wish he was one of my Uncles..,

According to the Charleston SC newspaper obit I read, Kevin Von Erich regularly referred to him as "Uncle Gary". Good call, Kevin.

A guy you can talk to who won't bullshit you, but just tell you what you really need to know. Provide sage advice, guidance....just like he guided his charges in the ring. A role model.

A lot of wrestlers who I respect a helluva lot I wouldn't know what to say to 'em in a bar. I am sad I'll never have the chance to meet Mr. Gary Hart.

03/15/08

Lately here I've discussed some examples of ordinary, contemporary, "cultural" flotsam and jetsam that simply bother me. You know, calaculated 2 day stubble, faux-hawks and the gold pants blue shirt ensemble.

If these things seem trivial to you, bear in mind I've been writing about more significant aspects of humanoidism for years. I'm just now getting around to sweeping the lurking dreck out of the corners shall we say.

There's another little phenomenon that I've simply got to bring up here. If you can provide an insider explanation of it, please feel free to enlighten me.

This one sneaked up on me. I had seen people doing it on TV (of course) but had never experienced it firsthand and close up.

I was riding on a shuttlebus a couple weeks ago. Dead tired. Weakened.

A fully grown male in his early 20's sat within my field of vision. He caught my attention, because he seemed to be trying to sport a classic 70's afro, but didn't seem black enough. Another fully grown male climbed on the bus and walked towards us. He saw the other fellow sitting there; their eyes locked, they got giddy looks on their faces and pulled out their dicks..and waggled them in each others faces.

Well, not exactly. I RATHER that they had than to do what they did. They each formed their fingers into what used to be known as a "peace sign" but instead of flashing that old passe, nauseating gesture they turned their hands backwards and sideways and parallel to their chests.

It instantly hit me; THAT was the same sign I had seen in two different TV commercials that had left me befuddled.

It immediately brought to mind the ways that inexperienced, sissy kids drink and smoke together.

A true, natural smoker or drinker will take a hit or light up when they feel like it regardless of the pace of others around him or her.

Little wimps, whelps trying to be cool and accepted by their peers all drink in unison and fire up smokes together. It's a new experience to them; they aren't sure if they are neccessarily doing it right so they reinforce one anothers courage against the fear they may be coming across like rum rookies by doing everything as a group...

These guys on the bus reminded me on the spot of an old "Honeymooners" TV episode in which Ralph and Ed walk around at their Racoon lodge meeting waggling the tails of their funny camps in unison.

At first I thought the ultra chic dudes must have been kidding, but after their initial eye contact doofyness they embarked on a very serious looking discussion.

Today I called Elvis up and asked (once again) for a simple, down to earth explanation from him and his wife about WHAT THE FUCK this sidewinder peace sign is supposed to "mean".

My guess was that the guys were hippies; when Elvis and his bride got done laughing on their end of the line he established a serious tone in his voice. He said they had no idea what it exactly meant, but ensured me that it's one of those things black people used to do, that has been incorporated by wiggers (Def: "white, affluent youth who seek to emulate the culture of hardcore gangsta rap").

REMINDER! If this doesn't seem to be the case in YOUR community, remember this is a rather lame college town.

I'd REALLY like to get an explanation of this "rock, paper, scissors" minus the rock and paper from the mouth of somebody who actually brandishes it.

Just in case you think I've finally gotten to be old and out of touch, MAY I REMIND I've always been revolted by hip symbolism that seemed forced and only a trendy gesture or idea or buzzword of the moment.

When I was 9 years old I thought the stinking hippies were cliche spouting pukes..

In the 80's I dared asked a couple co-workers "why don't you tie your shoes?"

Every week or so in the 90's in urban Philly I'd pump Elvis for information on the latest imbecilical styles and slang. I'd marvel at tales he told of students who actually rolled up one sweat pants leg in some sort of would be deadly serious and symbolic manner.

As Marla reminded me tonight when we were discussing this, one thing is for sure: once a clothing fad or slang catch phrase or idealistic gesture becomes incorporated by TV, it's in its last throes.

You can concoct a similar definitive formula for the death of a trend once it reaches San Marcos. The two girly men..or as we say in German "Sitzpinklers" on the bus may think they're flashing a little sign that is cutting edge, and an indication that they are sophisticated and culturally beyond ordinary white trash looking losers like me. What they don't know is that I'm thee Whiskey Rebel..avant-garde since before I dropped out of my mammys ass; I'm so far ahead of pop culture trend followers in this burg I'm sticking into the next county...GOOSING YER MOTHER.

03/14/08

I had a great idea for a topic to write about here; it's so good it's going to be blown up into a Carbon14 column though.

Instead I feel the need to kvetch here about toilets..specifically the one that was installed in our Comfort Inn suite in Kerrville.

Now, I'm aware of the fact that to most or many of you a toilet is just a place to rest your ass for a minute or two whilst blowing a nice turd manicured into the shape of a cigar by the muscles into your bum into the waters below.

You probably don't give the stool you perch daily on a second thought..

I on the other hand am spoiled by having in our master bath at home a beautiful, long, wise and deep toilet that would likely be favored by princes, Captains of industry and persnickety nabobs in places around the world where folks sit on a seat like champions as opposed to squatting over a hole silently praying you don't soil your shoes or drawers.

If you've ever visited our home you almost certainly pooped in the ordinary guest bowl; I keep my own topnotch porcelain pride and joy a secret to even the most respected company.

Imagine my chagrin when I wind up in some hotel or motel with a stool with a tiny hole to aim thru, cheesy butt wipe that fragments upon contact and a poor setting to perch your legs and feet pleasantly.

I've found a better throne than that we enjoy at home a couple times. Once was in a suite at the Stratosphere in Vegas..another time was in a Hilton hotel in Houston that was hosting a chess tournament I participated in.

The stool we dealt with in Kerrville was not the worst I've experienced by a long shot..but it's a couple notches beneath what you'd expect from a $39.99 redhot deal special at a Redroof Inn.

The main problem was, the stool was not mounted to the floor properly. I wipe my ass from the right side. To achieve the proper purchase of bum wipe to ass (from that angle) you need to shift your weight to your left foot. Unfortunately, when I did so the stool rocked in a way that made me worry the damned thing was going to tip over.

At first, I thought I was just being a weenie about it. Marla confessed to me though that even she in all her pristine toilet femininity shared my experience. In fact, at one point during our visit she marched to the front desk and gave a detailed list of instructions that she suggested the desk pass on to the hotel maintenance staff to cement their toilets properly.

She said the guy at the desk getting the lecture seemed stunned; we both saw the humor in the situation and laughed.

Well, I didn't laugh for long. I had to keep using the fucking thing. Every time I did I sweated over the thought of the damned thing pitching over leaving me either in the nasty ass preacher seat position or perhaps in a fetal curl crying for Mother.

All in all I didn't get much reading done in there...Uurrpppppppppppppp

03/12/08

So, Marla and I wound up checking into a suite for a couple nights in Kerrville Texas to relax. We got home Tuesday afternoon.

We were treated to a horseshit, pissant, third rate attempt to rip us off.

Our suite had an extra room with a couch and sofa setup that resembled what we have at home to a scary level. We spent the first night with the TV shut off listening to a great classic country station. What the fuck; Kerrville was the home of the immortal Jimmie Rodgers "blue yodelers paradise" mansion.

Late the first evening I sat down in an office chair that had been placed in front of a table our boom box was set on top of. The goddamned thing collapsed....a bit too simply. Yes, my weight is capable of buckling a chair, but upon further inspection we realized that plastic parts were missing from the chair in the first place. The maid or management had propped up the chair with 4 functioning wheels out of 6, the other 2 with only partial wheel parts...it seemed like they wanted us to "break" the chair which had obviously been broken.

Where they lost out was not expecting that we had owned 2 almost identical chairs over the years. When important company showed up we would make an attempt to fix up our broken chairs in a similar manner for neatness sake.

It was clear the chair had been broken NOT due to my fat ass..but ahead of time. Why? Key plastoc parts were missing. They wanted us to assume my fanny had busted the thing and pay some sort of penalty.

Marla confronted the guy at the desk and he tried to play hardball..being a complete dick----at first. She wound up dragging the bogus chair right into the lobby and as luck would have it, she found another identical "broken" chair somebody else had turned in.

She took pictures with her cell phone camera of the chairs side by side and explained how we knew they had tried to screw us, and how we were preparing a complaint to their home office.

Their threats melted away quickly.

It's disgusting that a big national hotel chain ( Comfort Inn) would pull shit like this, but true. You've got to get up pretty fucking early in the morning to fool the combined mental prowess of Marla and I though. Hell's bell's, we met selling encylopedias door to fucking door for a goddamned bunch of bunko artists.

No, slip your weiner back in your slacks. Try it out on somebody else.

I still wouldn't be surprised if we didn't parlay it all into a night of free lodging in another one of their hostelry's establishments.

We've bickered and argued over the small shit for 30 fucking years. When we combine forces we always win.........ask Elvis..he's seen us in action...UUrrrpp........

And we wipe our asses with Amway presentation flyer's too for that matter.....

03/08/08

My last class before Spring break was to be held at 2:00 pm in the usual place in the center of the campus. I was so worn down, I ALMOST blew it off; no tests or anything like that. But, shit the Prof. lives across the street.

I hoped to at least get a parking space in the lot I can see from our driveway. It was raining, blowing about 35 MPH and the trail I needed to walk thru was muddy as fuck.

I was ready to head back to bed...but SHIT...the Prof lives across the street. If he can make it, I can make it...rain, pussy stench, wind, clouds of purple gism haze raining down..whatever.

I gambled and won a parking space in the oversold lot that I should be able to park in( and catch a van that will deliver me to a shuttle bus that will take me where I need to get to)...but, I usually have to walk the billy goat hills whilst cussing the worthless TXSTATE parking authority for its corrupt practices.

For Texas it was cold...for the rest of the US, not so. I made it to Flowers hall my destination with 15 minutes to spare. I was limping, my bandana was coated in rain and I had a bloody scab in my right nostril that I didn't dare pick, fearing a nosebleed. My balls itched and my feet burned from the new shoe pain.

What the hell....I knew damned few of my classmates would show,.....but shitfuck...my Prof. lives across the street.

I don't care if your goal is to blow soap bubbles with tards for a living or weave baskets or embark on research projects or honk away on a slide trombone in an army band in Iraq or what have you; you should have some sort of pride in what the funk you do. I felt like I had to go, considering how myself and a classmate are History scholars in a room filled with English majors many of whom don't believe in washing their feet or pits.

It turned out that there was only 10 students in the class when the Prof. waltzed in. He may live across the street, but of course as a faculty member he has the right to a good parking space that he obviously takes advantage of. He wasn't slick with rain like me. Well, more power to him. If you're a 19th century lit. scholar with a PHD there should be some perks.

Well, there I was...I had toughed it out..and was momentarily proud for not being a pussy who couldn't deal with a little rain; until he took the roll and dismissed us without a lecture. Oh fuck.......

We're reading "the sound and the fury" by Faulkner..he will mark down the bastards who didn't have the nads to show up, but didn't want to give us extra points or deliver a lecture for a partially attended class.

I slogged my way home. Naturally as I chugged into my driveway I gazed up his and saw his car parked at the top. He had made it home already. Of course.

I felt like shit and turned in for nap.

Marla showed up an hour or so later feeling even worse than me. She had worked many days in a row and averages 11-12 hours per day. We both hobbled around the place like Cactus Jack vs. Abby. We rested a while and then headed out to the school Elvis is a student teacher at. The theatre department he helps instruct delivered a bizarre, Monty Python ( his influnece?) like adaptation of Shakespeare's "Midnight summers dream". We missed the spaghetti feed.

When it was all over and after I had shaken hands with the theatre director lady and the school administrator ( we used to call 'em vice principles) to whom I quipped mid handshake "I'm the one he got his looks from!" we went with Elvis and his bride to Cracker Barrel where I consumed a normal, only faintly sodium laced meal that was so healthy it didn't even make me thirsty.

What the fuck?!? It's a great chain as they go. Lance Storm ( who hates Southwest airlines like me for the same reasons ) loves it and it was I am told the late Waylon Jennings favorite too. Even Mike McNally approved of our hometown CrackerBarrel during his visit here last June.

I tried some sort of delightfully stanky greens for the first time at Elvis urging; I believe it was turnip greens. I approved. We Irwin's are oozing with soul, right?

03/03/08

Spring break is lurking a few days away...and I need it. I'm broken down and need it.

I'm not gonna be one of the ones who snaps mere days before though...I hope.

Lots of assignments to work up this week.

I was working on one over the weekend sitting at my Imac when I sensed motion out in the driveway out of the corner of my eye.

I saw my lit professor neighbor in my driveway...MY LIT professor. He had rescued a cardboard box from a batch he layed out to be picked up..the heavy winds had blown it into our drive. VERY strange to see one of your Prof's waltzing around in your driveway.

NO grade posted yet on the papers we turned in to him a week ago.

Oh well, I turned in another paper today and will do so tomorrow for a 3rd class.

On the shuttlebus today I happened to notice a meek looking girl..sorta mousey..about 8 feet away from me staring at a book. Upon closer examination I noticed that placed inside the pages of the text book was what appeared to be color print of a photograph.

It was of a man..stark naked with a HUGE fucking pecker.

She just stared at it and stared at it...non stop.

This guys unit could not have been real..could it?

I dunno.

It was the size of a swollen billy club...if I could tell that from 8 feet away, it had to be damned impressive.

And she sat on the bus and stared at it nonstop.

I guess she's looking forward to spring break.

Maybe I'll climb on the bus tommorow and find that she's STILL in the same seat staring at the huge pecker. I hope so.....

02/27/08

Now that I know my lit Prof lives across the street, I find myself given to gazing at his house when I'm outside, conscious of the fact that..hey, he may be reading my paper this very minute. Does he think it sucks? Is he this very moment complaining to his wife about having a damned old returning student across the street, inhibiting his puking on the driveway or walking to the mail box in a mean morning wakeup mood..knowing I could be gossiping about him?

Well, I guess I am sort of more aware than I have been about the goings on over there..but, he has nothing to worry about when it comes to me telling students about what little I can see from across the street concerning his personal life. I'll never reveal his name here. Hey, whether you write literature or rants for zines or an often drunken diary like this, what you see going about your daily routine is just grist for the mill.

Oddly enough my frequent "no names" policy here often leads to people (especially those from bands!) thinking I'm writing about them when I'm either just generalizing or thinking about some band they've never heard of.

I've been really shocked a few times to learn than some former or current bandmember thinks I wrote something about him here when I had somebody else in mind, whom they've never met who might've played music with us when they were in grade school.

Anyway, I see lights on across the street. I can sort of see a faint glimmer even though there are tall hedges facing the street on both sides. Is he just now getting to my paper? Have I already earned a disappointing grade? Maybe it's good. Maybe it's bum wipe.

Uurrpp.

Mark from Canada ( of Radford's infamy ) has contacted me to state that the term "faux- hawk" that was discussed here a while ago has been in usage up there in Regina for a couple years and that his director at work sports one (!). I doubt that he and drunk Ted from San Diego know one another. It just goes to show you that it's a really natural and culturally accurate term for a silly hairdo.

He also mentioned the beige pants/blue shirt work-casual dress phenomena is big up there. He works with two men in an office and not once but TWICE they both showed up on the same day wearing this overworked combo. I believe he justifiably razzed the hell out of them.

I take great pride in the fact that repeatedly over the years in this diary I have mentioned little factoids concerning recent behavior quirks of humanoids that eventually become widely known and accepted.

Like this one. I saw a news story lead in tonight concerning two women who claim they were booted from an airline for life because they are TOO BEAUTIFUL. I was so excited; I was hoping it'd turn out they were simply oblivious MBC's ( "mouthy bar cunts", remember?). I had to wait through some commericals for the rest of the story. I walked into the next room where Marla was busy rubbing my hands together in glee and delight as I told her about it.

SURE ENOUGH..they were mere MBC's who got obnoxius during a flight and were escorted off upon arrival at their destination to be prosecuted I believe. An airline representative laughingly addressed the press explaining that their looks had nothing to do with their winding up in trouble. They were clearly immitating uninhibited feminine behavior they've seen on TV. Just being dumb cunts with no manners.

Just like lots of guys. The difference is when guys behave like MBC's they're considered assholes rather than simply uninhibited or fresh or honest.

Anyway, if you don't believe me about this beige/gold pants blue dress shirt thing, try watching 2 hours of cable television flipping through the channels a few times during the time period at your leisure. When you see some guy sporting this uniform..call it out: "gold pants blue shirt" and take a big hit off of your beer or a blast from your bottle. You'll be fucking WIPED before the 2 hours elapses..I guarandamntee.

02/22/08

It was like a scene from a sitcom. I took a break from writing a paper for my American novel class and walked out at about 3:00 in the afternoon to get the mail from our box...and I'll be goddamned if my across the street neighbor ( NOT the party house..next to it ) wasn't waltzing out like on cue to get his; and..he's my frigging professor for the class I'm writing the paper for. He said "I hope you're in there reading" in a joking manner. I responded "I'm writing YOUR DAMNED PAPER" I replied.

I think he's as reclusive as I am if not more so. He must've talked to his Wife about it just like I did to mine. He's ok in my book. I've noticed, sometimes there's a bigger pile of empty cans in front of his place for the Monday morning recycling pickup than in front of ours. Well, not that often. But...there's a determined effort to drink beer in that house evidently.

I think he's about 10 years younger than us. It would be fun to drink a few beers with him since he's a Moby Dick scholar (he got his PHD writing a thesis on it) and even though I've never read it, my old man was an amateur Moby Dick scholar. I can certainly understand the mind set of a 19th century American lit scholar. But, he's governed by rules against fraternization I'm sure. I'm not gonna pester the man.

What's the odds that I wind up with a professor of one of my classes living across the street? There are several hundred at the university. As Marla pointed out, it's damned good that the 2 or 3 assholes I've come up against didn't live there.

I lift my shotglass to that!

02/21/08

The University newspaper is about as horrid as you might expect. Lots of token articles about current event topics that students are supposed to be concerned about with very, very little meat and never an ounce of originality. Lots of rah rah school spirit crap that maybe 5% of students take seriously. Token diversity, token green tripe, a dorm humor comic strip.

I've learned to scan it in about 3 minutes. One of the highlights for me is spotting contradictions within the paper itself. The editorship appears to be about freshman level...HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMAN that is.

Here's my favorite pairing of articles that seem to make an unintended point without from this week. The student government President defended the student fund shelling out $550,000 to Starbucks to get them to install one of their outlets in the student center. He chirped happily that it will be a great way to make the public consider our school a big league institution. Meanwhile, an article ran portraying the living hell being endured by students riding shuttle buses from Austin and San Antonio to our fair campus. The conditions of the 45-60 minute rides sound like something you'd expect in Pakistan or Bang-the-desk with students crammed in standing room only style with no commuter hand straps at all. The director of the shuttlebus program (undoubtedly a senior or grad student) said there was NOTHING that could be done intil Fall 2009. You see, he explained, they were awaiting some sort of grant money..their hands were tied.

I've heard a dozen students bitch about the shuttle hell-ride. Guess what? It's not even a free service? Riders pay $4 per ride and of course we shell out our tuition money, a chunk of which goes into a student fund...so that frat boy student government types can earmark the money for Starbucks to profit from..or maybe a new football stadium scoreboard ( yep..another recent purchase).

I bet the student government guy and his pals and their women don't have to ride commuter buses. Of course not; they all have brand new cars Daddy bought 'em that are worth more than some of the tiny houses in town students live in.

The shuttle bus assholes have fucked me over by changing routes at the last minute so many times I've quit even referring to it here. I'm saving it for a mag column or eventual book.

It's been a rough week. My shoes wore out weeks ago and I haven't had time to replace them. I had to get some Dr. Scholls moleskin bandage crap to ward off the mysterious shooting pains I got from the worn out shoes. Marla special ordered me a pair of identical shoes to what I have ( they're extra wide) and they finally got delivered to our door. Now, another catch22. If I wear the new ones, GUARANTEED I'll get blisters. If I continue to wear the old ones I'll keep mangling my feet. What to do?

With age comes harsher hangovers and more foot pain.

Marla worked a combined total of 35 hours over the last two days. Her feet are hamburger too. Tonight we wound up out of leftovers with neither of us in any sort of shape to shop much less cook.

Most people would order pizza or hit a fastfood drivethrough...hell, a lot of people do 4-5 times per week and some shovel it in every day of the week.

We used to...and I wish we could again. Of course as longtime readers of this know I can only eat normal, sodium dosed restaurant or prepared foods from stores occasionally.

It doesn't bother me most of the time, but on nights like this one it REALLY pisses me.

Finally, since I can occasionally eat fast food I volunteered to go to good old WHATABURGER. I had to pick up beer too. My feet hurt as I walked into the grocery store, but I felt good knowing Marla could sit on her ass and not be waiting on me.

I rarely feel "happy".

I feel satisfied a couple times a day and relieved often that something is not going wrong, but I haven't been "happy" even at least 2 hours a day in so many years I've lost track. Maybe I need to write a Carbon14 column exploring this.

I felt "happy" during the drive to Whataburger.

I've recommended them to a couple score of vistors to Texas. They cook your order individually and their fries are home cut. The only problem I've had in the past with them is ordering at their drivethru. I have REAL problems at drivethru windows since I'm one of the few Americans that rarely patronizes them.

Picture me as a confused Hank Hill trying to deal with a Tex-Mex speaking 16 year old at a drivethru window. I DON"T want their combo's. I DON'T want their overpriced drinks. If I say I want 3 pieces of chicken at Popeyes I will have a #3 combo waiting for me at the window.

People around here ask we anglo's if we're "bilingual" when they want to know if you speak Spanish.

Now that I've learned German to an extent I love to shock them by answering "Jah. Und du?"

Anyway, a geeky Texas anglo took my order at Whataburger at the confusing drivethru menu. He tried to slicker me into adding a hot peachpie for only 99 cents. Uh uh, buddy. I'm really craving a nice sodium laced burger with a little box of fries on the side.

Since I rarely eat this sort of thing when I do, I want it to be right. Of course you know what happened. It came out completely wrong. I should have ordered the peach pie.

I wanted a bacon cheese burger..Marla wanted just cheese. Neither of us got cheese though and I didn't get to eat bacon for the first time in 4 months. Why?

How was I to know that their goddamned burgers don't come with cheese? Don't you have to order specially to get them to leave the cheese off? Doesn't everybody eat cheeseburgers?

Now, I know..you're probably shaking your head in amazement that I don't know what comes commonly with a fucking burger in the year 2008.

Well, go blow it out your ass. I wish a case of fastfood induced double-whopper-roids on you.

The burger sucked. It was the sort of bland lump of pickle flavored, salty, easy to masticate with dentures crud my dead Scandanavian Aunt Fern might've preferred. The fries tasted like they sent somebody across the street to McDonalds dumpster to fill my order.

I'm very disappointed.

I guess next time..which will probably be a few months from now.. it's back to Popeyes for another go around with them. Now do you see why I prefer to chow at Subway when I'm on vacation? They're not perfect, but at least they fucking try to serve you something relatively good for you.

02/16/08

Situations that would often be shrugged off or outright ignored in a real city are fodder for laughter here in this hick town.

Imagine a multi-tatt sporting, bearded and obese man who looks like he road his Harley up to the front door pawing through the kiddie book cart at the public library.

Yes, that was me down there today, sifting through books with lettering two inches thick and colorful drawings in search of a fairy tale book.

What's that? wouldn't they assume I was looking for a book for my kid? Unfortunately NO. I'm a regular and I've never brought a child into the library before.

I started out trying to get a librarian to help me, but she seemed useless.

Why did I need a fairy tale anthology?

Why it's simple. For my German class. We're gonna be writing our own fairy tales (German word "Marchen" ) and my memory has faded over the years. I remember the basic gist of most of them, but not the details. Some of them (like "the frog prince") I've completely forgotten.

Anyway, I found a nice fat collection of fairy tales with adult sized print and then settled into a cubicle to study Physics for a while ( "electromagnetics"..quite a contrast, eh?).

I eventually found my way home, climbed into my p.j.'s and cracked it open.

Actually, I read the first story aloud to Marla and Dixie the cat. It was "Puss in boots"

What a vile story!

For those of you who may have forgotten, I'll remind you..fairy tales are cruel as fuck.

The puss in this story suffocates bunnies, threatens to dice up a group of peasants into minced meat and gets the King shitfaced on wine.

Holy Shit!

Another story has a moralistic ending in which the heel female winds up getting stripped stark naked and stuffed into a barrel of nails and dragged about town!

The ending of "Snow White and the seven dwarves" in the book finds the evil stepmother being forced to endure a form of painful torture; a pair of heated iron shoes in which she is expected to "dance" until she dies. Disney skipped over that little detail, didn't he?

These stories are loaded with examples of senseless and impulsive behavior, vile trickery, horrid cruelty dished up to humans and animals alike and a sexist, dogmatic dominance by Kings and Princes.

Hey, I'm supposed to write a fairy tale in German language along the lines of these stories? I can't fucking wait.

02/14/08

Valentines day. I hope you fucking enjoy it. Really...sort of.

That is, if you can manage to steer away from making it a holiday that benefits primarily the greeting card and restaurant industries. Cliche romance and love are two different things.

Love means you do like Marla and me and steer clear of the commercial aspects of the glorius day. We've been together 30+ years and if asked chalk it up to seperate vacations and seperate identities for both parties not dependant in any way on each other.

Ok, I know as cynical as that sounds that my son and daughter in law will likely do the things you're supposed to do on this day as a couple married 6 months. Well, shoot for being able to carve out seperate realms in some way eventually.

Cookie cutter, by the numbers romance is false in nature.

If you don't have a partner on this hallowed day, don't despair. It's not that big a deal at all.

I'm more concerned about my physical pain. I've taken 3 tests over the last 3 days that required deep preperation. I've fucking HAD IT. I'm consciously avoiding any thought whatsoever about further academic responsibilities for a day or two while I re-gain my strength.

I learned about a whole new kind of pain over the last few days. I needed to get new walking "school shoes" a couple months ago and didn't. I wound up 2 nights in a row with horrid shooting pains in my right foot big toe. A chunk of a seam or something in my shoes wound up sticking down and irritating my foot. The pain was intense and rather unpredictable. It was of the "shooting" variety. It fucked with my sleep. I tried to nod off at my nornal nap times but with a pain that randomly caused me to scream in pain every 15-60 seconds that wasn't to be.

After a couple hours both nights the pain vanished. I guess I should be glad for that.

It complicates the situation that choking down pain pills is no help when it comes to studying for my 3 in a row days of tests.

Since we live in a tiny hick town the shoe store didn't have my extra wide size. My new shoes will be delivered in a couple days. I'll tough it out in the meantime...scaring the cats with my primal screams in the process.

02/10/08

It was a peaceful Sunday afternoon. I was studying for yet another Physics exam. I gazed out our front window and noticed that a guy had parked his truck in front of the party house across the street and unloaded a tool box.

I should say former party house. Most of the frat guys have moved out of there. There remains a rich Paris Hilton wannabe from their crew and I think a guy from a different social circle than the frat dudes.

Of course the civic minded business major frat jerkoffs left a mountain of broken crap in a heap by the sidewalk. They also managed evidently in one of their final nightly parties to wreck the garage door ( powered by a switch ) by getting it stuck in a crooked angle off of the path of its metal guide-tracks.

When we anglos get stuck in a mess like that in this town we call in a hispanic or two to fix things. That's why the guy with the truck was there. He got right to work hustling in an impressive manner.

I was distracted from my studies by a few things I saw. He had brought along his wife and two kids for some odd reason. She stood looking docile and brain dead with a baby strapped to her front while a kid about 6 pranced around doing make believe karate moves.

For some reason I couldn't figure out the truck was left for the entire time they were there with all four of its doors open. Had somebody cut a fart that they were trying to air out? Or is this something truck owners like to do to show off their truck? Don't ask me..I'm still trying to figure out exactly why people drive slouched down low in their seat.

The guy worked for a couple hours. I kept looking up from my books. I thought about my old man who mowed doctors lawns on Sundays in the 1950's before he and my Mother adopted me and my sister. The guy was making clear rapid progress on the garage door which has been stuck open for weeks. I respected the guys knowledge and speed, but I wondered what the fuck his wife was doing there. Did she want to be there? If so, why didn't she bring a book or something to knit or a radio or some toys to keep the kids busy?

Maybe its because I'm going through a temporary school phase in which I don't have two hours to waste that I wondered how she could afford to.

The older kid was pretty well behaved. Neither parent yelled at him the whole time they were there. The Mother just kept standing in the driveway doing nothing at all...not bitching at the guy to hurry..not ragging at the older kid..not fussing with the baby. Just standing there.

I completely gave up studying eventually and just watched trying to figure it all out. Were they all going for pizza after the guy got done? Had they been to church that morning? What does the guy do for a living during the week? He was a goddamned bustass worker..running up the steps of his ladder. There was no coke break and none of the mans family at any point seemed to ask him when in the hell he was gonna be done.

Eventually a few minutes after he got the door fixed Paris came strolling out of the house wearing extreme short shorts. I thought of the strong male she's shacked up with ( I think ) he looks like an athlete. Why couldn't he fix the damned door? For that matter, why couldn't just ONE of the frat guys and their huge array of scores of friends find just ONE guy in their number to fix the damned thing they had wrecked during a party?

A lot of things puzzle me about this situation, but one thing is for sure: the frat guys come from homes that espouse the mentality when something gets busted or fucked up..call in a Mexican to fix it.

The Mexican fix it guy was one of the hardest workers I've seen in a long time. He drove a nice truck. His wife and kids were uncomplaining. He seems to have a nice life. He obviously is such a good worker he does something else during the week. Maybe he's an assistant bank branch manager like my old man?

Marla came home a few minutes after the family left. I filled her in on all the happenings ( if you want to call it that ) and asked her why in the hell the wife just stood with a blank look on her face for two hours. He could've dropped her and the kids off at a park or Walmart or a relatives house. Why didn't she bring a magazine at least?

Marla had a quick answer. She said that she obviously didn't trust the guy to work there alone. She wanted tokeep an eye on her man.

I thought about the Paris-snot wannabe and how much leg she had showed and it became clear..I think.

I asked Marla one more thing. I admitted I had no idea how he fixed the door, but since I'm in my second semester of physics I think I've learned enough to hazard a guess that he would've had to pull the door BACK UP rather than down to begin the process. Marla nodded yes, shrugging as if that was really obvious.

Then, she repaired back to our master bathroom where she has been installing a new shower/tub with shiny fixtures. I'm told the water pressure will be powerful.

And me? I headed up to the Austin chess club for my kind of mental workout.

During the drive I thought about that lady standing there like a cow with her kid strapped to her; I bet she's an Oprah fan.

02/07/08

THIS JUST IN!!

Drunk Ted has informed me of his own name for what Marla has dubbed the "Gerber baby" hair-do that is currently such an essential landmark of tonsorial importance. Here is his message in his own words...

"I've been calling that dumbass haircut a "FO-HAWK" for years now! It's like they're too much of a pussy to get a real mohawk, so they make their hair into a faux-hawk.

You can't change MY name for that ridiculous hairdo!!!! And please give me credit for that name if you print it in your diary!

Drunk Ted"

Well, Ted's a wise man whom I respect. His name for that doo is a good one which I hope you'll all add to your vocabulary. I personally think that there's a healthy tradition of multiple names for hairdo's. What many call a "mullet" is referred to by others ( Mike McNally for instance ) as a "mudflap". Has anybody asked one of the little worms who sport this style what they call it?

02/05/08 #2

I simply can't wait a day to post this. You know the new male hairdo that seems to have legs..the one in which guys goop up their hair into a sort of mohican minus the shaved sides? I've been asserting around here that it's a lame, commitmentless version of a mohican that makes the tonsorial bearer look abstract-wise somewhat like a pinhead.

I asked Marla for her 2 cents worth..what we should call this new look...vital as it is.

She said it should be known as the "Gerber baby" look....

And so it shall..from this day forth.

02/05/08

For the second morning in a row I've popped out of bed early. As a student that rarely fucking happens. I always could use some sleep. The only bad thing about it though really is that today is Marla's day off and she needs time without me up and around. So, I'll just sit here and quietly tap away for a few minutes.

I've now completely lost interest in the election..not that I was ever more than a casual observor. I wound up watching news shows 1/2 half to an hour per day though. I'm glad that phase in my life is over and done with.

It got to be too much to stomach..one party wanting to harken back to the glory days of conservatism: the Reagan era ( YUCK! financially one of the worst times in my life ) and elements of the other party trying to con people with Kennedy clan pixie-dust.

It's all horseshit. Anybody wanna buy my vote?

Of course, even though it's fairly easy a task to realize that Americans are in general

gullibe and worthless, it's incredibly difficult to fathom JUST HOW clueless and stupid Americans can be. The Kennedy nostalgia angle bait is a prime example. I have to strain my mighty mind until my skull tingles all over to conceptualize anybody taking Ted Kennedy and the rest of that brood seriously in 2008.

Even though I haven't much of a philanthropic spirit I still sincerely hope that the people being conned by this truckload of offal are old rather than young...so they'll DIE SOONER.

Between the sentimental goo teet sucking and the conspiracy quacks and their bilge and the minute by minute tediousness of the reporters clammering to catch somebody in a faux pas it's stinking so fucking bad I can't take any more.

The bottom line is this: I've lived through a lot of American elections and I can't remember one where it seemed so pointless to try to talk to the various politicians accolytes..eyes glazing over...a cliche rebuke spewing from their mouth.

I attribute it to the rise over the years of the "cause oriented" single issue voter citizen.

Common sense has never been in such short supply.

PHEW! I wash my hands of the whole process officially here and now.

02/02/08

Usually I'm fairly decisive about things. The last couple weeks though I've been going back and forth about a major decision to the point almost of ridiculousness.

The question is whether to go for a masters degree or not. I know, I know..students tend to talk big about going for advanced degrees when they start out working on a bachelors degree. I hear it daily from students I doubt will even last long enough to get that first degree. After a few tough classes the idea seems to fade into the background.

In my case, when I went back to school I didn't expect all that much in the way of grades and I surprised myself. I have a frigging 4.0 within the Texas State history department. Combined with my work at Portland State from many years ago it's still about a 3.7 which is pretty damned good.

Marla and I have talked for hours on several occasions about it and actually made decisions both ways only to have me the next day questioning the decision we made.

All the obvious indications are that I'd do well. I "mastered" the undergrad term paper, my professors have unanimously applauded my work. Student loans are likely available.

I consulted a reader of this diary who is going for his M.A. in history. He seemed encouraging. Elvis gives the idea a double thumbs up.

I'm not afraid of the reading or writing involved and I'll enjoy learning more about research. So why the indecision?

The most negative thoughts in my mind that I can identify have to do with the fact that when I was growing up one of the worst things that ever happened to we earwigs was my old man going for his MBA. Now, it's been pointed out to me that a business oriented advanced degree is a whole different animal than a history MA.

I also have to admit that I probably feel more at home as a student than old Bob. He had the misfortune of going back to school for a masters during the peak of the hippie era. Hell, he had almost as little use for them as I did. It was nice for us to find common ground for once.

Anyway, he'd come home from his day at work and night at school way madder than ever..which is saying something. He was a serious hothead. I've taken after him some but can't do justice to his angry tirades. He yelled at me more in an average week than I ever have at Elvis during the course of his life. We tiptoed around him when he came home in a relatively peaceful mood, because he was always on edge; it took little to set him off.

As I've pointed out before, we talked all of this out before he died. He made a point of telling me from his death bed that he wished he hadn't gone for his MBA and had spent more time with his kids instead.

Break out the violins...

I don't mean to be rude, but I don't think I'm consciously letting his view looking back on his life sway my decision. Subconsciously? I dunno.

Why am I unable to commit one way or another?

What might amaze readers of this diary is the fact that I'm capable of being accepted for graduate work. I'm a frigging clueless imbecile in many ways. I have major, serious problems opening containers. I gave up on changing the oil in my car 25 years ago. I can't bait a hook right to save my life. I can't talk to computer tech support people. I can't BBQ on an outdoor grill ( odd isn't it? most men can do THAT...but a lot of them can't cook indoors like I can). I can't program a VCR and I only understand what a few of the buttons on the cable TV remote do.

I can write a term paper though..and come up with fresh ideas on history books and literature old and new. I understand Shakespeare and got a 104 in the only Philosophy class of my life. I've beaten my share of chess masters...and am a registered BMI song writer.

UURRppppp.....well, we've decided to wait a few days and see if fate chimes in and helps us with the decision.

01/26/08

So, I woke up from an evening nap not all that long ago and found Marla watching some sort of bear documentary on the discovery channel. There was a camera front and center capturing various bear antics. Bears play fighting, bears licking each other, bears fighting for real, etc.

I'm a sucker for bears. I think of them everytime I back my way into an object I can rub my itchy back against. Honestly, I dig bears.

I plopped down and began watching the documentary enjoying it for several minutes. Eventually, the guy who apparently was the camera man and in fact one man film crew began stepping in front of the camera to deliver explanations of what was happening. He had a slightly grown out Kevin Von Erich ( the barefoot one ) circa WCCW era hairdo colored red. After about a half an hour I began to realize that the guy was talking more and more about his "mission" as savior for the bears and less and less about the bears themselves. Still, on a night when "Paula's party" was probably the next best selection it seemed like a wise decision to give the show a chance and keep watching.

Soon it became evident through some rather frank and honest narrative spoken over the bear lover, that the documentary was about the guy and the bears edited by somebody else. Eventually a film maker presented his face and stated that even though he respected the bear guy he thought he must've had a death wish.

I was hooked and kept watching along with an increasingly sleepy Marla. Eventually the documentary revealed that the guy and a girlfriend of his were devoured by one of his grizzly bear pals.

I'm sure this is old hat to most of you. It was news to me.

The film maker began explaining the background of the bear guy. Evidently he had some sort of substance abuse problems preceding his becoming a champion of Alaskan bears.

It doesn't take a genius to connect the psychological dots. The guy had substituted the thrills he got from the bottle with the thrills of risking his life in the company of deadly grizzly bears.

If I had quit watching the production after 15 minutes I would've been impressed with the grizzly guys work. Instead the longer I watched it the more clearer it became that the guy was a frigging NUT...a self righteous, judgemental, holier than thou, attention seeking animal nut.

It was revealed that the guy kept numerous combs in his camera kit to keep sprucing his doo up every few minutes to convince the audience that he was younger than he was. Shit, he was only a couple years older than me..and tried to have some sort of 25-30 year old "X-games" look.

Then, friends of the late bear guy revealed that his greatest hopes were that he'd be considered akin to a "rock star" ( yes, that's the exact phrase they kept using) for his work with bears.

Shit. In the end Marla and I both weren't sad over the fact that some bear got a nice meal out of him and his girlfriend whom he had cockily dragged up to Alaska. He had grandios ambitions as opposed to pure love for the bears. He was stupid ( in the opinion of several interviewed experts ) to think that the bears considered him some sort of unique human pal. He got ripped to pieces...and so did his innocent girlfriend. Some hero.

I should know better than to think I'm gonna see anything less than attention seekers filming animals. It's not enough to love em...you have to be a nut and elevate them up onto a holy alter beyond their own level of significance.

Oh well...he left behind some great bear photos and films if you ever get a chance to see them with his puss edited out.

01/22/08

Marla came up with a great thought you may have fun arguing about with humanoids you know around the water cooler, or bong, or wherever else you spend your day.

I was yakking with her, filling her in on my areas of interest in the field of history. I'm interested in U.S. history mostly. I'm a 20th century guy for the most part, although I've read quite a bit about other periods. I commented about how my interest begins to sag in the mid 60's right about the time that music, cars, fashion and many other things were pretty well fucked up by the hippies.

Thank the non-existent gods, I'm a few years too young to have been part of their asinine horseshit. Although there are pictures proving I wore the occasional nehru jacket as a youngster, I hated their music, steered clear of their patchouli stench filled communal abodes and laughed at their loose and murky concepts of peace and love. They always prided themselves on being "mellow", but were as crabby as anybody else when their waterpipe went missing, or some fellow hippies hippie-dog took a big dump on their precious Buffalo Springfield and Santana albums.

I didn't like 'em THEN..and I sure as frigging hell haven't changed my mind over the years.

One of the things that irks me the most about being more or less shackled within close proximity of these goons for most of my life is having to listen to their inaccurate, exagerrated tripe about how they supposedly changed the world by protesting, wallowing in mud, using stupid hep lingo like "groovy" and being so high and stupid they made the lowest wino laying in the gutter seem like a sage scholar.

The hippies were fucking sheep who liked to consider themselves individuals. Go pay a visit to most university towns in America and you'll find lots of the growup hippie generation clowns still acting like sheep. They're every bit as much conformists (to different values) as their parents..whom they derided for being so.

So, Marla wisely suggested off of the top of her head, that if there had been no Vietnam war, perhaps there would have been no hippies..Hhmm?

They bitched and pissed and moaned about that war...hells fucking bells, they STILL ARE. I'm not a fan of that particular war myself, but SHIT. They seem to define themselves by it. If it weren't for the war, what would they have done? Should they be thankful for that war?

If U.S. involvement in Vietnam had ended by, or..say 1964..What direction would music and popular culture have taken? Would drug use have risen with a different twist..without all the hippie trappings and buzzwords? Would the British invasion bands have stuck to playing actual rock & roll..rather than preachy, self indulgent hippie blather?

How might the South and other conservative regions have progressed if they didn't have hippies to hate? How might I be different if I didn't grow up in the wake of a massive generation of trendy, malodorous, "switched-on" goofs ?

What about all you spawn of the hippie generation? How might life have been better for you if your parents hadn't a smirch of hippie influence?

Perhaps the hippie cultural blight is some sort of cosmic payback to the U.S. for its busybody foreign policy? HHmm? Roll that one up, plug it into your smokestone and have a toke.

01/18/08

I heard the news about 5:30 a.m. this morning just as Marla was getting up and I was ready to drain a final bedtime shot: Bobby Fischer 1946-2008. He was dead.

Those of you who remember me ranting against him here a few years ago won't be surprised to know that for the first time upon the death of somebody I've once really respected I simply took my empty shot glass to the sink and returned the bottle to the bar. No dice..no shot..no sugar tonight.

He's been nuts for many years. He turned on his country AND on his race ( he was a foaming at the mouth, anti-semitic Jew).

Bobby and baseball player Orlando Cepeda were my childhood hero's. As a young chess player winning lots of kids tournaments I was referred to by adults as "a regular Bobby Fischer!" lots of times. For that matter, in junior high and high school lots of boneheads trying to razz me would use his name against me as an insult.

Elvis just called to check on me. He knows I gave up on Bobby yeara ago, but just wanted to be sure I wasn't taking it too badly.

I thanked him for calling and told him that I just realized today a huge impact Fischer made on my life I had never thought of before. I'm a hybrid night owl/ lone wolf. I stay up all night whenever possible reading, watching stuff, studying things ( including chess ) alone with a little music or talk in the background. This is how I have gotten many things done I'm proud of. My first awareness in life of somebody who lived this nocturnal lifestyle was Bobby. The press made a big deal about it. I didn't make the connection until I woke up ( appropriately) this afternoon.

There are a jillion maudlin posts being made at my favorite chess website chessgames.com

As a member, I have my own humble "forum" there ( my handle is "whiskeyrebel" duh..). Not wanting to freak out Bobby's fans on this day on his own page at the site, I posted this message at my own. I may write something more later.

"Here are my private thoughts on Fischer. I'm expressing them here rather than his page out of respect to his well meaning, but sometimes shall we say "dotty" fans. He was my boyhood idol and of course a titan over the board. In spite of his thrilling and heroic exploits becoming WC, it was clear to many of us fans even then that the guy had an obnoxius streak and a lack of grace. When I heard he joined the wacko church in L.A. I was shocked. How could Bobby be so gullible? The truth became clear: Bobby wasn't "perfect" or a god. Just a mixed up dude with chess talent. As the years went by what few reports and Bobby sightings we were exposed to were almost always disappointing. Most of his statements seemed to be the words of a spoiled child. He was no longer my idol of course by this time. I felt sorry for him and hoped that someday, someone could talk some sense into him. I'd like to take this opportunity as a chess fan and former Bobby fan to thank all those true friends in his circle who TRIED to help him, TRIED to stand up to him, even if it meant alienating him. To them ( rather than RJF ) I raise my shot glass. Suggested music for pondering Bobby's existence on this day: "The Madcap Laughs" LP by Syd Barrett. I bet some of you will make the connection."

01/15/08

God damn, it's good to be "up and doin" everyday once again. By the time semesters are over I need a fucking rest, but this time I layed around so long I'm almost ashamed of myself..ALMOST.

Back to slogging thru mud to shuttle bus connections..back to gazing at coed's most significant attributes..back to trying to survive desks that would be too small even if I lost 80 pounds. This weekend, back to old school over-studying at a poorly populated library as if it were finals week.

It's better to be away from home doing something..anything..than following the election closely which I had been sucked into doing.

My classes are all past noon, so I study late and drink even later.

The question has been debated around here whether or not I should go for a masters degree since I've done well enough. I think todays experiences have steered me on a midway course. I attended my first "intro to public history' course. Public history assumes many forms; in general it's history focusing on edumacating the "people" as opposed to communicating to historians, or college students. Public history courses are oriented towards JOBS that the students hope to make themselves eligable for at locations ranging from museums to film sets to historic sights to record archives.

As an advanced course of study, it's very practical. My University offers a happy medium of sorts beyond a B.A. degree and less time consuming and intense than an M.A. It's a "certificate" which I suppose is somewaht like a teaching "certificate" in a sense. It's likely easily completed in a couple semesters including an internship to get one's ass out into a working situation.

Hey, I'm the frigging "jobjumper". I could use some help to take advantage of my soon to be earned degree. This public history certificate sounds really good. . Today I checked out the professor lady who is going to begin running the program. She's the former director of one of the best history museums I've ever been to. I'll have the next 4+ months in this undergrad course I'm enrolled in to develope an understanding of the field better. I can figure out whether I'm best suited to consult with documentary or film/TV producers for my daily bread, or use my charming verbal skills in a museum or slog away in a record archive like a did years ago in the title insurance biz.

One more thing of note: One doctor says my sister has Huntington's disease ( check back a couple entries ago for the full story ) and one says she doesn't. Let's hope for the latter.

I think they're going to give my long hospitalized birth mother a blood test to narrow down the possibilities a bit. If I could get checked without weeks of counseling horseshit I would..but we know that's not possible.

01/11/08

It's a college town..and we're all trying to get in a few last memorable drunks before the new semester starts Monday..or so they say.Personally, I'll be drinking everynight anyway but only to reach a comfortable and peaceful mindset. Plenty of younger students will be going at it every night as well. Why not? Their parents are paying for the classes they're blowing off..so what.

And, if they pile up their shiny recent model car or truck they'll just call Daddy and cry a river until he makes everything right by buying 'em a new one.

On Thursday night I met Mark at the bar at an hour that's pretty damned early for me, a guy who gets up in the afternoon. If you 9-5 types think I'm being a wussie, try sucking down 3 shots of whiskey and draining 2 giant pitchers of beer on your own on an EMPTY stomach before noon. It's really not that big of a deal for a seasoned drinker. I didn't get all that drunk but I realized I needed to get something into my system food wise. I wound up with a super-high sodium packet of cashews and a slab of Mark's pizza.

I had a very strange time. When I paid off my tab at the end of the night I realized I knew at least 3 people on either side of me at the bar from various classes. That's an average night for most of you, but an overdose for a guy who rarely gets out.

So, Marla gave me a ride home. There was nothing low sodium to eat since neither of us had time. She had been at work and I had been at the bar. We ate a frozen pizza which was loaded with sodium and both felt bad.

I napped at about 11:00 p.m. and couldn't get back to sleep when I woke up at 2:00 a.m.

Remember, San Marcos bars are only open until midnight. I can't get into the early riser routine which would allow me to finish the job at them. I usually don't start drinking until about 1:30 or 2:00 a.m.

I had to get up at 2:00 a.m. to fill the stool with about a triple flush load of diareah.

YOW!

I wasn't happily drunk, but I wasn't sober enough to get much done. Luckily I only need about half my brain to read the Nathaniel Hawthorne book I've been assigned to wade through.I read until about 5:00 crapping once more during these hours. I finally started up drinking a few casual beers at that time and went to bed at a normal time for me of about 6:30.

If the bars were open until 2:00 a.m. or better yet all night I'd start later and finish late enough that I could go straight home and sleep peacefully through the night.

I'll be paying off the sodium of last night by eating like a frigging parakeet for 2 weeks.

I try to have a night at the bar and this is what happens....FUCK....

01/09/08

Well, whether I have the Huntington's disease gene or not probably will not be settled for sure for some time. It'll be just another fear to hang over my head and keep me from sleeping well. The only comfort I have is knowing that it had to come from my Granny in Southern Oregon or her late husband..my Grandpa Lester. Granny is tough as nails in her 80's..so scratch her. Lester died in a logging accident at the age of 42 in fine, strapping health. Granny told Marla that his parents and brothers all lived long lives. No sign of it.

I respect Granny enough to put it on the backburner as much as I can.

That doesn't help my sister though.

I have my final undergrad school semester starting up within days. I've got to tackle that now. For a year and a half we've been jumping through hoops of red tape trying to get some of my credits from the late 70's/early 80's acknowledged. The department that has caused most of the trouble is ominously known as "University college". My first visit there ( which I probably wrote here about at the time ) didn't go well. I walked into their office at 4:15 on a Friday looking for help. The employees eyeballed me and gave me looks like they thought I was a mad homeless dude.

Hey, how DARE I expect government employees to actually work up until 5:00 pm on a Friday? They gave me a hand full of forms to fill out and shooed me out the door.

Marla took over dealing with them. She filled out a pile of forms and went back to their office. She even talked to the head guy. He told her I needed to see my department advisor, that they make all the decisions. I visited her for the 2nd time..she told me I needed to see University college that her hands were tied. That was just the beginning of a clusterfuck of desk people in various offices all over the campus passing the buck and 1) refusing to make decisions 2) verbally stating decisions that were favorable, but in the end not changing neccessary records in the computer system 3) simply saying "NO"..that I'd have to retake a mess of classes with no decent reason being given.

For instance, months ago she handed a form giving me credit finally for some courses to a guy in the liberal arts department. He nodded and vowed to take care of the inputting of the data instantly. NOTHING HAPPENED.

Today she hit the jackpot. When I told Elvis how many of my academic headaches were solved today, he was amazed. It simply seems ridiculously farfetched once you've been through this for a year or two to expect University employeest to actually act efficiently and promptly.

I think Marla got lucky because this is a week in which lots of parents of incoming students are on campus. The lady she talked to began entering stuff into her computer AS THEY TALKED.

The Univeristy "seminar" is a drippy course in which freshmen are trained to do things like handle their own laundry and write checks. It seems easy, but Elvis has had friends who wound up writing long papers on these sort of subjects. I REALLY wanted to get this waived. I've been told by other returning older students that they had gotten it waived. Marla has been told there was NO WAY the course was ever waived. That I may as well take it..

Today, it was waived in a heart beat.

My economics and psychology credits from 25 years ago were immediately accepted and keyed into the database as being settled.

Marla was told that if we can provide a simple but official description of a math course I took in about 1979 ( it's already in the mail from Portland State University) she'll waive further math the next time Marla visits.

She directed Marla to another office in the building where she got lucky again dealing with a lady from the English department. It was starting to look like I was gonna have to take some sort of pre-1600 literature/poetry course from one of the devout feminists in the department; NOPE..WAIVED! My 2 hour Shakespeare course from 1980 was granted close enough to complete my 3 hour requirement.

My 9 hours of writing courses consist of 6 upper division and 3 from the required nose picker freshman level course. We only need to provide a description of one of the courses and she has pledged to comp me for the nosepicker class I missed. GREAT. I don't have to take another freshmen course on 3 part essays.

If the story stopped there, it would look like I'd be in line to graduate in June of this year.

C'MON..things never work out that easily. There's always a frigging catch.

It seems that I have to take a mysterious physics "lab" in addition to the course I just took and the one I'm about to take. It only meets once a week and the work is so simple as to be child like..yunno..filling balloons with gases, rolling marbles down slanted boards.

I tried to sign up for a lab last summer and was rejected by the computer system. It said there was NO FUCKING LAB for my class.

Another mystery. Oh well, I'll settle for the progress made today. Thank you Marla.

After spending 18 months at this university I can finally now visit my history department advisor with a clear enough record that she can advise me on other matters such as just what in the hell I'm gonna do to cash in on a history degree.

I'm reading ahead for my final lit. class "the American novel". I'm on the second book. The first one "the last of the mohicans" wasn't too bad, but so far "the house of seven gables" is turning out to be such a snoozefest I may wind up wishing the prof. had forced us to read some Jane Austen dreck....EEWWWW.

01/07/08

Balls. You bitch and piss and moan and worry about all sorts of tiny shit..and then something really big happens that threatens your life and you realize how tenuous a grasp we have on it. We can get hit by a car or a hunk of metal falling from the sky or smacked down by a sudden illness at any moment.

Quite a few of our relatives and friends relatives and friends and friends of friends over the last few years have died. The older your circle of acquantances gets the more often it happens. Some people naturally have an attitude that it can't happen to anybody they know..sudden death or possible grave incurable illness.

I first experienced the reality that death can happen anytime to anybody when my old man died of cancer when I was in my very early 20's.

We plan to live out big, full lives and cross our fingers hoping the people around us will all be around when we're finally old.

We live in fear of those shocking middle of the night phone calls telling us somebody we care for is on deaths doorstep..or worse already gone.

I got one of those shocking wakeup messages tonight.

My blood sister..the one who has beaten cancer twice has been diagnosed with Huntington's disease. She told Marla a week or two ago over the phone she probably had a serious condition, but it didn't really register with me something was so dangerously wrong until I got a report from Marla tonight on a phone conversation they had earlier today. Marla was going to bed when she told me about the diagnosis ( I had been at the chess club in Austin all night). So, I said something like "yes honey" and tromped off to look the disease up on the internet. I instantly learned how serious the situation is.

So, this is how it works. You pay only half attention to your sister and wife and walk around in an ignorant state, bellyaching all the while about day to day trauma..until you happen to look up the disease and realize that not only your sister is in for another battle, you've possibly got it too..and have maybe passed it on to your son.

I might have the deadly gene. It's a 50/50% chance you get dealt the gene from a parent that has the disease. My sister got it. Her call was to suggest that I have the blood test taken to determine whether I have it.

If you DON'T get the gene, you can't pass it on to your kids.

If you DO, they have the same 50/50% chance of coming down with the disease during their lifetime.

Now, the big question for my personal health and that of Elvis and any of his future possible spawn is this: which parent passed it on to her?

We are actually half siblings by blood with the same Mother. If she got the Huntingtons gene from Mother, I have a 50/50% chance. If she got it from her Father I don't have it.

Either way, all of my siblings on that side are just as prone to winding up with the disease. Worse yet, their kids have no better chance of avoiding it than they do.

This all makes a car wreck seem almost charitable in comparison. You can't pass a car wreck on to your kids.

I really, really sweated it out alone for about a half hour in front of our Imac..eyeballing my loyal plastic pig, ceramic turtle and duck.

I read further about the disease and learned that if the effects are gonna kick in its usually when you're in the 30-50 age range. I just passed 50..which is good..but then my sister is just approaching it. Our siblings show no sign of it that we know..but they're all younger. One already has passed away from cancer..another stubbornly refuses to "recognize" us as brother and sister ( we were both given up for adoption )..compounding the difficulty of trying to figure out who has it. All of them have kids. I'm an uncle many, many times over..although I've only seen a few of the little buggers in person. The kids I've only seen in pictures from happy occasions...all have a strong chance of getting the bad gene.

I felt my temperature rising as I thought it all over...trying to logic out which parent passed it on to my sister.

It had to start with either my hillbilly granny whom I honor and respect more than anyone on the face of the earth..or her husband my grandpa on that side. Granny is well into her 80's..well after the period anybody comes down with Huntington's..and tough as nails. No disease gene was passed on by her. It comes down to my Grandpa. His name was Lester. He died when he was 42 in a logging accident in Southern Oregon. Chances are he would've exhibited signs of it by that age. Nope. I'm told he was strong, able and a crack shot.

They had 4 children together. If Grandpa Lester had the disease gene none of them got it so far as we know. My uncle and two aunts are in their mid 60's..and healthy. My blood Mother had a breakdown in her mid 60's that left her in an institution after the death of one of my sisters I'll never meet. No Huntington's though.

There's still a chance though that in all the confusion trying to diagnose her problems ( including alzheimers disease ) she has Huntington's and they never figured it out. I'd say that the chances are remote...but they are strong enough to make me wonder and realize I still may have it.

I woke Marla up after my period of thinking it out. I layed out my line of reasoning for her and she agreed I'm probably right. I'll call Elvis tomorrow and lay it on him.

Then, I'll call my sister and personally find out if there's something we can do to help. She's beaten cancer twice..she knows the drill.

This disease is a real crap shoot...just like life in general.

There could be a flaw in my reasoning and I may be walking around with the gene after all. I might have to make another call on another day telling Elvis we've got a 50/50% chance..and that any future kids he and his wife produce are in the same boat. All you can do is take it day by day and hope you don't get stricken by something else that'll knock you off even quicker.

01/04/08

At the beginning of each new year people seem to be obsessed..for a short while anyway..with making changes in their lives. Resolutions they call it.

Really, you don't need to wait until this time of year to make changes or get things done. It's a sign of weakness, or at least humanoid behavior which is pretty damned pathetic when you think about it honestly.

Elvis and I have a joke or understanding between us about "we Irwins". Our greatest fault is our procrastination. It's actually the sort of thing you'd see quickly if you were a house guest for a few days. An item will be set casually in a place poorly suited for it and remain there for perhaps years, with each of us walking past it several times per day.

On the other hand, we all get lots of other things done too...probably more so than most folks. We write, absorb films and other images, make music, listen to and understand music, cook, study and think at a rate most of you only talk about. Still, the pace is slower almost always than what we think we're capable of.

For me personally, the last few weeks have been a combination of solid achievement and disappointing slovenly behavior most of you are expert at. Well fuck, I'm not perfect.

I'm very often disgusted with myself, although at the same time I realize that most of you have a lazy ass old man who primarily props himself up in front of a TV set during his leisure hours. Your Mothers love to talk about diets and working out and doing cultural things and perhaps expressing themselves and at the very least they focus on getting the old man away from in front of the tube...but that's about as far as it goes. If they think, it's not original thought..just residue from watching "Oprah".

My own Mother is obsessed with cleaning every surface in her home daily. She even gives the soap dishes a last going over before bed. She's very good at that..but very poor when it comes to living up to all the resolutions she declares yearly. When my Father was at his productive best he'd inevitably take out the strains and pain and disappointments of his production by knocking the hell out of me. He was the kind of guy who dressed up in very hot clothing to mow the lawn in the heat of the summer and then blamed the whole ordeal all on me.

One of the things Marla and I have really procrastinated on is our telephone card file.

It's stuffed..loaded. But, the phone rings maybe 3 times per month. We haven't spoken to 95% of the people in the card file in 10 years at least. So, why don't we get rid of it? I don't know. We have full addresses and phone numbers for music distributors for instance who went out of business over 20 years ago.

The really sad thing is that when we want to get in touch with people we are currently in touch with, it's impossible to find their info. We don't file it away properly if at all.

Our computers are so old and outdated my History seminar fellow students and Prof. last term doubled over laughing when I brought them up. I was given a nice new boom box last Xmas..the last one we acquired before it dates to frigging 1980. We still have it. I still record the music for songs I write using it even though we've had mountains of equipment come and go.

You'd never know we have survived a house fire and many moves over the years. We've gotten rid of a lot of stuff, but have kept other certain entire boxes intact since the late 70's. I have name tags for jobs dating to the 70's and old glasses I couldn't wear and look through without screaming in pain.

WHY? I don't know. So many times I've thought we gave every thing away possible before a move. What runs through our frigging heads? I don't know for sure..but we at least get more things done in other ways than anybody we know with organized attics and closets. I guess it's just too late to change things..and I'm not sure, completely that I want to.

01/01/08

It's the beginning of a new goddamned year and as far as I'm concerned it already stinks like a tuna's twat. Why? because of the election we're gonna have to endure. This batch of candidates seems worse than ever before...or maybe it just seems that way because so many horrid candidates are in dead heats for the assinine Iowa cock-up.

I wouldn't have given the dew off of my balls to save a dying of thirst in the desert John McCain a month ago, but that Huckfuck preacher has me so scared I'd gladly invite back either him or Bill Clinton or Bush Sr. as opposed to him and his Sunday school bullcrap.

Clergymen, convicted pedophiles or Ebay power sellers should NOT be allowed to run for the presidency.

The media is reporting every belch and fart of the candidates so far and there seems no sign of let up. It's gonna be a bad, bad, bad, bad year. We're facing making the classical choice between hot urine and cold.

Meanwhile, Tiger Woods 2008 ( my new Xmas ps2 game) is not a video game; it's a narcotic. I can't pull myself away from it.

I was a very bad boy on Monday and forced myself to make up for it today by studying chess FIRST before Tiger2008. I'm entering a tournament at the Austin chess club in which one round will be played each Sunday in Jan. starting with the next one.

This holiday season personal calls were few ( Joey, our call waiting didn't catch your number..what is it you're reading this ?) cards occasional, emails almost non-existant and invitations limited to one to a get together at Elvis and his wife's pad. Their friends were to be invited too.

It's still a fairly new thing for me to get shitfaced at their place. I hold back a bit. They're adults and even though Marla and I keep things under control I always know somebody in their circle is going to barf all over the place.

A couple drunk guys pee'd off their apartment balcony putting them at risk of eviction. Well, OK. It's for them to deal with. We've made the successful transition away from being nosey, meddling parents. I went home and slept soundly in spite of a bit of normal party chaos.

I got to mke a few little rants to all their friends about the look-alike, cookie-cutter pop stars on new years eve TV that night. Hell, it was fun not having to be responsible and reserved in that sense. UUrrppppppppppppppp

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