Hello. You are listening to NPR member station KNEE and we are going to have to interrupt Jed Ledbetter’s Ozark Mountain Jubilee for just a few minutes to bring you Boulevard 2002.

This wonderful programming that you have been enjoying costs money to get on the air. Other radio stations constantly interrupt their broadcasts with piercing, aggravating commercials that they have sold to local car dealerships or small time politicians in order to afford to keep playing the same top-forty drivel that you can hear anywhere else. Here at KNEE, we follow a different business plan. We play no commercials, and we give you the best programming on the far right end of the AM dial. How do we do that? We let our listeners pick up the tab.

If you are a regular listener and you have not made a pledge yet, shame on you. Do you realize that you are stealing from the public? Or how about we just stop broadcasting, how would you like that? Not very well I would think. Honestly, where else are you going to hear great programming like everyone’s favorite call-in auto repair show: Goofy Grease Monkeys? Or perhaps you are a fan of long running NPR Quiz show, What’s the Difference Between a Beaver and a Weasel? Irregardless of which KNEE programming you frequent, it costs money to get them on the air. These shows count on you, and you are apparently a thief and not worthy of our trust.

But KNEE realizes that it takes more than just award winning programming to get people to part with their pocketbooks, so we are offering this special deal: If you call right now with a pledge of twenty dollars, KNEE will ship you a lovely purple bumper sticker that says, “I’ve got KNEE on the brain!” A pledge of fifty dollars will get you a very cute pink plastic KNEE key chain that you can keep for one year at which time you either return the key chain or renew your donation. Pledge one hundred dollars and KNEE will send you the precious CDs, The Best of Garrison Keillor Wheezing into a Hot Microphone, and Michael Feldman’s Whad’ya Know about Sex. Remember people, these products are not available in stores.

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No we have to get back to more folk music and corn-pone humor on Jed Ledbetter’s Ozark Mountain Jubilee. Stay tuned, because we will be back in twenty-two minutes to goad you for money with more from Boulevard 2002. Call . . . pledge . . . or be prepared to suffer the consequences of your actions.

Children’s music makes me happy. I love how it can be directed at a younger audience, but be more intelligent than most of what most adults listen to. I love that Bob Dorough can write lyrics meant for eight year olds and they are more poetic and more intelligent than anything you will hear on MTV. They seem to grossly underestimate us. That is the story, the lowest common denominator. That is why we have The Bachelor and Christina Aguilera and Josie and the Pussycats. Three is a magic number. Somewhere in the ancient mystic trinity, you get three.

I forgot how much I enjoy going out to the red barn after the boy goes down and plugging in one of my three sweet axes and just playing stream-of-consciousness for about thirty minutes or an hour. It is not long enough, but it is nice. A relaxing way to end the day. A good creative outlet when there is nothing left to blog. The only problem is that between work and school and you all, my fingers ain't got much left in them by the end of the day.

The boy came back from Mee-Mee’s yesterday and when I got home from work, boy was he glad to see me. (And I, him) He sat on my lap, straddling my legs, facing me. He kept looking at me and grinning and then he would fall on to my chest and then he would lean back and grin and then he would fall onto my chest. This went on for about ten minutes, until the television finally distracted him.

So this morning blogspot was down and then this afternoon, our internet connection was down, and now that it is back up, I am not much in the mood. Too tired. I can not seem to get the sleep thing happening lately. As I mentioned earlier, the boy is up a lot at night. I can not seem to convince myself to go to bed until it is way too late and I have ruined any hope of a peaceful night’s sleep. Sometimes I go to bed and stare at the ceiling. Sometimes I have too much caffeine. Every morning, Wylie gets up and wants me to get him some milk at a time that is too late for me to go back to sleep and too early for me to get up. So I get up and take a shower and mess around making tea and adjusting my pompadour until I still end up being five minutes late for work. If I showed up for work on time, I might catch them talking about me, except that no one else is here that early. Just Laurie. She wouldn’t talk bad about anyone.

Saturday night I got to play music and read stuff that I have written and play more music and read more stuff of mine to a nice group of about forty or fifty people at this great little party that Ms. J and her thecomfyhome threw for our good friend, Lady Amy-Amy, who was turning thirty. It was really nice to get to read something I wrote to a friendly crowd that was paying attention and listening to every word. It was exhilarating to hear them laugh at the funny parts. It was reassuring that they laughed at the parts that I though were funny and not at the parts that I meant to be not funny. Also it was nice to have them completely stop paying attention when we started playing music, because we were playing background tunes and if they had stopped and listened, they would have heard that we had not rehearsed any and really were not very good. Everyone just starting talking among themselves as soon as the music started back. That was fine because me and Dan had never played with Mark Bennet on the piano with us. As it turns out, he is a really good musician. I knew that he was a piano performance major working on his senior recital, and I figured that he was going to be a technically impressive musician, but I was pleasently surprised to find out that he can not read the notes any better than I can, and also he is a wonderful improviser. But then at the end of the night, all of the people said good job even though they did not hear what went down. Ms. J was happy with us and said that we made the party with our background music and funny readings, but she was wrong. She made the party. She always does. That is why she has thecomfyhome and that is why everyone will want her to throw their parties for them, just as soon as they see what she can do.

October 21, 2002

Mr. A.G. Lafley, Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive
Procter & Gamble
1 Procter & Gamble Plaza
Cincinnati, OH 45201

Dear Mr. Lafley:

As a man with a house full of Procter & Gamble products, and a man with dry skin that shows signs of aging, I was very excited to discover your Oil of Olay Total Effects Body Visible Anti-Aging Moisturizing Treatment on the shelf of my local market. I have used Oil of Olay products often in the past to try and reduce the signs of aging and stimulate surface cell renewal, and I have had moderate success. As the label on your Oil of Olay Total Effects Body Visible Anti-Aging Moisturizing Treatment touted it as an improvement over old treatments, I felt certain I would not be disappointed.

I am sorry to say, Mr. Lafley, but the product did not perform like it should have on problem areas such as my arms, legs, and chest. While I have no known allergies to any of the items listed in the ingredients, when I rubbed the Oil of Olay Total Effects Body Visible Anti-Aging Moisturizing Treatment into the aforementioned areas, they immediately broke out in a red, puffy rash.

I do not think that it is unreasonable to say that this is not acceptable. As a long time customer and appreciator of the large line of Procter & Gamble products, I would appreciate it if you would send me another product in your line that would address my wrinkling and aging needs without turning me into a swollen, itching mess. If you do not have an acceptable replacement product, then a full refund of the $3.79 the Oil of Olay Total Effects Body Visible Anti-Aging Moisturizing Treatment cost would be acceptable. I have included my store register receipt and proof of purchase from the bottle label.

Sincerely,


Nathaniel W. Greer

Enclosure(2)

Prepare yourselves for another fit of bitching. If that sort of thing depresses you, fell free to skip ahead. I have posted a lovely sonnet below.

---

First of all, let me say that Wylie is an exceptional boy. He has amazing athletic ability. He has the vocabulary of a five year old. He can be a sweet as saccharine. This morning he was lying in bed with Ms. J. watching his morning Sesame Street. I walked into the room and said, “Bye y’all. Have a nice day.” And Wylie goes, “Stop Dadoe! I need a bye-bye kiss!”

But something is terribly wrong. Either there is something wrong with him, or we have made a horrible parenting misjudgment, (the latter is much more likely) but he is well over two years old and still does not sleep through the night. No kidding. He needs our attention every night at some point. This morning he woke up flipping out at 4:00. He wanted in my bed. Then he didn’t want momma in the bed with us. Then he wanted a cup of milk, which he gulped down in about three seconds, and then he wanted more milk. When I would not give him more milk, he wanted back in his bed, where momma was now sleeping. Then we finally got him back asleep and I went back to my bed wide-eyed. I finally got back to sleep around 5:00, and Wylie still gets up at 6:30 ready to watch his shows. This was honestly a very average night. I think we missed something in one of the parenting manuals somewhere.

I’m sleepy! I love the boy, but I am ready for an eight hour sleep without his interruptions. Thank God for Grandparents.

Anyone with any advice on this is welcome to offer it. Anyone with kids, that is. If you have no kids, keep your parenting advice to yourself.

---

General complaints about work:

I really don’t understand why management doesn’t enforce a “no talking” rule at work. We rarely have to communicate out loud for business purposes, and if we did, there is email and telephone and instant messenger and bulletin boards. It drives me crazy to have to listen to people discuss ignorant, banal, and often times made-up nonsense. It is distracting. It keeps me from my work and keeps me from being able to concentrate on more important things like writing to you. Often times I will literally put my fingers in my ears to not have to listen to people talking about the jousting competition they were at this weekend, how many points their kid scored in pee-wee basketball last night, which pepper is the hottest, who is going to win Survivor, and what score their kid made on the ACT test. It drives me crazy! I actually had a lady at work tell me that her son had always made straight-A’s in class, “until he signed up for those damn AP (advanced placement) classes! Those things ain’t doin’ nuthin’ for him but ruining his grade point!”

Also the lady in the cubicle next to me has six gospel tunes saved on her hard drive that she plays over and over every single day. I even went so far as to subtly make her a mix CD of assorted tunes that I thought she would enjoy: a little R&B, some soul, some blues, some gospel, some pop. She listened to it once and went right back to listening to the same six tunes again. If I try to put on something, she just turns hers up louder.

---

Governmental Waste

So you say that you don’t believe all of the nonsense people spread about government employees getting away with anything and never working hard? I just took a call from a customer who had gotten locked out of a particular mainframe system. This is not a big deal, and is something that we deal with all of the time. We just call a number that rings in the office of the administrators for that system, and whichever of the four of them that is available will answer the phone and reset this person’s ID. This afternoon I called the number and after four rings it rolled to another phone. That phone rang four times then rolled to another phone. That phone rang four times then rolled to another phone. That phone rang four times then rolled to another phone. The person who answered that phone told me that the admins that reset security violations had snuck out without saying anything at about 11:30 (this was at 2:00) She did not know where they went, neither did she know when or if they were coming back. Furthermore, she could not take a message because she worked in another division down the hallway and she was not even sure why she was taking their calls. I had to go back to my customer and say, “Sorry, but it looks like you are out of luck and are not going to be able to access that screen until Monday.”

That right there is your tax dollars at work, friends.

That is why I am a small government, privatization, no-taxes, libertarian-conservative.

TGIF!

Things That Sustain Her

It is not like changing the air filter for the central heat
Or cutting the grass out of a sense of obligation,
More like and obsessed greaser polishing his street machine
When I massage her neck until my hands cramp from motion.

Nor like taking out the trash or washing the silverware,
But like a gardener kneeling in moist dirt
Gently cultivating each sweet scented soft flower,
When I switch off the small screen and surrender the night.

Like a voyager out of matches who must regularly nurture
His fire to survive, I am grateful and glad
To serve her; Take her window gazing at furniture,
Clothing and fixtures I could never afford.

These things mean no more to me than any other time together,
But yielding the remote or bringing home sweets are things that sustain her.

Today Only

Censored!

Pieces Dan and Nathaniel have written
But Ms. J will not allow them to perform
At a Coffee House Open Mic

The Song
by Andy
Collected, Coerced, and transcribed by Dan

I am a black orchard monkey.
I've come to eat all the fruit...
and now I've come down the road.

Down the road, we are going down the road.
We are going down the road just like a toad.
In the middle of December past month of November,
We were hoppin' down the road like a big ol' toad...

Going to the house gonna watch some TV, gonna eat what's on my...
Don’t know, I'm gonna get some...Cho, Cho, Cho, Cho, Cho, Cho...
Like, like...frog, frog down the road, road like a frog, frog...
Big purple, black, orange, yellow, white frog.
Purple, orange, yellow and green I don't know what I'm doing to me,
But I'm goin' down the road like a toad.

Big ol' truck goin' down the road. Big ol' truck goin' down the road.
Goin' fast and slow...like the big ol' nose...on the face of Pinocchio!!
Were driving down the road at an amazing rate of speed
With pine trees on our left and right and grass beneath our knees'.
We were driving along at a great rate of speed and it was not fast it was slow to me
'cause I was use to snortin' lots of methamphetamines.

Now were gonna met these red necks right up here.
There gonna do lots of favors and drink us allot of beer.
Their gonna take us down to the swimmin' hole,
We’re gonna get us a couple hoes and don't you know,
We’re gonna, swim down at the hole this New Year.

'Cause we're crazy red necks livin' in the woods.
Crazy red necks, feelin' pretty good.
We we're driving down the road lookin' at them goddamn telephone poles...
With wires between them on the center of the earth.

High now, we're talkin' about the world and the way it was round,
About the way that the lizards crawled around.
They don't crawl strait they kind-of-curve just like this, eunt, eunt, eunt.

It was the coolest thing I ever thought of, because I was not a model.
Now I'm just a cook, now, now, now, now just a cook and not a model.
'Cause I could serve on the stage,
eating lots of crackers and bouillon today....

BOUILLON?!?

Bouillon of course, the chicken based by-product that contains no chicken but makes things flavorful in a chicken sort of manner.

Oh yeah, bouillon.

Today Only

Censored!

Pieces Dan and Nathaniel have written
But Ms. J will not allow them to perform
At a Coffee House Open Mic

A Folk Song
by Nathaniel

Jews
Jews can't loose!
Jews
Jews can't loose!

If you bet on the Jews, you'll always end up ahead.
If it were up to the French, the Jews would all be dead!

Jews
Jews can't loose!
Jews
Jews can't loose!

Too keep your money safe, put it in a Jewish bank.
When found on a pirate ship, Jews are made to walk the plank.

Jews
Jews can't loose!
Jews
Jews can't loose!

Horowitz! Goldberg! Miller! Stein!
Horowitz! Goldberg! Miller! Stein!

When fighting Jews in battle, hardly anyone has ever won.
They always forget that Jews are God's chosen ones!

Jews
Jews can't loose!
Jews
Jews can't loose!

Horowitz! Goldberg! Miller! Stein!
Horowitz! Goldberg! Miller! Stein!

Horowitz! Goldberg! Miller! Stein!
Horowitz! Goldberg! Miller! Stein!

Jews
Jews can't loose!
Jews
Jews can't loose!

Jews
Jews can't loose!
Jews
Jews can't loose!

Today Only

Censored!

Pieces Dan and Nathaniel have written
But Ms. J will not allow them to perform
At a Coffee House Open Mic

Barbeque
by Dan

The pain, which my ass was stricken with, was unimaginable.
A pain like no other…
Silent screams could be heard evacuating the room, as if they were jumping from a lost ship at sea.

The pain...
The pain...

Oh the horror...

By it's inception I knew the tragedy of the coming morrow.
But how could I say no to such a request.
Warned twice of it's impact I engage without hesitation into inevitable sorrow.

Time...

Is my only ally in this struggle.
However time is something that a dying man may not wish.

At long last the pain was taken from my soul.
A simple, ancient method was performed on my body like an olden ritual.
And in one word you'll know the rest of the story...

Enemized

Today Only

Censored!

Pieces Dan and Nathaniel have written
But Ms. J will not allow them to perform
At a Coffee House Open Mic

Coffee
There's a familiar exchange of love between the men and the coffee cup. Why shouldn't the coffee cup get some love? After all you don't hold the delicious black nectar of life itself. All we do is consume. So my hat is off to the coffee gods and the cups that make their consumption possible. Another thing, we rarely pay any attention to coffee cups outside of drinking coffee. We treat them like a porno mag stuffed under the bed only drawn out by our desire for a quick fix! NO! I Wont Have It! I am here to put an end to coffee cup neglect. Not only should the coffee cup be used for all beverages, but I think the coffee cup, if properly examined by a group of native
Kwajaleins (part of the Marshall Islands), is the answer to high speed travel in space. Oh...My...Gosh!

It's all clear! Don't you see it?! CAN YOU FEEL IT BABY!! All this time we've been sittin' on our butts lookin' at porno mags while the Kwajaleins have been goin' who-knows-where, doin' who-knows-what.

I just want to know one other thing.
ARE YOU WITH ME BOTHER!!??!!

Thanks for listening while you read.
talking from his ass
Dan...

Retort
Let me tell you something cowboy:

I had a coffee mug that I loved very much. I would refill it many times during the day. When it was fresh and full I would gently hold the steaming mug to my bosom and let the aroma lift to my anxious palate in a sort of olfactory orgasm. Savoring every molecule, I would slowly lick the last few drops from the sides of the mug when the volume became low enough that gravity would not pull them out.

The dark bean was my savior; the snowy ceramics mug my best friend.

Focusing on the sunburst Gibson Les Paul on its outer shell, I know its message well. "Hard Rock Cafe" it proclaims, "Houston, Texas." Loud and clear it speaks to me, in a back country sort of guffaw that makes one picture a lonesome scene, perhaps a camp fire and Sam Elliot as he pulls the mug away from his parched lips and sucks the java residue from his ample mustache.

Ah my old friend the coffee mug, how it has been with me through the ages. A gift to me from my roommate Ray-Ray after a psychology department field trip, I often carried it in my backpack during the college years. Many a day it left the classroom next to notebooks in an empty and neglected state, waiting to be rinsed and refilled at my convenience. Often times it would hold more than just coffee. First thing in the morning as the precious brew was percolating; perhaps I would fill it with milk to take a BC powder with. Occasionally it would be necessary for the first cupful to be half Evan Williams or cheap vodka, still trying to combat that hangover. My mug was always with me, and often the only thing that got me to work or class on time.

Perhaps the thing that I miss most about my old friend is the way it brought perfect regularity to my digestive system. As I close my eyes even now I can remember sipping that last cup of the morning and immediately making a break for the privy. Nothing in the universe is so healthy for ones colon as a steady supply of the glorious bean juice of the Java Arabica plant. Even to this day I long for that feeling of immediacy to my bowels.

The coffee mug, I know it well. Alas I have no good use for it now. The damn thing just sits on my desk holding pennies.

Longing for more,
Nathaniel

Sweet Ms. J's website is finally online:
thecomfyhome.com

The Thrill

Doyle: See, you don't want to question the genius, Vaughan. Morris here is a modern-day poet, kinda like in olden times.

Morris: Yeah, I got a new tune in composition entitled "The Thrill." And it goes somethin' like this:

"I stand on the hill, not for a thrill, but for the breath of a fresh kill. Never mind the man who contemplates doin' away with license plates. He stands alone, anyhow, bakin' the cookies of discontent by the heat of the laundromat vent. Leavin' his soul!"

Then like in poetry I go dot-dot-dot, you know, kinda off center, then I drop down and then I go:

"Leavin' his soul! And partin' the waters of the medulla oblongata of---brrrrrr!---mankind!"

That was a damn good song, wasn't it Doyle?

I've got a big bag of peanut emenems on my desk and I just can't help myself.

So Jimmy Carter has been given the Nobel Peace Prize. I was trying to think of what he has done in the last year to deserve this. All I could come up with was a couple of subversive op-eds in the New York Times (or was it the Washington Post? Does it make any difference?) and having cocktails with murderous dictator Fidel Castro. Of course the Nobel Peace Prize has been a joke ever since they gave one to Arafat.

In his latest column for NRO, John Derbyshire slam dunks New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka and his horrible screed "Somebody Blew Up America." Derb spends the better part of the column making like a college English professor on Baraka's horrible poem. He closes with the following passage:

Pleased with having got to the bottom of this "powerful and respected" poet's challenging production, I felt inspired to have a go at something along the same lines myself. I cannot hope to compete with such a giant of American letters, of course, but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I hope Mr. Baraka will take my feeble effort in that spirit. Everybody has to start somewhere, after all. Amiri Baraka, for example, started out as LeRoi Jones, a humble organizer of race riots back in the 1960s. Who knows? If I keep at it long enough, maybe I could become Poet Laureate of New York State. I could sure use 10,000 bucks. OK, here goes.

Somebody Stuck It To New Jersey Taxpayers
by John Derbyshire

Who took help from Jews when getting his scam started
Then turned and spat on them when a cozy sinecure came along
Who praises despots, wreckers of nations
Murderers, despoilers of innocence — Kabila, Lumumba, Lenin, Che
Who thinks Nkrumah was a benefactor of anyone but himself
Who believes the most transparent driveling anti-Semitic lies about 9/11
Who thinks "Tom Ass" is a really, really funny way to write "Thomas"
Who mau-maued the governor
Who put one over on the guilty white liberals at those fool Art Councils
Who's an illiterate moron
So stupid he can't even keep his racism straight...

This is why I love October

I realize that I am a few weeks and two columns late, but I just discovered that Hunter S. Thompson is back from his summer in Lebanon.

Omar's grasp of American football was improving. Two years ago he thought a football was round.

"How did you get so smart so fast?" I asked.

"Well," he said, after giving my question some thought, "maybe it is because I studied American football very intensively for 10 years before I even met you."

I laughed at him. "We will see," I smirked. "I will bet you $100,000 that I will pick more winners than you do this season."

He reached into the pocket of his long black jacket and pulled out a fist-full of money. "Yes," he muttered, "I think I have it right here." He smiled faintly and dropped 100 big ones down on the bar.

I was stunned, but not entirely surprised by his bold maneuver. "Fair enough," I said. "I will go along with just about anything, in September. Can I give you a check?"

"Of course," he chirped. "Money means nothing to me, nothing at all." He paused. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

"Because I hate people like you," I said sharply. "Your instincts are Evil, and you are overcharging me for petroleum products." I flashed a grotesque-looking grin at him, a face he had never seen before. "You might get away with that oil rip-off," I told him. "But you will never get away with pretending to know Football. I will beat you like a gong."

This week is a washout. I know it is only Wednesday, but I hold no illusions of improvement. I could not get motivated right now to stand up and pee at the same time.

It all started Saturday morning when I woke up to discover the boy covered in flea bites and my house in a state of chaos. I flipped and started lunging around the house slamming cabinet doors and cleaning as if it were the Lord’s work.

The only good thing that has happened this week is that I have won three free Mountain Dews in a row.

This past weekend Wylie’s room suddenly became infested with fleas. I do not know why. Chloe the Brave Dog had not been inside in weeks and they were not anywhere else in the house. Suddenly the boy was covered in bites. So I spent the day Saturday washing everything in the house and Ms. J sprayed some raid around in his room and helped clean up. Sunday morning there was double the number of bites on him. Apparently we just pissed the little demons off.

So after church on Sunday I sent Ms. J and the boy to Meemee and Obi’s for a few days and rounded up Dan and we worked ourselves into a murderous rage. We closed up the house, turned off the power, and set off three cans of flea bomb inside and one under the house. Then we spread ten pounds of diazinon on the yard. Finally we flea dipped Chloe the Brave Dog and put a fresh flea collar on her. If the bastards come back, I am giving them the house and moving.

So that means that Monday after work I had to skip class and clean up all of the counter tops and wash all of the dishes that were exposed to the fleabomb. (While this was going on I watched my hapless Braves get beat by the personality-less Giants.) For dinner, a crappy frozen pizza.

Tuesday afternoon I had to go back to my heartless ham-fisted butcher of a dentist to have the permanent crowns put on. As usual, he did nothing to numb the teeth that he was working on, but stopped several times to give me injections that ensured my lips and nose were numb until well after dark. I went home and went to bed.

I woke up from my nap yesterday to discover that Ms. J was home. She left the boy at Meemee and Obi’s. She had already eaten dinner, and she had decided that I needed to keep my current job (which I loathe and have been desperately trying to find a replacement for.) I had slept too late to go to class, which I really did not want to go to anyway. Finally I went to McDonalds and got a Big ‘n Crappy only to discover that my bite was all screwed up and I was going to have to go back to the butcher and have it adjusted.

Today has been a busy, shitty day at a job that I hate but have been informed that I can not leave. Worst of all, you people don’t even care. Just another day filled with disappointments. Thank God for Mountain Dew.

Tony Pierce's latest post about Kirby Puckett and Bob Costas is why God invented blogs.

saps like bob costas are going to get on the tv and tell the millions of viewers that this is the perfect time for us to appreciate kirby puckett, but costas is a short little condescending fire hydrant ripe for a dog's hind leg. we don't need costas to tell us when to love kirby. any time is a perfect time to appreciate the hall of famer.

costas will get on his soap box and try to tell us something we don't know about the former twin who rejected wheelbarrows full of cash to pull a giambi and sign up with the bronx bombers, and instead stayed where he belonged, where he was adored, in the twin cities and helped win the world series for minnesota in seven games back in '91, the year that punk broke.

old bob will go on and on and they might even play the music from "the natural" or "field of dreams" or some made for tv tear jerker starring the blue eyed golden boy and his game winning moon shot over the old wooden fence advertisizing a shaving creame and the slow motion cameras and the cheers and the fanfare and his ma in the stands in her straw hat and his best girl.

too bad hollywood baseball movies don't star big fat round black guys who stand five foot nine going blind on one eye youngest child of nine who sign autographs and go to hospitals for the kids and really do end game six with one swing of the bat. not in the bottom of the ninth. but in the bottom of the eleventh, sucka. because if they did make those sorts of movies you could get kirby back in those slimming pinstripes and theatre-goers would finally have someone they could root for again.

Jen Jen is a huge Razorback fan. She sent me this excerpt of an article in the demzet about Houston Nutt's hygiene:

Possible rain has also become a factor in the Hogs preparing for their first conference road game.

“The rain doesn’t bother us,” Nutt said. “We’d be fine with rain. We play good in the wet weather, but it doesn’t look likes it going to rain at game time. We’ve had wet balls for a couple days.”

Footballs, coach?

My favorite Uncle and Aunt on the in-law side gave me a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble for my birthday. I did not buy any books because I have a stack about ten high that I am reading right now. Instead I got They Might Be Giants - NO! and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Will the Circle be Unbroken Vol.III. Both of them are excellent albums, but the TMBG is un-freaking-believable. I am a connoisseur of children's music. Tony Bennett's album is great, Peter, Paul, and Mommy is a classic, The Schoolhouse Rock set is in my collection Garcia/Grisman - Not for Kids Only used to be my favorite, this new TMBG is witty, catchy, danceable, and my two-year-old started singing and dancing along immediately. If you have children, you must get a copy. If you do not have children, get some so you will have a reason to buy a copy.

Striesand Public Policy Institute
5670 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90036
October 4, 2002

CONFIDENTIAL

President Busch
1600 Pennsylvania Ave
Washington, DC 20502

Attention: Karl Rove; Leo McGarry, Richard Cheney

Dear Sir:

Subject: War with Iraq

Sir, I refer to you as President Busch only out of respect to the office. You know and I know that you stole your position from my dear friend Al Gore through the dubious use of an evil conservative Supreme Court. You know and I know that you lost the popular vote, and only got the votes you did because of your family’s beer empire wealth. As Shakespeare said, “If you see the son of a rich man doing something you don’t like, that is because he is a dirty, selfish, money-grubbing punk. I should know, for I am Othello.” Besides that, Busch is not a very tasty beverage.

But I must now speak to you regarding an issue much more important, an area that I am an expert in. I must speak of a matter that I have spent years studying and all night thinking about. That is of course, War with Iraq.

Don’t do it. It is that simple. Someone might get hurt. I hate that. Plus it would be expensive. We could be using all of that money to buy poor homeless single mothers a television. They have poor people in Iraq also, Mr. Busch. I know that means nothing to you because you have a history of hating the poor and minorities. Iraq is, after all a nation of minorities. I recently found out that almost all of the population of Iraq is made up of Arab-Americans.

Now about this Saddam Hussein character, let me tell you that I don’t think he is as bad as you make him out to be. I mean, how could he be? He is a person just like me and you. He has feelings and family that love him. As Norman Mailer once wrote, “If you cut him, will he not bleed? And I should know, for I am Hitler.”

Now I do not like Saddam’s mustache any more than the next beautiful and talented singer and actress does, but is that any reason to hate? I think not, Mr. Busch. I mean, Rosie O’Donnell has a similar mustache, but she is a harmless, humorous, lesbian. (A valid and wonderful lifestyle choice I might add.) Perhaps instead of trying to kill him, we should let Saddam host the Grammy Awards. Then maybe we could foster some understanding. I would gladly accept a much deserved lifetime-achievement award from him. Don’t hate, congratulate. Or as the great Jewish writer, Moses once wrote, “L'Chiam! Sie haut gevain a courva in de momma' s bouch! Shainera menchen haut me gelicht in drert! Oy! Mazeltov! And I should know, for I am tired and my ankles are a little sore.”

To sum up, Mr. Busch: You are not my president. Your family’s beer is watered down and tastes like piss. Don’t hate, congratulate. Mustached lesbian dictators are people too. I am right. You are wrong. I quoted a lot of famous people to prove my point. Shlemiel and Shlemazel.

Sincerely,

Barbra Streisand
Sr. Policy Advisor
Striesand Public Policy Institute

If I could have one wish, it would be seven Fridays in a row, because that is the day that I spend with you. I love you blog, and I miss you. I have class on Monday through Thursday nights. I have work Monday through Friday. On class days I have to spend all of my free time at work trying to stay caught up on my homework for class. That is not fair, because it just takes away from you, sweet blog. Then I get off work and go to class and then come home and play with the boy and then put him to bed and then I need some time with my chair. I love you blog, but my chair is not nearly as understanding as you. That is the way it is with leather recliners, you have to give them at least an hour a day or they quit being your safe place.

Saturday and Sunday are reserved for my family, who sees me even less that you, dear blog. Poor Wylie is going to grow up with Big Bird for a Dadoe if I am not careful.

But Fridays, sweet Fridays, oh that is the day for you and me. I am at work, but it is slow because when people break their computers on a Friday they say to themselves, “eeehhh I’ll call and get it fixed on Monday.” So I am at work but have no homework and not too many people bothering me. That means that I can give you a little attention, my precious, lonely, patient, giving, blog.

Tell me what you want to hear. Perhaps and anecdote about the boy? Maybe a little politics? Perhaps you would like a parody or a short humor piece? Or maybe, this once, since I have so little to give you these days, we will spend some time talking about you.

Nah.

British scientists have scientifically determined the world's funniest joke. Among those at the top:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other man pulls out his phone and calls emergency services.

He gasps to the operator: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator in a calm, soothing voice replies: "Take it easy. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead."

There is a silence, then a shot is heard.

Back on the phone, the hunter says, "Ok, now what?"

---

PATIENT: "Doctor, I've got a strawberry stuck up my bum."

DOCTOR: "I've got some cream for that."

---

TEXAN: "Where are you from?"

HARVARD GRAD: "I come from a place where we do not end our sentences with prepositions."

TEXAN: "OK -- where are you from, jackass?"

---

"A man and a friend are playing golf one day. One of the guys is about to chip onto the green when he sees a long funeral procession on the road next to the course.

"He stops in mid-swing, takes off his golf cap, closes his eyes, and bows down in prayer. His friend says: 'Wow that is the most thoughtful and touching thing I have ever seen. You are truly a kind man.'

"The man then replies: 'Yeah, well, we were married 35 years.'"

---

"Two weasels are sitting on a bar stool. One starts to insult the other one. He screams, 'I slept with your mother!'

"The bar gets quiet as everyone listens to see what the other weasel will do.

"The first again yells, 'I SLEPT WITH YOUR MOTHER!'

"The other says: 'Go home dad, you're drunk.'"

Have you heard that Politician Smurf is running for the Senate in Montana? He is a Libertarian too!

MLB Post Season

This is more who I am rooting for than who I actually think will win.

Divisional

NL

Cards over D’backs in 4

Braves over Giants in 5



AL

Halos over Yanks in 5

A’s over Twins in 4





NLCS

Braves over Cards in 6



ALCS

Halos over A’s in 7





WORLD SERIES

Braves over Halos in 6



What do you think?

I am a really big West Wing fan. As someone who hopes to make his living by writing some day, I am blown away by Aaron Sorkin and how consistantly good he is. (I was a big fan of Sports Night too.)

The season premiere last week was really something, but last night’s episode kind of stunk. President Bartlett’s post bombing speech about how more teachers in the class room and spending more money on public schools could have prevented the bombing . . . give me a break! That was stupid, let alone inspiring, which they made it out to be. Also CJ at the rock the vote thing was equally full of crap. I do not have any of the problems that most conservatives have with the show because it is normally so well written and even the left-wing policy is usually argued in an intelligent way. Last night it was not. CJ basically told the rock the vote crowd that the government was to thank for their birth, the air they breathe, and how cute puppies are. “Don’t think government is important to you? How many of you want a comfortable mattress to sleep on at night, huh?”

I’m not worried, though. Soon Aaron Sorkin will get a new bag of ‘shrooms and the prose will start flowing once again.

Editor's note. Also from the Fatnathan's Greatest Hits - this essay was written in August of 2001. This just shows that I have long enjoyed talking about how lazy and fat and indifferent I am.

Late August is the time of year when people really start to let things go. The days are long and the heat is oppressive and we just become lazier and lazier. When I say people, I am speaking of myself. Pray for my wife, because when August rolls around I cannot bring myself to get out of the chair for any reason other than food, bathroom, or bed.

The first thing to go is the yard. While I love the clean lines and uniform look of a freshly mowed lawn, this time of year I can not bring my self to venture out to the mower until strangers start knocking on my door and offering to cut the grass for a special price.

There is one fellow in particular that I have a very hard time saying no to. He is a tall, thin white guy who appears to be in his mid-thirties. This guy does not have some big lawn care company with a fancy white truck and trailer and logo. He simply walks through the neighborhood pushing an old worn out mower with a gas can balanced on top of it. If he sees a yard in need of attention (and mine invariably is) he will knock on the door and say, “I’s wonderin’ if you needed yer yard cut for ya?” He is sweaty and carries the distinctive scent of his chosen profession and I feel awful for saying no to him. I always gently decline and offer a glass of water, but he never takes me up.

You see there is something a little bit offensive to one’s masculinity to pay to have the grass cut for you. My old man is a pastor and lives in a parsonage. For equity’s sake he owns the lot next to the house he lives in. This is out in the country where the lots are large and two side by side creates several acres of yard to be mowed in the summer time. Fortunately he is not lazy. With the trees and the flowerbeds and the garden to cut around, by the time he finishes mowing it is pretty much time to go back to the beginning and start over. With this as my example, it shames me to be so worthless when it comes to my tiny mid-town lot. So when the seed heads are about knee high, and the sweaty guy starts knocking on my door, and my wife starts making fun of me, I will amble begrudgingly out to the shed and see if I can get the old push mower started.

Just the other night while I sat in my chair and watched my one-year-old son eat a snack from the remains of his dinner scattered on the floor underneath the high chair, I realized that the yard is not all that I let go in August. It has only been about a month since I saw him eat a piece of a cheesy cracker off of the kitchen floor and totally flipped out. I jumped up and ran across the kitchen, shoved my finger in to his mouth and demanded he give up the bite. Then I restrained him while I swept and disinfected the floor as if it were an operating table. When it was all over I looked at my sweet wife and said in a quivering voice, “I was not prepared to be a parent!”

Now it is August and when the boy gets hungry for a snack he knows that he can just toddle over to the dining room area. In the seat of the high chair and underneath on the floor there will be crumbs and bites and fruits a plenty for his taking.

August brings easygoing summer vacation laziness to all facets of my life. I don’t shave very often. I do not get a haircut until it starts to flip on the ends. I don’t shower until people start to move away from me. The floorboard of my vehicle starts to clutter with empty hamburger wrappers and soda bottles and pay at the pump receipts. The only thing that gets plenty of attention this time of year is my chair and remote control.

Soon it will start to cool off. Class will start and I will have to study. My wife will get fed up and tell me to get it together. Things will start to have some order to them once again. Then, post-season baseball will start.

Editor's note. From Fatnathan's Greatest Hits - here is a speech I gave at my old man's church for Senior Banquet the year my sister graduated from Ouachita Baptist University. Get your hankies ready, this one is a real tear jerker!

Jennifer Lyn Greer as her Brother Remembers

Jennifer was born November 6, 1978. She most likely weighed somewhere between six and nine pounds and was probably about 20 inches long. I don’t remember, I was two years old. Looking at her now, you can tell that she was born healthy.

I hear from Mom and Dad that she was a bit of a fussy baby, providing long, colic fueled nights of squirming and screaming. This fostered no resentment from the family however, she was a baby girl and she was beautiful. Really she was, if you do not believe me, then go take a look at the pictures on the poster board.

This brings us to the theme of the story. When I look back over what I remember about Jenni’s life, the one thing that strikes me as the underlying motif is success. Sitting here, right now I can not think of anything that she has attempted that was not a total success. This was no lucky streak though; the explanation for success is hard work and perseverance. Jenni is a hard worker who figures out what her goal is and works toward it in a straight line. Except when it comes to selecting a major, but that is beside the point. Back to our narrative.

My first memory of our childhood might seem random, but here it is. One of the older girls in my Dad’s youth group at church had aspirations of hair dressing. My parents being the encouraging mentors that they were volunteered Jenni’s head and mine for the purposes of science. Cutting my hair in those days was certainly no challenge. The only variables were the size of the bowl that was placed on my head and what was used to trim around it. Jennifer on the other hand knew exactly what she wanted. This was about 1984 and every female in the room knows where this is going . . . the Dorothy Hamil. To make a long story short, our friend from church was not yet a professional and Jenni is the one that ended up with the bowl cut.

About year or so later God moved us from the big city to Caney, Arkansas. While I was outside discovering seed ticks and BB guns, Jennifer was inside cultivating her musical talent. While she always had a beautiful voice, and I can recall many heart felt renditions of “I am a Promise,” the tune that sticks in my head was her two fingered piano rendition of “I Dropped My Dolly in the Dirt” She learned it quickly and rehearsed it regularly. I mean she played it over and over again. It was the last thing she did before she got on the bus in the morning and the first thing that she did when she got home n the afternoon. I dropped my dolly in the dirt. I begged her for mercy, I threatened bodily harm, I appealed to Mother and Father, but the only thing that saved me from certain mental break down was when one of her friends taught her to play “Heart and Soul.”

Jennifer moved on from music to softball. First with Sassy Scissors and later with Al’s Angels she played catcher, outfield, and second base. In the batter's box she hit the ball a ton (I can remember several inside the park home runs, and this from not the fastest girl in the mid-south) but mostly they won. I think that my simple city family had no idea that in the country, 10 year old girls were not only allowed but rewarded for playing in softball tournaments until three o’clock on a Sunday morning. Ashdown, Salem, Malvern, Pine Bluff, the dreaded Paragould, these girls saw them all and left with trophies. If Dad ever seemed a bit rambling or incoherent on a July Sunday morning about 1989-1993, it was because we had just gotten back from the softball complex in Fort Smith or perhaps Sheridan a few hours before church time.

When fall rolled around softball season was over, and Jennifer needed a new sport to excel at; enter cheerleading. I feel bad now for all of the times that I aggravated her by saying in my best valley girl voice “Hi, My name is Jenni with an I, and I am a cheerleader, and I am so popular.” But she was. Without the silly voice. She was a great cheerleader, eventually working her way up to captain in college. Besides, anyone who volunteers to stand on the sidelines in Mountain Pine Arkansas in a tiny little uniform when it is thirty degrees outside with a stiff wind and look happy about it, deserves better than a lazy non-athletic fat brother making fun of her.

Jennifer Greer is one of the best students I have ever seen. She is smart, and always made good grades. The most impressive thing to me was how well she plays the school game. She always did her homework, (all of it) she studied for every test, and when she got to college and it became an option, she still went to class. I was not any good at any of these things. When we were young, our parents told us that if we studied hard and got our college paid for; they would buy us a car to drive to school. I took the cynical pessimistic approach and figured that I could ride a bike at college, I’d rather not have to do my homework now. Jenni took them up on it and in 1997 graduated Bismarck High school a governor’s scholar, having never tasted even a B grade in her entire public school career.

Here we are four years later and she is through with college. Did you hear that, through with college in four years. I spent parts of six or seven years at college and am no where close to being through. When Jenni was little and she was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, her standard answer was “a doctor.” Here she is at 22 years old and she has finished her undergrad with a degree and grades that might just get her in to medical school if she decides that she wants to go. No matter what she chooses as the next step for her I am sure of one thing, she will succeed. She will succeed because she will work hard and persevere. She will succeed because she has a loving family and church family and great friends that will support her. Mostly she will succeed because she will trust God and follow him. History shows us that Jennifer Lyn Greer is a sweeping success, and we are more proud of her right now than ever before.

Work is busy, class is busy, home life is busy, and I can not get motivated for ship. I would rather write nothing, but a sense of duty leads me to share the following information.

First of all: Last night my two year old son, Wylie Allman, said to himself, "Where's my ballsack? My ballsack is in my diaper." Yes, he knew what he was talking about.

Then today at lunch my sister in law was at the house. In the course of conversation, she told Ms. J that her husband thinks that some person is gay. She said, "I mean, he is NOT GAY!" To which Wylie replied, "He's not gay!! I'm not Gay!! Momma's not Gay!! Daddoe's not Gay!!" Then he paused for a beat, turned to me and said, "We don't bite gays."

Wylie is going to be the kid that corrupts the kindergarten class.

My Pop is a golf expert. These are his comments after day one of the Ryder Cup

1) Hal Sutton has lost weight - he looks good - they won this pm

2) Is Tiger tired of getting his butt kicked yet?

3) The slow green made a huge difference, however, these are the best players in the world. They should have made the adjustment by pm

4) The crowd has been awesome. Americans could use some lessons in golf etiquette.

5) If we are lucky it will be only 7-3 at the end of the day. Anything better would be a plus at this point.

6) The winner of day one wins the cup 98% of the time.

7) My prediction....we are toast!

Michael Kelly on the same speech:

Gore's speech was one no decent politician could have delivered. It was dishonest, cheap, low. It was hollow. It was bereft of policy, of solutions, of constructive ideas, very nearly of facts -- bereft of anything other than taunts and jibes and embarrassingly obvious lies. It was breathtakingly hypocritical, a naked political assault delivered in tones of moral condescension from a man pretending to be superior to mere politics. It was wretched. It was vile. It was contemptible. But I understate.

Geez Mike, tell us how you really feel.

I realize that I am a couple of days late to this, but I finally got around to reading Charles Krauthammer's response to Al Gore's speech in San Francisco earlier this week. In the speech, Gore venemously criticized President Bush's foregn policy and basicly contradicted everything that he (Al Gore) ever said about Iraq as vice president and as a senator. He was obviously trying to wiggle out a spot to run for president from, as all of the current Democrat presidential contenders have pretty much agreed with Bush on the war. Krauthammer is right on when he writes:

The New York Times reports that Gore wrote the speech "after consulting a fairly far-flung group of advisers that included Rob Reiner." Current U.S. foreign policy is the combined product of Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz and the president. Meanwhile, the pretender is huddling with Meathead.

Had it not been for a few little old ladies baffled by the butterfly ballot in Palm Beach, Fla., American foreign policy today would be made by Gore-Reiner instead of the Bush brain trust. Who says God doesn't smile upon the United States of America?

I received this note from my sister earlier this week. I feel her pain.

Confession: I LOVE HAM!! Not just any ham, but smoked ham….no not just smoked ham, Kroger lunch meat smoked ham. It comes in a one pound bag, and my roommate and I go through at least one bag a week. After rolling out of bed and stumbling into the kitchen, I quickly retrieve two slices of ham from the meat bin in my refrigerator. Nibble, Nibble, Nibble. Each bit is savored. It must take me fifteen minutes to eat those two slices. And then I go back for seconds. Generally this sequence is repeated three, maybe four more times in a day. Honestly, I think I could eat both hams off of a 400 pound sow. I wonder if that could explain my cholesterol level of 286. Maybe it does…or maybe, just maybe it’s that high because the one thing that will make me turn and sprint from ham is bacon. A whole damn plate of it.

Neal Pollack's Road Diary is equally funny.

I was reading Ken Layne the other day and he said something about Neal Pollack, so I went over and checked out his site. He is hilarious.So funny in fact that I just ordered his book as a birthday present to myself. He has a blog on his front page that is a perfet parody of Andrew Sullivan's site. I don't mean one entry, the entire blog is a parody. It is so funny.

Because I am one of the world's largest and most committed geeks, I subscribe to the dictionary.com word-of-the-day e-mail. For my birthday, the word today was.

convivial \kuhn-VIV-ee-uhl\, adjective:
Of or relating to feasting, drinking, and good company; fond
of festivity and good company; sociable.

That is better than a horoscope!

Today is my birthday.

Old
Paul Simon

The first time I heard “Peggy Sue”
I was 12 years old
Russians up in rocket ships
And the war was cold
Now many wars have come and gone
Genocide still goes on
Buddy Holly still goes on
But his catalog was sold

First time I smoked
Guess what - paranoid
First time I heard “Satisfaction”
I was young and unemployed
Down the decades every year
Summer leaves and my birthday’s here
And all my friends stand up and cheer
And say Man you’re old
Getting old
Old
Getting old

We celebrate the birth of Jesus on Christmas day
And Buddha found nirvana along the lotus way
About 1,500 years ago the messenger Mohammed spoke
And his wisdom like a river flowed
Through hills of gold
Wisdom is old
The Koran is old
The Bible’s old
Greatest story ever told

The human race has walked the earth for 2.7 million
And we estimate the universe at 13-14 billion
When all these numbers tumble into your imagination
Consider that the Lord was there before creation
God is old
We’re not old
God is old
He made the mold

I guess that I need to give my review of the Allman Brother’s concert I went to in Memphis, TN on Sunday night 9/22. This is the set list that someone has posted on their web site:
Statesboro Blues
All Night Train
Ain't Wastin' Time No More
Woman Across The River
Hot 'Lanta
Midnight Rider
The High Cost Of Low Living
Trouble No More
Rocking Horse
Desdemona
Instrumental (untitled)
Black Hearted Woman
The Same Thing
Soulshine
Dreams
Good Clean Fun
In Memory of Elizabeth Reed (with Kofi Burbridge on flute)

Encore:
Revival

It is pretty close. I don’t remember them playing Good Clean Fun, and Dan even made the comment on the way home that they did not play Soulshine. Other than that I think that it is pretty accurate.

The weather was fantastic, even a little chilly. The venue is great: The Mud Island Amphitheater. Our seats were row 18, stage left. The cast was me, my sweet Ms. J, and my bestest buddy Dan. There was a high school couple sitting next to Dan making out.

While Mud Island is a great place to see a show, it does have one major problem. There is seating for 5000, yet only one bathroom each for men and women. The men’s has about eight urinals and four toilettes. I only went once while I was there (I can’t afford many six dollar beers) but I had to stand in line for twenty minutes. I can not imagine why they do not do something about this. This is a problem at every single show. Get a clue, Mud Island.

The Derek Trucks Band opened the show. Our tickets said showtime was at 7:00, they started at 6:50. Only about a third of the crowd was even there. The boys were eager. They were really great too. Kofi Burbridge played amazing keyboard and flute. He is about the funkiest keyboard player since Bernie Worrell. Their drummer was great too, especially when he was spurred on by the ABB’s Mark Quinones who came out and played the damndest solo on the timbales since Tito Puente jammed with Russell Huxtable. Derek Trucks was amazing, and I can not wait to see his group in a club.

After roadies broke down the Trucks band’s stuff and set up the screen and projectors for the famous liquid light display, the Brothers come out and came early with the hits. I won’t bore you with a detailed song-by-song review; I just want to make some general observations.

First of all, Otiel Burbridge is an amazing bass player. He brings a lot to the band and he does not even get to show a tenth of what he is capable of - I have seen him in a bar with his own group. I wish the Brothers would give him a little more room to shine.

I love Warren Haynes’ guitar playing, but for the life of me I can not figure out why he needs to change guitars so much. He is turning into Rick Nielson from Cheap Trick.

During In Memory of Elizabeth Reed they featured the drummers. Everyone else left the stage and the percussion section went off for about fifteen or twenty minutes, maybe longer. The three of them really are amazing and it was a captivating drum solo (trio?) if you can imagine that. But it was obviously nearing the end of the show, so people were taking advantage of the lull in the action to try to get ahead of the traffic. While this was going on I had this vision in my mind that the drummers would keep going and people would keep leaving until finally the drum solo reaches its thunderous conclusion and there are about twenty-five fans left in the stands and all of them have on Zildjian or Pearl or Latin Percussion T-shirts. They are all clacking drum sticks together and yelling “Wooohoo!!” Thank God that is not what happened.

This was my third time to see the band. I am a huge fan (I named my firstborn son Allman) and the last time I saw them it was so amazing that I literally cried at several points in the concert. The first time I saw the Warren Haynes/Allen Woody band. The second time I saw the Otiel/Jack Pearson band, and this time it was Warren Haynes/Derek Trucks/Otiel. Founding member Dickey Betts left the band (was fired) before the tour started this year. My favorite Allman Brother’s Band songs are Dickey Betts songs. I was a little apprehensive about seeing this group. How did they stack up against previous incarnations? Eeehhh, they were OK. I mean by any other standard they were amazing. Warren and Derek gave solo after solo that were technically impressive. Greg Allman was singing and playing better than ever. It is just that the whole group did not seem to have a lot of chemistry. There was no defined leader, and everyone seemed to be going their own way at times. That is not to say that I did not enjoy it, it just never made me cry.

Allman Brother’s concerts always provide plenty of great people watching what with their large following in the hippie and redneck communities. After the show I saw the two greatest hippie moments that I have ever witnessed. When we got out to the Mud Island Parking deck where our car was I noticed that there was a big crowd of hippies standing around holding black balloons to their mouths. Sure enough, through the crowd I could see a big tank of Nitrous Oxide with some dude filling the balloons and passing them out to all comers. I passed on the notion. I don’t think that it was valid laughing gas, because no one was laughing.

But the funniest thing I saw was on the way out of the amphitheater. At a closed nacho stand, the attendant had left behind the large pan that had held the cheese sauce. It was mostly empty and obviously about to be thrown away. Gathered around it were about a half dozen stoned-out, dirty hippies. They were dragging their fingers along the sides and bottom of the pan and eating the cheese furiously, as if it was Soylent Yellow. Hilarious!

Hippies come in all shapes and sizes. The have long greasy hair and they smell like patchouli oil. They wear old tie-dye T-shirts and corduroy pants from resale shops. Sometimes they wear funny hats. You can find hippies at the park playing hackey sack, or down town trying to score some weed. When they eat, hippies are not very neat. Sometimes hippies will tell you that they are an artist or a poet or a musician. It has been my experience that they are probably not very good at it. This is likely an excuse to not have to get a real job. Hippies can be divided into several sub-cultures. There are skater hippies, redneck hippies, deadhead hippies, lesbian hippies, new-age hippies, nature hippies, and finally there are old hippies still hanging on to the sixties. This is not important, because all hippies are communists.

Sometimes hippies will give up and get a real job, but they usually aren’t hippies for long after that. Sometimes hippies have been known to stay in college for up to a decade or even longer. They rarely graduate. They major in English or Women’s studies or Sociology, but they are really majoring in catching a buzz. You can always find them underneath trees or overhangs or sitting on top of picnic tables: a whole herd of hippies sitting there smoking and talking about the capitalist pigs. Maybe one of them will have a guitar and play a little bit of Knocking on Heaven’s Door. Every hippie knows the chords to Knocking on Heaven’s Door; few of them know anything else. None of them believe in private property except when it comes to their bag. Try to get a hippie to sponsor a joint.

Sometimes musical groups will attract hippies - The Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers and then Phish and then Widespread Panic. These musical groups are usually very talented and composed of former hippies who were so afraid they might have to get a job that they learned how to play a musical instrument. Now they are all capitalist pigs, but their hippie followers don’t know it. The hippie followers usually only know a catchy lyric or so. They don’t go to the shows to hear the music; they go because there are other hippies there, and they think they might get to get high.

Perhaps you have a hippie in your family. Check the couch. Is someone lying there? Perhaps someone thin with long greasy hair that looks and smells like they need a bath? Now look in the driveway. Do you see a Volkswagen Microbus? How about an AMC Pacer? Perhaps an old Chevy Love pickup with a mountain bike in the back that is worth more than the truck? My dear friend, you have a hippie infestation. Act now, before all of your kid’s cereal goes missing. Grab that damn hippie by his sideburns and put his nose right next to yours. I know that the smell of his breath will be putrid, but it is necessary for effect. Yell out to him, “Hey you lazy stinking hippie. Get off of my couch, stop watching my VH1 Classic, stop drinking my booze, and go get yourself a job!”

This will accomplish nothing of course. He will be back in two hours with some playstation games he borrowed from a friend and he will have red slits where his eyes used to be. He will say, “hey man, I tried to find a job, but the man, you know . . . (cough-cough) they are always trying to change me . . . holding me back . . . know my potential . . . oh, hey man, I stole you a new six pack of beer from my friend Jeff. You want one?”

Pastor Tim took one of my blog posts for the CCF web site. I am flattered, even though he removed the cuss word. (actually I told him to.) But what really flattered me was when he asked me to jam with the Kenyans that will be at church this Sunday and he referred to me as his "brother from another mother." I think that is translation of a Swahili word that his Kenyan friends have called him. I like it a lot. Dan, Currey, Steve Coleman, Luke Pittman, Barber, These guys are not just friends of mine, they are brothers whom I will never loose touch with.

The more I read James Lileks the more I find out that he and I are exactly alike. The only differences are that he lives up north, he gets to write for a living, and he is married to lawyer. (which could be why he gets to write for a living) His bleat today is about how his child kept him up all night. This is at the end:

All day I wondered how much sleep I actually got. As I laid in the dark downstairs at 5:50 AM I remembered how once I scoffed at sleep, regarded it as a bothersome imposition. Sleep was for the weak. Sleep was for incurious dullards. In a way I still feel this way; a friend once noted I’m the only person he knows who actually manages to live the way he did in college and still make a decent living. Staying up late still seems like the best perk of adulthood. I’ve always regarded the world as divided into two warring camps: the House of Night and the House of Morning. (I have tolerance for people who belong to the latter, of course. Mine is a religion of peaceful coexistance.) Now I live in both camps, and I buy only candles that have wicks fore and aft. I like it this way. I do. The small post-supper nap keeps me going; the mornings give me time with my daughter, and the evenings end with 90 minutes of TV that scour away all the drivel and contrusions of the day. So why am I writing now? Why aren’t I watching Episode 4 of the Sopranos?

If only he was stuck in a horrible, soul-sucking, dead-end job - we would be soulmates.

Also, Barber's Sweetie may not be the most prolific writer around, but she is really, really good.

I know that I keep harping on the same people, but Barberman has got a sunday school story that you have to read.

I realize that when I don’t say anything for a few days that you people get all depressed. I appreciate it. I miss you too! I want you all out there to know that I have so much to say to you, but I just don’t have time to get it down. There are other blog sites out there, but those guys don’t love you like I do. They will say that they will be there for dinner, but they won’t show up and they won’t even call. You can rest assured that I will never miss dinner.

I’ve got a list of topics sitting on my desk that I plan to blog over; I just can’t find the time. From the constant annoyances of customers to fascist professors at school insisting I do the course work, I just don’t have time for the important things in life. I am a writing major, I can not understand why my instructors will not just read my blog and give me an A. (Well, maybe not an A. This is not the most well written site on the net.)

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My garden loves this damp, cool fall weather that we have been having. Yesterday I went out to see what needed to be picked and I had about fifty chili peppers and about thirty jalapenos. I decided it was time to (as my Memaw would say) put some of them up.

I am new to gardening and new to canning, so it has been a summer of learning for me. I went to Wal-Mart and purchased a dozen half-pint mason jars with lids and screw-tops. Then I went to the grocery store and got some vinegar, fresh garlic, and baby carrots to put in the jars with the peppers. When I got home I fumbled my way through it. The whole process lasted about an hour including clean up. (In my kitchen there is always pre and post clean up, because it is too small to do anything if it is not perfectly in order.) Best of all, every single one of my jars sealed up tight. Now if I can just stay out of them long enough for them to age well.

I had decided that I wanted my peppers cut up, like the ones you get with nachos at the ballgame. I sliced the jalapenos diagonally and cut the little chilies once long ways before putting them in the jars. After I got finished I sat in my chair and watched some TV. I had my arms crossed and my left hand resting on my mouth. After about an hour I noticed something felt funny. I got up and looked in the mirror and my bottom lip was swelled out to about the size of a polish sausage. Always wear rubber gloves when you cut up hot peppers. Now, fifteen hours later it is still a little puffy on one side.

---

My sleeping schedule is still all screwy from going to the concert in Memphis this weekend. We did not get back until nearly 3:00 AM and I took the morning off yesterday so I could sleep in. Of course last night I did not want to go to bed until 1:00. That means that this morning I hit the snooze button in my sleep until I finally noticed that it was 7:15 and I had to be at work in fifteen minutes. I made it, but I did not get any breakfast.

That does not cut it. I have to have breakfast. It takes a strict regimen of calories and fat grams every day to maintain this gelatinous body shape. So when I got to the office I went up stairs to Mr. Rector’s snack bar. Mr. Rector is an old blind guy that can tell what denomination of money you gave him by how it smells. He has a lady running a breakfast hot bar with biscuits, gravy, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, sausage patties, grits, you know – the essentials. Whenever I go up there I always order one biscuit with gravy and an order of scrambled eggs. The lady scooping the slop does the most amazing thing . . . she puts the biscuit in the foam to-go box, then she puts the eggs kind of half way on top of the biscuit, then she fills the entire box to the brim with thick, steaming, creamy, gravy. Now that is what I call soup. You just take a knife and cut up the biscuit, then stir it all up and go to town!

So this morning I walk up to the counter and say, “I would like one biscuit with gravy and an order of eggs please” and the sweet cook prepares this little treat like she does every time. There is this short old bitty standing in line behind me making faces like she has a used gym sock tied around her neck. She looks at me a groans, “You put gravy on your eggs?”

I said, “Nope, she puts it on there for me.”

My Favorite Dead Guys (In no particular order and with apologies to the Cap'n)

Calvin Coolidge
Elvis
Kris Kristofferson
Buddy Holly
Billy Ray Cyrus
Paul of Tarsus
Walter Mathau
Evan Williams
Rex Stout
Jerry Garcia
Kenny
Darrell Strawberry
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Jack Daniels
Harry Carey
Julia Child
Mr. Peepers
Old King Cole
Tupac
Jose Cuervo
Corey Feldman
Corey Haim
Corey Hart

This fascinating article By Frederica Mathewes-Green on NRO makes the argument that couples should get married younger. As someone who got married at 20, I have to totally agree with the author. Ms. J and I have been together for five and a half years and we get along swimmingly. (Except when we don’t) Mrs. Mathews-Green makes the point that couples marrying younger will reduce the number of illegitimate births, lower the teen pregnancy rate, and probably even lower the divorce rate. She makes credible arguments for each of these.

But don't young marriages tend to end in divorce? If we communicate to young people that we think they're inherently incompetent that will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it was not always the case. In fact, in the days when people married younger, divorce was much rarer. During the last half of the 20th century, as brides' age rose from 20 to 25, the divorce rate doubled. The trend toward older, and presumptively more mature, couples didn't result in stronger marriages. Marital durability has more to do with the expectations and support of surrounding society than with the partners' age.

A pattern of late marriage may actually increase the rate of divorce. During that initial decade of physical adulthood, young people may not be getting married, but they're still falling in love. They fall in love, and break up, and undergo terrible pain, but find that with time they get over it. They may do this many times. Gradually, they get used to it; they learn that they can give their hearts away, and take them back again; they learn to shield their hearts from access in the first place. They learn to approach a relationship with the goal of getting what they want, and keep their bags packed by the door. By the time they marry they may have had many opportunities to learn how to walk away from a promise. They've been training for divorce.

The catch is, and this is what Ms. J and I had going for us, it takes a lot of support to pull this off. That is the difference between these days and back when people used to get married younger. It seems now that most parents want their kids to wait until they are completely self-sufficient before getting married. Ms. J and I have had tons of support from both of our families, both of our families’ churches, our church, our friends, and God knows what all else. When Wylie was born, we had something like five baby showers thrown for us. When we got married, one room of our little house (Which was provided by my folks) was filled waist deep in gifts.

We have been blessed, but we look forward to the opportunity to bless others too. I think that Mrs. Mathewes-Green has it quite right. Take the plunge kids, you are responsible enough and adult enough to pull it off.

My dreams are coming true, a culture of bloggers is springing up among my friends and each of them is talented and compelling. First of all, I expected John Barber to put up a good read every day, and he has not let me down. He is an expert on many topics and should hold forth in the future on parenting, movies, books, football, baseball, and most of all, music.

What I am really looking forward to are more posts from John's sweet wife, Janna. She has only published one so far, but it captured pretty accurately many of the PK memories from my childhood. I had forgotten how horrible church business meetings are.

But the crown jewel is this post from Capt. Flip Out, Mark Currey. You can ask Ms. J, I was crying like a little girl who had just had her dolly’s head snapped off after reading this. The part where he meets his Dad’s best friend . . . oohhh man . . . now that is a tear jerker . . . here I go again.

Besides the sad story, you also gotta give the Capt. credit for starting out his blog with an entry entitled:"My favorite Dead Guys (in no particular order)"

Also, I noticed that Janna and Currey picked the same template. What psychological information can we glean from that?

This leaves us only one question: Where are the blogs from Dan, Pastor Tim, My old man, Ms. J, Get with the program!

Perhaps you remember this story of dental misfortune?

Well, yesterday afternoon I had to go back to the chair and have some stuff fixed. I had to have my four front upper teeth crowned because I grind my teeth while I sleep. Those four had gotten so thin that they were breaking off bit by bit. I had never had a tooth crowned, let alone four at a time, so I had no idea what I was in for. Looking back on my experiences yesterday, it was basically like two and a half hours in a medieval torture chamber. I would have gladly given them any secrets that they wanted. I have never been in so much pain in my life. My lip and my nose were completely numb, but where the dentist was working was on my teeth and gums. Those were feeling pain just fine, thank you. I tried to complain and get more anesthetic injected, but the jerk just put another shot into my upper lip.

After whittling my teeth down to nubs, he had to pack these small pieces of string around each tooth between the tooth and the gum. This was the most painful thing that I have ever had to go through. I had tears streaming down my face. I was moaning like a poltergeist. The dentist says, “Ooh I just can’t stand to see you in such pain!” and gives me another injection in the upper lip.

The temporary crown that they put on is one piece and stretches across all four teeth. It is right in the front, so I can hardly talk. I sound like a little kid wearing an orthodontic retainer. When I answer the phone at work I usually say, “Call Center, this is Nathan.” Today it has been, “Caw thinter thishish Nasan.”

Until they get the permanent crowns on I can not eat anything that I have to bite into. No apples, no ribs, no chips and dip, but worst of all . . . No sandwiches. I do not know how I am going to go three weeks with no sandwiches.

And did I mention that my mouth feels like I chewed up a mouthful of safety glass - all cut up and sore.

I am going to start being more selective about what I allow those jerks to do to my mouth.

My old man called me last night to share the most amazing true story I have most ever heard. He has been pastor at a little country Baptist church for the past seventeen years. On Wednesday nights they do not have regular preaching, but everyone separates into smaller groups and has bible classes. The children go to what is called Awana. The only thing I know about Awana is that it is a church program for kids, but I intend to go to this web site and find out more after hearing this story.

Anyway, after Pop finishes up with his class, (he teaches the adults) he is walking out into the auditorium when one of the Awana teachers walks up to him and says, “The Little Cubbies have made you a gift and would like to present it to you.” Little Cubbies is what they have named the preschool group. I think they are called this because they have a short temper if they do not get enough sleep.

Pop follows her into a classroom full of little kids and sees that they have baked cookies in the shape of small bears, or little cubbies as the case may be. The teacher says, “Brother Pat, we would like to present you with this token of our appreciation for having the best goatee of any preacher in lower Arkansas.” Or something like that. He was not real specific on the ceremony.

This is how the action unfolded. He is standing there in front of the class and he has his hands out, together and palms up, and the teacher is placing a little cubbie cookie into his hands. A youngster in the front row sees the cookie and thinks to himself, “Wait a second, that is my little cubbie cookie.” The munchkin runs squealing across the classroom as if he were shot from a connon, collides with pop, and bites onto his crotch.

Yep, no shit.

Pop dropped his cookie, grabs a double handful of toddler hair, and they have themselves a little Mexican standoff. The crotch-biter is scared to move, the old man is scared to move. As Pop put it, “Thank God he had the frank and not the beans, cause he was biting down hard!”

Finally the kid relaxes his bulldog jaws and Pop pushes him away. The teacher was crying, the classroom was bedlam, the old man had a big wet spot on the central area of his slacks, and the kid still got the cookie.

Sometimes this blog thing seems like my own personal version of Elmo’s world.

La la la la , la la la la, Fatnate’s blog.
Hi and welcome to Fatnate’s blog. Can you guess what Fatnathan is thinking about today?
ya-ta-ta-daaaa. . .

That’s right Fatnathan is thinking about how he is going prematurely gray, if his son will hate him when he is fourteen, what that wierd rash on his neck might be, and what will happen on the West Wing this season.

Let’s ask Mr. Noodle what he thinks . . .

this was published in the weekly Modern Humorist newsletter. It made me giggle.

True facts: Vin Diesel X-posed!
by Bobby Mort

Real Name: Leonard Dieselwitz

Vin Diesel's first big break came when he wrote and directed a low-budget film about Man's search for his place in the universe called "Dude, My Arms Are Huge!"

While Vin was a bouncer in New York City, Vin Diesel got into a scuffle and accidentally killed one of the Fat Boys.

Vin Diesel shaves his head because his actual hair is dense shrubbery.

Vin Diesel's first kiss was with his biceps.

Not wanting to be pigeonholed, Vin Diesel hopes to do adventure movies as well as action movies.

Much has been made of Vin Diesel's multi-racial appeal, but he is 100% Chinaman.

Vin Diesel can chop a tree in half with his steely gaze.

In high school, Vin Diesel formed a barbershop trio called the Aca-Fellas with friends Mike Octane and Jimmy Fuel.

Vin Diesel was the voice of the robot in "The Iron Giant," and he also did voice work in Disney's classic "The Great Mouse Detective" as a giant robot.

Vin Diesel is half cougar.

Vin Diesel claims he could've stopped 9/11 if he'd only had access to a giant harpoon gun.

My best buddy is named Dan. Dan is a big fat sweaty lazy hairy musician, just like me. That is why we hit it off so well. For a day job, Dan learned how to break in to cars. He got himself a cell phone and an ad in the yellow pages . . . instant locksmith career. Now he spends most of the day sitting in front of his computer, surfing EBay for sweet bass guitars. Did I mention that Dan is much smarter than me? He talked his wife into letting them get DSL instead of cable, and then he just stole cable from the neighbors for free.

We came from the same town and I knew who he was, but we did not hang out. When I was in ninth grade my old man gave me a guitar for my birthday. It was just what I had always wanted. After I had exhausted all of Pop’s knowledge I wanted to learn more about pickin’ and grinnin’. I went to the high school band director and said, “Mr. C, where could I get some guitar lessons.” I was expecting him to send me to some college professor, but he replied, “You should talk to Dan the Man!”

I said, “But Dan is into heavy metal. Besides, I thought that he was a bass player.”

You see I was a little bit scared of Dan because (a) I did not really know him and he was older than me (b) He had long hair and wore slayer T-shirts and (c) He hung out with The Great Whoreior – Corey Shepherd.

Mr. C said to me, “Big Nate, He is the pest guitar player around. I know you two will hit it off.”

Turns out Mr. C was damn right, we did hit it off. I gave Dan ten bucks a lesson for three weeks. At that point we had exhausted all of his knowledge also. Then he went back to playing the bass and we started jamming as peers.

Dan lived in a tiny little trailer house with about 27 brothers. His room had two beds in it. We would sit on the beds facing each other and play for hours. All we knew were Cream and Zepplin and AC/DC and Guns N Roses, but we would rock them all night.

With Jody Evans and the Silver Crickets we put the rock in rockabilly.

We joined the music department of various universities and learned something about music.

With The Electric Church we put the funk in dysfunctional.

One time we crashed an open mic coffee house at a college. We played an avant garde improvisation for thirty minutes while two guys we had recruited from the visual art department smeared paint on a huge canvas and we all freaked out. Finally this little black kid in the front row got fed up with all of the weirdness. He jumped on this drum kit that was set up for the next act and started laying down a beat. Daniel and I accepted his challenge and rose to the funk. Another black kid jumped up, grabbed a mic and started freestylin’ some rhymes. We brought the crowd to their feet.

Next we started a jazz quartet with a drummer and a horn player. We could never come up with a name, although we had some good ideas. (Fugitive Squirrel, Clearly Disturbed Beavers, Jesus Chrysler, The Colostomy Bags, My gay uncle, Purple Monkey Discharge, The President's Penis, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, The Ed Fuqua Experience, The Underwear Men, Pissing Razors, Spiked Fondue, Jazz Ass) So I told the guy who owned the bar that we were the Daniel Schoultz Quartet. Dan has never forgiven me for this. One day we were playing this reception at one of the colleges and several members of the music faculty came and sat in with us. These guys were world class jazz musicians and we were clearly poseurs along side them, but it was a compliment that they even jammed with us.

With the Mark Currey Band we molded contemporary worship music and alt-country into a polysynthesis that only a Roach could despise.

We have been playing together at church for the last few years and that is where the real music is at; getting to worship the King along side my best friend while using this amazing gift that God has given to us. Jamming with Dan on Wednesdays at church is my most cherished memory.

Last Sunday night we got to rock the Decorative Arts Museum, opening up for a band that was much better than us. Dan booked the gig, so what did he name us . . . The Nathaniel Greer Trio. Vengeance is mine, this saith the Dan.

I love Tony Pierce. I have made no secret of that. I have said on this blog several times that he is my favorite. Last Friday when I reorganized my links I decided to put the blog links at the top and of course I put him at the top of my list of favorite blogs. So I decided to send him a note and tell him. I said,

Hey Tony,
I have been trying to deny it, telling myself over and over that your's is not my favorite web site. Today I finally gave in and linked you right at the top of my list.
God Bless,
Nathaniel

I have written Tony before and expressed my admiration, but he is a busy man. If you read his blog then you know that he has dozens of womens to keep up with. I did not expect a reply, I was just sharing the love. But after a couple of hours I see this in my inbox:

youre the man
have a great weekend!

thanks

tony

Now that was really something special to me. For my money, a personal note from Mr. Pierce is like a phone call from the president. Then I click over to his site, just like I do six or eight times a day, to check and see if he has any new posts, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a big fat link to me! Right at the very top left of his site. I have not been that excited since I hit my first homerun in Little League. Finally I will have the chance to write for somebody besides my sweet Ms. J and my best friend Dan. Since he gets one thousand visitors a day, and I get about ten, this was an act of benevolence on his part. I really can not help but feel like it is a new beginning for this simple little blog.

As I walked out to my truck from work on Wednesday, September 11, 2002, I had become completely saturated with 9/11 talk. It sounds calloused and crass, but I had watched it on TV, listened to it on NPR, read it on the opinion sites and the blogs and in the papers, and I was fed up. As Mark Steyn said,

To be honest, I'd had enough of the American networks' 9/11 anniversary coverage after about 10 minutes. I think it was the piano accompaniment to the victim profiles. Also there's the ironclad rule that every news story, no matter how unprecedented, eventually becomes a story about how the media cover the story.

As I started up my truck to head home the radio came on. I am a devoted listener to NPR, but as soon as I realized what I was playing I turned it off. I just could not handle any more 9/11 talk. I dug around in the console and found a CD of a Sunday morning service that I had not listened to. (I play guitar with the band on Sunday mornings, so I get a copy of the recordings mostly for vanity’s sake. Very spiritual, huh?) I plugged it in and cranked it up, just to take my mind off of the obvious. I hit the freeway and headed home, not really thinking about anything.

Little Rock is not a showy town. We are Deep South and we prefer to keep to ourselves, thank you. There are no globalization protests in Arkansas. There are no spontaneous memorials. There are biscuits and gravy and blues festivals, but that is about as emotional as we get in public.

But an amazing scene unfolded. As I passed underneath the Pine Street overpass, there was this guy in an eagle T-shirt, jean shorts, and a baseball cap standing up on the guardrail with a hefty American flag. He had a proud grin on his face and he was waving that damn thing around like he was trying to get somebody’s attention. As all of this was happening, on the stereo I noticed Mark Currey sing these lines:

We've been through fire
We’ve been through rain
We've been refined by the power of his name
We've fallen deeper in love with you
You've burned the truth on our lips

Rise up church with broken wings
Fill this place with songs again
Of our God who reigns on high
By His grace again we'll fly

And we’ll shout to the North and the South
Sing to the East and the West
Jesus is savior to all
He is Lord of heaven and earth

I became overwhelmed and my face was hot as if I was blushing. Martin Smith, who is an Englishman, wrote that song in 1995. It has nothing to do with dealing with the aftermath of terrorism, but it has everything to do with the transforming power of God’s healing. I realized that this thing changed all of us, even if we did not notice it happening. That God took a measure of our cynicism and burned it off. That He was able to take this horrible event and change us into something more like him.