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.)

---

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.

I finally checked my yahoo mail and I had this waiting for me.

Natey,

Just read your blog, man. I am amazed. You do great work! You do
have to change one thing, though. Down the page you said that nobody that
reads this blog loves baseball as much as you do. As of this morning, that
statement is no longer true.

Love you, man.

Barber

Thanks buddy,
Love right back at you.

My grandfather, Minice Butler Huffman (I knew him as Pawdy) was born in Catahoula Parish, Louisiana around 1911. I say around because he was born at home, had no birth certificate, did not celebrate birthdays, and no one really knew how old he was. His father was an obese moonshiner who did not care much for him. The story that Pawdy told me most often was of a time when he was about ten years old and his father sent him out into the bayou after dinner. He gave Pawdy a shotgun and two shells. He said to him, “Minice, our family’s dinner depends on you. You have two shots here; I want you to come home with two ducks. If you don’t get two ducks, don’t come home.” Predictably, he merely wounded the second duck and had to chase it through the swamp until twilight. By the time Pawdy was 12 he had left home and his father’s heart had given out.

He fell in love with Louisiana/French girl Clara Leona Chevallier in the neighboring town of Jonesville and regularly walked the twelve miles to court her. They got married in 1937, (they were old by the standards of the day, at twenty-six and twenty-eight) had nine kids, and scratched out a living farming a small patch of ground. In 1959 they moved to Tulip, Arkansas, and purchased the farm where my mother grew up and left home.

By the time I was old enough to know him, Pawdy was a seventy year old curmudgeon, living near Arkadelphia and helping to farm 360 acres that my uncle Hidle (read: the feddle gummit) owned. He left the house every morning at daylight and worked until after dark. Sometimes Granny could get him to come in for lunch by yelling for him out the back door. She eventually got sick of that and started running a dishtowel up the chimney as a signal flag when lunch was on the table. Every night when he came in from the fields after dark, he would crumble up leftover cornbread in a glass of buttermilk for supper. He called whole milk “sweet milk” and refused to put it in the refrigerator. He left it sitting out on the kitchen table and drank it sour. When we would make disgusted faces at him he would say. “You’d do the same if you knew how healthy it is!”

Granny could cook. I mean she could really cook. Her baked duck would melt in your mouth. There was always a perfect bundt cake sitting on the table. She put the urp in purple-hull peas. She could make squirrel and dumplings that would drive a vegan to carnivorous fits. She could do the fried squirrel and gravy thing too, but don’t reach for the head. Pawdy’s got dibs on the squirrel brains. When we had a holiday meal and Granny and her girls would get in that kitchen, the resulting tablescape was such a vista that someone would have to take pictures before the kids were allowed to dig in.

Pawdy raised hogs, cows, and chickens to eat and sell. When he and Granny would butcher an animal themselves, nothing much got thrown away. I can remember cranking the hand powered meat grinder and feeding sausage into the natural casings they had harvested. When my dad and I came back from fishing or a hunting excursion, Pawdy would watch and shake his head in disapproval as we cleaned our game. When we were finished, he would take our bucket of scraps and use them to make dinner.

When Pawdy went hunting it was because the family needed meat; not for “sport,” which he despised. He always rode his old black mare on these hunting trips and refused to wear the blaze orange vests and hats that the law prescribes. His horse was very skittish and he was the only person that she would let ride her, but Pawdy could shoot a gun from her back without spooking her. This was an effective hunting method, too. It turns out that animals that are keen to a human’s presence don’t even notice a horse coming around. One deer season he rode right up to a monstrous twelve-point buck and blasted it at point blank range.

He walked behind this same horse dragging an ancient spade to plow a garden, just like it was done in the middle ages. This even though Hidle (read: the feddle gummit) had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of high tech farm equipment that he could have used, and my dad had repeatedly offered him use of his gas powered tiller.

He was part owner of the mineral rights on an oil producing lot back in Louisiana. Every year when my uncle Ronnie came up to Arkansas to visit, he would bring Pawdy a quart jar of crude. Pawdy would hold the jar up to the sun, then screw off the top, dip his index finger in the crude, and take a taste of it. His interest in the mineral rights was a very small percentage and it did not make him any money, but it was worth it to him to get to taste fresh earth every spring.

Around 1990, the feddle gummit finally came to collect the copious amounts of money that my uncle had borrowed. When he could not pay, they took the farm instead and he ran away into a north Arkansas whiskey bottle. Granny’s health was getting pretty bad, and by chance the house next to my parents was empty, so she and Pawdy moved in. Granny continued to deteriorate, and Pawdy spent the last several years of her life as her private nurse. He cooked for her, bathed her, moved her from the bed to the chair and back, and generally kept her out of a nursing home – which was where she would have been otherwise. Neither of them left the house for a long time.

Granny died on a Wednesday afternoon in the hospital in Arkadelphia. She took her last breath with my family standing in a circle around her, holding hands. We got home that night and Pawdy said, “Well I reckun’ I’ll go home and go to bed. I got to go there sometime.” And he did. He just walked home and went on with his life.

The next spring he discovered my dad’s gas powered tiller. He never had used a tiller before, why bother when he had a good horse and plow? But he quickly found out why everyone had embraced the gas powered tiller. Pawdy proceeded to plow up his entire yard and plant it in vegetables. When that was finished he plowed up my parent’s yard. By mid-summer he had the grandest suburban vegetable garden the world had ever seen. There were okra plants twelve feet high. The surplus was more than we could eat and more than we could give away.

It was so good to hear from my old friend John Barber last night. His sweet wife, Jana was in town and stayed the night with Ms. J and I. John called from their place in Baltimore to tell Jana goodnight. I took the phone to say hi (we have not spoken in at least a year, maybe longer) and I think I ended up talking to him longer than Jana did.

The best thing about hearing from John: He loves his job! I mean he said that several times. He like what he does, he likes the people that he works with. Praise God! That is amazing. He used to be just as disillusioned and unhappy at work as me, but things got better. Apparently lots better. That gives me hope that I have not had in months, perhaps years. I think I might have resigned myself to thinking that no one anywhere got to make a living doing something that they could stomach. A very depressing thought indeed.

Also we discovered that we now both work for the same huge defense company. Imagine that, we are coworkers. Colleagues. The difference, he does something enjoyable and I do something banal.

The second best part about hearing from John: While we were catching up, I mentioned this modest little blog. He happened to be sitting at a computer and surfed on over. He immediately said, “Wow, your links on the left hand side there are all of the sites that I have bookmarked and read every day.” He promised to keep an eye on my site too. Hopefully he will be a regular contributor to the comments section. John is one of the best music listeners and true fans that I have ever known. And he has impeccable taste. I am looking forward to John turning us on to some great new artists. He has already blown me away with finds like Vigilantes of Love and Over the Rhine.

This picture is for you, dear friend . . .

The Evolution of the Musician

I realize that I tell you people all the time to read Tony Pierce, but this morning he sets a new standard in blogging. His first post for 9/11 is a letter from President Bush to Osama. I would really like to post the whole thing, but Ill let you click over and read it instead. Here is an excerpt:

hi, my name is george w. bush.

i'm the president of the united states of america.

i have a message to osama bin laden.

osama, im calling you out.

i want to meet with you at an agreed-upon location and i want to beat your ass.

man to man.

face to face.

i'm sick, quite frankly, of this cat and mouse kiddie game of hide and seek and i am giving you one week to stand up to me as a man and take the licking you so deserve.

if you're so badass, why don't you meet me, the american white devil, anywhere you want so i can slap that stupid look off your face.

i know you're probably thinking that this is a trap, that the armed forces of the united states, or the u.n., or the northern alliance will jump out from the bushes and capture your sorry ass, and imprison you.

but i'm hereby giving you temporary immunity. you have no excuse to decline this offer.

i swear upon my word as president, on my word as a Christian, on my word as an American citizen that your safety will be guaranteed up to your meeting with me. and if you survive the single handed texas asskicking that i will deliver on your person, i will assure your safety back into whatever dusty hole you're currently hiding in.

but the only way you'll get home is through me, osama, and only you would call that gopher hole home.

After doing without for a few weeks, Ms. J finally complained enough that I went out and found a new comment hosting service.
Please friends, click the link under whatever post you want to make fun of and comment away!

I have joined this ad exchange service called "blogsnob." I am looking forward to new traffic and I am also excited about the new sites that it will turn me on to. It is a text based ad and you can see it on the left at the top of my links list. They claim to be family friendly and I hope that is the case. I encourage you to click on the site that is advertised if it looks interesting to you. If not, don’t. What do I care?

I have recently discovered that I am addicted to Tony Pierce. I can not explain it. We both like baseball and we both enjoy writing, but that is about all that we have in common. I have found myself going to his site several times a day hoping for new material. If Rolling Stone magazine wanted to save themselves and regain some of that street credibility that they used to have, they should start sending Tony on the road with bands. The articles he sent back would be well worth the cover price.

This week is my first real test of the fall semester. I have two papers to write for school and a gig to prepare for this Sunday. I am going to lose it. Just thinking about it has got me all sleepy.

My hippie brother-in-law called last night and said, “Would you happen to be the leader of some outfit called ‘The Nathaniel Greer Trio?’”
I’m afraid so, I said.
He had seen an ad for Take Five Jazz in the newspaper. He said he was coming to the show. That will be great. He is an ardent supporter of the arts, and hippies are always fun at shows.
Hippie brother-in-law is actually doing pretty well these days, or seems to be. At least he has held a job for several months in a row. That makes me proud. I want to like him and welcome him around. Every little boy should get to have a hippie uncle.
I remember seeing my uncle Pete from New Jersey. He was tall and thin. His hair was receding in the front and pulled into a scraggly ponytail in the back. He smoked cigarettes (and he only knows what else) and was a great auto mechanic. One time he passed through in a big old renovated school bus with this funny hippie lady and a couple of her little hippieletts. He was helping them drive that bus cross country to Arizona, seemingly just because they needed the help. I thought that he was the coolest guy I had ever seen. I wanted to take him to show and tell.
When I was about thirteen or fourteen he came to town for Granny and Pawdy’s fiftieth wedding anniversary. He stuck around longer than everyone else and on his last day he wanted me to go for a ride with him. He wanted me to lead him to some horrible souvenir shops so he could get cheesy gifts for friends back east. Before we left I suggested that we find some good stuff in my cassette collection to listen to. He looked it over and declared Jane’s Addiction as high quality. I could not argue with that. After that one was over I played him some Ice Cube. Pete thought that was hilarious.
He said to me, “Hey man, does your dad every play you any Pink Floyd?”
I confessed that I had never heard of that dude.
He said, “Where is the nearest record store.”
I led him to the mall and he marched straight in and bought me a copy of Floyd’s “Dark Side of The Moon." Also he told me it was a band, not a dude. For that I will be forever grateful. I still have that cassette, even though it has long since worn out. My hippie uncle was the coolest.

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We moved the boy, Wylie in to a big boy bed last night for the first time. He only fell off once, and that was at 7:00 this morning. Boy did it upset him. Ms. J said that it was all that he talked about all morning. He has my sister’s old daybed and we pulled the trundle out about half way so that he would have something soft to land on if he fell. Well, I heard a dull thud this morning on the hardwood floor (and when I say hardwood floor, what I mean is hard, wood floor) and skedaddled in there. He was sitting up in the floor and crying about half way across the room from his bed. I don’t know if that was where he rolled to or what, perhaps rolled off so hard and fast that he missed the trundle all together.
Ms J. and the boy had to go to the store this afternoon. Wylie fell asleep on the way home and she slipped him out of his seat with that lovin’ momma touch and carried him in the house. As she was easing him down on to the bed she said that he quietly mumbled, “No, not the big boy bed . . .” and went right back to sleep.