Disassembly Required

As I was disassembling something yesterday, I had to reflect upon the fact that "disassembly" is such a wonderful concept. "Assembly" implies hours of tedium with a screwdriver, an adjustable wrench, and 23 pages of instructions written in 45 different languages. But "disassembly" is something one can do with a sledgehammer. It is simple but terribly gratifying.


So I was disassembling a chest of drawers from our basement with my sledgehammer out in the yard. I then burned the disassembled components in an old steel barrel. I live in an area where there is extremely lax enforcement of any ordinances which might exist. Nobody really seems to know or care whether I am even supposed to have a burning barrel.

When I first moved in, I was going to burn a large pile of brush I accumulated from trimming all of the hedges. I asked one of my neighbors, the guy who lives next to my pet cemetary, "what is the protocol for obtaining a burning permit?" I could tell by his perplexed look that he hadn't understood my question, so I rephrased, "I'd like to burn this pile of brush, whom should I call?" Again, confusion. I pointed to the brush, "I'm going to light this on fire." Finally he said, "Oh, do you need some matches?"


Since that time, I've adopted the local customs and I burn whatever I want whenever I want. So, I was out in the backyard burning the disassembled pieces from a chest of drawers. The fire was just roaring when, all of a sudden, something shot out of the barrel skyward into a tree 30 feet away. Then, it happened again?! After ducking for cover, I emerged to try to figure out what I was launching all over the neighborhood. There were pieces of metal, formerly hinges and such, that had somehow reformulated themselves as flying projectiles. I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I did have to pause to consider, "Wouldn't I feel like an idiot if one of those had hit me or someone else?" There ought to be a law.





Incidentally, the ife-way has esumed-ray eading-ray the ustyblog-ray. Ixnay on the aphne-day.

Hold em, Texans

Somehow I got roped into playing poker tonight. I feel as though I'm somewhat at a disadvantage. The problem is that I haven't played poker with any regularity in 10 years and haven't played period (that I can recall) within the last several years. I can't remember when to hold em, when to fold em, when to walk away and when to run.

In the meanwhile, it seems that everyone else in the world has become an expert at Texas Hold'em. I've even seen a TV show with Danny from the Partridge Family playing against Everybody Loves Raymond's brother and some other celebrities. These people are not all that entertaining when teams of professional writers tell them what to say, so why are they on my TV playing cards?

My lack of recent experience is compounded by the fact that I tend to forget how to play games fairly quickly. For the past 16 years or so, the Clowns and I have gotten together once or twice a year, and we always play spades. Each and every year, they have to re-teach me the rules. Fortunately, I am a fast learner and my team usually takes the upper "hand" by day 2. Unfortunately, my team usually loses the upper "hand" by day 3 because I am unable to concentrate on anything but the waves of nausea and occassional spasms of vomiting.

Anyway, can someone remind me about the guidelines for Texas Hold'em. When should I go "all in?" When should I go "all home?"

Working Class Gyro

One of my fans considers me to be a "smarty pants." By this, he/she/transgender seems to really mean that my pants are not, in fact, smart. This is a literary device known as "irony." The ironic thing is that my pants are, in fact, of average intelligence for pants. Granted, they are not smart relative to, say, a prescient being. But for pants, hey what do you expect? They stay on until I take them off and then they stay off until I put them on. Nice try though.

I do not belong to the working class. Instead, I belong to the class that goes "to work" but who then dicks around instead of working. Perhaps we should be termed the "dicking class." Judging by the blogs I've seen, the dicking class seems to be a large and growing segment of the world.


According to a definition I heard on the radio from a guy who was authoritative enough to be on the radio, "working class" is defined as a person who works where, when, and for how long the boss directs. To me, that doesn't seem right. My employees never seem to work where, when, or for how long I tell them to. I, on the other hand, always seem to be working. Maybe I do belong to the working class. But yet, don't forget about the dicking around.

Much of the working and dicking around that I do is uncompensated. For example, every year, I volunteer at the Toys for Tots program to hand out toys to parents of "underprivileged" children. Because my pants are not smart enough to object, I always get stuck standing outside in the cold to help people load the bags of toys into their vehicles. The deal is that parents somehow qualify to get free toys which are donated by the rest of us. There is a large convention center which is chock full of every toy imaginable. They are divided by age category and sex category and there is some type of rationing system that allows a parent to get, say, 1 large toy, 5 medium toys and 10 stocking stuffers per child (don't quote me on the numbers. I don't really know because, as I said, I'm standing outside in the cold). Whatever the rationing, the end result is that each parent seems to end up with at least one if not two or three 40 gallon bags full of stuff. These are what I get to cram into their vehicles.

Sometimes the folks are very grateful, and, as I load a bag into their 1976 Corolla, I figure I'm probably helping some kids enjoy a nice holiday. Other times, when I'm trying to negotiate around the giant speaker system in the back of a $60,000 Escalade but I dare not ask the owner to help for fear of breaking her unconscionably long, freshly manicured nails, I wonder whether I shouldn't belong to that class. I rationalize my assistance by assuming that this idiot's children won't get any decent toys but for the program despite the fact that, obviously, there would be better expenditures of her money. Yet I still have to wonder, am I really serving society best by enabling the continued gross consumption.

No, I better serve by dicking around. Witness the religion to synthesize all other religions and thereby render them unneccesary and end all need for warfare. Them are some smart pants.

RUE launches NEW Alternative to Passive Aggression

Rusty Enterprises (RUE on the Newark Stock Exchanger) has developed an exciting new alternative to passive aggression. It is hoped that RUE's alternative to passive aggressive behavior will reduce the amount of passive aggression. According to Wikipedia,

Passive-aggressive behavior refers to passive, sometimes obstructionist resistance to following authoritative instructions in interpersonal or occupational situations. It can manifest itself as resentment, stubbornness, procrastination, sullenness, or repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is assumed, often explicitly, to be responsible.

RUE's exciting new alternative is named "Active Aggression." Instead of resenting that person who is causing your life to be more problematic, why not just pick up a board and hit him/her/transgender in the face? Don't like your bosses latest assignment? Don't delay and sabotage the project - stab him/her/transgender in the kidney.

As for 0bstructionist resistance to following authoritative instructions, RUE is working on a new solution to his problem as well. This project has been tentatively named "Blind Obedience".


Both Blind Obedience and Active Aggression are expected to be extremely popular and should be big sellers for the ailing Rusty Enterprises, a faith-based initiative. "We really hope this drops directly to the bottom line," stated RUE Chief Chief Chief OneEar, "because that is our favorite line. In fact, I'm not clear on why we even have the other lines."

Victims & Churck Elders Reach Historic Settlement

Following an all-night session of tense negotiations, the First Unichuck has announced a historic settlement with alleged victims of alleged clergy alleged abuse. Expected to result in the largest such settlement since the Boston Catholic boy-raping thing, the FU settlement involves more than 500 alleged victims. Attorneys for the sheep as well as attorneys for the FU and FU leader OneEar announced the deal after a sleepless night of negotiations. According to the sheep's attorneys, "the victims appear satisfied with the settlement. None of them objected to the arrangement or to our rather sizeable attorney fee. They just ate some hay."

FU leader OneEar offered his condolences. "First, I would like to offer my sincerest, deepest, and hardest apologies to the sheep and their families, and I would like to reassure them and the general public that this should not happen again. The FU will do whatever to ensure that elders do not have inappropriate relations with non-consenting minor sheep." OneEar claims to have obtained a deep empathy for the victims and their families following extensive, private one-on-one meetings. "I really cannot overemphasize the need for more of these one-on-one meetings," claimed Ear.

Asked why the negotiations needed to occur during an all-night session, Ear responded, "Many important decisions, such as whether a nation should withdraw its fighting force from a foreign civil war, can be made only with the clear thinking achieved through the lack of sleep. Plus, we told some ghost stories."

Braking News

King of Rock.

A woman in Colorado has had revealed to her a rock enshrined with the image of Elvis Aaron Presley. This is one of the most important findings since the Virgin Mary appeared in a burrito.

____________________

Blow Job

A Virginia man who was making home-made fireworks, probably in preparation for Munitions Day, blew up his garage. Please remember: blowing up one's own home is one of the risks associated with making home-made fireworks at home.

____________________

Paris and Nicole

Reowned blogger OneEar cannot tell the difference between Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. According to Ear, "They may both be Lindsey Lohan.

____________________

Velma Loses Her Glasses (El Fin)

RECAP: Loyal viewer and occasional contributor LBok requested a retelling of the fascinating tale of a young American living in Spain who lost his glasses. Actually, LBok requested a different story involving Alceste's loss of his glasses, but I was unable to recall many of the details from that instance other than that our african-American-female friend Sitnay had picked a fight on Alceste's behalf with a large african-African man who proceeded to punch Alceste in the face and thereby knocked his glasses off. I don't think there was much else to that story, but my memory is fairly foggy since I was pretty heavily medicated at the time.

Instead, I opted to tell about the time that Alceste lost his glasses at the Plaza Mayor (or was it Puerta del Sol) on the night of New Year's Eve 1990-91. Frankly, I don't recall that night very well either, but I kept a journal of the events leading up to it, and I've been reminded by Alceste on numerous occasions as to what allegedly happened.

The story picks up where Alceste, Colyp and I had returned to Madrid after spending a week in Portugal. By the way, lest I leave the reader with an incorrect impression, the Port we drank in Portugal was generally very good. We only had one bad bottle of Port, but that was what made that bottle noteworthy enough to note. Also, the Aldera Nova that I referenced as the World's Worst Liquor was not Port. It was some type of Anis drink with an unbelievably strong flavor. It wasn't bad in the sense of rotten. It tasted like some sort of evil reduction of black licorice and turpentine. Apparently it is supposed to taste like that.

Speaking of inadvisable alcohol purchases, Coco often reminds me of the time we went into a liquor store somewhere before boarding a train to somewhere else and I spent our available funds on a bottle of Grenadine. Having heard the Grateful Dead song lyrics "Brown-eyed women and red grenadine, the bottle was dusty but the liquor was clean," I'd always wanted to try it. Little did we (I) know that Grenadine is concentrated cherry syrup.

But back to New Year's Eve, 1990. Incidentally, is it New Year's Eve 1990 when the New Year will be 1991? I can never keep that straight. Nor could I keep it straight that night. As evidenced by my journal:

31st- prepared for the night - 1 bottle gin, 1 bottle vodka - took nap - drank vodka - gave presents=BBall "dirty stuff" & IV for liquor. (So, here we are at the infamous New Year's Eve. It appears that we've procured the refreshments and exchanged Christmas presents. I do recall that I gave Colyp and/or Alceste a basketball and we fashioned a hoop and played tackle basketball in Alceste's room with the Germans. I don't know what the liquor IV could have been all about).

Ate chicken. (Again, chicken plays a role).

Filled flask for road and brought bottle of gin. I continued drinking with little assistance. Left with Gunter and the Germans and 2 French girls. (For some reason, I headed out for the evening with the Germans, and, apparently, 2 French girls. I infer that Alceste and Colyp were not with us, but that doesn't seem right. Perhaps they were still napping while I was enjoying a beverage or two, but I really don't remember. However, we must have either made arrangements to meet or they knew where I was going, because, as you will see, we met back up in a sea of 100,000 people).

Got to Sol. (Ah, it was the Puerta del Sol.).

Saw Air Force dude from Moncloa (We had met a group of US Air Force fly-boys one night at a bar. You may recall that the US was conducting bombing raids in Iraq in Gulf War I during the winter of 90-91. This was an unnerving situation for us for numerous reasons, not the least of which was because we were illegal alien Americans in a country that had been ruled by Arabs for an 800 year period. Also, the Spanish public was not generally enthusiastic about the US bombing operations. They thought it was all about oil.

As an example of the social climate at the time, on another occasion, Alceste and I were walking up a street when we noticed a large and growing crowd, or "mob" if you will, building in front of us. As we progressed onward between the burning trashcans, etc. toward our destination, our oblivion was shattered as it slowly dawned on us what was going on. In addition to burning effigies and waiving home-made flag-signs with impolite slogans, the mob was chanting, "Bush - Asesino - Destruye del mundo" or something to that effect which, in our rudimentary understanding of Spanish, we interpreted to mean, "let's get the fuck out of here!" For those who might be amazed at the prognosticating prescience of the Spanish mob who was calling President Bush a killer and destroyer of the world, do not be amazed. This was the first President Bush they were rioting about.

By the way, another problem often encountered while dicking around in a foreign country while your motherland is at war is that it is difficult to get decent news. We had to choose from the slanted Spanish press or US Armed Forces radio from Torrejon, neither of which is very objective. Given the tense situation and the occasional kidnappings, etc., the Torrejon Air Force base was on high alert. When pilots returned from bombing runs on Iraq, they were supposed to keep a low profile. And so it was when we met these guys one night and sat down for a night of drinking. These four 30-something Americans with crewcuts claimed to be visiting Madrid on vacation as an award for meeting their sales goals selling Amway. Right.

Well, it appears that one of these guys was down at the Plaza del Sol. He marks the first in an unbelieveable series of people I/we had met and drank with days, weeks, or months prior who would emerge from the throng of 100,000 to reunite on this magical evening.

-sin dedo (I don't know what this means).

- Saw drunks from Portugal=soccer players=still drunk (These were the freak brothers, one of whom pulled the emergency stop on the train. Again, a bizarre coincidence to run into them again. Who would've guessed that they, and I, would still be drunk days later?)

-German from Faro trip (I think this guy had been on his way to Morocco. He told us some horror story which I don't remember).

-Bought some champagne (There were champagne street vendors. Great concept.)

-drank 1 bottle with gin shots, drunk came along, he helped himself. Ladies, one grabbed Alceste's crank. (I vaguely remember Alceste remarking to one of the ladies, "Hey, you just grabbed my crank!")

-Saw Aussies again. (This was the 2 chicks 1 dude group). Again, what are the odds?

So, my journal entry ends for the night. The remainder of the story is pieced together between my steel trap memory and the unsubstantiated allegations of Alceste (and Colyp).

Many of us who drink to excess have experienced the occasional "blackout." I've been told that it is a symptom of alcohol abuse. Usually, the way that it works is that one drinks too much, and, the next day, when trying to recollect what happened, there is a foggy period after which you don't remember anything and then you wake up somewhere (such as in the bushes) in the morning. This occasion was different. My next recollection was sitting at a table early the next morning. Apparently I had not slept or been home, but I had spent all of my available money (as usual). I was sitting in a tavern that I didn't recognize with a group of people I didn't know. I wasn't sure where (or when) I was. Presumably the adrenaline brought me to a sharp state of awareness. There was a young lass sleeping cuddled against me who, again, I didn't recognize.

The other folks at the table were carrying on a conversation as though we had known each other for some time. I excused myself, and the young lady awoke and, despite my urgent indications that I was leaving, decided to follow. It turned out that she apparently spoke only French, which I don't, and I recall spending several minutes trying to explain that I had to leave because I wasn't sure where (or when) I was. Eventually I left the bar into a neighborhood that I didn't recognize and began trying to figure out where I was. With the sun rising, I could determine East, but I had no idea which way I should head. I walked for the rest of the morning in concentric circles until I found a street the name of which I recognized. I eventually found my way back to familiar ground and walked home late in the morning.

What happened after midnight is a mystery. Alceste alleges that, for no known reason, just after midnight, I walked up to him and smacked his glasses off of his face. He claims to have reached down and put his glasses back on at which time I allegedly knocked them off again.
Though I can't deny it, I would likewise have no reason to believe him but for the fact that a) Colyp concurred and b) Alceste was angry with me for several years which seems like alot of histrionics if it was a joke. Also, he did, in fact, have broken glasses.

So, at this time Alceste, I am willing to accept responsibility for breaking your glasses, and I would like to say, "Sorry." Or should I say, "Rorry."

-

(Christmas story courtesy of McHenry Co. Illinois blogger McHenry County Blog

PS: I think it only appropriate that you now apologize for the hotel incident.

Meme Me

Catching up on my two-dew list from September:

1. One book that changed your life: 1995 Chevrolet Suburban Owner's Manual.


2. One book that you’ve read more than once: Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr. Suess. I read it doing a Jesse Jackson impersonation ala SNL.


3. One book you’d want on a desert island: How to Keep Other People From F^cking Up Your Desert Island.


4. One book that made you laugh: Catch 22, by Joseph Heller. It was the last occasion when a book caused me to laugh out loud. Of course, at the time, I thought it was fiction.


5. One book that made you cry: To Kill a Mockingbird. It was my first step in the direction of becoming a lawyer. The crying only started recently.


6. One book that you wish had been written: Free Drinks and Free Tacos - a World Guide.


7. One book that you wish had never been written: What Color is My Pair of Shoes?


8. One book you’re currently reading: Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr. Seuss.


9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Various laws. They might come in handy some day.

Now, if I understand this meme concept correctly, I need to infect someone else. How about my number one disciple, sort of the Magdalene to my Mary, ML.

Top 10 Most Annoying Clown Squad Songs

Everybody seems to be publishing lists of the most annoying songs.

So, without further adieu, here are the top 10 most annoying Clown Squad songs.

10. Where has he gone? This is the Clown Squad's Macarena.
9. Happy Bigamy Where is Hanson when you need her?
8. Funky Monkey Crap Rap Please let the dogs out - poo - poo poo.
7. Penny For Your Thoughts Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs.
6. 1-900 Baby My Hump, but long-distance.
5. Whiskey Infused Train Wreck This should have been the theme for the Titanic.
4. Two Steppin Surgin It's funny because it's true.
3. Life is Like a Sausage Ricky Martin couldn't have done it any worse.
2. Her Nookie's a Leaker Snoop there it is.


And the number one most annoying Clown Squad song - eggroll please.............
1. The Grumpy Sergeant. You're Beautiful.

Shiny Happy People

Many people, or at least one, have posed the question, "Why the First Unichurck? Don' t you think it is kind of silly to worship a one-eared, slightly incompetent sheep toy invented by (your friend) Cocoa-no-Gogo?"

Have you never sat out in nature watching a sunset at dawn? Have you never smelled the sweet fragrance of flowers in a field covered with new fallen snow? Have you never heard the mating dance of a flock of wild ponies? If you have, then you know what I'm talking about, and that goes doubly if you haven't.

It has been established by "science" that happy religious people are happier than unhappy people. Honestly, it is true. Studies show it. Why would this possibly be? Because the contemplative life is best achieved by pondering an undead magical savior-ghost?

Meditation changes the human brain, and we assume that this change is for the better. (Alcohol does too, but that is a different matter). Meditation actually increases the brain size, and, in religion, size matters. So, if you are a human being that values his/her/transgender's brain, the evidence is clear. You should meditate each and every day. Warning: Do not meditate to excess or while driving. If you think that you might be a meditation-holic, you are one. It is time to slow down and get some help.

"That doesn't answer the question," you might be thinking. "Why worship Rusty when there are so many other more widely-accepted magical savior-ghosts to consider?" The answer lies in the question. What was the question again?

Now, I've gone back to the beginning of this post to remind myself about the question, and I've ended up here again. This seems to be some kind of a circular-type circle. And so it is with religion.

As Arlo Guthrie once said while misquoting someone else, "You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in."