no time for blogging.... have some punch

"Well, no," says the Irishman, "but it happens to me sister all the time!"

"Damn, I just joined the Rotary Club.""No", the guys says, "I can't believe that the donkey sold the place." “Oh, those are the peanuts,” he replies. “They’re complimentary.” And the rabbi replied, "No . . . I think I'll just wait for the police." The blind man is silent for a moment and then says, "Nah, I wouldn't want to have to explain it five times."

Duck this why doncha

there is a line between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.” BUT.... a joke is a joke is a joke...... as long as I think it's funny...it's called the jimm-rule. Five doctors went duck hunting one day. Included in the group were a general practice (GP) physician, a pediatrician, a psychiatrist, a surgeon and a pathologist. After a time, a bird came winging overhead. The first to react was the GP who raised his shotgun, but then hesitated. "I'm not quite sure it's a duck," he said, "I think that I will have to get a second opinion." And of course by that time, the bird was long gone. Another bird appeared in the sky thereafter. This time, the pediatrician drew a bead on it. He too, however, was unsure if it was really a duck in his sights and besides, it might have babies. "I'll have to do some more investigations," he muttered, as the creature made good its escape. Next to spy a bird flying was the sharp-eyed psychiatrist. Shotgun shouldered, he was more certain of his intended prey's identity. "Now, I know it's a duck, but does it know it's a duck?" The fortunate bird disappeared while the fellow wrestled with this dilemma. Finally, a fourth fowl sped past and this time the surgeon's weapon pointed skywards. BOOM!! The surgeon lowered his smoking gun and turned nonchalantly to the pathologist beside him. "Go see if that was a duck, will you?" I was going to kill myself today by taking a thousand aspirin. But after taking the first two I felt better. I failed my Health and Safety class test today. Apparently, when they ask you, "In the event of a fire, what steps would you take?" "Goddam large ones" is not the correct answer The devout cowboy lost his favorite Bible while he was mending fences out on the range. Three weeks later, a duck walked up to him carrying the Bible in its mouth. The cowboy couldn't believe his eyes. He took the precious book out of the duck's mouth, raised his eyes heavenward and exclaimed, "It's a miracle!" "Not really," said the duck. "Your name is written inside the cover." A man in a movie theater notices what looks like a duck sitting next to him. "Are you a duck?" asked the man, surprised. "Yes." "What are you doing at the movies?" The duck replied, "Well, I liked the book." A policeman in the big city stops a man in a car with a duck in the front seat. "What are you doing with that duck?" He exclaimed, "You should take it to the zoo." The following week, the same policeman sees the same man with the duck again in the front seat, with both of them wearing sunglasses. The policeman pulls him over. "I thought you were going to take that duck to the zoo!" The man replied, "I did. We had such a good time we are going to the beach this weekend!" A man and his pet duck walk into a bar. It's about 5pm, but they're ready for a good night of drinking. They start off slowly, watching TV, drinking beer, eating peanuts. As the night goes on they move to mixed drinks, and then shooters, one after the other. Finally, the bartender says: "Last call." So, the man says, "One more for me... and one more for my duck." The bartender sets them up and they shoot them back. Suddenly, the duck falls over dead. The man throws some money on the bar, puts on his coat and starts to leave. The bartender, yells: "Hey buddy, you can't just leave that lyin' there." To which the man replies: "That's not a lion, that's a duck.".... ok.... rained all day yesterday...about one and half inches. dark...gloomy today. It just left me all feeling ...ducky

I dream of shadows, long and deep

***** this is a draft of something I wrote back in May. A first draft. It ain't no never mind. But for lack of anything else, I post it now. tell me what you think.

"ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now."

Before I feel asleep last night I heard on a news show that it was 45 years ago that Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, on June 4th, 1968. And I was thrown back in time. That was the summer I came of age, which I always thought of as a dumb thing to say.  I mean, what age are we talking about anyway?  First kiss, first beer, first fist fight, first drunk, first time you got laid?  Well, other than the last, I had already done all the former, the last item would not take place for another year,  and I was still short of my 16th birthday that summer.   I had fine tuned the art of shaving with my father's Gillette two side blue blade by then, after a year of trying to turn my face into cole slaw in my efforts to rid my countenance of a rapid and extremely dense black hair growth.  Felt it made me look way too much like the farmers that came into town on saturdays and hung out at the feed mill.  I was a TOWN boy and noway wanted to look like the hayseed kids that didn't shave at all and appeared scruffy and uneducated for lack of trying.

But it was Bobby's murder that set the tone for that summer, for me, and for all the innocence I may still have had at that point.
I always will remember watching it on my own TV, and ancient 12 inch model that Al at the newspaper had given me.  It worked well enough with the rabbit ears, and all, but you did have to jump up often and fine tune the dial or move the antennae, yet it wtill made me a bit special among my friends because I did have one after all and they didn't.  I also had a regular job, which most didn't and that summer it paid me the extravagant wage of $1.15  per hour.  At the newspaper.  It was a small establishment that published twice a week, or to be honest, it was two weeklies that were run from the same office, by the same staff, The Sparta Herald on Mondays and the Monroe County Democrat that ran on Thursdays.  My Dad was the Advertising manager for both and the year before, when there was an opening for the magnificently named  position of 'Shit Kid',well he made sure I filled it.  I am not kidding either.... that was the name of the job, or at least what all the pressman in the back called me, as in " kid, do this shit,"  or " kid, come ere; got shit for you to do," or 'kid, you doan know shit." .I rather liked the place, the gruffy pressmen.  I ran ad copy to the groceries for Dad, delivered the job printing, the funeral cards to the funeral homes, was the spare hands on press day, and came in on Saturday's and emptied the waste cans, ashtrays and mopped the floor.  In only one year I had gone from the minimum wage of $.85 to the princely $1.15.  I did like the place.... I heard things... politics, city gossip, got to hang out in a REAL bar some Friday's when Dad and the Editor would have 'business' meetings.  It was good.

But then Bobby was shot.... not long after Martin Luther King was shot....

'..... and the shit broke out in Watts

And the stuff from Nam filled the news, Khe Sanh, My Lai, the Tet offensive...
... and protests were breaking out all over, Madison, Columbia, Howard University...Johnson announced he would not see re-election. Eugene McCarthy was making peace waves. And I was very concerned about making the Varsity Football team.

...and there were Black Panter shoot-outs,  everyone was starving in Biafra, the Czech Spring ended with a Soviet invasion.... the World was getting smaller and now that our family finally had gotten cable TV and moved from three channels to 12, it was in our living room, in color, though, as in many other things in life, the color needed constant attention and tuning least it be too red, or blue or green.  And adjust you must, see, or you would miss that brand new show on TV, Laugh-In......

 ....though my favorite show was still the Smothers Brothers.

* well that is far as I got. the first time. I pulled this up because I thought it was time to throw up a post. I do forget where I was going with all that. I know, later that year, I did get a driver's license...I did make the Varsity... the youngest kid on the squad. but the summer was over. Just like this one. And now I watch the news and there is ....nothing...about a war that still lingers. I was back home for a while last summer....and walked the old main street. Most of the stores that once were there...are closed or turned into new& used shops...heavy on the used. But there is a Walmart. Oh boy. Back then...I liked the fall...now...the shadows at night come in too quickly for me to embrace them. I am not sure where I am going now...and I do care. Back then, I didn't....just moved through the days. it is funny how time works....and how the shadows of everything you knew can sometimes creep up on you, and that voice says, 'sleep, boy, it's all ok.

ok

what's in a name anywayz

well, it was a pretty uneventful week. sorta. wiped out on the bike while transfersing the cemetary. thats another story. but I broke the pinky on my right hand.....a real shame, see, cause it was my favorite digit with wich to pick my noes, again, no big deal, cause the nose is big enough and other fingers fit u- there just fine. thank you very much. and it doesn't hurt a whole lot, but it kind of just hangs there. again, not a big deal. it's just that little knuckle thingee right behind the nail. well not having insurance I just figured I coulod mend this sucker. bought some popsickles. they come with free sticks. so you eat the popsickles and keep the stick and wrap the whole thing up with duct tape. cept/// couldn't find the duct tape..had to use scotch tape. seemed to work just fine...cept when I woke up the thingee wasw covered in ants. see, I live in a real swifty neat apartment. Next time I will wash them there sticks instead of just licking them clean. good thing I didn't just try to pick the nose. coulda had splinter AND ants. No teacher like experience is what I say. anyways...during all that futzing around and watching football... why gosh, I caught some news. Mainly.....some folks are saying the Washington Redskins should change their name, what with Redskin kind of being a derogatory name and all. and I guess it is...but, i'm thinking, all in all, there are more pressing issues...like opening up government and getting the nation back to work...maybe world peace...ending hunger...and then i'm thinking...well...it is kind of nasty. and maybe it should just be changed. like, see, if they were they Washington Wetbacks....well, no one would fly with that ....I mean, that is pretty offensive. So...I'm still think...maybe I bird or an animal or something. approporiate to ................DC like..maybe, the Deaf Fuckers...but then, that would be pretty offensive, too, and a whole buncha disabled folks wouln't like that much no matter how well it would fit Congress. and War Mongers would be good too, but that may set off the sensiblities of some...like Quakers and other pacifists. SO...how about this.... THE LYNCH MOB !!!!!! I think it is appropiate.....seeing as how everyone in Washington anywhere to the right really really likes Obama.....and gosh, the could make a lotta money selling new jerseys and souveniers. bring hangman nooses to games and stuff. White robes could be popu;ar again.... well, maybe I should just setttle down....think of something else. i would be asking too much of America to swap out a perfect;y good offensive sport nick name for another one. aso...then I was thinking other deep thoughts, like, how come Boston is the only city in the USA with a dog named after them? Ya know, Boston terriers. How come there is no Milwaukee Mutts? No Detroit Dobermans? No Fresno Flea Bags? Gosh&stuff...the world is full of complex questions. I best eat another popsickle...I gotzta change my splint.

I believe we should have a government program to help provide affordable beer for all Americans. It is shocking ...... how many Americans go to bed sober. I believe I will call it.... jimmocare. Or, the ABA, Affordable Beer Act. With a little work we CAN wipe out Sobriety in our life time.

almost....maybe.....sorta

just an update.....if anyone is still there.  
Got a new/old computer.  big thanks to buddy, Dimly. 
Billa Lang has helped me set up the sucker so I can read it better.  Getting reused to a PC after using a Mac.....after going near blind, is a challenge.  But not as challenged as watching Fox News.  Hoping this works out and I get back to wasting time on the internet.

On hiatus for a bit.... the eyes have gotten worse...lost the goddam poser cord for my Mac...and using the Library PC sucks.  Fluorescent light bulbs suck.  On a good note, I found my toenail clipperss  Now I need to find my band aids

have a song, curtesy of my Pet Rock

Birthdays and daughters.

See, I thought his birthday was the Tuesday after Memorial Day.  Which was, back then, the DAY" of the week he was born.  And I thought that was today.  Oh Well.  I talked with him anyway.  His sister straightened me out.  She quick calculated when the 27th of May will fall on the Tuesday after Memorial Day and wrote it out for me.

He is still doing the road thing with the TV show people.  He is flying somewhere today.  I think into Connecticut and then driving to New Hampshire and then..... well, he talks so fast, I lose track of where it is that he is going and where he has been.  Rather all melds together.  Life Melds.  Then it Melts.  I guess if I really want to find him, I call his sister and she fills me in.

 I remember the day she was born....and I took him up to see her for the first time in the hospital.
He wanted to name her after his favorite apple juice.  "TreeTop".  Which coulda been OK, but I tagged her with a more normal name, and then started calling her 'doodle-bug' (cause she drew on the wallpaper all the time.  Now it is just Bug.

And no one knows his older brother like she does.  And no one knows that his sister will watch his ass and lend him money like she will.  Or keep his secrets.  She is smart enough NOT to tell him hers.  That is the way it works.  He was always the big Brother....and still is.

When ...he was a Senior in HS and she was a freshman.... he always had a look-out for her.  She didn't walk...... he had the ride, or his friends did..... and it was almost the same thing.  I got lucky.... I have two children that are best friends.

But he is on the road.  I miss him everyday.  And now...........
I will be missing her everyday.  I guess that is the way life is......if there is not someone you are missing greatly everday, then you have some how missed the greater essence of loving.

She leaves on the 8th to spend the summer in Colorado.  I am not exactly sure where, the Northwest corner iss all I know, now.  She is going to live in a tent, chop down trees and brush and do Ranger sorts of things.  I just found out.  Part of me is crumbling.  " But it is only for three months, " she said.  Maybe four."  At least when he left, he gave me three months notice, not then days.

Now.... I love the Boy..... and the day he was born was the happiest day of my life, until she showed up and I realized I get to have two happy days.


..... and that enduring thought, that wonderful reality.....that my children are their own best friends.

I need to go shop .... I am sure she will need foot powder up in the mountains.... and a small picture of me..... just so she will not forget.

Things found......

I found my chainsaw yesterday.  I had lent it to Aaron, from the New Moon, cause he had this really crappy cedar bush that was growing into his porch and it was getting very unsightly and wouldn't behave.  Had to go..  From there I lent it to my Ex, cause she had this ancient lilac bush, more like a tree if you have to call it something, but anyways it had split down the middle last winter and it needed to go.  I remember bringing it home sometime after that, but I couldn't remember where i put it. 
Well, I found it.

It was underneath a pile of laundry at the foot of the bed.  The pile of 'dirty laundry; not the clean pile.  If it had been the clean pile, see, I would have found it sooner.  I look for clothes in the clean pile, not the dirty pile.  Makes sense to me.  I found it with my toe. Got a little cut on my right big toe. I had the chain sharpened last fall, so it was very sharp.  Bled a little, not too bad, put some peroxide on it and a band-aid, but it was a good indication that I needed to do laundry, seeing as I do remember bringing it home about four weeks ago.  It is a nifty little electric chain saw.... goes 'whirrrr-whirrrr-whirrrr' rather than 'Rumpppppphhher-Rummppphher-Rummppphher'- so no one would ever mistake it for a chain saw that you use to cut down really big rees like the lumber jacks use.  I am not a lumber jack.  More like a brush jimm, if you have to name the trade and all.

But it was time to tidy up.  Now, my first rule of tidying up is pick a spot and clean that spot as well as you can.... and seeing as the spot by the foot of the bed was, well, kind of a challenge, I started in the kitchen.  It wasn't as messy.  The dishes were easy.  Only three days worth, or so.  I am kinda picky about having clean dishes.  The counter was a different story.  I found three moldy hamburger buns.  For a minute I thought of tying to scrap off the mold and still eat them, but after trying a little, I realized the mold went too deep.  Outa here!  Did find the spare house keys which was a good thing, see, cause I thought I lost them down at Oblio's and I was really afraid someone down there would find them and sneak in here and clean up and then I would never find anything and I like finding my own stuff, thank you very much! Found a roll of toilet paper I had been looking for, the potato peeler, two potatos... a little too soft to peel anymore.  Outa here! .....and twnty three cents!  Three nickels and the rest in pennies.  Not enough for a beer, but hey, progress was  being made?!!!  Even washed the floor!  Found a newspaper around the side of the refrigerator.... head line was Obama getting elected.  wonder how that turned out?  Anywayz........
I went to work on this spot by the front door.  Found my pipe cutter, which I had not been looking for, my finish sander, which I had, a pair of old shoes with the soles coming off... they made a thunk-whump noise when you walked in them, which is why they were there, outa here!  There was also a New Yorker magazine, unread, from 2010, a hex wrench, some CLEAN underwear, obviously in the wrong pile, those went into the drawer, and sixty-two cents, two quarters, a dime and two pennies.  So, all in all, I was up to 85 cents, still not enough for a beer, but gees, this picking up and cleaning up thing was starting to get profitable.

Also found a new baseball hat, Kessler's Whiskey, smooth as silk, which I had been looking for cause I was going to give it to my friend Joe, seeing as it is golf season and he has this small bald spot that he needs to protect from excessive sun and occasional bird droppings.  "Good Deal," I thought to myself.  There was also an unopened jar of strawberry jam and two cans of cream of mushroom soup.  Not sure how they got there.  They should have been hidden on the counter where they belonged.  There was a rutabaga, too...it looked good.  Now that the counter was cleaned, I had a good spot for it.
Well, having a clean spot by the door, a clean sink, a clean kitchen sink.....I was on a roll!  I was finding all sorts of things......next...the bathroom.
Now I do keep a semi-tidy bathroom.  The mess there is just things that BELONG there, but just need to be organized.  I did locate seven toilt paper roll thingees...that carboard cylinder that is left when the toilet paper is gone.  Just never moved them to the paper recycling  bin.  Done.  Outa Here.  The library I keep there needed some pruning....didn't need the chain saw, but almost.  I did throw away a 2002 Rolling Stone, a 2009 Beer Mag, and a Milwaukee Journal sport page from last October.  That was all I got rid of.....see, you never know when you might have to ,ah, sit there for awhile and it is best to leave something to read.  I did find  eight cents, though, a nickle and three pennies.  AUp to 93 cents.  They were behind the toilet.  Sprayed 'em with some Lysol and there were as good as new.

.....and the more I dug through stuff....the more I found.  Christines cell phone number that I had lost..called her..she wasn't there.  Found Ed's cell phone number.... just put it on my cell.... I see him most monday's so I didn't call him.  Located a bunch of postcards that I had put stamps on...but never wrote or mailed.  Time for some more Random Acts of Postage !  Photos of Max in first grade.  Two screw drivers.  Tony Santo Paolo's obituary.  Missing CD's.... A Canadian One Dollar Loonie.  Directions for the microwave oven I threw away last year.  A box of photo negatives that I saved from my Mother's house.

So, if you count the Loonie, I was up to a Dollar and 93 cents.  That is if someone will accept the Loonie, it being Canadian and all, but I figured I could try it and if it worked, why gosh.... it was close to a beer, all this new found money.

Anyways.... all this cleaning and finding was wearing me out.  So I made a stack of stuff that I wanted to sort through yet and put it in the now clean spot by the front door and went to the library to get a movie.  thought I would make a cup of tea adn watch a movie, seeing as the kitchen was clean, might even make a peanut butter and banana sandwich.  thankfully, I hadn't found an old one, yet, which is good, cause it would have been kinda old, see.

And that is what I did... ..got and old movie on DVD that I remembered that I had liked.  Jane Fonda and Robert Redford, 'The Electric Horseman".  Made a cup of tea and watched it.  Didn't make that sandwich, though, cause I was out of bananas and a plain old peanut butter sandwich just didn't seem right.

Now... it's a nice movie. An d if memory holds true....it did pretty good at the box office and stuff.
-->

well, I ain't gonna review a thirty-five year old movie, and it is still an allright movie, but there is this part where Redford and Fonda are walking across the desert and, ohohoh.... in 1979 I would have certainly walked across the desert with Jane Fonda, but anyways, it was one of those moments where they are walking across the desert and Redford, as this cowboy dude, starts waxing eloquent about life and stuff and he looks back at Fonda and says, " if you go, n’ if you go slow, n take your time, and look real close…. You can find....."  ...well, he goes on to wax eloquent about stuff  and when Redford says something you find yourself listening.   course, I say stuff all the time and no one ever listens to me, found that out a long time ago.  Also found out that no one will pay me for saying things, certainly not  what they pay Redford either.

But..... I thought about that line, and stopped cleaning and finding.   Thought for a moment  what I would really like to find; not a thing, but a place...I wanted a place, where everything is fresh, a time, when I had a peaceful heart and I knew that tomorrow would never hold a candle to the 'here' the 'now'.  So I closed my eyes, and went real slow, and looked close   .... and I found it.

It's up in the Norther Door....taking 42 North out of Ellison Bay until you come to the sign that says Newport.  You get off the two lane highway there. When you get to Tom Collins' candy shop in the old Newport school house you go down the gravel that is Europe Bay road until you get to Lake Michigan.  Then just walk along the shore.  Sometimes you can see boats, big freighters, out in the lake, miles off.  Never can tell if they are coming or going, not that it matters much; somebody in the ship knows and it is a pretty good bet that they will get there, wherever there is.

After a mile or so along the beach, you cut up into the woods and find the trail.  I think the first time I walked it was 74, or 75.  Hasn't changed.  I remember the first time I took cheryl there, when she was still my girlfriend, before she was my wife and then Ex-wife.  I took my nephews and niece on that hike.  I remember Emily, my niece, when she was ten or eleven, could do a bang up imitation of a seagull.  She is a lawyer now.  Bet she can still do a bang up imitation of a seagull, probably gets paid more to do it now.  Back then all she got was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  That was at the flat cove area, where we ate.  Could find crawfish if you turned over enough rocks.  I remember taking my son Max along that hike, too,when he wss six  We got stuck iin a torrential rain, something like an inch of rain in a forty-five minute time span.  Had to carry him on my shoulders all the way back to the car.  He cried.

Then the trail would cut to the east until the water was no long Lake Michigan, but Green Bay.  Not that it looked all that different, but when you could see the shore of Washington Island you knew it was the Bay and not the Lake.  Remember when I had all the kids in tow, and we stopped right along that stretch and watched a pine snake eat a pretty good sized  toad.  The Snake seemed a bit upset, but the kids were fascinated.  Eliot thought he could eat a whole hamburger the same way, without chewing.  He might have done it, too, if his mother had let him.

That is how I remember that hike.  In feelings.  Whether it was the kids packing up sandwiches at the cabin before the hike, or what we would find ....porcupines, deer, bits of antlers, snake skin , sometime fossils.  It was all good stuff.
The niftiest was when we hit Europe Lake.  Now, I don't know where all this 'Europe stuff came from... never did find out...guessing they just plum ran out of Indian names or something.  Ain't no never mind.  The Lake was tooo small for motor boats....and there were only a couple of cottages up that way, so it was always quiet.  It was a great place ot take off you shoes and wade.  If you stood real still, I would tell the kids, the fish will come and nibble on your feet.  And they would.  You had to hold real still, but invariably they would come. And there we would stand, quiet as all get out waiting.  The contest would be who could attract ehe most minnows per foot.  Seems like I aways won.  I guess minnows like hairy toes. 

That was usually the end.  Hike back to the car, stop at Uncle Tom's for fudge.  Back to the cottage.

I guess what I always like about that hike is that there never was anything real to find.....it seemed to find us.

That's not such a bad thing.

if you go, see, slow... and you look real close.

how can you be in two places at once if you are no\where in the first place?

Don't want all my eggs in one basket...... nope, I doan...

.the cholesterol would kill me...

.... and ain't in the market for dis pear either.  Or dat pear, for dat matter.

if I really wanna feel bad, why gosh, I gotz da newz,see

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Sour Grapes?  Naw..... neve r liked whine..... and beer tastes better.  If I want some sour grapes..... I can always listen to Rush Limbaugh.  Or my ex brother-in-law

Bad Apples?  Well, ah, maybe.  I know where they hang out.... and having a beer with Billa Lang, or Basketball Joe or Baseball Ed isn't such a bad deal..... and they all mostly wash their feet on a regular basis.

what I could really use is just a little World Peach.  I don't think that is asking for too much.  I don't.  Maybe just one day it could happen.... when we all just realize that the idea of World Peach is the fruit of all blessings, and that if we just stand together and don't constantly try to fuck things up... why, gosh....... it could happen !

....but I am not gonna hold my breathe.  Holding your bgrasthe is bad for you...especially if you do it for too long a time.  So I guess I will just have to settle for what I can get......

TURN UP THE VOLUME TUESDAY !!!

Mother's Day

I miss the cookies
I miss the pie
I miss the turkey
the twinkle in your eye


....... I even miss the tuna casserole.

Love you.
your little boy
jimm

Thoughts for a Friday.....

 

EIGHT THOUGHTS TO PONDER: Number 8 Life is sexually transmitted. Number 7 Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. Number 6 Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. They can't tell them apart. If you see a gleam in his eyes, make him a sandwich. Number 5 Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks, months, maybe years. Number 4 Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying there dying just like the rest of us who paid no attention to the rules. Number 3 All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism. Number 2 In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it  normal. And The Number 1 Thought Life is like a jar of Jalapeno peppers--what you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow. - - - and as someone recently said to me: "Don't worry about old age--it doesn't last that long." ~ hat tip to old buddy, Uncle Rosie

 

news and comments

Syrian internet back after 19-hour blackout

 ~ Muslim Brotherhood does not know where to meet for lunch without FB

Eric Cantor sets repeal vote on health care law for next week

~too sick to do it this week.  Uses Congressional Health Care to see Doctor

Kidnapping victims Berry and DeJesus return home

 ~Mother asks what took them so long at the store

Ex-Pakistan PM's son abducted as Taliban threaten election

Ex-Pakistan PM's son found in Cleveland basement.  Taliban wants Voter ID law before election.

Tucson, Ariz., mountain climber's body found covered in bee stings

~Authorities still looking for bees.  Could get littering citation if found.

Carnival Cruises Reports 2 People Missing Overboard in Australia

~Believed to be in Clevalnd area basement

 

 Daughter reports being attacked by Redwing Blackbird while biking on Wiouwash Trail....complains to father.  " I think you should do something about those birds!"

gees, kiddo.... I would, but I am busy reading the news.

anyways.....

boy &howdy..... it sure enough is a swell day.   I was thinking of attempting to write something, but nah, I am engaged checking out Peter the Great and the battle of Poltava.  Golly, that Peter, he was some kind of great all right.  Anyways..... have a song.

Sarah Palin shoots her mouth off at NRA convention..... didn't think it was loaded

Like a yeast infection that will not go away, Sarah Palin showed up at the NRA convention in Houston.

I would like to give a complete rundown on what she said...... but it was really just the same old shit she keeps saying..... as long as she keeps getting paid.

Also on the docket were well know intellectuals, Ted Nugent and Glenn Beck.  Also featured wered Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, the gun toting Texas governor.r appeared in video form, as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan did. 

N ow, I really don't care what they all said.  I just rather wanted to know who showed up.
Of course, no one showed up to speak for 'Free'.  Estimates for a Palin speech are over $100 K, plus expenses.

I just wonder if any one of them chipped in a little money to help pay for the Sandy Hook kid's funerals.

May 4th 1970.......... Remember?

Now.............. if only those students would have had assault rifles with high capacity magazines...... they could have defended themselves and a mass murder could have been prevented.

I guess that is the message of the NRA

Say, who was that VP candidate anywayz?

Well, gees.  I am not the artiest guy around, nor do I claim to be.

And.... I am not much of a poet....though at random moments, I try to be.

With that in mind.... I offer, with no apologies, an ode to Sarah Palin... the best goddam ex-VP candidate who ever quit public office..... cause it was "gosh too much work."


I call it "an ode to an Ex-Governor"

There once was a young lass from Poughkeepsie
Who sang and danced and drank like a Gypsy
The words she sang were perverse
The steps never would she rehearse
And always she said, “Sailor do you miss me?”

But one moonlit night in Duluth
She imbibed copious amounts of Vermouth
“I miss the olives and gin
To complete my sin”
And all agreed she spoke the truth.

See, she had screwed her way from here to Manila
Every sailor, every ship in all the flotilla
“But my honor is noble and intact
though I make a honest  living on my back
unlike that dumb whore from Wasilla”

Might have been the weather, or something I ate....but...

...but I got the blues. The Bluest Blues.... the rocks in my shoes and holes in my socks blues.  I feel like my dog just died, and I ain't got a dog.  If I had a canary, it wouldn't sing...which is no never mind cause I couldn't afford to feed it anyways.

Now, mostly I could say it was the weather.  The weather has been flat out nasty.  Unchangingly.  If it hasn't been snow, it's been cold.  If it was cold, it was raining.  And then it was cold, snowing, raining, sleeting,  only good thing about the weather is it kept the birdw perched in the trees, otherwise I am sure I would have bird shit on my should as well as the whole weight of everything else.
Now there just isn't any getting into what is really bothering me, that would be boring as well as redundant.  I hate redundancy.  I really hate redundancy.  Redundancy is just the same old shit over and over and over and over.

But.... I have a cure.  Or at least a temporary antidote.  I call Boy Wonder.  Or, as most call him, Max.

Now the thing is, these days, is you never know where he is.  Nominally, I could say he is in Austin, TX, but he really hasn't been there since he has been there.
See, he was in Los Angeles and before that, Portland...but he wasn't finding the work he wanted to do...which is sound editing, which just didn't happen.  So he got a call from some buddies that have found film/video production work in Texas....and off he went.  And as soon as he got there.... off he went.  First it was to El Paso...and I got a nice text message and a phone call.  Then a quick note....New Orleans.  Seems he has hooked up with a TV crew that is filming some kind of reality TV show and they travel across the US ...well filming.  And I get these notes.  "found this great bar in Salinas" " Just got into Oakland, flying back to Texas tomorrow" " Had some good BBQ outside of Memphis"  And Chattanoga. Daytona, Atlanta. Richmond.  Orlando.  Yesterday he was flying into Iowa.  "Where?" I said.  " Not sure, lemmee go look at the ticket."  Now I do not know all the incidentals about this gig, other than what he will tell me and he said he can't tell me much cause he signed a confidentiality thingee, but it will air on A&E in October and he is getting paid.  I guess that works.  plus...the photo's he sends from time to time are funny.

Now, there is nothing like a phone call from the Kid to chase the blues away.  He always has been amusing.....

When he was in college he help produce a 'college sit-com' on the U's tv channel.  They called it, "Casual Socks". Now as TV show's go, it will never be classic and it won no
Emmy's, but it was amusing.  I even got to be an 'Extra' in some shots.  One thing they did on the show, though, that I thought was really funny was the 'Where's Waldo" blanket.  During production he had gone to his mother's house and resurrected his childhood bed blanket.  Every week it would show up in a scene on the show.  It would be on a chair, or someone would be sitting next to it.  I remember on scene where a character was getting a beer from the Fridge and there it was, right next to the Miller Lite.  Like I said....it was a college show.  But I would watch it on the local cable channel pretty religiously just to see if I could find the Waldo blanket.

Ya know, if I recall correctly, Max never was very good at finding Waldo when we would look for him in those books.  He always seemed to get distracted by all the other things in the pictures.  It could amuse him for hours.  I think he still has that blanket stashed somewhere.

Ain't no never mind, see, it is what it is..... but these days, when the blues hit me.... I just have to close my eyes and think of Where's Bubba.

I taught him well.  I am sure  he is still finiding a good cold beer  at the end of the day....wherever he is.

Cold Dead Hand...... hat tip to bloggy buddy Libs!

There is a very funny skit by Jim Carrey out on the net called Cold Dead Hand that clearly expresses his point of view about gun violence.  I guess it has, ah, upset some folkx on Fox.... and elsewhere.  Well, too bad.  I am not especially a big fan of Jim's, but this is down right brilliant.  Please follow the above link.  

WISCO dipshit Senator votes against background checks.....

hhhhhmmmmmmmmm........ it has been a tough week to breathe.   First they try to blow up Boston, whoever they are, and then 48 dipshits decide that killing anyone you want with any weapon you want would curtail 'American's Rights'.

Course, one of those dipshits was the esteemed Senator from Wisconsin, Ron-Fuck-Johnson.

I would call for background checks for Senators..... but that would be construed by Johnson as an attempt to arm bears....and only bears can prevent forest fires.  Or some such shit.  Back when he was merely running for Senator, the esteemed asshole spoke up in denial of weather.
"The science of global warming is unproven," he said. "It just is," Johnson told The Associated Press. "I'm not even sure if, if it were a fact, whether we could do anything about it anyway," Johnson said.

ANow Johnson is not a man to be taken lightly....to paraphrase Dorothy Parker, he should be taken away with great force.   This week, in response to the allegations that he doesn't get along with his staff... he said: 

"The only true part of the story is they called me impatient," Johnson said. "I'm impatient because we're bankrupting this nation and the political class in Washington is not owning up to that fact."

Yupperz... Ron is just really busy bankrupting the country.   What is more hilarious is that Johnson is running a video project called 'Victims of Government' which is kind of funny.... saying that 'government with it's rules and regs is victimizing citizens........ but gees, those Sandy Hook kids were just in the way of someone exercising their 2nd amendment rights.  Read THE CHIEF  

I guess some victims are more worthy than others.
 

Short Monday Movie

No one wants to take away guns....

I often feel the same way

 

“I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.” ~ Ignatius J. Reilly

On Going home....

“I have to see a thing a thousand times before I see it once.” ~ Thomas Wolfe

The top photo is from the front porch looking south at Grandma Teenie's farm on the outside of the town in Western Wisconsin where I grew up. I don't know how many acres it encompasses, but there is an old farmhouse, a small barn, junky garage, an old two story granary,tractor shed and a couple of smaller outbuildings , In the back of the fields there is about an acre of pines she planted when she bought the place.  In High School I would do some odd chores for her; l built a small hay rack, strung barbed wire, shoveled the horse shit out of the stalls, white wash the corral fence, helped put the hay up in the barn.  That was a long time ago, when she was just Teenie instead of Grandma Teenie.  When you have a name like Blanche another moniker seems to work a little better.  She was actually my brother-in-law's mother, Uncle Billy, but again, that was when he was just Bill and seriously skinny,  long before he became Uncle Billy.and mostly thin.  I digress too much.

I am not sure when Teeenie bought the farm.  I think the early 60's.  She never lived there, but bought it as a place to keep her horses and other strange and abandoned dogs, cats, chickens, ponies and what-nots.  She leased the acreage out in exchange for hay and feed corn.  A place she could drive to easily in whatever beat-up pick-up she happened to own.  A spot she could muck around in wearing rubber boats and old clothes.  the pick-ups always had dents, the clothes, holes and invariably the boots had tire patches on them where she had managed to poke holes in them.  "That is when she felt most comfortable.  It was always hard to realize that she did have a significant amount of money; I knew she had inherited a fair amount, as did her husband, Grandpa Bill, not to be confused with his son of the same name, who would later become my brother-in-law, Uncle Billy.
Again, I digress.  The Deal was that  our families, mine and Uncle Billy's, got rather entwined back in the sixties.  Uncle Billy, back when he was just plain Bill, dated my sister for years before they finally married.  She became Auntie Bo, or Bernice, though her real name was Jean then.  Bill's sister, Kathy, sat behind me all through Catholic grade school, as the nuns liked to keep things very alphabetical.  In High School Kathy was a lifeguard at the pool on the army post near by, as was Bill and my girlfriend, Nancy, an my brother Chuck, who of course later became Uncle Chuck, and married a woman name Jean, who of course, was Aunt Jean.  To add to the mix, my father, Eugene, who was Grandpa Gene, raised pheasants out at the farm.  He was always good friends with Grandpa Bill and Grandma Teenie way before anyone was a Grandparent or Uncle or Aunt.  And, with all of that, I became the quasi-hired hand at the farm, tending not only to Teenie's chores, but those of my father,too.
It is only confusing if you want it to be, and it really is no never mind......other than the FARM rolled on year after year.
The families grew.  Aunt Bo and Uncle Billy produced Adam, Jonas, Emily and Eliot. I added Max and Miriam. There was also, Josh and Matt and Sal, then, Hattie & Will.  With that many grandchildren, why,gosh, Teenie put in a in-ground swimming pool, a gazebo an a barbecue pit. "Marvelous," is how she put it.

musical interlude.....

Wisconsin is broke....gimmee a break and gimmee a bonus

maybe this slipped by some folks last week. It was a Saturday, after all and the front page of my local newspaper had a story about "Thirty Rabbits found in 'Horrific State'."

The rabbits were crammed into filthy cages and subject to a deplorable amount of neglect.

Animal abuse is serious and should be reported, but down in the middle of page 3 was a story about the State of Wisconsin awarding bonuses of $8 million to managers of the State Pension fund....despite the fact that pension payments to retirees has decreased.

State pension fund managers get $8 million in bonuses

By Associated Press

March 23, 2013

Madison - Wisconsin's pension fund managers were given more than $8 million in bonuses as a reward for strong investment returns, nearly double what they received last year, according to records released to The Associated Press on Friday.
The bonuses come as most retirees are about to see their pension payments decrease in May for the fifth year in a row due to effects of the 2008 recession. The bonuses were approved by the State of Wisconsin Investment Board on Wednesday and finalized Friday, said the board's spokeswoman, Vicki Hearing.
Twenty-nine people will receive six-figure bonuses. All but six employees of the board, 139 out of 145 workers, will receive some bonus. Seventy-four employees will get bonuses of at least $25,000.
Nearly everyone receiving a six-figure bonus is a money manager. Roughly half of the agency's employees, 66 out of 145, are money managers.
Of the six who didn't get bonuses, four were ineligible and two didn't meet performance standards, Hearing said.
Chief Investment Officer David Villa is getting the largest bonus of nearly $421,000. Two managing directors, Bill McCorkle and Ron Mensink, were the next highest with bonuses of nearly $287,000 and about 282,000, respectfully.
The bonus for the retirement system's executive director was split between the retiring office holder who left in June, Keith Bozarth, and his successor, Michael Williamson. Bozarth will get about $181,000, and Williamson will receive $241,000.

 I guess the local animal shelter is doing ok trying to find homes for the rabbits.  It is Easter.  I wonder if anyone could find a new home for Scott Walker and his crony pols and ass kissers.

Good Friday Refreshment !

1
Bless the beer and pass the pretzels!

Clothes belong in closets, not people

WASHINGTON — A majority of the justices on Wednesday questioned the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, as the Supreme Court took up the volatile issue of same-sex marriage for a second day.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, widely considered the swing vote on the divided court, joined the four liberals in posing skeptical questions to a lawyer defending the law, which defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman for the purposes of more than 1,000 federal laws and programs. 

~ NY Times

Well.......... my first thought about gay marriage, well OK.  This 'Defense  Of Marriage' thing was pretty stupid anyway.  I mean, if you really want to DEFEND marriage...... outlaw Mothers-in-Law, and as Congress hasn't come close to addressing that issue, screw 'em.

Personally, I think marriage should be outlawed.  I know that will never happen, cause open bars at receptions are very popular.... and if you don't invite enough people to your wedding, Who is gonna eat that big cake thingee, and getting blenders and toasters and micro-wave oven gifts is a spiffy deal.  My thought is marriage should be replaced with something like a renewable five year "Fidelity Lease".  You both promise not to fuck around with other people.  Easy enough.  And, if in the first five years everything goes well (or you have kids) you can renew for a twenty year one with a clause of who the kids stay with after college.

all right, that was silly, but then, so is denying basic rights to all people.  I think it falls into that 'pursuit of happiness' thing.  And inheritance.  And taxes.  Health benefits. Such stuff.

I hate to go the route,  " I know some gay people and they are all right" shit.  Well, I do, but that is just stale shit.  But I know Brian nad Tony have been together over thirty years....and Michael and Jerry too.  ?hose guys are about as married as you can get .  Course, Tom and Debbie were NOT married for about 20.... and they only got married because of legal benefits.  I guess Jerry and Michael deserve the same choice.

What I don't get is why this decision is now up to nine old shits in black robes.  This should have been a done deal a long time ago.  I don't think of it much; but the bottom line is if Gay/Lesbian people want the same pain, suffering, anxiety, anguish, worry and bullshit as heterosexuals...gees go for it.

BUT.....Gays should never own guns.  Wayne LaPierre told me so....and I believe everything that guy says.

Stuff&Such &Facts, 2

Oh, gosh, don't have much today....it is the nothingness thing again.. Just random thoughts... oh! I have one of those neat battery jobees on the wall...a "Random Detector'.  It beeps if there is too much random gas in the room...and then I run away to somewhere else less random.

So anyways, I was reading Sherry's blog  http://afeatheradrift.wordpress.com/  which is a nice place, and she had written this thing about Reid being a jerk and the bun bill, ah, gun bill  ....well, just go read it...anyways this troll is chiming in and stuff and he says a particular Democratic Politician
 was the "most responsible party of losing S. Vietnam to the Communists."  Now that made me chuckle.  As if it was ours to lose. break me up. It was funny. I love the way wing-nuts think.

Little known fact about jimm.  I always put my left shoe on first. Yup. Left sock, left shoe...then repeat for the right side. When I first noticed this I thought it was because I was a Liberal, but then I realized it was because, well, gee,  what if the Random Gas detector went off,beep-beep-beep,  real sudden like, and it was a snowstorm outside and I had to flee my domicile quickly, why gosh, I would have at least one sock and shoe on when I bounce around out in the blizzard! And I do hop better on my left foot.  Congenital flaw, I'm thinking.

Anyways.  Then I was over at Squatlo's Blog http://squatlo-rant.blogspot.com/ and he had posted a nice crips bit about the hypokazy, hipocrok, shameless hucksterism of Pat Robertson who says 'gimmee jimmee' no matter how broke you happen to be, cause well, shit&bisquits, "I'm Pat Robertson and I have a limo driver to pay, expensive ties and clothes, to buy, and the Lord's Work ain't cheap.  Ha! and then good old Squats found another clip of Pat counseling his flock to be wary of "Religious Shams. Of Con Artists with bibles.  Hey, you can't make this stuff up!

You know, I gotta tell you, I tried a rutabaga last week.  Just marched right on into the grocery store and picked one of those ugly suckers up! Peeling a rutabaga isn't anywhere as hard as I thought.  I mean, at first glimpse, peeling a rutabaga looks like it could be tough. Naw, it was a snap. I like my rutabaga with a little salt and butter.  Goooood rutabaga.  I do believe I will buy another rutabaga. I think I have developed l lking for the word rutabaga. Say, did you know that rutabagas are from Rutabagastan. Capital is Rutabaghdad. The country next door is Turnipistan. That's where turnips  come from.    Amazing, ha!  Can't make this stuff up.

Well I was in between basketball games and I wandered over to Randal Graves blog http://lennui-melodieux.blogspot.com/ and he had asked the rhetorical question, " if a tree falls and there is no one around to ignore it, does it still talk with itself?"  Now the mystery of life itself could hinge on this answer so I highly recommend y'all head over there and leave old Randal with some answers.

Going to make some Jello tonight.  Lemon Jello.  Jello originated in Jellopia, by the way. Little country outside of Sweden. You can't make this stuff up!
Anyways. The way I make it is,see, I don't add that cold water part of the recipe.  Nope.  Just mix in a can of crushed pineapple and a little lemonade.  You know lemonade originally came from Lemonolia.  Some desert country.  Not sure.  Better go look it up.  Just the facts, see.  And I am still not sure why Random Gas is dangerous and must be detected!