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Ye Olde Dixie Sloppe Blogge - 4/27/2006 2:25:54 PM
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JoToP
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At last! My own room. I've never had my own room before. I've always had to share a room with someone throughout my life. Not that I'm currently complaining. I currently share a room with Mrs. JoToP, but that's different and we're not going to get into that here.
Since this is probably going to be a New York Times Best Seller (which is important because there are a lot of people in New York and some of them can read) maybe I should say a word or two about myself. "Guy" (that's one word, and for those of you who are aching for two) "vanilla-bean-icecream-smothering-Pecan-Sandies" (don't you love hyphens?)... and that about sums up the hypostasis of JoToP in a nutshell. I am also known (in literary circles) as the Parenthetical Man (I have no clue why).
Writing is relatively new to me. For the first 16 years of my life, I was what might be called preferentially illiterate. I had an intellectual awakening brought about be Henric Ibsen at the age of 17. Actually, Ibsen had nothing to do with my awakening beyond the fact that when I was reading Enemy of the People, I suddenly saw meaning in the play and realized that I was capable of understanding philosophical stuff. When I explained my discovery to my Lit. teacher, she said that's not what Ibsen meant, that he was saying truth is relative or something. But I didn't give up. At least I got a meaning out of Ibsen, even if it was wrong... and imagine what it would be like if I actually got a real meaning out of somebody, anybody, and it was actually right. So, I gave myself over to reading and studying poetry. I figured it should be twice as easy as studying philosophy because the words only went about halfway across the page, sometimes not that far. I've been reading ever since and the rest is history.
I wrote a book when I was 23, a novel about the end times. Then I didn't write much for years, just notes on scraps of paper that I thought I'd gather together into one major Work someday. I'm still going to do it, even though, perusing through the shoe box the scraps are in, I have no clue what I was thinking when I wrote those notes. Still, it might be interesting and useful. I'll probably call it Federal: Intrinsic? or Corporeal? which is the first three scraps I just pulled out of the box. I'll give a page of it a shot in this Blogge, if I have time and a virus.
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RE: Ye Olde Dixie Sloppe Blogge - 4/27/2006 2:49:31 PM
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JoToP
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Thought I'd take a moment and write up a Bio in case anyone is interested.
I've been with crosswalk for about three years. I live in Georgia and am a member of Covenant Presbyterian Church (RPCUS). We have a little school attached to the church named Geneva Christian Academy (after Calvin's school which was in Geneva, Switzerland, hence the name) and I teach there--- history, Bible, science, geography, government, economics, philosophy... basically anything but math, which doesn’t make a great deal of sense to me. I believe letters and numbers should be eternally segregated and that anything less than 0 doesn’t exist and is therefore irrelevant.
It doesn’t pay much, but it is very rewarding to grow crops of children into adult servants of Christ. On the side, I teach guitar. I’ve been playing for about 30 years (at least I’ve been saying that for several years now). I’ve been teaching for 10 or so and have worked out a teaching method that allows almost all new students to be able to play Paganini’s La Campanella in three months flat (they usually do play it a bit flat, but I’m learning patience). People want results nowadays so marketing gradual products and services is tricky.
I was raised Southern Baptist. My father was a died in the wool dispensationalist and taught us to be as well, but he gave me a bit of counsel that led me away from that view, “The Bible is God’s Word. Believe every word of it and don’t doubt it ever.”
We came up impoverished in Mississippi when the rest of the country was enjoying the watershed wealth of the post-war era. I’ve always believed that at any moment Mississippi will come roaring into the Twentieth Century. I believe it is the only Third World state in the union. Looking back, I should be illiterate, ignorant, and toothless, but something happened to make me love reading and knowledge, though I’m not sure what effect it had on my teeth (I have them all, including four wisdom teeth... which makes, uh, 32? Enough to supply the entire cheerleader squad at U of Ala. We Mississippians give the Alabamans a hard time... ever since they bought those Cheerio from us we were passing off as doughnut seeds.)
What happened was that, at the age of twelve I decided I cussed too much because nobody wanted to engage me in conversation. I also had a bad case of sticky fingers... an endemic problem among the poor. The Holy Spirit laid it upon my heart that I needed Christ, so I did the only thing I knew might help, I started reading the Bible. It wasn’t easy at first because nothing I read had meaning attached to the words (King James didn’t come natural either). Still, I noticed that it effected me, made me want to fight against sin and be “good”. I also started seeing God in the Scriptures. All the presuppositions about what God was like, pictures of the Old Man above and the effeminate Christ faded away and a picture less image of God began to form in my mind that came entirely from the reading of the Word. Years later, when I decided to do a comparative religion objectively to ascertain who had the right thing to say about God, I quickly abandoned the project because I found myself totally unable to be objective... I kept comparing the views of gods and philosophers to this biblical image that the Holy Spirit had taught me and Thor, Buddha, Allah, and Voltaire looked pretty wimpish in comparison.
Slowly, year after year and after scores of readings one thing after another started being mysteriously put together in my head and sense and continuity began to form. I know now that this is the work of the Holy Spirit, exposing us to God and building our faith in him first through his acts and then through his ways. I decided I wanted to be a preacher at age 15 and when I graduated high school (by the skin of my teeth) I went to a Baptist college to study for the ministry. After two years I had more question than I’d gotten answers, so the Lord drove me back into Scripture again. The next few years are the desert, so to speak, I sequestered in a basement level apartment in Smyrna, GA and studied the Bible (worked as a security guard at night). When I emerged (it was because of a girl... we’re married now) I had some funny ideas about God being in control of everything and that God brought out the knowledge of himself from seed through stages of growth in history and that God secured his people to himself with stipulation in the form of covenant and that Christ ruled presently and has already overcome Satan and so on and so on. I called up an old buddy of mine from college and told him about my new ideas and how we could go forth and bring revival to the Baptist church armed with this stuff. He said the Baptists already knew about it, had rejected most of it and that I should read Calvin’s Institutes. I didn’t. I’d heard Calvin burned people at the stake and couldn’t be my kind of people. I got married and left the Baptist Church for a PCA Presbyterian church in Smyrna. From there we have progressed from New School to Old School, I’ve read Calvin since and Servetus got what was coming to him (going to Geneva was a pretty stupid move on his part), PCA, OPC, and now RPCUS. God has been with me all the way.
I should not be here. My highest ambition was to be a forest ranger, dumb like the animals I loved. My ambition to be a preacher was only slightly higher than that. I’ve never liked complexity and ignorance is bliss, but alas God would not have me ignorant and so he has been my teacher these 40 years or so. I have tugged against the yoke madly ( I was not fully civilized until... well... about three years ago maybe— it was coming on, but it hadn’t got there yet. My wife has done a brilliant job with me and I clean up pretty nicely. I think she didn’t marry me for who I was, but she sorta saw promising raw material that she could work with...), but the Lord has pulled the choker on me all along and kept me on that path, Thank You, Lord!! No telling where I’d be now.
When I die, I want it on my epitaph: “He loved the Word.”
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O Rare '74 - 4/27/2006 3:03:20 PM
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JoToP
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I registered in my high school (Joseph Wheeler High School) website as an alumnus a few years ago and haven’t been back since. A few days ago I decided to take a look (had to get my password and ID sent to me). I’m looking around and I’m not seeing anyone from the class of ‘74 (my Grad Year) posting in there, so I’m speculating as to why that is.
I think its because we had such a memorable graduation. It was held out on the football field because Wheeler was pregnant with Walton at the time or something like that. As we sat listening to somebody give a speech (I see his face, but can’t remember his name), it started raining. Remember how many of the women used to do their hair up in what looked like a hornet’s nest? The hair started to fall and spill down over their faces like octopises. It was quite cool. Then we all trudged into the cafeteria and they handed out our diplomas and we went home. My old bud, Sammy said, “Well they said we didn’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain, but we showed them.”
I personally saw it as the perfect graduation ceremony, though many of the girls cried. I think they would have cried if everything had gone off without a hitch, so I didn’t pay much attention. I always hated school anyway... really. When I entered the First Grade, I distinctly remember thinking, “Bummer! I’ve got 12 more years of this to go.” Well, maybe I didn’t think “bummer” because the drug culture hadn’t gotten started full swing in 1961. I might’ve thought, “Clunky!” or “Goofy!” I’ll have to check Manchester on that. I hated school though. Now, I’m a school teacher. Go figure.
Another reason why ‘74 posters are so rare in that website is that we were on split session that year. This set-up was most triumphant! We got out at noon and had the whole day to mess around AWAY FROM SCHOOL. The down side for some people is that we didn’t have that senior bonding time where you do even worse at your grades because you have Senior Privileges, switch girl/boyfriends a half dozen times, go to Panama City together, and perform reverse phrenology on the Freshmen’s heads with your class ring. I’ve often wondered if Wheeler became a quieter, gentler place because we did NOT do reverse phrenology on the Freshmen’s heads. At any rate, we didn’t bond, but drifted apart until our graduation baptism ceremony released us into the world like so many barks on a perfumed sea. That was pretty poetical if I do say so myself. “Barks” are ships, in case you didn’t know, which means that the phrase “Bark up the wrong tree” makes no sense whatsoever. But I digress.
I went to a reunion of the class of ‘74 a few (well...several) years ago, but there was nobody I knew there. A bunch of old geezers crashed the party though, I don’t know how they got in. I guess we ‘74 Classers just never got too close to one another. But we’re out here and alive and well. At least we’re alive. At least most of us are. If you click on my name in the website you’ll see my photo from the yearbook. I look exactly the same as that today, except with less hair... a lot less hair. And I’m a bit heavier though I can handle the weight at my height. Also I have one of those light, oriental attempts at a beard of sorts, which is greying. And my eyebrows are not as clearly defined. Besides that I look just like the picture. I also feel very young... between 2:12 and 3:04 P.M.
...on most Tuesdays.
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RE: O Rare '74 - 4/28/2006 12:35:17 PM
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JoToP
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Our little school is currently carrying on an ancient ritual without which the child is not allowed to pass into the adult world... Worm Dissection. Every year millions of earthworms voluntarily give up their lives in the interest of making school children lose their lunches. :-X As with all bloody rituals, the question is probably screaming in your minds at this very moment, "Why do they call what you park your car on a 'driveway'?" The jury is still out on that one, but I will tell you the origin of Worm Dissection.
It started toward the close of the Middle Ages (which come between the Earlier Ages and the Later Ages [of which we have only had One Age, so far]). It was a mark of True Scholarship at this time to explore the inside of dead bodies, either that or it was the professors of that day's excuse for not getting out much and doing real Exploration to places like the North Pole, the New World, The Northwest Passage, the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau or Our Wild America. Slightly-Post Mediaeval Man was searching for the bone in the heart, which they never found and here's why. As all School Student's learn quickly, there is nothing in dead organisms, but fat. When I went through my personal initiation of dissecting a dead cat at Joseph Wheeler High School in 1972 (often referred to by my more alert students as The Dark Ages), I went to the trouble of identifying and labeling the "organs" in accordance with the neat diagrams provided in my nifty biology textbook. The teacher forthwith informed me that every "organ” I had identified was really just fat.
Now my complaint is that if cats would spend more time doing what they are equipped for, which is stalking and skulking and hunting and pursuing, and less time doing what they really do, which is lying around the house all day only to get up to eat and make wailing sounds in the middle of the night, School Students might not have as much trouble identifying their internal parts after it has been discovered that the cat is actually dead instead of sleeping and it, consequently, has been generously donated to science.
The problem is in the general "scientific" belief that dead organisms have internal parts at all. Why do we make this assumption? Dead organisms don't need organs, so why assume that they have them. The only thing I have personally ever seen in a dead animal was glop. Teachers state authoritatively that a certain particle of glop is a stomach, but I think they are lying just to try and preserve some sense of dignity. They labeled fat when they were in High school, too, they just won't admit it.
Its like Social security and inflation... once they get started its almost impossible to stop them. No full-grown adult is ever going to stand up and say, “I’m mad as heck and I’m not going to take it anymore” with regard to dissections. It has become too deeply ingrained in our collective psyche that dissecting an organism is an absolute prerequisite to normal and healthy maturation. It also serves as a link to our past heritage and pedigree. The Student is asked by his/her sage grandfather “Well, what are you learning in school these days”. “We’re dissecting a rabbit,” is the dutiful reply. “In my days we had to go out and shoot a dog and bring it into class for dissection. Your great grandfather, my father, dissected bison when he was in school. Said he failed the course because of all the fat inside.”
The upshot of all this is that were it not for our dissecting traditions (and I think we know this subconsciously) the earth would soon be overpopulated with nightcrawlers, cats, rabbits, dogs, leopard frogs and bison. The planet would begin to wobble erratically on its axis, the ice caps would melt throwing planetary climates into a greenhouse effect which would result in the end of all life as we know it. So, my counsel to all Students for all time is that they learn to appreciate the little contribution all of us in the past have made to global security and that they joyfully do their part as well so that we may all live in peace and security.
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RE: O Rare '74 - 5/1/2006 1:11:08 PM
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JoToP
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I'm getting some PMs from people who don't seem to be taking me seriously, so I thought I'd share the Poetic Side of myself.
I was inspired to write this when the Georgia Poet Laureate recited a bit of his own free verse. I thought, even an idiot could write poetry like that, so I did.
I’m sure this is over some of your heads, so I have added explanatory notes which you will find at the end. They do that in high school anthologies, so its most academic.
Porcine Meditations
his back to the ground
feet high and waving (1)
toward the ancient relentless sphere
of radiation (2)
he is encased in the primeval soil
which, itself, is co-mingled
with the indissoluble
which, itself, is the universal solvent. (3)
he reflects upon the age
the age of youth
of youth with its bare cutaneous coat (4)
an inextricable shade of red and white. (5)
but, now, it is a steady career
with head down and olfactory
to the warm, moist earth (6)
inhaling, with rough sound (7)
for the refuse
of mankind’s consumption (8)
or taking the liquor
of carefully prepared, culinary processes
from those things
which are not expedient
to the human palate (9)
unto the elements of water and oil
the elements of vegetation
and agents of purification (10)
to the end of which is to grow
to expand
TO INCREASE
AND INCREASE
to increase beyond measure (11)
in order that the Powers
on High (12)
may bring him
to the annual place (13)
the place of judgment (14)
there is in this the hope
the expectation of return
of return to the place
from which they all came (15)
bearing the thin strip
of gilded cloth
itself the hue of the twilight sky. (16)
his Destiny
it is set before him.
He is led away
to be upturned in the shackles
the shackles of the Great Tree (17)
never to know
(for the swiftness of it)
the sudden invasion
of his cranium
of that dull, heavy element (18)
Most oblivious is he, now,
to the workings of the keen edge
the bright instrument of separation (19)
now, separating him into predestined parts. (20)
although he has been sent
to the four-corners
of the land (21)
to places of concourse
places of supply and demand
of merchants
in goods and consumption (22)
his head will soon rest
rest upon the porcelain (23)
amidst a variety of garlands (24)
He will taste the fruit (25)
of which, in life,
he could only taste
not it’s circumference (26)
but it’s center (27)
(1)wallowing,(2)belly up,(3)mud,(4)birthday suit,(5)pink skin,(6)rooting,(7)snorting,(8)table scraps, (9)slop,(10)made of a combination of grease, plate scrapings and left-over dishwater, (11)fatten up,(12)Farmer Bob, (13)county fair, (14)hog contest, (15)go home, (16)blue ribbon prize, (17)the chain hanging from the oak tree limb, (18)twelve gauge slug, (19)stainless steel meat cleaver, (20)bacon, ham and pork chops, (21)trucked out, (22)supermarkets, (23)platter, (24)celery, parsley, chives, etc., (25)apple in mouth, (26)never got a whole apple, (27)only got to eat the cores
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RE: O Rare '74 - 5/2/2006 10:10:07 AM
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JoToP
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(Have Perry Como’s voice in your head as you sing the next line...)
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year (jiggidy, jig, jiggidy, no-dignity, hot-diggity)...”
Yes, me lads and lasses. Its Spring. And here at my residence there is a blossom blooming that is not blooming in any other place on this planet called, Jotopia Sinusia, otherwise known as My Nose. That’s right. I have allergies. The pollen is playin’ waily in my nasal cavity. The sensation is so acute I can map out every fractal of my sinuses on paper and my head feels large enough that a Yankee Clipper could navigate from one nostril to the other with the aid of my coastal charts.
This is indeed the time of that greatest affliction and grossest of irritations, namely Suggested Homeopathic Remedies. Sympathetic people everywhere take one look at my bloodshot eyes and blotchy face and begin the conversation with the words, “Have you tried (fill in the blank with something that sounds like a disease or a belch)__________?” This is invariably followed by second-hand testimonials of some relative, friend, or other victim who has “exactly” what I’ve got, how they took the concoction, and have had no problem with the affliction since (but most likely have gas more than usual). I appreciate these people. They love me and want to help me, but I come from a tradition of people who go off in the woods in the twilight of life, raise their hands to the sky and shout, “Man above. I have done all that I can do.” Then they lie under a tree and die. They just want to be left alone. But I am not a pagan anymore, I am a Christian and a part of the Body, which sometimes means you don’t get to suffer alone like you want to. Getting back to the word “sympathetic” before I go on (which is the first word of the second sentence in this very paragraph); notice that the word “patheo” is the root, which is a mental disorder, then go on to the next paragraph.
There are two definitions for homeopathic (once again, note the root “patheo” shows up again in this word) according to how it is used and to what extent, i.e. “snake oil” and “any medication or medical technique that is not approved by the government, pharmaceutical lobbies, and HMO listed general practitioners”. The latter definition is the most important one because there are many valid reasons to get out of the mainline healthcare system, not the least of which is threat of poverty. The former definition is what I call “filler”, but I must explain the whole system before all this comes together into a meaningful whole.
The truth is that God hid all kinds of herbs all around the world to aid us in maintaining our health, giving us energy, and healing our sicknesses. Occasionally, someone will actually find one of these treasures and mankind is benefitted. But sprinkled in among those few really good herbs there are what I call Specifically Oriented Herbs. I can call it that because its my idea. (That’s the nice thing about being medical outside of the official medical field that is recognized by the Government, you can attach names to all kinds of things that have little or nothing to do with their properties. Snake Oil Businessmen have been doing it for centuries.) Specifically Oriented Herbs (SOH, not to be confused with SOB, which stands for Snake Oil Businessmen) only work for certain people and no one else. It is totally unknown at this time how they are oriented to certain people and not others (mainly because I just proposed the theory and it has not been tested and falsified yet). But the sad truth is that there are probably only about three herbs that actually work for everybody. Homeopathic doctors may know this, so they fill in the blank spaces in their understanding with “snake oil”.
That doesn’t get the Real Doctors out of hot water, though. Regular MDs have a way around saying “I don’t know” too. They just pronounce, “It’s a virus” (having leaked out the urban legend to everyone that viruses are incurable.) The MD just prescribes ibuprofen and sends you packing, while crossing his fingers and hoping you’ll heal on your own, that is, homeopathically or holistically, I never know which word your supposed to use. And I’m not totally convinced that there are any such things as viruses. Its dubious, at best, something that is labeled NOT ALIVE is supposed to cause the most violent pandemics of history, not to mention that they are alleged to be our ancestors... how does that work?
I once went to a Regular MD after having been bitten by a Brown Recluse. I’m quite proud of having been bitten by this treacherous spider of renown. My Uncle was bitten by a copperhead. That is a point of unusual pride, to have been bitten by a copperhead. Not that your supposed to let one bite you, mind. If you see one nearby, you’re supposed to deftly swing your double-barrel 12 gauge to bear upon the serpent and open both barrels at point blank range, leaving nothing but a close-spread birdshot hole in the ground with a reddish-brown tale sticking out and twitching back and forth like a flag of truce. But if you do get bitten, its something to talk about. “I got bit by a copperhead. Nearly died.” That really impresses people, and well it should.
Well, I went to the MD and showed him my spider-bite and he recoiled in unfeigned horror. That’s not a good sign and sets you ill at ease. Its like the time I went on a tour of Ruby Falls which is a hundred feet or so underground, and on our way there, the tour-guide, who was new at the job, had a tremor in her voice as we proceeded. The ground shook at one point and everybody looked at her. She was petrified, pale, shaking, and a tear escaped her eye and ran down her cheek. That’s a bad sign. Luckily, somebody was in the crowd who was experienced and said, “Its just a train” and everybody sighed with relief.
So I’ll stick with my own remedy for allergies, which is a grackle feather. Its totally logical. The grackle being solid black absorbs enormous amounts of solar energy and if you keep the feather in contact with your body the energy leaks into you and brings about healing qualities. It works best with Claritin and helps if you stay in a sealed room with an air purifier. I sell the feathers for a paltry $19.95 apiece.
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Selah - 5/3/2006 7:50:26 AM
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JoToP
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I always start the day reading the Bible and so should you. You never know what jewels you will find or how applicable they may be to your daily existence. Why, just recently I've been deeply involved in a study on the poetical and lyric mechanics of the Psalms and I thought I’d share with you all the fruits of my labors by clearing up an age-old mystery, i.e. the meaning of the word “selah”. Here are a few strong possibilities from various scholarly sources:
The Meaning of the Word “Selah” in Psalms
1. It means “if you don’t know the tune to his Psalm, see L. A. H. (Libby Anne Haskell) the Temple Keeper of the Sheet Music.”
2. It means “second verse, same as the first”.
3. It means “at this point, grab the skin on your throat and pull it rapidly in and out to make a warbling noise as you let the note die down slowly.”
4. It was used as a means for keeping Ephraimites out of the choir, who were notorious lispers. (Judges 12:6 proves this beyond refutation.)
5. If sung with five marbles in the mouth, the word sounds like any Aramaean word and can be used by singers who have forgotten the words to the song.
6. It comes from the an obscure Scythian word which, when broken down, translates “Tseh or þ” meaning “suppress” and “lua-ch or Œ” meaning “the trumpet” and was a signal for the experienced players in the brass section to stuff a towel in the horns of the teenage member who tended to blat out sour notes in fanfares. Then again, the Scythians couldn’t write, so this is somewhat speculative. In fact, it isn’t the case at all.
7. Related to #5, it actually means “watermelon.”
8. It was a signal to fire off the Temple bottle rockets. (Selah backwards is Hales, Hale being the A.D. Eighteenth Century inventor of rocket fins). Then again this is an anachronism, but should be looked at as prophetic in nature... particularly since there were no rockets in Israel at this time so that the singers made an anticipatory guttural sound in imitation of a rocket. This was usually done by the Boy’s Choir.
9. It actually has no meaning and it is silly to look for one. Does “la, la, la” have a meaning? And “la, la, la” is even a direct cognate of “selah”. (This interpretation, in my opinion, is driven by the rationalistic school of psalmody and betrays a decidedly avant gard attitude. I do not personally subscribe to this view.)
10. Another view of the rationalists is that it means “a grain of salt”. They spuriously use the passage 2 Kings 14:7 to back up this ridiculous imposition. I suggest you take #10 to a ... selah.
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RE: Selah - 5/4/2006 1:50:04 PM
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JoToP
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Poetry is a craft. It isn’t always easy to find the right words that convey the meaning intended by the artist. Here’s an example I found in Edgar’s wastebasket. The first is the finished product. The second part reflects the struggles Poe had in actually crafting this excellent work of verse.
To Helen
By Edgar Allen Poe
Helen, thy beauty is to me
As those Nicean barks of yore
That gently o’er a perfumed sea
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas, long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.
To Marcy Jo Nancy Gertrude Helen
By Edgar Alan Allen Poe
Marcy Jo Nancy Gertrude Helen, thy pretty face good -lookingness voluptuousness beauty is to myself I Edgar me
As those Cretan Mediterranean triremes Nicean rowboats ironclads steam... na-a-ah barks of a long time ago back then in the old days yore
That in dead calm lightly at a snails pace gently o’er a smelly odoriferous aromatrocious perfumed sea
The dog-tired pooped weary, high-mileage wayworn traveling man hobo vagabond vagrant wanderer rode on got in heaved over the rail of bore
To his own hometown native beach sandy place in front of the ocean shore.
On choking stressed-out wavy desperate big watery place seas, long want won’t wannabe wont to get outta Dodge walk-about make tracks roam,
Thy reedy yellow flower-looking haystackish hyacinth hair, thy looks like an old, cracked vase painted antique classic face
Thy wood-nymphy Naiad attitude ‘tude airs have brought me to the house where the heart is home
To the shinyness bright-like-the-sun-ness glory that was grease lard tallow Greece
And the hugeness lotta marble columns around... yech grandeur that was place ruled by Italians I am so-o-o tired I could use a Caesar Salad right about now A-a-a-ah ferget about it. I'll finish it tomorrow.
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Instrumental Composition - 5/4/2006 2:45:34 PM
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JoToP
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I was browsing through the teen section recently and there was a thread inviting teens to share their poetry and songs. Seein’ as how I’m not a teen by a long shot, I kind of felt left out because I have just recently written a song. I’d like to share that song with you all. Here goes:
Oh! It doesn’t have words. Its an instrumental I wrote for guitar. Its quite cool! It goes like this...
Title: New Song I Wrote in E minor and Haven’t Thought Up a Name For Yet
(Pause and set fingers on the strings)
Em: doodle-ay, doodle-ay, doodle-ay, doodle-ay,
C: doodle-ay, doodle-ay, doodle-ay, doodle-ay,
D: doodle-ay, doodle-ay, doodle-ay, doodle-ay,
Am: doodle-ay, doodle-ay, doodle-ay, doodle-ay,
Repeat above with different thumb positions played hard in a sort of Bomming sound
Em: bommle-ay, bommle-ay, bommle-ay, bommle-ay,
C: bommle-ay, bommle-ay, bommle-ay, bommle-ay,
D: bommle-ay, bommle-ay, bommle-ay, bommle-ay,
Am: bommle-ay, bommle-ay, bommle-ay, bommle-ay, (kind of slows down here)
Run up to the 1st string (E) and play rapid triplets:
deedl-ee, deedl-ee, deedl-ee, deedl-ee, deedl-ee, deedl-ee, deedl-ee, deedl-ee,
Its kind of Spanish.
Various chords: iddle-ee, oddle-oo, iddle-ee, oddle-oo, iddle-ee, oddle-oo, iddle-ee, oddle-oo,
Some other chord with the thumb wrapped around grabbing the 2nd fret and the pinky hanging way out on the b string: weedle-DEE, weedle-DEE, weedle-DEE, weedle-DEE, weedle-DEE, weedle-DEE, weedle-DEE, weedle-DEE, (its kind of syncopated)
Mute all strings and run the pick raw over the strings: chakutta, CHAKutta, chakutta, CHAKutta, chakutta, CHAKutta, chakutta, CHAKutta,
Drum the edge of the guitar with the thumb and middle finger: bokkatta, bokkatta, bokkatta, bokkatta, bokkatta, bokkatta, bokkatta, bokkatta, tokatta, pogatta, SLAK!!
Silence and count to 15.
The End, What do you think?
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T.H.E.Y. and the Titanic - 5/5/2006 2:25:08 PM
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JoToP
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About every third day of the week, JoToP, jr. comes swinging in from college with a new jewel of information from Higher Education that begins with the authoritative phrase, “They just discovered....” The cycle begins on Wednesday, then Friday and since I forbid him to impart such secular knowledge on Sunday the next installment should fall on the next Tuesday with the next tid-bit following on the Thursday after that with the next cycle of knowledge beginning on the following Monday, then Wednesday and so on it goes as long as there is no break in school to throw off the pattern, which there almost always is. In this academic era when Summer Holiday has been reduced to July 17th between 2:00 and 5:34 p.m. barring Snow Days, the holidays are spread out through the school year throwing off JoToP, jr.s information cycle so that it appears to be totally random, although it would otherwise, in fact, move in a logical and unerring pattern which it doesn’t, but it would if all things were equal, which they aren’t.
The authority, I think I mentioned (but I’m not wading through all that to find out) is “They”. In case you don’t know yet, “They” is actually an acronym for They’re Here to Entertain You and is closely tied to T. H. E. M., The Hair-brained Egg-headed Men. It is a government bureau of specialists called Theyologists who have little better to do with their time than to spend precious tax dollars trying to figure out what would have happened if things in the past had not happened the way they did, but would most certainly have happened in another way until Themologists figure out how it would actually have happened and in doing so both justify their existence in this world while going over budget and thereby ensuring that their slot in the Federal Budget for the next fiscal year will be raised.
Today, J.j. burst into the house and announced, “They just discovered that if the Titanic had not broken in half it wouldn’t have sunk”. Now, my first mental picture was of Disney World trying to secure all rights to running cruises into the North Atlantic so that tourists can take pictures of a colossal ocean liner bobbing up and down like a wine bottle with a silhouette of Mickey Mouse painted on the side. Then, I remembered a documentary in which a whole nuther set of T. H. E. M. sent expensive robots three miles down to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and found the Titanic resting peacefully on the bottom next to a toilet while a new species of deep-sea shark glided by with a nose shaped like Oklahoma. After painstakingingly photographing the Titanic over an imaginary grid provided by yet another T. H. E. Y., the National Geographic Society, which specializes in finding imaginary lines all over the earth which ordinary people walk right past without ever seeing, the guys with the robots were able to conclude with absolute certainty that the Titanic first capsized nose down, broke in half, then sank to the bottom of the sea. They even had Proof in the form of computer animated cross-sections of the ship filling up with water in the front part of the ship that sailors call the bow which explains why it went nose down. “Bow down” is not a snooty, arrogant way of describing the way the ship went down like “nose-down”, which sounds somewhat like “nose-gay” which is a flower often worn by snooty, arrogant people. And since the Titanic couldn’t have even been sunk by God, it is understandable why no one would want it “bowing down” to him as it sank. The logic is as straight and true as a boomerang, but has little if any bearing on this article or the purposes for which it is being written, as far as I know.
What this new set of Theyologists have determined beyond all doubt is that there is no reason beyond the fact that the ship broke in half why it is not still floating vertically to this day. This proves that I have not got the slightest knowledge of hydrodynamics whatsoever, because I am under the obviously deluded impression that when you fill up the inside of a ship with water it will sink whether it breaks in half or not. Its clear that I have still much to learn in this life and I for one am glad to live in this age and in this land where They are around to keep me educated and to break me free of all my silly presuppositions— the ones They put in my head in the first place, if I rightly recall.
As for the ship sinking, it has been my impression, ever since I saw the documentary by the robot guys, that when the back-side of the ship known as the stern to sailors came up out of the water, the weight of the ship was more than the structure of the ship could handle and that is why it broke. That made perfect sense to me. There was a heavy thing in that section of the ship called the engine that probably helped to contribute to the break, but I suppose, according to the new research, that the ship would not have broken had the engine not been there. That would have solved quite a number of problems, if you think about it, because if the engine had not been there, the ship would have been nearly in England at the time when it would have been sunk. The reason is that it is pretty slow-going rowing a ship that big, but then oars are pretty light weight and probably will not contribute to excessive stress on a ship that is nose-down due to having its entire bow flooded with water.
Looking back and armed with these new insights we can see clearly that the Titanic shipbuilders should have been more careful how they built the ship. They should have constructed a humongous crane that could pick up the ship and tilt it at various angles to see that its structure could support its weight however it might be tilted. If OSHA had been around, they never would have gotten the ship out of dry-dock until they had done just such tests. In fact, I expect any day to hear that OSHA has gotten the latest report on the Titanic and is drafting regulations that require that newly constructed ocean liners should not have engines at all. While they’re at it, they’d better see to it that warships never carry explosives, since so many sinking warships during World War II were reported as having blown up before they sank. In the meantime, I can hardly wait until Tuesday week to find out what They’ve come up with next. JoToP, jr. is on Summer Vacation, so the cycle is broken all to pieces, probably due to excessive stress in the back-side.
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RE: T.H.E.Y. and the Titanic - 5/15/2006 12:02:43 PM
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JoToP
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I’m teaching Shop to the Co-op.
Hey! That rhymes, but since I’m thankfully NOT teaching them literature I’ll pass on by.
My boys are 10 years old, so they are reasonably manageable. They’re good boys, but even good boys are tricky around tools. Especially this particular breed of boys most of who’s (should that be whom’s or who’s? Glad I’m not teaching Lit.) dads are things like Salesmen, Actuaries (whatever that is), Accountants, and various professional monikers using the word “Software”. They’re the dads who dress in Handyman Garb from Armani’s to go to Home Depot in order to buy a Makita cordless drill and three auxiliary battery packs with a nuclear charger module for the purpose of tightening a screw on a cabinet hinge. The tool is kept in an environmentally controlled case on a shelf next to the peg-board in the spotless garage out of sight to the sons, who are completely unaware that their father is what Society calls “handy”. {I personally think Society needs to subdivide men into three categories: Handy, or Manual, meaning one who works with his hands and is familiar with all types of tools and their usage and is possibly Hispanic; Fingery, meaning one who is adept at using the tips of all fingers for keyboards, mice, and Makita triggers; and Thumby, meaning one who is able to navigate a remote with one hand.} But the truth is that a man chooses against being “handy” when he forsakes the world of hardware for that of software, thereby transferring from “handy” to “heady” or “fingery” or “eye-y” or anything other than making use of hands. Not that there’s anything wrong with this arrangement, but I do notice that it raises certain unusual concerns in the Moms.
Every week the Homeschool Moms are waiting outside my classroom door with First Aid kits. I try to assure them with such sensitive comments like, “Don’t worry! God gave your son more fingers than he really actually needs.” but that doesn’t seem to help because they realize that, behind the closed door of the Shop Class (which they keep calling Home Maintenance to try to soften the blow) is the guy from Mississippi with their sons and various instruments that have Blades. It may be because I had to address one Mom in particular who does not allow her boys to play with toy guns and will not allow them to own a pocket knife for fear that they will get a cut. I wisely pass by the toy gun issue and get to the pocket knife issue which is, in my opinion, really serious. Boys and pocket knives is an absolute necessity for keeping balance in the Force. What I have to get past is this idea that getting cut is a bad thing. Getting cut on a pocket knife is not a bad thing, it is a ceremony and a learning experience. I have never heard of a boy dying of pocket knife cut. But it doesn’t matter how many times you tell a boy to cut away from himself, he will become wiser than you and decide for himself that he must cut toward himself in order to get past the Notch. The Notch is a test of boyhood, to see if he was listening. It is difficult to glide the knife past the Notch in the “away” direction and yet it increases the force on the knife in the boy-preferred “toward” direction. Once the Notch has been overcome the built-up force propels the knife into the divinely constructed meaty flesh at the tip of the thumb. Ceremonially, the afflicted boy will drop the knife, turn white as a sheet, scream or shout, cry and run to his Mom. Most boys have cut their thumb. All of them are alive today (except those who have passed on due to other issues such as old age or what-have-you). Most of them have been cutting “away” from themselves ever since the Thumb Ceremony of Blood. Those who are not Actuaries are actually passing this lesson on to their sons. Those who are Actuaries are teaching their sons how to cook pasta.
The problem with Genteel Boys is that tools are a total novelty to them. Once they know they are going to wrap their fingers around a motorized drill that is actually plugged into the wall, they nearly wet themselves in heart-racing, trembling anticipation. This is a very dangerous condition and the most tricky part of the teaching procedure is trying to get some sort of control over the boy, who is more charged than a whole six-pack of Makita batteries. I’ve considered Riddlin, but since I can’t spell it, it probably would not be wise for me to administer it. So I only install no bigger than 1/16th inch drill bits in the drill. You see, while a particular boy is drilling, his friends are sword fighting, one with a square and another with a Phillip’s screwdriver. The boy drilling cannot stand the fact that youthful male jubilee is going on while he is laboring over his boring lessons and is forevermore swinging around with a spinning drill bit; he has not learned to relax his finger while checking out the fun. This has the potential of resulting in a second navel to one of his mates, so I have taken the precaution to see that the threatened mate walks away with a harmless 1/16th inch neo-navel. This is better than what he’d get with a 1 ½ inch Forstner bit in the drill.
So far, no blood has actually touched the floor, so I consider that this class has been, overall, a complete success. Next week, we’re going on to the radial arm saw. I haven’t decided whether I’m actually going to turn it on or not, it depends on how intense the Moms are in the crocheting class for girls. Which, by the way, is a very dangerous occupation. I keep telling the Moms that if they keep it up somebody’s going to get ****ed by a needle.
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Alternate Energy Source - 5/16/2006 8:47:21 AM
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JoToP
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I have an idea for an incredible invention which promises to shake the very foundations of Modern Industrialism as we know it, but I can’t even find a hammer. (In case you all didn’t know it, a ball-peen hammer is Tool # 1345B in Chilton’s General Auto Repair manual under the section Tie Rod Removal and Replacement.)
I have an idea for an Alternate Energy Source vehicle. People are talking about alternate energy all over the world which goes to show how narrow-minded people can be. Its time to break out of the box and start thinking about Borrowed Energy Sources. This is the driving idea behind my new invention idea. I’m building a new car which I will call a Remora, which is a flat-faced fish that attaches itself to sharks and boats and divers and lets them expend all of the energy of locomotion while it wisely spends its energy looking around for the future Mrs. Remora. My new car invention will not have an engine, which is the ingenious energy saving feature which I hope will catapult us into a Brave New World. Instead, it has a cannon on the front which fires a cable which attaches to the motorful vehicles of those people who lack the vision to move ahead into an energy-free future. Not only does the cable serve to link the Remora to the moving sucker vehicle ahead, but it taps into that vehicles battery and alternator, thereby supplying power to the inboard AC, CD player, power locks, power windows, hot water heater and ice maker. The cable will be, oh, a thousand feet long and transparent so the Host Vehicle will not be able to readily ascertain why they were suddenly jerked backward or why their headlights suddenly went dim. Once all of the host vehicle’s gas and battery charge has been thoroughly drained one simply finds another victim host, presses a button to retract and quickly aims and fires at the fresh host leaving the former one pulling off to the shoulder of the highway, fingers tapping feverishly at their cell phone.
The whole technology is what I call P.E. for Parasitic Energy and I’m already getting orders in Third World countries such as Mississippi and North Dakota, the former of which will build patience while waiting for a host to drive by. Future developments are for a 20,000 foot cable for hitching rides on passenger aircraft. Any other ideas for how to improve on what is already an almost perfect idea?
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Safety Drills - 5/18/2006 12:24:26 PM
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JoToP
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O.K., O.K. That wasn't so good, but I was in a hurry. We just had a Severe Weather Drill at the school, one of the many ways we have at the school to shut up the government insure that the kids are in safe hands. Everybody went out in the hall and faced the wall, squatted down, and covered their faces. I didn’t do this because it isn’t as easy for me to do as it is for them, so I have to save my squatting for true Severe Weather and not fake severe weather. So I stood off to the side and did sound effects to give an ambiance to the whole ridiculous scene.
We have Fire Drills, too. I play the part of the Fire and run from one child to another make guttural sounds in the back of my throat and poking them in the sides and back. All the giggling and laughing kind of takes the panic edge off of the whole thing. I’m just doing my part. I consider it to be a ministry.
I noticed on the description for Severe Weather Drill that this drill is good for Tornadoes, Earthquakes, and Tsunamis. I’m trying to order snorkels for the tsunami part of the drill, just in case we get a tsunami here 300 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. You can’t be too careful.
I’d also like to see us implement a Nuclear Holocaust Drill. Basically, you situate the children in front of the window looking outward toward Ground Zero, so they can see how cool the mushroom cloud looks. We have some very artistic and curious children with a twist of poetry in their outlook who would probably marvel that something so big, so colorful can just melt your face right off. I don’t know if this idea is going to go over though because I’m not exactly approved to be on the Safety Board by the Trustees, but it doesn’t hurt to be thinking ahead.
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Scorpions and Chickens - 5/18/2006 12:32:02 PM
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JoToP
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Came back from the Severe Weather Drill and found a SCORPION in the bathroom. Which reminds me...
I’ve been working on a problem for some time now and some of this discussion about raising hands and going to the bathroom is finally starting to come together into something of an epiphany. It explains why scorpions always have their tails up in the air and why they can always be found in bathrooms looking furtively at the porcelain. I think they only “go” once in their lives, but they always have to “go”. So, at some point, the inner urge gets the better of them and they make the treacherous journey to the nearest restroom, preferably one on the ground level. It all makes such perfect sense. You gotta feel sorry for the little buggers. They don’t mean any harm. If we’d just leave a few miniature commodes sprinkled around in the yard, we’d probably never see another scorpion in the house. Maybe we could convert some Briggs and Straton carburetors for the purpose. A good way to recycle some old lawn mower parts, hey wot? The whole scheme is compassionate and environmental. But on the other hand, if the scorpions didn’t come into the bathroom, little boys wouldn’t be able to catch them and scare the wee wee out of them, which is how they get relief in accordance with millions of years of evolution, harking back to when Neanderthal boys tortured Cave Scorpions with full bladders (finally got that word in this post, now I can end it).
Speaking of evolution! Its the only way you can explain why the chicken crossed the road.
I don't think there's anyway to get at the meaning behind this until you look at the Greek word for "cross". The word does not mean what most people think it means which is why there has been confusion over this doctrine for the past 2,000 years. The word is a passive participial gerund in the aorist tense singular masculine which indicates that it is referring to the antecedent "why"? This proves that the chicken was not crossing in the sense of walking across the road, but was, in fact crossing as in "getting in the roads face" or "ticking the road off". Roads have been very patient with chickens for a long time. Aside from an occasional chariot, chickens have gotten away with crossing roads for a long, long time. But the Age of the Road has arrived. Roads are now multi-laned with turnpikes, ramps and underpasses... not the cobble-stoned cow-paths of the past. And it is the ultimate expression of arrogance on the part of the chicken that it has not developed at the pace that the road has. So, whenever a chicken winds up noodle-soup in the middle of a free-way, it is only reaping what it has sewn through all of these centuries. I don't feel sorry for 'em. Long live the Road!!!
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Siskel and JoToP - 5/18/2006 12:35:40 PM
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JoToP
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Hollywood has messed up a lot of High Classic literature, for sure. Like Tarzan of the Apes, f'rinstance. Not one, repeat not one Tarzan movie has come close to capturing the genius of Edgar Rice Burrows classic novel (he’s the guy who wrote the book on Tarzan, so he should know). His descriptive language is staggering. “Stygian darkness...”, “his mighty thews”, “shed the thin veneer of civilization”. I remember all of those figures of speech because he used them over and over again throughout his 23 volumes and in his John Carter Martian series, and, if that wasn’t enough, Robert Howard used the exact same ones in [iConan the Barbarian. That kind of stuff just doesn’t come out in movies. And Tarzan was no neanderthal. He spoke many languages and was an English lord and piloted a bomber during the war and all kinds of neato stuff. In the movies, Tarzan has problems with irregular verbs. “Boy bad” was a major challenge. Tarzan also is not as almighty in the movies as he is in the books. He is easily subdued by Jane (otherwise known as Maureen O’Sullivan... which is understandable... that he is overpowered by her, that is... who wouldn’t be, Ai Yi Yi). All she has to do is pout and work up a tear which shines like a diamond in black and white cinematography, especially under the influence of that slight gauzean blur they used in order to portray Beautiful Woman Face. Next thing you know, Tarzan is falling all over himself with such eloquent phrases of reassurance as “Jane not sad” and she gets her way. But occasionally Tarzan resists her will with his indomitable, “Swim now” which actually means, “let’s change the subject”. Because it was unfortunate that Johnny Weisemuller was an olympic swimmer instead of an olympic gymnast, otherwise they could have stuck to the book and had Tarzan swinging through trees like he was supposed to instead of swimming and changing the subject all the time.
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Superman - 5/18/2006 12:42:39 PM
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JoToP
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Slightly related to the above... I’ve been thinking about the problem of Superman a great deal lately and I’ve decided that he is definitely Alter Ego Deficient. The Lone Ranger has the same problem, but he was Out West. Nobody knew anybody Out West so it didn’t matter because everybody lived no less than 3000 miles apart. Husbands and wives didn’t even know each other. Their children would come home from One Room Schoolhouses and the parents would run them out of the house saying, “Why do those kids keep coming here every day?” Whenever the Lone Ranger came around, though, people knew exactly who he was, the Masked Man. I don’t know why they felt like they had to ask. THEY KNEW he was the Masked Man. They shouldn’t have said, “Who was that Masked Man?” They should have said, “There is that Masked Man.” Simple. This leads me to the conclusion that the Lone Ranger was NOT trying to hide his identity; he was, in fact, trying to identify himself in a vast region of virtual anonymity. (That was very well put, don’t you think?)
If we move this discussion on to consider the Phantom, we find ourselves dealing with literally generations of Masked Men who have no Alter Ego. This is strange and is obviously some kind of Freudian phenonemom phemonenonom phnemonenom occurrence. There, apparently, co-exist with us normal bare-faced humans a whole sect of humanity that secretly wear masks all the time. How, then, can we be sure that the person next to us is really that person at all. They could well be Someone Else. It is most disconcerting.
This brings me back to Superman, or actually Metropolis, which is the real topic of discussion here. Metropolis was once a thriving city in America, but it is now extinct. You see, everybody in Metropolis did not know that Superman and Clark Kent were one and the same person, in spite of the fact that they both look exactly alike and, if we are to take the George Reeves story literally (and I see know good reason why we shouldn’t) even tell the same jokes and have the same voice. The only difference between Superman and Clark Kent is that Superman had a curly cue in his hair suggesting the wind-blown look of one who leaps over tall buildings in a single bound. He also does not where glasses as he does as Clark Kent. In fact, his only real disguise is that he is “mild mannered”. This is all that stands in the way of full recognition on the part of the citizens of Metropolis.
What do we conclude from this? It is obvious that the people of Metropolis are incapable of recognizing a person who has simply changed his clothing. This is why you won’t find Metropolis on any map in America, because all business and commerce ground to a halt in this city where everyday people found themselves in the company of eternal strangers. As long as Jimmy Olsen had five changes of clothing in mix and match ensembles, his identity was a complete mystery to his deficient co-workers. You can’t run a city like that.
Besides, Superman is really too easy to kill. He is invulnerable to everything in the world except one thing, which comes out in the old George Reeves series. Whenever Bad Guys met the Man of Steel, they would unload an entire cylinder of their revolver on him, but, of course, the bullets bounced harmlessly off his chest. Then the Bad Guy would throw the empty weapon at Superman in frustration and Superman would (get this, now)... DUCK. That's because Superman is secretly uninvulnerable to empty revolvers. If the Bad Guys would carry a bucket full of empty pistols onto the crime scene, Superman would be toast.
< Message edited by JoToP -- 5/18/2006 1:30:24 PM >
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The Wasp from Hell - 5/18/2006 1:47:13 PM
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The verdict is in. The nuclear fallout from underground atomic bomb tests has leached up to the surface of the Planet’s topsoil and is kicking up some weird and deadly mutants.
I discovered this recently while sitting downstairs on the couch reading a book in peaceful abandon. I’ve always had a bit of nervousness with regards to flying, stinging insects in the house. Actually, I feel pretty much the same about the beasts outside, but I can put some distance there and don’t feel trapped within walls. Bears, wolves, panthers, snakes? Bring ‘em on. But there’s something about small flying creatures that do erratic things (like bumping their heads on the ceiling like madmen) and have biochemical weapons in their butts that set off my Terrorist Alert Signals.
Fifteen years ago, we bought this old house and inherited five beehives with the deal. My wife had said something like, “It’ll be fun!” when we first discovered the hives under a Tropical Rain Forest of kudzu.
What is it with women and “It’ll be fun!”? They can turn the hottest region of Tartarus into a playground. It was the way primitive cave women used to manipulate their husbands a million years ago.
Cro-Magnon: “Honey, there’s a twenty foot cave bear with rabies in the valley. We need to get the kids indoors and roll a boulder in front of the entrance.”
Cro-Maggie: “Why don’t you and the guys get your clubs and go kill the bear. It’ll be fun! You and Korg haven’t done things together in years.”
She said she would tend the hives. She never touched ‘em. First time I opened a hive and heard 60,000 flying, stinging insects going off like an entire Air Wing of stealth bombers was like being injected with 500 cc of pure heroin. But I did it, got used to it and it actually kinda cured my overall phobia.
Until the night I was sitting on the couch reading. The stairs are to my immediate right and upstairs I heard a low O-O-O-O-OME, like the Mormon Tibet Choir having simultaneous Out-O-Body experiences.
I had dreamed about giant wasps before... big as my foot... big as an F-14 Tomcat. Makes you glad to wake up. But I thought I knew all the wasp species and that Hornet was as big and bad as the get. I didn’t take Atomic Mutation into account and that’s where I went wrong.
I creeped upstairs slowly, like a Spec.Four Ranger scoping out a sniper. As my head came above the railing, I’m standing on the second step from the top, I turned and saw it in profile there on a small shelf. It turned its head and locked eyes with me.
As I was skidding on my tail down the stairs, my feet flailing out before me, the thought entered my head that one of the charms of the insect world is how ridged and mechanical they are in their ways. Flexibility gives the strong illusion of intelligence. I’ve always believed Preying Mantids should be classified as felines.
I went out to the Slop Shop and donned myself in full anti-beehive regalia complete with pith helmet, face net, coveralls and brogans— my pants leg tucked into my boots like a paratrooper. I pulled on my gauntlets and headed intrepidly upstairs.
Once again, my enemy and I locked gaze with one another. While we were engaged in a stare-down contest, two things occurred to me. First, my opponent has no eyelids and therefore will not blink. Secondly, he has an abdomen the size of a caboose meaning: A. he has a stinger capable of penetrating my pith helmet, my cranium and my cerebral cortex and B. there’s enough juice in his caboose to mummify a wooly mammoth.
Once again, I’m falling down the stairs thinking that there was not enough room in this house for the German Wasp and me and I would have to employ all of my superior inventiveness to bring down such a formidable foe.
Why is it that anything big, mean and unpredictably dangerous is “German”? That’s what they call this species of wasp (I found out later) down here in the South. Ask any Old Codger and he’ll tell you. On the other hand, he’ll call a cardinal a “red bird”. German Shepherd. Now that’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one. Nothing pastoral in that name... “German” cancels out all images of green pastures, soft fleece and the gentle profession of flocks and folds.
Back in th Slop Shop, I nailed a 10" blank of 1"x4" to an eight foot 2"x4" in a “T” shape lance. I figured to shove that bad boy into the wall. If that didn’t do it, I’d have to resort to Ol’ ‘Coon Spittoon, my 20 gauge scatter gun. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
For the third time I crept upstairs. Hans was perched in his place waiting for me. He was not afraid. Nervously, I poled my lance toward him. Within 6 inches of his roost, he suddenly jerked up to his full height, wings upright in take off position. I could feel the blood draining from my head... my legs were Smucker’s Grape Jelly, but I froze and held my ground. Hans relaxed a little, so I proceeded. When I was within an inch of him, I shoved the lance straight forward and rammed it against the wall, but a bit of flotsam was holding the weapon off from the wall somewhat. Still, Hans was in there, not moving. I let off a bit and, suddenly, the monster fluttered out and into open space between us. I fell down the stairs in a haste to escape the wrath to come. Downstairs, I listened while I nursed my bruises and checked for broken bones. Occasionally, I’d hear a rustling, like a buck passing through dry leaves. I started back upstairs, one agonizing step every minute. At the top, I looked around, but saw nothing. Then I heard and my eyes followed the sound. There was Hans on the floor, slightly stunned. The moment of attack was before me. I grabbed an encyclopedia, dropped it on the enemy and tumbled headlong downstairs. When I returned, the encyclopedia was not flat on the hardwood floor, but cocked at a slight angle. It moved slowly and haltingly. I leaped out from behind my cover and stomped it with all my weight, then slid down the stairs where I landed in a heap at the bottom.
A few days later, I limped up to the battleground to inspect my trophy. I lifted the encyclopedia with my steel-toed shoe and jumped back. Hans was dead, but, unlike his lesser cousins, he had left behind a sizable relic.
Don’t be surprised if you see me holding up a sign at the next “NO MORE NUKES” march.
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Jellyfish Bad Day - 5/19/2006 9:31:10 AM
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JoToP
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A Public Service Announcement for Your Benefit
Next time you have a bad day at work, think of this guy, Rob, a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an e-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to radio station 103.2 on FM dial in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, who was sponsoring a worst job experience contest. Needless to say, she won.
Hi Sue,
Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all.
Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wetsuit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints. What I do when I get to the bottom and start working is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wetsuit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi.
Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my butt started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it. However, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my butt. I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically. Needless to say I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet. As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't poop for two days because my butt was swollen shut.
So, next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your butt. Now repeat to yourself, "I love my job, I love my job, I love my job." Whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself, " Is this a jellyfish bad day?"
May you NEVER have a jellyfish bad day!
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Islam Goes to the Country - 5/19/2006 9:41:06 AM
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I have recently received incontrovertible information from a number of my highly reliable Conspiratorial Sources that Islam is growing among rural Southerners. One of the outgoing spokesmen of this movement is a certain Ali Bubba, a Singer of Prayers in the Hell’s Holler Mosque near Dothan, Alabama (Euty may know this guy). Three times a day (except on Sundays), Ali Bubba climbs the long ladder into the highest deerstand in Hell’s Holler and calls all the local Muslims to their prayers. Of course he has modified the Middle Eastern songs to such tunes as “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and “I’ll Fly Away”, but the words are the same with a slight Tidewater slant in the original Arabic. Ali Bubba is very dedicated to his office and has never missed the call... except once. That was when he was just about to start the prayer call when a ten point buck steps out into the soy bean field below. Ali swears (by Mohammed’s basket woven Stetson embellished with turquois buffalo set in silver rattlesnakes) that the rack on this sucker was 16" across. Ali flat forgot about matins and slowly reached around for his Marlin 30.06, which he says he just got into the habit of taking whenever he went up into the deerstand (“just in case a jihad breaks out. You can’t be too careful.”) Ali missed his chance at the buck, but the shot alerted the local Game Warden who confiscated Ali’s rifle, truck and deerstand. Ali just managed to talk the Warden into letting him keep his custom-made magnetic bumper sticker that says, “They’ll have to tear my scimitar out of my cold, dead fingers”.
Unfortunately, since Ali is no longer calling prayers and the local Muslims are not praying as often, Ali has begun Terrorist training. He has begun his first cell and calls it Al Keehall (He personally wanted to call it Al Bakky, but his wife vetoed that). It all started when, one moonless night Ali Bubba and his closest confederate, a certain Abu Dhabi Jackson, with a few other local farmboys of like-mindedness hatched and executed a raid on the farms of the local Most Notorious Infidel Farmers (they kept a list under the floorboard of an abandoned barn in the pinewoods...second board on the left, very back of the barn). The Terrorists filled five gallon paint cans with rat poison and poured the contents down the toilet pits of the prescribed outhouses. To their credit, the Christian victims did not retaliate, at least, not so far as I know.
But one act always leads to another plan more sinister than the one before. In a fortnight, the miscreants were ranging the length of the county spreading “terror” in their wake. No junk vehicle was safe from their wrath and jihad activities. The Terrorists would jack up old Dodges that had rested peacefully on blocks for decades and carry off the concrete blocks, even mowing the grass around them shamelessly. Many was the abandoned ruin of an ancient barn they defaced with their slogans, “Down With the Crusaders”. One such slogan, “Machine of Infidel Decadence” was painted on a local still; the Muslim’s poured a jar of kerosine into each still they encountered. (The demand for moonshine rose strangely after this act of sabotage and the locals claimed the mash had never quite tasted so good.) They threw garbage into the pigsties. They tuned the church pianos. It was horrid.
Ali Bubba has stated in a press statement (Harold Yarborough dropped by Ali’s trailer one morning and asked him a few questions... Harold runs the Hell’s Holler Gazette ) that it is his ambition to work for International Terrorist Organizations and receive funding from Lybia. So far, he has not been contacted, but he is patient and understands that I. T.O. is tied down with the War on Terrorism and all. In the meantime, Ali is planning an action that assures National Attention. He’s going to blow up the Post Office, Hell’s Holler chapter. (Actually, the building hasn’t been used since 1953, Maud Claiborne has been sorting mail in her basement for years.) But it’s the principle of the thing.
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Coathangers - 5/19/2006 9:43:22 AM
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Alright, folks,
Gather around. The subject for today is "coat hangers". We've talked in considerable depth about the wonders of duct tape and WD-40. I've even mentioned J. B. Weld, but I think that subject is a little over some of your heads. You need to come to an understanding regarding the Neglected Coat Hanger, otherwise known as the Southern Muffler Tier-Upper.
History: Nobody really knows where coat hangers originated, but there is evidence that they are imbedded in the Phoenician alphabet. The letter "Delta" is probably an ancient coat hanger. (Delta airlines went out of business, BTW, because it was discovered that their B727 wings were braced with coat hangers. I don't see what the problem was with that. No wait. That was Eastern Airlines, but I think there's still a connection.)
Producers: No one knows where coat hangers came from. They were probably forged by Tubal Cain. Russian explorers claim to have seen breach clouts hanging on coat hangers on the ark. Small bird cages were made from coat hangers. I'm certain that all of the coat hangers in existence today go back before the Flood.
Owners: No one has ever actually owned a coat hanger. They are simply passed on from hand to hand over the eons of time. The Chinese probably started this practice (revealing latent communism in their thinking from early days) through a relay system called Lau Ndre Mat.
Crisis: There is a severe shortage of this precious commodity, a growing scarcity of metal, wire coat hangers. This is due in part to the fact that coat hangers used to tie up car parts are languishing in junk yards across the world. These are not being replenished, because Industry has actually started cranking out Plastic Coat Hangers.
What you can do: Call your Representative and tell him to vote "No" to Coat Hanger Industry. They are not only contributing to the extinction of an ancient breed which has played an important roll in the Circle of Life for millions of years. Besides, they're dangerous. My cousin, Davy Joe recently tied up his muffler with a Plastic Coat Hanger. The resulting emissions of toxic gas caused the evacuation of the entire unincorporated municipality of Blue Springs, Mississippi, which took 30 whole minutes (Mrs. Maud wouldn't leave without her cat, she had to be carried out forcefully in a wheelbarrow).
Conclusion: Something MUST be done to save traditional wire-type, base metal coat hangers. Think of the consequences: keys locked in cars (try jimmying the lock with plastic), broken antennas (we used to listen to tunes while going through the wash, you can't do that now), that pointy look on everyone's shoulders (people look like they're slumping these days), slumping PVC plumbing, I could go on and on. Stitching for chain link fence holes, something to stick styrofoam planets into for science projects, fencing foils for one-eyed boys... see, I told you. Want me to do it again? Maybe later
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Anne of Green Gables; There’s Hope For Us Guys Yet - 5/19/2006 9:45:38 AM
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I live in a male home. There’s me, who is male and my two boys, who are also males. My wife is female, which is fortunate, for the two boys’ very existence hinges on that reality. We guys like the guy type of movies: The Guns of Navarone (what a bully title for a movie), Pirates of the Caribbean, Gladiator, They Were Expendable. Watching the fireglow (of pyrotechnics) and hearing the crackle (of 30 caliber machine guns) is like standing in the center of the universe.
So, we’re coming home from school (I teach in a Christian school and the boys go there) on Friday afternoon and we are really whoopin’ it up. Schools out for the week and tonight... pizza and a movie.
“Who’s turn is it to pick a movie?”
“Well, let’s see... John picked last week and Cliff the week before that and....”
“Oh, no!!!!! It’s Mom’s turn to pick!!!!”
Life is hard for guys sometimes. We have to go through this once every four weeks.
Cliff says, “She brought a movie home from the library Monday.”
Not a good sign. Libraries are not good places to get movies because libraries feel that they must somehow justify that the movie has Educational Value. “Education”, in library-speak, means “women’s stuff”.
Don’t judge me too harshly. I actually liked Sense and Sensibility, but the guys and I figured that having endured Anne of Green Gables (which is the undisputed Bastogne of chick flicks and a double-wammy to boot [2, count ‘em, 2 full videos full of Megan Follows’ hyper-melodrama]) we were seasoned for the Great Tribulation itself.
We get home. The atmosphere is thick and full of electricity. (Is Mom washing the Hobart again with it plugged in? I’ve got to move the socket.) There is the two tape set sitting on the piano, waiting anxiously to be viewed. We approach cautiously. I pick it up and read the title.
Anne of Green Gables; The Continuing Story. It’s back to Bastogne, guys. The blood drains from the boys’ faces.
Megan Follows is grown up, but still has that cute Shirley Temple smile. She’s been “somewhere else” between the intervening years and it’s now 1915. Green Gables is a shambles manifesting the social reality that what were once nice houses with green gables are now inhabited only by single women worn down to meanness with poverty who somehow have procured a dozen, dirty children who like nothing better than to tear out the ancient day lilies by the roots. (See, I’m sharp... I got the message.)
Actually, it wasn’t that bad. World War I was going on, which is right down our ally, us guys. Anne goes to France looking for Gil, who is an Army surgeon. He is captured by the Germans so she stays in London and gets involved in Intrigues, all the while writing superior articles to all those of the Seasoned Reporters of this particular British newspaper. In fact, Anne actually becomes so popular in England within a few short weeks of her arrival that she could actually have run for Prime Minister and won. Anne is awesome. In the end she finds Gil and they live happily ever after, as long as he lets her do exactly whatever hair brained thing she wants. I hope Gil makes a lot of money as a struggling country doctor. He’ll need it.
I’m actually looking forward to the sequel of this movie with equal anticipation to Return of the King. What can’t Anne of Green Gable do? I see her in World War II rescuing Gil, who has been abducted by Nazis to work on the German equivalent of the Manhattan Project (the Frankfurter Project). Anne, who has risen to the rank of Supreme Allied Commander within three days of landing (she’s a pilot now, thanks to Gil’s burgeoning Country Doc practice in New-South-Prince-Sound, Canada) takes out an entire division of crack, Waffen S. S. troops with a home-made grenade launcher and an M1 rifle. Part four will be about Anne in outer space, battling Romulans who have captured Gil and teaching the illiterate Klingons how to appreciate Walt Whitman.
Part five, Gil goes to the dark side of the force, but Anne believes in him and wins over the Senate with a Shirley Temple smile. This is great stuff, I can hardly wait.
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