Hell Hath No Fury

Jennifer Wilbanks, Georgia Peach and Bride-At-Large, is headed for a witch’s cauldron of trouble. Now that she has ‘fessed up to her cold-feet-induced self-kidnapping stunt, she will probably face charges for instigating the waste of taxpayer money spent on the bridehunt. That’s the least of her problems. She should plead for the safety of incarceration in the Georgia prison system, because she has been sloppy-kissed with the smooch of death.

Never mind her beau. Knowing that his betrothed abducted herself to avoid marrying his sorry ass, that fella is reduced to a quivering mound of gelatinous pus. He’ll be squatting to pee for years to come.

She needs to worry about the Posse. Fourteen angry bridesmaids.

It’s insult enough to get drafted as a bridesmaid. That means you meet the universal criteria: you are fatter and/or uglier than the bride is, preferably both. Any professionally embalmed bride glows with comparative beauty when framed in a backdrop of nasty lookin’ fat chicks. But then you have to lay out several hundred bucks for a lime green chiffon dress that makes you look like a one-woman Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Added insurance for the bride, just in case your acne clears up overnight. The only consolation is the potential for a VFW Hall restroom quickie with a blind-drunk groomsman at the reception. What happens in this toilet stays in this toilet.

Jennifer needs the Witness Protection Program more than Sammy the Bull and Joe Valacci ever needed it. La Cosa Nostra revenge is child’s play compared to the wrath of fourteen angry, ugly fat broads with 80 acres of nonreturnable chiffon.

A Penny Saved Is A Dollar Spent

"How much money do I need to retire?"

I’m asked this question all the time. I was a CPA in a former life. I still am, I guess. It’s a curse that can’t be reversed. But I retired my blue suits and red ties at the age of 44. Actually, I didn’t retire; I quit.

The quitting plan was hatched in 1977, so I didn’t quit in a fit of "I’m not going to take it anymore" rage, although you could look at my 23 years in the workplace as one uninterrupted fit of rage. I’m inherently lazy, and I view work as an unwelcome intrusion upon my fucking-around time. In order to pull off The Biq Quit, I had to carefully assess my needs and wants. I wanted freedom, and I didn’t need to define my identity with a job. To achieve the want, I did need to pay myself first and amass the required Fuck You Money to make it happen.

"Okay. So how much money do I need to retire?"

I live a very minimalist life. I wear worn blue jeans, because they are comfortable. I continue to patch my 30-year-old cowboy boots, because they are comfortable. I drive an old, rusty truck, because it runs. Sometimes I sleep in my clothes, because it saves me the trouble of getting dressed in the morning. And it increases the mileage of a t-shirt. I enjoy the quizzical reactions of my acquaintances to my dumpster-divin’ ne’er-do-well appearance, because it’s fun. They think I must have a snootful of money, because I was once a member of The Briefcase Club, and the cognitive dissonance caused by my physical appearance makes their heads explode. That’s fun, too. And chicks dig the mystery.

"C’mon, enough of the life story. How much money do I need to retire?"

Poor working stiffs never ask me this question. They know exactly how much cash flow they need to exist. They know how many dollars they need to cover this month’s rent, groceries, and utilities, and they know there are months when they can’t cover the nut.

No, it’s not the poor working stiff who asks the question. The question comes from the "cosmetically affluent" class. The "cosmetically affluent" class is comprised of the guys who are transfused with ample cash flow, yet they are simultaneously bleeding it profusely. Cash is jettisoned through their ecosystem like shit through a goose with a spastic colon. They have no idea how much they’ll spend this month. They just pay their tithe to AMEX, VISA, MasterCard and the bank’s line of credit.

"Jezuz, already, so how much money do I need to retire?"

In the tradition of all Great Teachers, I will answer the question with more questions. Look into your soul, Cosmetically Affluent Grasshopper, and answer these questions to complete your journey to enlightenment:

How much does your country club need in dues and dining room minimums? How often do you need to lease a new sports car to quell your little-dick syndrome? How much does your 35-year-old kid need to continue his quest to find himself in the nightclubs of Aspen? How much does the Student Loan Association need before you have paid off the kid’s Master’s Degree in Sociology from Princeton? How much does Powdered Sphincter Golf Club need in greens fees? How much does your nanny need to raise the second family you started with the trophy wife who fell madly in love with your lifestyle? How much does aforementioned trophy wife need to fund her monthly shopping excursions to The City? How much does your housekeeper need to scrub the streaks out of your toilets? How much does your gardener need to mow your lawn? How much does your health club need to maintain your nameplate on the locker you haven’t visited in 6 years? How much does your trailer park of a yacht club need to provide a slip for your party barge?

Since you clearly need everything you want, and you want every shiny new toy in the window display, what you need to do is continue chasing ambulances, performing unnecessary surgeries, selling financial planning services (what?) or whatever the hell it is you do to pay your debts to the Temple of Ostentation until you die at your desk. You need to buy lots of life insurance so your wifey and offspring won’t miss a beat when their beloved benefactor and money tree wakes up dead.

Finally, you need to get your fleshy pink ass out of my way because my rusty old pickup truck needs an oil change, and I need to do it myself.

I hope our little chat helps you chart your course on the road to financial freedom.

Set The Bar Low...And Miss It

2008 is a long way off, and much damage is yet to be done before we get there, but at least it buys us some time to assess and revise. Unlike the Titanic, we didn’t smash into the iceberg head on. We are slowly dragging the hull across that mountain of ice, accompanied by the screeching and groaning of shivering, contorting metal. We will survive, the ship will be repaired, and the Captain will be forced into retirement. We can analyze the events that led to the near-disaster and learn to avert them in the future.

We can keep this barge of a nation afloat for many more voyages if we never again elect a dumb President.

dumb, a. stupid; moronic. [Colloq.]

It’s not about party politics. Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green Party; the choices among political platforms are as varied as the choices among bottled waters. But, if we are unable to pare down the ranks of candidates by eliminating the dumbbells,

dumbbell, n. a dullard; a stupid person. [Slang]

how on earth are we to be entrusted with analysis of the issues? With the vast pool of intelligent, educated men and women populating the United States of America, how is it that we settle for a dumb guy in the White House? How is it that we tolerate a man who is prideful of the fact that he doesn’t read newspapers, and admonishes his staff to never bring him bad news?

If we have had dummies in the Oval Office before,

dummy, n. 1. a stupid person. [Slang] 2. tool of another.

we clearly survived their tenure. If we have had dummies in the Oval Office before, we must have learned something because, for at least the past forty years, we were doing a pretty good job of firewalling the place from dumb incumbents. Clinton was horny, Bush Sr. was wimpy, Reagan acted dumb in fox-like fashion, Carter was timid, Nixon was criminal, LBJ was vicious, and JFK was horny, but none of them were dumbbells. I’d continue, but we’re back at the top of the list with horny.

If you graduated from high school when pants were worn above the ass-crack, you will note that I skipped Gerald Ford. He was dumb, but we didn’t elect him. Pass Go, collect $200.

Granted, we weren’t offered much of an alternative in 2004. Kerry the Candidate was a multi-faced, wavering, noncommittal, posturing weasel with no balls. But he wasn’t dumb. And the ketchup lady had balls. I think Theresa’s balls trump dumb, and I think Kerry may have screwed up a lot of things, but not because he’s dumb. He would know when he screwed up, because he would read it in the newspaper or be told by aides.

We don’t have that luxury now. The President is so anesthetized by lack of intellect that he doesn’t know he’s dumb. The Vice President knows it, though. The Veep need only pop out of hiding every four years, wave at the boss, and pick up his mail. Dumb bosses don’t disrupt your free time.

I shouldn’t have a President who stacks the deck with handler-picked constituents at town hall meetings. I shouldn’t have a President who delivers press conferences to the press of his choosing. I shouldn’t have a President who blindly stammers through a State of the Union Address like a child mouthing a memorized recitation at the third-grade Christmas play. I shouldn’t have a President who is President of a select club of citizens. I shouldn’t hear the eggs frying in that "this is your brain on drugs" commercial every time my President speaks. I deserve better.

You do, too. Dumb people should never be President.

Peace Be With You...'Til 10:30

It’s another fine Sunday morning, and the freshly paved and striped church parking lots are brimming with the SUVs and minivans that transported impeccably dressed and well-coiffured families to their weekly appointment with god. Souls will be cleansed, business cards will be passed, wafers will be eaten and untaxed income will be collected.

I have chosen, once again, to take a pass on the hypocrisy, content with the knowledge that I provide the worshippers with someone to look down upon the remaining 167 hours of the week. I prefer to spend this quiet hour at the grocery store or car wash with other godless heathens, before the highways and byways explode with the hustle and bustle of the freshly saved. Today, since the fridge is already stocked and the car was washed by rain this week, I choose to manufacture a little blasphemy. Consider it a modicum of balance to the abundance of artificial good will that is fabricated, and left behind, at church. Stoke the lightning, cuz here goes:

Pastors, priests and the other assorted and sordid paid proselytizers have failed. The Great Novel’s protagonist was crucified for expressing his disdain at the conduct of commerce at a place of religious meditation. Yet the modern day mystagogue has effectively melded commerce and religion into a business enterprise. A pastor’s job entails filling pews with customers and offering baskets with cash. As compensation for his efforts, he receives cash salary plus a benefit package: health insurance, retirement plan, parsonage or housing allowance, and tax breaks. The pastor now has a vested financial interest in filling pews and baskets, which creates a conflict of interest.

These preachers should exhibit a greater sense of responsibility toward the spiritual health of their customers. They should readily detect the danger signs of literal interpretation by their customer base. When they know that the customer has allowed metaphor, allegory and symbolism to become a reality in his life, they should intervene to prevent this emotional distortion from further skewing the mind of the cultist. But they don’t, because they know that a customer with a healthy spiritual intellect will realize that a glorious sanctuary and convenient parking have nothing to do with spirituality. The customer with a healthy spirituality will comprehend that "church" is a portable concept carried in his mind rather than within an edifice with a postal address. "Church" need not happen on a schedule, conducted by a salaried representative who offers sales presentations at 9:00 and 10:30. "Church" need not involve payroll and infrastructure.

But the proselytizer is motivated to perpetuate the ongoing competition for paying customers, and accomplishes that end by perpetrating the infliction of emotional and intellectual irrationality.

Amen. So there.

Hey, I see the churches have spilled out the first wave of believers. They are lining up at the stop sign at my corner, honking and cursing at the guy waiting to make a left turn. The race to the mall is on, and that miserable sumbitch is going to cost them a few choice parking spaces near the Starbucks entrance.

See ya in hell, suckas. I’ll be the guy who doesn’t look surprised.

Don't Launder Those Boxers!

How about that Virgin Mary? For a chaste woman, she sure gets around. And she leaves a lot of stains. You just never know where she’s going to make her next appearance. It’s a veritable "Where’s Waldo?" for bibliolatrists.

In the past year, she's shown up in grilled cheese sandwiches and on bed linens. She’s currently playing a gig on the wall of a Chicago underpass. I’ve been looking for her in my frozen pizzas; apparently Jack’s isn’t her brand. Great Value baked beans haven’t interested her, either. I haven’t washed my bed sheets in three weeks, and I’m starting to make out the shadow of a figure when the afternoon sunlight streams through the cobwebs in the corner of my bedroom window. It looks more like Oprah at this point, but who knows what another week will bring?

The indigent fellow who calls that Chicago underpass home is marveling at the thousands of doe-eyed pilgrims filing by, caressing the vomit stain he left on the wall after last Tuesday’s bender. And he’s no idiot. He’s determined to puke on something he can sell on Ebay.

Chic Rebellion

I’m glad I never got a tattoo. When tattoos were meaningfully defiant, my arms were so scrawny I didn’t want to draw attention to them. My skinny arms saved me, because tattoos are no longer cool.

Tattoos were once significant. WWII and Korean War vets came home with tattoos bearing the symbols of their infantry divisions. Serial psychopaths bore tattoos telling the world what they were born to do. Now, doctors’ wives have dainty little flowers and butterflies strategically positioned for flaunting at the gardener, yet they are undetectable in evening wear. Doctor Warbucks doesn’t want his trophy tarnished by a tattoo when he’s sportin’ her around the Pink Ball.

Since the veterans are dead and the psychopaths are now cultivated predominately from among middle-class, middle-aged family men who work two jobs and usher at church, tattoos now adorn the insignificant masses who are all in a tizzy to be different together. Tattoos have faded into the realm of fashion bric-a-brac, acquired to accessorize capped teeth, sunless suntans and fake titties. They are no longer unique, fearsome or representative of any experience other than a visit to a licensed, air-conditioned, hygienically pristine tattoo establishment located in the strip mall between Chi-Chi’s and OfficeMax. Tattoos have lost their luster via the principle of saturation.

Fortunately we still have the body art that has withstood the test of time and timidity. We still have the symbols that represent more than a trip to the mall with giggly friends.

Missing digits and scars. You can’t pick them out of a catalog, and you can’t get them by appointment. You can’t buy ‘em; you gotta earn ‘em.

A word of warning: our modern culture is in danger of losing the lure of the missing digit and the scar. OSHA has taken the adventure out of industrial employment, what with their machine guards and safety switches and all. It takes a concerted effort to shut the line down for a while by donating a thumb. Might as well get an office job. Medical science has overstepped its bounds by developing procedures for reattaching severed digits, or forming new digits from body parts that never aspired to be digits. Gone are the days when a guy lopped off his thumb in the lathe because he was bone tired and careless at the end of his twelve-hour shift. Nobody bothered fishing the thumb out of the bin, wrapping it in ice and bringing it to the emergency room. The thumb stayed in the scrap bin, and brought an extra nickel when the scrap was sold by weight. The medical fix for an old-fashioned thumb-lopping was to file off the bone shards and graft a hunk of ass-skin over it. That left a nice, dirty-brown stump. A badge of honor. Hell of a conversation piece.

The curse of dermabrasion is doing its utmost to rob us of the mystical miracle of scars as well. When scars were railroad tracks - those big ol’ zippers that looked like a sloppy weld - they told a story. Plastic surgery is snuffing the life right out of storytelling.

Case in point. Archie was the colorful neighbor from my childhood. He was the neighbor that twenty-first century, overprotective yuppie parents sell their houses to escape. He was a mailman by day and an Indian fighter by night. I’m not talking about Native American casino developers, mind you; these were savages, pillaging and plundering the backyards of urbania. Archie lost a thumb in mortal hand-to-hand combat with these marauders. He even had their heads hanging in his basement. We peered at them from the stairwell and, in the dim light, they could have been mistaken for coconuts hanging on a coat tree. Archie assured us they were heads, though, and that was all the confirmation we needed. We had a butt-skinned-stump-thumbed Indian fighter, right there in our own suburban enclave. Try milking a story like that out of your Nike Swoop tattoo.

The gang showers at the gym are a potpourri of body art. Most of what’s on display there is unimpressive, including the logo tattoos of the dentists, lawyers and computer programmers. It’s hard to understand why any of them would want to draw attention to their bodies, because the tattoos add nothing to the spectacle. My personal gold standard for body art was set in a gang shower environment over two decades ago, and that standard remains unchallenged. I had never seen the guy at the gym before this particular day, and his imposing, weather-beaten-barn-like physical appearance disinvited idle chit-chat from anyone in the locker room. He hit the showers right behind me and, dunking his head under the stream of hot water, he expelled a loud sigh of relief and initiated a conversation I can’t forget.

"Man, that felt good. First time I’ve been to the gym in six months."

I decided to engage the small talk for fear that any lack of interest on my part may be construed as impolite and I’d be left for dead.

"Too busy at work to get down here?" was my benign offering.

"Coma."

This was already better than I had expected.

"Car accident?"

"Nah. I was working on my car one night and somebody smashed me on the head with my own crowbar. He got the five bucks in my pocket."

That explained the corn-row of a divot on the crown of his head. It didn’t look like hair would be growing there anytime soon. He continued:

"I was in a coma for three months, and they gave me the last rites and all that shit. When I woke up, I wished I hadn’t. The headaches have been so bad for the last three months that I wanted to die. Man, it hurt worse than when I got fuckin’ stabbed."

I noted a crusty white scar on his abdomen, just below his rib cage, and asked "is that where you got stabbed?"

He turned his back to me and blindly tapped his finger on another scaly string of pearls on his lower back.

"Nope, this is where I got stabbed." He turned back to face me and pointed at the scar I had first noticed. "This is where I got shot."

Now, it was noteworthy that this guy didn’t have a tattoo. Probably too busy to get one. After all, he seemed to have a full plate juggling stabbings, shootings and comas. My point, however, is the fact that my recollection of those scars from 25 years ago is fresher in my memory than that of any tattoo I may have seen yesterday. My new friend didn’t have any missing digits at the time, but he was young and clearly far from finished. He’s probably come through by now.

So, pardon my yawn when you show me your tattoo. Tattooed cellulite doesn’t make a splash at the country club pool anymore. A barbed wire ankle inking doesn’t reek with rebellion when complemented with a pedicure. Show some mental toughness with a little self-mutilation. Give ‘em less to work with at the next manicure. Show up at the gala with one arm of your tux sewn shut. Tell me a story worth listening to.

I’m working on the real thing. I trashed the protective guards on my bench grinder, and I don’t disconnect the spark plug wire when I remove my lawnmower blade. It won’t be Indian fighting or turf wars that give me my decorations, but you won’t know that from the story I’ll tell. It’ll beat hell out of your yellow butterfly saga.

Count Your Blessings...You Could Be Canadian

When I retired from my week-to-week corporate career, I also retired from the American health insurance system. Unemployed and self-employed people don’t deserve health care. If they selfishly choose not to participate in the ownership society by working for Halliburton, or a subsidiary, vendor or customer of Halliburton, they should have the common decency to pass away. The American health insurance system is willing to take only so much risk. If their spyware finds that you are not spending at least 60 hours each week in your cubicle in a sealed environment, you are clearly exposing yourself to dangerous levels of fresh air and sunshine. The odds that an escaped felon will successfully acquire a firearm at WalMart are manifold greater than the odds that a corporate parolee will find health insurance in the private marketplace.

My blood pressure is perfect. My cholesterol numbers are perfect. All of my piss-in-a-cup numbers are perfect. My body mass index is perfect. I don’t have headaches, stomach cramps or rashes. The timing of my daily constitutional is more accurate than an atomic clock. I don’t shit blood, I don’t shit applesauce, I don’t shit walnuts. I shit shit. Perfect shit. I don’t piss blood, I don’t piss air, I don’t piss ooze. I piss piss. Perfect piss. I don’t have any TV diseases. I don’t have erections over four hours, inches or times a year. I don’t have nightmares, night sweats or a knight-in-shining-armor who’s HIV-positive. I am all-around fucking perfect.

Not to the health insurance industry. They don’t want to take a risk on perfection. Something’s bound to happen, and it’s gonna be big. Whaddya mean, you’re not on medication? You should be. Everybody’s on medication. Whaddya mean you visit your family practitioner every year for a check-up? What’s wrong with you? Why are you going to the doctor? What are you hiding?

I was never asked about my diet or exercise regimen. I was never asked about alcohol consumption or use of illegal narcotics. If I consume three Sausage McMuffins for breakfast, a Big Mac and fries for lunch, a fifth of Vodka for supper, and a vein-busting hit of horse for dessert, they don’t care. They want to know if I take any vitamins or herbs. Self-medication is a bad thing.

I did finally procure health insurance, after being declined by all of the insurance companies that sponsor golf tournaments. Those insurance companies are enamored with fat guys with golf carts and caddies; the consummate flag-bearers of American vitality. I bought my insurance from Bob’s Insurance and Live Bait Emporium, but only after I lied and told them my heart hurts. Didn’t want to scare ‘em away with my invincibility. My policy carries an exclusion for maladies of the heart and related organs. The deductible is "how-much-you-got?" and the copay is the net present value of any future inheritances, gifts and bequests. I have a shiny plastic card, though, and an encyclopedic volume filled with all of the stuff they don’t cover. As soon as someone has the unmitigated gall to fall ill from something that’s not excluded, Bob issues a new encyclopedia.

George Bush wants me to have a Health Savings Account. If I scrimp and save, I could have upwards of $5,000 in that account in a matter of a few years. One day in the hospital with butt fungus, and it’s all gone. Then I have to pull out my encyclopedia of exclusions and check the index for butt fungus. Yep, there it is. It’s only covered in Texas, and only if contracted from an Eskimo while spreading the gospel in Argentina.

There’s no getting ahead of Bob. His bait has better insurance than I have.

An Amazing Feet Of Strength

Life presents me with many nagging questions that deprive me of sleep and cause me to occupy countless hours with circular pondering. Why am I here? What is my purpose? Is there a god? Why am I graying on one side of my body more than the other? What is that thing on my lip?

One question, however, has proven excruciatingly befuddling:

How does one decide to become a podiatrist?

When I was a grammar school kid, every little boy wanted to be a fireman or a cop or a soldier or a baseball player or a race-car driver or an astronaut. Some of those little bastards were lying, though, because at least a couple of them clearly wanted to be podiatrists. Did they hang around the bunion pad aisle at the pharmacy, all dreamy-eyed and entranced with the thought of saving the world feet-first? In high school, I don’t even remember a table for podiatry at the career fair. Did the podiatrist want to be a chiropractor, but he got a B in anatomy?

My podiatry dilemma really hadn’t risen to a position of prominence on my list of ponderations until recently, when a podiatrist pronounced "weirdness" upon me because I’m a middle-aged, retired CPA who digs graves for fun, has long hair and travels by Harley rain or shine.

For chrissake, he looks at feet all day.

Apparently weirdness comes in many flavors. My particular flavor must be in high demand. When a weird-ass longhaired CPA gravedigger rumbles down the road on his Harley, kids run out to the curb and wave, whoop and holler at him. Except the kid in the bunion pad aisle at the pharmacy. I don’t think kids run to the curb and wave when a podiatrist drives by in his minivan. Except the kid in the bunion pad aisle at the pharmacy. Even podiatrists are drawn to my brand of weirdness, gauging by the number of them who throw a chubby pink leg over a Harley every sunny weekend day and try to forget they are podiatrists. Except the podiatrist who still spends Saturday in the bunion pad aisle at the pharmacy, thanking Dr. Scholl for a lifetime filled with dreams come true.

Are there any astronauts who want to attend podiatry fantasy camp?

Somebody please tell me - just how does one decide to become a podiatrist? I gotta get some sleep.

Valet Parking At The Rumble

As a wee boy in the mid 1960s, I remember wheeling down Interstate 90 in the family cruiser, on a three week camping tour of the American West, when I was struck with an image I have not since forgotten. A craggy-looking character on a Panhead Harley blew by us, bedroll strapped to the back fender and face distorted by the 80 mile per hour wind blast. I thought it was the coolest symbol of freedom, adventure and who-gives-a-shit-about-tomorrow that I had ever seen. I was gonna do that.

Flash forward through 35 years of college, mortgages and the cubicle jungle, and there I was: flying down I-90, bedroll, face contorted by wind. Headed for Mecca. The Sturgis Rally and Races. As far as I was concerned, it was 1965 and I hadn’t wasted 35 years running in place. At least not until I neared my destination and was rudely awakened from my time travel and deposited squarely into the Comfortable Adventure Time Zone.

When did Harley-Davidson dealers start selling trailers accessorized with motorcycles? I bought my Harley Sportster five years ago, and have since covered 30,000 miles and forty states. The Sporty is hardly considered a touring motorcycle, as it will vibrate the teeth right out of your head, but it stokes the purist in me. No windshield, no CD player, no cruise control – just hang on and eat bugs. If I want to be comfortable, I stay home. But when the new, improved Harley guy takes his bike for a ride, he really takes it for a ride…on a trailer!

I first knew something was awry when I stopped for gas in Wall, South Dakota and pulled in behind a Lincoln Navigator towing a trailer carrying two shiny Harley Road Kings. I watched as Lance LowRider jumped out of the Lincoln in his polo shirt and khakis and pranced around the trailer checking his tiedowns, fully expecting him to be alarmed that someone had stolen his boat and left him a couple of motorcycles. No such luck. He was a biker this week. Braving the open road. And a grueling trip it was. His rig bore Nebraska tags, and there is no geographical point in Nebraska that is more than a day’s ride from Sturgis. Didn’t want to test the hair gel, I guess.

I arrived at my campground just outside of Sturgis late that evening, and "Then Came Bronson" met "The Griswolds." I was smacked in the face with the sight of a Winnebago motor home, replete with satellite dish and color TV flickering in the window. A fully-enclosed Wells Cargo trailer was protecting this badass guy's bike from the elements.

I don’t dress up as a doctor and crash country clubs. Why do these guys dress up as bikers and crash my biker parties?

I have since ridden to the other three big bike events in Daytona Beach, FL, Myrtle Beach, SC and Laconia, NH. Same guys, same trailers, same squeaky clean leathers, same "road bikes" on the wrong side of break-in mileage. I can only hope these posers and polishers tire of motorcycle trailering for sport and chase after a new hobby. How about flying? They can trailer their airplanes to fly-ins, don a leather helmet and silk scarf, and regale the onlookers with tales of aerial adventure. In the meantime, Halloween rules as they dress up in their trick-or-treat outfits and pretend to be bikers for a week.

Hey, Lance! At least tell your housekeeper not to iron the do-rag; the crease is a dead giveaway.

Don't Worry, Be Happy...Dammit

A fellow blogger describes me as "a pessimistic and unhappy dude," yet cites my blog as one of her sites of interest. I am flattered by her recognition of the interesting qualities of my rants and, believe it or not, I am happy about her description of me.

I am happy that I am able to express my disgust, chagrin and, albeit infrequently, my pleasure. I am happy that I am able to voice my opinions unencumbered by political platform, religious dictum and social protocol that define the parameters of happiness for many of my earthmates. I am happy that I am not laden with the guilt that is lavished by the contrived constraints of said platforms, dicta and protocol. I am happy that I don’t fall lockstep into submission to an antilatitudinarian, mystical socio-political-religious catechism that, by its very nature, disallows happiness. I am happy that I can feel patriotism despite the contorted and distorted patriotism afflicting my fellow patriots. I am happy that I don’t require happiness, given the insurmountable unhappiness incurred in pursuit of that unachievable goal.

I’ll concede and throw myself at the mercy of the court on the pessimism charge, reconciled with the reality that my legal counsel is an incompetent, unhappy and pessimistic prick.

See Ya In Hell

Now that Pope John Paul II has been laid out on a slab for public inspection, drawing the curtain on Act One of the Greatest Show On Earth, a piss-and-smoke break is warranted to decide if it’s worth staying for the rest of the show.

Act One brought us pronouncements upon the evils of war, the cruelty of poverty and the needlessness of famine; those are no-brainers that hardly qualify as bravado. Instead of posturing as Ebert & Roper to the productions of everyone else, the Pope could have been busy editing his own abysmal B movie. But he avoided the once-in-a-papal opportunity to immerse himself in a project over which he exerts creative control. He missed the chance to apologize to the world community for the time-honored culture of rogue, aberrant priests buggering little boys, thereby inflicting so much pain upon the flock. He could have mandated the washing of the shit from the collective dick of the Catholic Church and vowed to start anew. He could have chastised the club members who erected, in Catholic Church yards across the land, the shameful, mean-spirited and vindictive dead-baby crosses.

Preaching the sanctity of the unborn while violating the sanctity of the born is no way to run a Kool-Aid stand. Seems simple, but JP2 couldn’t muster the courage. For this cowardly omission, he can hardly be assigned a thumbs-up.

So now we await Act Two with bated breath. The conclavers melt into the occult mysticism of their pow-wow and send us smoke signals. The board of directors of Catholic Church, Inc. will anoint a new CEO to head the largest real estate conglomerate and political action committee on the face of the planet.

Act Three. Business as usual. Hide the children.

^^^ 6 Years Of College ^^^
So Much For "No Child Left Behind"

Dying? Get In Line

I awoke this morning to a barrage of particularly cheery, not-so-newsy newspaper headlines:

"Pope receives last rites"
"Schiavo dies after wrenching battle"
"Prince Rainier’s condition worsens"

The death stuff used to be relegated to the obituaries. Now it’s a sport with box scores. Being a gravedigger, my own death will be just another day at the office, except my back won’t hurt and I’ll be better dressed. Given the preoccupation with death in the media, maybe gravedigging will become the new glamour profession. Remind me to get some new headshots for the portfolio, just in case.

Reeling from the stench of death in the air, I stepped outside to cling to my own life for a while, and a neighbor from a couple blocks down comes roaring up my driveway. He had a story that didn’t make the morning edition:

"What’re ya doin’?" I asked.

"Dying"

"Yeah, everybody is. You seen the paper?"

"No, really, I have cancer. That’s why I’ve left you all of those phone messages you don’t bother returning."

"I figured you were just calling to borrow my truck again and drive it everywhere but a gas station. So you were calling me because you have cancer?"

"Yeah."

"Need the truck?"

"No."

"Wanna make a deposit on an excavation, or will you be borrowing that too? Look, you’ll need a novel twist if you want to qualify for the Morbidity Games. Why don’t you sign up for a gift registry and send out cancer announcements? Have you alerted Congress? Has your wife named a successor? When's the estate sale? My snowblower's been actin' up. How long you got?"

"Fifteen to twenty years."

"Huh? That’s not dying; that’s lingering. Your docs didn’t diagnose cancer. They predicted old age. I could put on a white coat, hang a stethoscope around my neck and consult the life expectancy tables for your profile, a fifty-year-old fat guy with diabetes, and give you fifteen to twenty. And that’s assuming you don’t choke on a Little Debbie Snack Cake first. Get outta my driveway."

My neighbor has to find a less hotly-contested sport if he expects to bust out of the minors these days. The Schiavo-Pope-Rainier miniseries may rival a Stanley Cup Playoff for taxing the attention span of an audience, but fifteen to twenty years is merely pre-season stuff. I suspect I’ll lose several tanks of gas before he succumbs.