the banjo college home companion

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

2007-02-16T17:23:00.000-05:00

Kansas Catches Up

2007-02-15T13:24:00.000-05:00

So the news tells us that Kansas has been dragged kicking and screaming into the 19th century.
They now allow science (Evolution, specifially) to be taught in schools.

Nice job, Kansas!

Let's just hope Jesus doesn't find out, or they're all going staight to Hell.

Stubby on Politics

2006-11-08T23:34:00.000-05:00

You think you've "righted the ship"?

It's too late.

Cigarettes are going to get even more expensive, and the war will drag on.

Cheney and Santorum will continue to get richer, and the war will drag on.

More and more Iran-Contra co-conspiritors will be nominated, and the war will drag on.

The dumber half of our population will continue to vote, thinking that their votes count, and the war will drag on.

The dumber half will continue to believe that the "War on Terra" is simply the result of a speech impediment.

And the War on Terra will drag on.

Good luck with that.

Sunday Morning Discussion at the Phillips Residence

2006-10-15T08:38:00.000-05:00

Xanthippe: Who are the Steelers playing today?
Stubby: Chiefs
Xanthippe: ...
Xanthippe: Cheifs!
Xanthippe: Hmph.
Xanthippe: You'd think they'd have to be more politically correct.
Stubby: They'd probably have to start with the Redskins.
Xanthippe: Well, that could refer to potatoes.
Stubby: I never thought of that.

What? Stubby’s Back? Oh shit.

2006-05-11T23:23:00.000-05:00

Ow. I just woke up and learned that Dean Stubby is back. So I swallowed a fistful of the first bottle of pills I found in the, that thingy, the you-know, cabinet where we keep medicine. The “something-something”, or something like that. I puked those pills right the hell back up. Good thing too. I think it was the cat’s heartworm medication.

Anyhow, I digress. Funny word, “digress”. Not sure why I find it funny. Nothing else seems that funny now. Everything is more like, what’s the word? Painful. Yes, as in full of pain. At least puking up the cat’s pills took my mind off the pain for a while. Or at least shifted it around a bit. Now where was I? Ah. I was trying to figure out where I was. That’s where.

The last thing I remember before I passed in and began to digress was a bunch of jack-booted storm troopers raiding the campus and taking all of the computer equipment. I think they gave me a receipt. And then there was an indeterminate time spent in a small room where I was repeatedly questioned on the matter of Dean Stubby’s whereabouts. The last I heard was that he had gone home because he wanted to watch some basketball game or something. That’s all I knew. That’s all I said. Flushing my Koran down the toilet did nothing to change this so they eventually let me go. And when I returned, I found that the BCDC (thats BCDC) had been ransacked and left in an even more shambillic state.

Everything of value was gone. And so was Dean Stubby. I was in charge. The only thing left to do was to go on a nine month long bender. It is what Stubby would have wanted. At least for himself.

And then I came around. My head hurt, my feet stunk, and the cat was dead. And there was a shit-boat of messages on the machine. I guess the Boys From Engineering was right about needing that 60 GB drive for the phone. Go figure. So I sat and listened to nine months worth of messages while trying to cure my headache by teaching myself to play the cello.

“Your rent is overdue.” –beep- “We are going to repossess everything you own if you don’t pay the rent.” –beep- “We really want the past months’ rent if you don’t mind, you slackers.” –beep- “My god, what did you hippies do to the place? Keep it! Just keep it!” –beep- “By the way, your cat is dead.”. And so on. I never did learn how to play the cello. Hell I never even figured out where you blow into it.

So, who won the Super Bowl?

- 1/2

Where the Hell Have I Been?

2006-02-20T22:08:00.000-05:00

You want the truth? You can't handle the truth.

I've been languishing like an Apostle in a dirt-floored prison somewhere in Gitmo, OK?

Now don't you feel bad that you hollered at me?

Anyhoo (the Boys from Enginnering hate it when people say "anyhoo"), due to a strategically placed bet (3 cigarettes) late in the regular season, I now own two thirds of mainland Cuba. You need a winter home? Get yourself a 55 gallon drum of SPF 15 and a briefcase fulla cash and we'll talk.

Yep, the Screws at Gitmo and the Communists in Havana share two weaknesses: olive drab and a fuzzy grasp of the National By-God Football League.

So here I am, back and better than ever. I'm ready to straighten out the world's problems, run this University like a well-oiled machine, and maybe learn a thing or two along the way.

But first a shower, and some kind of libation that does NOT contain rum.

Yoi, Canada

2005-08-25T12:26:00.000-05:00

Weeks after I was born, and with Mom suffering from appendicitis along with other sundry complications I caused by being born, Dad took off for Canada to go fishing. My saintly mother must have been too weak to kill him.

All my life I’ve known that there was a time during the summer in which Dad disappeared for a week (or two) to go fishing on some hallowed grounds (or waters?) in the very remote regions of the Great White North. A place so remote that you drove north until the paved roads ended and then you hitched a ride on a freight train for another fifty (US) miles that dropped you off at a (still US) mile marker, not a station, usually at 1:AM.

No phone, no light, no motor car; not a single lux-er-yee. And on his return, he looked like he had just won an “I am so uglier than you!” fight with Robinson Crusoe. I could tell at an instant upon his returns that I may manage to keep all the hair on the top of my head, but any attempt to grow a beard would probably look as if my face had been dunked in glue and then smacked with a three-week-dead possum.

I doubt that Adam had the same relaxed gleam about him after he got kicked out of paradise that Dad always had on his returns. He never talked much to me about his experiences in heaven. He probably learned by then that people of the younger generation wouldn’t understand the joys around and beyond crapping in an outhouse and not bathing for a week at a time. He would have been right. The fishing, however fabulous, would not have normalized that equation for any of us.

He went to this isolated island lake every year with his work buddies commonly referred to as “The Joy Boys”. This name actually refers to the company they worked for rather than the fun they had together. Or so I always assumed. It may just be one of those puns that occur naturally.

Back in the days around when he abandoned the newly-born me (and Mom) to make this annual pilgrimage, he would bring along various and sundry of my elder brothers and cousins. During my more sentient years, I didn’t know him to do this. Perhaps he grew tired of whiney-ass Generation W types that did not see the beauty of crapping in holes and eating fish for an extended time, such as more than once.

The “Joy Boy” generation certainly never had any problem with any of this. Nor did they see anything wrong with “leech removal” as an expected après-bain experience. They drank and fished and played cards. Not always in that order. And everything was finally all right with the world for that period of time when nobody could reach them and tell them to cut it out.

But now we fast-forward 40+ years or so. Many of the Joy Boys no longer make the trip because of various disabilities including, but not limited to, being dead. Now that Dad has crossed the eight-oh mark, Mom (finally) had reservations about him going. I think she was afraid of him dieing while in heaven and thus possibly escaping the judgment he deserved for abandoning her during these trips all these years.

That was when I got the brilliant idea of volunteering to go along with him to make sure either that he didn’t die, or failing that would be there to tell the gods that their judgment should be put on hold until Mom got there to give her side. Mom was cool with this. My brother Hal (not his real name) and my son The Boy came along as additional guarantors.

What we found there, in this more modern era, was that sometimes our cell phones would find a tower willing to charge us pound-me-in-the-ass rates to reach out and touch our voice mail. We found light of the propane, flash, and kerosene varieties. But no motor cars. We were cool with that. There were boats. You can’t fish from motor cars. Well, you can’t troll for fish from motor cars. Well, you probably shouldn’t.

And there were some luxuries added on to the island over the years. A propane-heated water tank allowed us to bathe without leeches. A simple Jedi mind-trick helped you to ignore any spiders. They even had a flush toilet and a generator for recharging the cell phones. Plus, they had a refrigerator that kept the beer about five degrees colder than the ambient temperature. Propane can only do so much I guess.

Oh, and there was a radio that picked up MOR music and occasional weather bulletins. I think it may have been powered by coconuts. Since we didn’t have many of those, we didn’t use it often. We could do without the music and we could tell the weather forecast well enough by looking upwards.

We didn’t have to hitch-hike in by freight train. Apparently the railroad no longer offers that service. Instead, we hired a float plane to fly us in from an outpost on the outskirts of civilization. To the Joy Boys, this was like riding in on a magic carpet (only more expensive). For me, this was 30 minutes of terror (each way). But I have never much cared for the kind of flying in which you actually have to go up into the actual air.

The only other Joy Boy that made the trip with us was Jim. This is not his real name either, but it is the name that Dad kept calling him. Jim didn’t seem to mind. He was the guy who knew how to do everything and still could. And he did. If it weren’t for him, we would have spent a lot of time wondering about things like why our beer wasn’t getting somewhat colder. And bumping into each other in the dark. And he also brought more cigars than we could have ever anticipated needing, but did.

Jim, Hal, The Boy, Dad, and I had a wonderful time there last year. The Boy, being a vegetarian, was not so much into the fishing although he came along on our trolls around the lake and enjoyed himself with reading and not having anyone nag him about anything. Hal also preferred to read rather than troll. I don’t think he had any particular objection to harassing wildlife as much as he has a preference to reading (and not being nagged by anyone) over anything else in the world.

That left Jim and Dad and I to do the bulk of the actual fishing. To my relief, we were seldom interrupted with actually catching fish. I had gone fishing rather a lot as a youth, but not so much for the sport as just to be somewhere with Dad. Dad and Jim were the only ones who seemed to be disappointed with the low catch count. But seeing as how we always released anything that didn’t die from the harassment while in captivity, I failed to appreciate their disappointment.

A great time was had by all. Except, I guess, for that one pike I caught that died during our harassment and in spite of our best intentions to release it back to the wild in a less-dead condition. The whole event was like a scene from a Quentin Tarantino movie, what with the blood and the hooks and the pliers and all the flailing about the boat. And then there was the whole scene of throwing the semi-corpse into the water and smacking it with a paddle to try and get it to get on with life rather than with what I had dealt it.

The Boy insisted that we at least eat the poor creature. Dad, who is probably the most skilled fish cleaner still breathing, did his best. But as any of you whom may have ever had the experience must know, a northern pike is a fish that flosses your teeth as you eat it. That is to say, it is a creature with teeth on one end, slime on the outside, and bones interspersed with occasional meat on the inside. I did my best to pay respect to my victim and ate as much as I could actually chew and swallow without overly flossing my esophagus.

I trust his spirit made me stronger. I came back to do it all over again the following year. This year. Same cast and crew, except that my daughter Pete filled in for Hal. Pete, also a vegetarian, did put a pole in the water and did catch a fish or two. Sometimes with hilarious results.

She fished for the same basic reason I fished when I was a youth; just to be there to spend time with “Pop”, doing something he loved so very much. And by “Pop”, I mean Dad and not me. She always called Dad “Pop” for some reason. Dad never seemed to mind.

Communique

2005-07-16T09:17:00.000-05:00

Note: the following text was transcribed from an audio tape smuggled out of Cuba. The tape consists of a series of strange clicking noises. BBoR decoders reveal that it seems to be some sort of combination of EBCDIC and pidgin Morse Code.

GREETINGS FROM GITMO STOP WISH YOU WERE HERE STOP WEATHER FINE TORTURE NOT TOO BAD POTS WHITE CHAIR SUCKS STOP NO WIFI STOP SEND LAWYERS GUNS AND MONEY STOP DAD GET ME OUT OF THIS STOP

The Big Lie Part Whatever: Update from the Road

2005-07-04T09:27:00.000-05:00

I can't stay online for long. I've been spotted. Hopefully, I can relate the details of the Library Pervert Scene before I have to slip out of this Radio Shack and skip town.

As you recall, the Shambling Trenchcoated Figure (or STF for short) had taken up residence at one of the computers at some unnamed local library. He was clicking the mouse with his right hand but keeping his left in the pocket of his trenchcoat.

The Librarian, a handsome older woman with a steel-gray bun, steel-gray eyes and reading glasses on a chain, had noticed the STF and decided that direct confrontation was just the thing.

What I didn't have time to relate was that at that exact moment, several things happened at once.

The first, and perhaps most dramatical of these simultaneous events was that STF was startled out of his sticky reverie by Librarian's "You there!". He jumped up from his chair and wheeled to face his confronter.

It was at this point that everyone in the room found out the ugly way that the Trenchcoat was pretty much all this guy was wearing, and that (oh the humanity) it was not properly buttoned.

Librarian affected the classic Afflicted Librarian Look: head thrown back in a partial swoon, back of the hand to the forehead, a deep sob of horror escaped her lips. She held her Offical Librarian Due Date Stamp in front of her in a sort of defensive posture.

As I gaped in disbelief at this tableau, another event occurred.

A contingent from the militant wing of the CARB alliance suddenly appeared in the Periodicals Section, blocking my escape route.

The Kids After School Reading Club (or KASR for short) was being let out at this exact time. Miss Sonya was herding them toward the main entrance. Little Frank D'Angelico heard the Librarian's anguished sob and turned to see What All the Commotion was About.

This is the point at which All Hell officially Broke Loose.

The KASR (ages 9-12) flipped out. They ran screaming in circles.

Miss Sonya fell against the reference stacks, in the same Afflicted Librarian pose I had just witnessed.

The CARB delta force spotted me. There were three of them. They were all packing heat. They drew their weapons at the exact same moment that the Librarian attacked.

The degenerate in the raincoat staggered backward as Librarian landed two clean blows to his filthy forehead with the date stamper. "07/22/05 07/22/05," read his head.

Four loud gunshots rang out, and a dozen preteen readers broke for the exit. That way was blocked. The Armed Cadre blocked the other exit.

Seconds ticked by.

I went out the window.

I sped away in my little orange Yugo just as the first wave of Swat Teams, Local Law Enforcement, Hostage Negotiators, Trauma Councelors, and Media arrived.

A thin man with thinning hair, brown wingtips and gold-rimmed glasses set up a press conference before I had even cleared the borders of that little town. You probably saw it on the news. I saw none of this firsthand, of course. I was on the lam.

I think the Radio Shack Head Nerd (or RSHN for short) has noticed me. I'd better press submit and pretend to be interested in buying this TRS-80. More later.

I hope.

The Big Lie IV: The Search for Stubby

2005-07-03T16:20:00.000-05:00

I'm posting this from an undisclosed location.

That sounds a lot more fun and exciting than it actually is. I'm sitting in the public library in... well, I won't tell you what town this is.

Under a slowly turning ceiling fan, I sit at an ancient library table before an almost-as-ancient computer pecking out these words. This machine, slow as it is, was carefully picked. From this spot, I can keep my eye on the main entrance and on my escape route at the same time. If I'm recognized, I can click "Submit" and vanish through Periodicals. There's a car poised just outside in the alley to spirit me away.

By the night of the seventh and final contest for NBA supremecy, the CARB alliance's membership had grown to 626,442 souls. The March on Our Nation's Capital was stunning. I needn't review all the gory details: It was on every single news source for seventy hours straight. David Letterman dedicated an entire show to running and re-running the fifteen second sound bite in which it was revealed to way over half a million angry protesters that there were in fact no robots in professional basketball.

That's right. At this moment, there are over six hundred thousand citizens of this Great Country of Ours who are plotting my agonizing demise. Chief amoung these is my lovely wife Xanthippe. If twenty years of marital bliss have taught me anything, they've taught me this:

RUN!

Sadly, the NBA has no witless-protection program. Furthermore, David Stern Himself has issued a fatwa against me. There is no undergroud railroad for Guys Who Just Wanted to Watch the Freakin' Game in Peace, Fortheloveofgawd.

I am totally boned.

At the far corner of this library table is a derilict who, having availed himself of the public facilities, has decided he might just like to surf some porn. The lady behind the counter, stamping rhythmically with her stampin' iron, keeps her eye on the trenchcoated figure over the top of her reading glasses.

Stamp stamp stamp. Each one louder than the last. I think there's going to be A Scene. She takes off her reading glasses and they fall to the end of their chain. She points a finger. "You there," she begins...

Oh, this is going to be good...

(to be continued)

The Big Lie 33 1/2: Wherein Time is Bided and Basketball is Watched

2005-06-28T19:18:00.000-05:00

Oh yes, there was food. Good, plentiful committee food. Sometimes it was a sandwich ring and pickles. Sometimes it was cheese trays and crackers. Sometimes it was little Swedish meatballs eaten from festive colored toothpicks. Sometimes it was pizza, the delicious coin-of-the-realm food disk God himself gave us.

What's more, during the basketball contests, there was quiet. The only sound was a half-dozen ballpoints scribbling on greenbar (Where did they get all that greenbar? Do they even make that stuff any more?).

I watched the games of the NBA Finals from my easy chair fully sated and in good, if earnest, company. During commercial breaks, the Coalition Against Robot Basketball (or CARB for short) discussed the moral and ethical implications of automated hoops with such conviction that I began to support their cause myself.

And yes, it went seven.

The first two games were won going away by the home team, the Spurs of San Antonio. These Spurs were led by the soulful Tim Duncan and the exotic Manu Ginobli.

Back in the Lab, I've been testing out a theory that the basketball squad consisting of players with the coolest names will generally win a seven game series. A careful statistical analysis of the names of all players yielded the following result: The coolest name in basketball is "Manu Ginobli".

Go ahead, say it out loud. "Manu Ginobli"

Sorry for that slight diversion. Call it scientific curiosity. Heck, if you're Tom Cruise, you can call it Soft Science.

The next three games were played in Detroit, Michigan. Hold up your right hand and look at the palm. Detroit is roughly ("roughly" is an adverb that commonly applies to goings-on in Detroit, by the way) at the base of your thumb. This is how you locate places in Michigan. Technically, I guess, this is also a diversion. Let's get back to hoops.

The Pistons of The Base of Your Thumb crushed the Spurs of Saint Anthony* in games three and four. Rip Hamilton (a name which scores high on NBA coolometry software, by the way) was instrumental in these wins. Whenever Rip had the ball, the gentle scratching of a half-dozen ballpoints stopped totally in my living room.

At this point in the Series, several reputable basketball scientists proffered the theory that the Home Team generally wins basketball games. Compared to the Cool Names Theory, this new conjecture seemed preposterous, but I was willing to keep an open mind until San Antonio was able to squeak out an overtime victory on the road.

The road show headed back to Texas, where Detroit was once again victorious. Home team indeed!

There we sat. All seven of us. Me, the Little Lady, and the six other members of the CARB alliance. We were each of us, for our own reasons, glued to our seats. Figuratively. It was game seven, the series was tied. Winner take all, you know.

At this point, a fairly unlikely event occurred. I realized that I could come clean, tell the actual truth and avoid a National Calamity televised on CSPAN. Missing game seven of such an epic series would be ample punishment.

I would atone.

Then another though occurred to me:

"Nah."

(to be continued)

*San Antonio helps you find lost objects. It's really uncanny.

The Big Lie Part Deux: Consequences Schmonsequences!

2005-06-26T19:08:00.000-05:00

I got home from work one day to find the Coalition Against Robot Basketball (or CARB for short) convening in my living room. This coalition consisted of Xanthippe M. Phillips (or XMP for short) and six women I did not know. When I arrived, they were arguing passionately and passing a sheet of greenbar printer paper around, scribbling eachother's words on it as fast as they could transcribe.

"It's our mission statement," the missus informed me. "We're against robot basketball players! The very idea! Why, if Congress can take a little time out from the war forchrissakes to have a hearing about Steriods in Baseball, they can investigate this! So we made an appointment with our congressman."

It's at this point in the story that I remember my egregious lie from the night before.

"Well, I'll be in the basement," I said. "I need to.. uh.. adjust the fulcrum armature in the.. uh.. ceiling fan subsystem. You know."

"Well, would you like a sandwich first?" she asked "We got one of those rings from Giant Eagle..."

"Whoa!" I responded. "Didja hear that? Sounds like undamped vibration in the.. you know.. centrifugal advance mechanism. I'd better get down there!"

There's nothing like a table saw when you're in trouble. I made small pieces of wood out of big pieces of wood for a long time as I considered my situation. The noise and sawdust are enough to repel even the manliest member of the CARB alliance. What I needed to do now was think...

What I thought was this: "Gee, I really need to adjust that rip fence. Where's my eponymous tool?*"

This was getting me nowhere. I had to either make a stand or fess up. Clearly, making a stand was out of the question. The Truth was my only real option. I needed to stop this before it got embarrassing. I hitched up my resolve and marched up the basement steps just as the door flew open.

It was Xanthippe.

"We've decided to convene here again for the Finals. We'll watch the games and take notes so that we can present a better case to Congress. We're scheduled to meet the subcommittee right after the final game. Do you think it'll go seven?"

I did the only thing a middlin' honest man could do at that point.

"Will there be food?" I asked.

(to be continued...)

*A tool named after me. Or maybe it's the other way around.

The Big Lie (on the Propagation of Unintended Consequences)

2005-06-15T18:30:00.000-05:00

Part the First: A Lie is Born

I was not raised in a black and white world of absolutes. My mother, the Reverend Dorothea M. Phillips, did not subscribe to the Brady Bunch theory of half-hour resolutions. No, life was far more complex than is dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio (she called me "Horatio" a lot when she spoke of philosophy).

"Honesty is the best policy" was not taught in the Phillips household.

Rather, "Save your lies for when they're very important" was what my mom advised. I interpreted this to mean that lies were OK in repsponse to questions like "Do I look fat to you?" and "How're the Pirates gonna do this year, ya think?"

The Reverend Dorothea M. Phillips (or TRDMP for short) further explained that lying raised complications in one's life that were best left unexplored. She then spoke of tangled webs and began calling me "Walter" or "Scott".

Oh sure, I tried my hand at lies early on. I learned what she meant by "tangled webs" and how much practice decption really took. Soon enough, I learned that saving my lies for really important times might just be the thing for me.

So to quote Robert A. Heinlein quoting Samuel Clemmons, "I myself am middlin' honest".

And yet...

When push comes to shove...

My evil mind may just cojure up the evilest lie of all, just to serve my own selfish desires. This simple prevarication could spin a web of deceipt strong enough, insidious enough to bring down a Noble, August Institution as noble and august as the National Basketball Assosication.

Yes, friends. It's true. I'm a liar. A prevaricator. My veracity is to be vigorously impugned.

It all started out so innocently, I swear! Xanthippe and I were arguing the argument of all 21st Century couples: what channel to watch on the television apparatus. I wanted to watch the NBA semifinals between the Heat of Miami and the Pistons of Detroit. She preferred the two hundred fifty eighth consecutive episode of "Bill and Grace" reruns on channel 258.

As we wrestled for the remote control, I spied out of the corner of my eye one Richard Hamilton, NBA superstar. Mr. Hamilton, having busted some bone in his face, had to wear a plexiglas shield in order to withstand the rigors of professional basketball.

"I just don't know about those Robots in the NBA..", I opined aloud as the fair Xanthippe poked my rib area with her index finger. grabbing at the remote control.

"What?"

"Did he say 'Robots'"?

Yes. I had said "Robots", and The Lie was born.

The gullible mind recoils, I guess, at the though of robot players in professional basketball. Xanthippe watched the game in shocked silence for a while. My plan was working!

"See, there he is again," I said when it looked as though the fair Xanthippe was making a move for the remote control. No, she was only turning up the volume so that she could follow the game more closely.

"If only I could bottle this..." I thought to myself.

She sat silently during the rest of the game, only to explode in a series of earnest questions during commercial breaks:

"Why don't they just use all robots and no people at all?"

"What do the human players think about playing with robots?"

"Isn't there some kind of rule against this?"

"He even shakes hands with the other players. Why'd they program him to do that?"

"How come his arms and legs look human?"

I might have seen the Trouble to Come, I supppose, had I not been watching The Game.

But I was, so I didn't notice the purposeful shine in Xanthippe's beautiful gray-blue eyes. During the commercial intermissions, in the question and answer period of our evening, I answered all her questions the same way:

"Sssh. The game's starting."

By God, she bought it.

At one point, Buzz (our eldest son) burst into the room, demanding the car keys.

"Look!" Xanthippe told him, pointing at the TV screen. "There's a robot on the blue team! Robots in basketball!"

"You haven't heard about that?" he asked, affecting a look of surprise. Buzz is a very very very smart young man and his father loves him very much. "They've had those for a couple of years," he continued, reaching out for the car keys.

In my gratitude, I wanted to toss him the keys to the Rolls. Except we don't have a Rolls. So I handed him the keys to my little Chevy and made a mental note to update my will.

And then I turned my attention back to The Game.

As you know, the outcome of this contest was that the Detroit basketball squad beat the Heat in Miami to advance to the NBA Finals. They were to meet the Spurs of San Antonio. It occurred to me that I might just like to enjoy watching these games on the TeeVee. I wanted this so much, in fact, that I decided not to repent my false witness.

No, not just yet.

As I secretly rubbed my hands together in glee, I failed to notice that my lovely wife had gone strangely quiet. Pensive, even. I drifted off to sleep, dreaming of the ole Pick and Roll, the Give and Go, the Three-pointer from Way Way Way Downtown. Life was sweet. In my dreams, at least.

(to be continued...)

The Trauma of Sex

2005-05-28T22:19:00.000-05:00

So where were you and how old were you when you first learned about sex? I’m talking about the whole mechanics of where babies come from. This moment was for me, what the boomers call a “Kennedy Assassination” moment. For those of you in my generation, we sometimes refer to the “John Lennon Assassination” moment or the “Challenger Explosion” moment. Or for those of you even younger, the “Kurt Cobain doing us all a favor” moment may be more meaningful. For those of you even younger still, you might share a “I can’t believe that Asshat got re-elected” moment.

I don’t know how old I was when my bad news friend explained the mechanics of sex to me. I was young enough not to know already, of course. We were actually standing on a sidewalk so I don’t know if that really counts as learning about it “on the streets”. He even drew a picture of a vagina and claimed to have actually seen one. I can still see the drawing in my mind. He wasn’t far off. Turns out they are really not as big as he depicted, but he may have been influenced by Picasso or something.

I believed it all. But then the ensuing images of my parents performing these mechanics flooded in and tried to dash these truths against the rocks. But time and experience proved these teachings true. My parents, the blessed saints that they are, must have actually performed these mechanics or else I wouldn’t be here. And they must have done it more than once or else my brothers and sister wouldn’t be here either. Hell, this apparently had been going on for years! Being the youngest of the lot, I was at least grateful to be able to believe that this nonsense had certainly stopped by now.

School eventually caught up with the streets and confirmed what I already knew to be true. My parents actually willingly participated in mechanics that I was gaining a burgeoning appreciation for. In fact, this act was not depraved at all. It was beautiful, and natural, and a great gift from God. (I went to Catholic schools, so it was okay to add that last part.). But that didn’t help with the whole image of my parents “doing it”. That would take years and years of drug and alcohol abuse to overcome. Not that that helped any. But it was worth a try.

Somewhere along the line I came to recognize that my parents were not actual saints. Rather, they were merely very good human beings. And human beings have desires. And back in some far distant past, they could have actually been hot for each other. They certainly must have gotten over all that nonsense now that they were old and everything. (Some defenses take some real battering to knock down. Leave me with this one please.)

I think I was in my late twenties when I came to peace with all of this. By this time, I had two kids of my own. And it hit me that someday these child humans would come to learn of sex the way I had. They would be confused and troubled as I was. They would have nightmarish visions of their parents doing things like this like I had. I vowed to not let that happen. As soon as they were old enough to understand, I would let Sybil (my wife) explain it to them.

And she did. As soon as the kids figured out that some kids had penises and some kids had vaginas and that this was pretty much the criteria for deciding who was a boy and who was a girl, Syb spilled all the beans. She did a masterful job. My kids knew more about STD’s and “inappropriate touching” by kindergarten than I knew in college.

I could never have done that. I could never have looked those little cherubs in the face and talked to them about sperm and ova. I got nervous whenever I read them “Green Eggs and Ham”. She did it like she was talking about how water turned into ice when you put it in the freezer or what causes rainbows. No mystery here. Just the facts ma’am.

So it kills me that I totally buffaloed these kids years later playing “Bullshit” around a camp fire (which is where “Bullshit” is best played). The kids were pre-teens at the time and, as I mentioned, fully aware by now of the awful mechanics of sex. They had probably already come to terms with the idea of their parents having an active sex life. But still I totally blew them away with my story in that round of “Bullshit”.

If you are not familiar with this quintessential campfire game, the rules are simple. Everyone takes a turn telling a story. Then everyone else votes if the story is true or eponymous with the name of the game. If you tell a made up story, you get points for everyone who says they believe it. If you tell a true story, you get points for everyone who votes that it is bullshit.

I won with my story. It was true. But it involved me wanting to have sex with my wife (then girlfriend). I played on this universal mental block and won. It was worth it. Here is the story…

I was off at college in the Big City while Syb worked as a waitress back in our home town. In fact, she was living at her parents’ home at the time. Her parents were out of town one weekend and I had the opportunity to surprise her with a visit back upstream.

I went to her parents’ house while she was still at work. To my surprise, the house was locked. (Who locks their house here? This isn’t the “Big City”!) I tried all the usual doors and windows and finally managed to get past the lock on the back door. I went up to her room, got nekkid, and climbed into her bed. Boy, wouldn’t she be surprised when she got home!

I was somewhat dozing off when I heard the front door of the house open a half-hour or so later. “Oh boy is this great!”. But I heard voices down the stairs. They sounded like men’s voices. I was no longer thinking “Oh boy is this great!”. I was thinking that she was with some friends or someones looking to have a party after work.

I thought it would be best to try and hide between the bed and the wall and I did my best to do so. But when the guy with the baseball bat and the German Shepherd came in the room asking who was here, I thought it best to come clean. The guy behind him had a shotgun. These were not your typical “after work” party guests. If they were, then there were many things about my then-girlfriend I didn’t know about.

Of course, they were not invited party guests. They were neighbors concerned about someone breaking into the house across the street when they knew the owners were out of town and that their daughter would soon be returning home from work. This is reason number two why folks here don’t need to keep their doors locked.

I identified myself as Sybil’s boyfriend and that I was just kind of waiting here for her to return from work and that I was most certainly, and without any qualification, unarmed. I was so completely unarmed as to also be un-pantsed so I hoped they would not insist I crawl out from the space between the bed and the wall. They were good folks who understood immediately and were probably less embarrassed than I was.

They left directly. I heard them apologizing to Syb as she entered the house wondering what all the commotion was. They explained that they saw me break into the house but didn’t know who I was so they were just checking in. She came upstairs to find me still nekkid and hiding between the bed and the wall. She called me a few names that she had probably used before and has certainly perfected since.

And none of my children believed the story. I played a trump card I could only get away with once. I will never forget when I did that. I hope my children don’t either. Here’s hoping they are telling this story over and over again years from now. Even if it is in therapy.

- 1/2

Giving Your Daughter Away in an Information Age

2005-05-09T10:03:00.000-05:00

One of the advantages to having children, I’ve found, is that it gives you a way to measure time. The times, they are a-changin’ as we all well know and it really does seem that they insist on a-changin’ exponentially. But those in the generation that is now emerging (and hasn’t even been assigned a letter yet) must think that life has always been like it is now. I wonder what it is like to be them to grow up on technology and cultural curves so steep. Life along flatter curves must seem so quaint to them.

I can remember when having a pager was “cool”, even though mine was only used to make me work off-hours. Unpaid. It was still cool. I remember when I got my first cell phone. “We'll just keep this in the glove compartment of the car for emergencies” was the rationale. Like CB radios didn’t exist, I guess.

Somewhere along the curve, Al Gore had to go and invent the internet, and then George W. had to come along and pluralize it. I find it hard to remember a life without it, or them. I have a vague memory of when I saw my first WWW page. But when did Instant Messaging come into my life? When did it become necessary for everybody to have a cell phone? I would find it hard to map these events in my life if it weren’t for my children. God bless ‘em. Every one.

Thanks to them, I can recall when Instant Messaging became a factor in my life. It was when my daughter was in the 5’th grade. Doing the math, I make that 1999. Back when we were all so worried about planes falling out of the sky and all. Back then, my family had a single, shared e-mail account on AOL and with it, a single, shared Instant Message account. Life was so simple back then. Except for the prospect of those planes falling out of the sky and all.

I remember having the old Victrola radio tuned into one of FDR’s fireside chats while I was “surfing” the then singular internet (or “mononet” as we called it back in the day). An Instant Message chat dialog appeared from a user name I didn’t recognize. The message was, simply, “Pete?”. “Pete” is the name I am going to use for my darling daughter whose full name of “Rainbow-Angel-Beauty-Girl” is just too long to have to type over and over.

So here I sit, looking at an Instant Message dialog that was not intended for me. Why would such a thing be here? My family only used the mononet for important research and e-mailing their relations. But here was an actual message for my daughter from someone I did not know. This did not sit well. You can probably discern as much from the following transcript of the conversation as best as I can remember it.

Unknown Person: “Pete?”
Me: “No. This is Pete’s father”
(pause)
Unknown Person: “Is Pete there?”
Me: “Yes, but I am using the computer now.”
Unknown Person: “This is (I forget the name, and it doesn’t really matter)”
Me: “Good for you (forgotten name here)”
(pause)
Identified but Still Effectively Unknown Person: “Do you think Pete likes me?”
Me: “I have no idea”
Identified but Still Effectively Unknown Person: “Do you think Pete would go out with me?”
(pause)
Me: “I’m not sure. You would have to pass the stick test first.”
(pause)
Identified but Still Effectively Unknown Person: “What is the stick test”
Me: “That is where I beat you with a stick until you fall down. Then I throw you against the wall and if you stick to it, you can go out with her.”
(very long pause)
Identified but Still Effectively Unknown Person: “Don’t you think that would discourage boys from wanting to go out with Pete?”

I don’t remember my final reply to the Identified but Still Effectively Unknown Person. Whatever it was, it was unnecessary. He got the message. As for Pete, she got some teasing at school for this - but it is not like this was the only occasion I intentionally exposed my children to healthy derision, much as the Amish do. We folk who have no tolerance for assholes must abide this kind of separation, and we are better for it.

As for Pete’s future dating career, there was not much of one for the following years. I was fine with that. I mean we are talking “5’th Grade” here! Fortunately, Pete seemed to be fine with it too. She seemed to have embraced the tradition that dating outside the faith (aka. assholes) just for the sake of dating was not worth it. But the next thing you know, it is five years later. George W. is in the white house, and being an asshole has never been cooler. Could she handle this exponential cultural trajectory? I’m telling you, it is a father’s deepest concern.

And now (2005), it is prom season and Pete has an actual date. No doubt this kid has heard rumors of the “stick test”. In the paparazzi madness before the event, Sybil even had me pose with The Boy and his Sociopath Friend waiting for Pete’s date to arrive. We are all holding sticks. Except I think the Sociopath was holding a dulled machete. Gotta have that in the family yearbook. I knew putting up with that kid would eventually come in handy.

Truth be told, anyone that Pete asks out for a date does not have to pass the stick test. It is only used for other-ways-round. I trust Pete’s adherence to the family’s zero-asshole tolerance policy as much as I do gravity. The tuxedoed young man was graciously welcomed, and repeatedly photographed. We did not ask for so much as a DNA sample. If he noticed The Boy hiding in the hedges with a bamboo pole or his Sociopath Friend and his machete, he did not mention it.

And then they were off. And nothing along this now vertical technology curve can do a damn thing about it. Except maybe that Pete does have a cell phone. And if this fine young courtier should turn out to be an actual asshole, I’ve got my stick, The Boy has a menacing bamboo pole and his Sociopath Friend has the dulled machete.

Some technologies are in no need of change. There are some curves that remain remarkably flat. Assholes would be wise to know that.

Also spracht Schroedinger

2005-05-08T15:44:00.000-05:00

The trade rags and eZines are abuzz these last few days over rumors of Schroedinger's contract renegotiations. It would be foolish of me to play spin doctor at this point.

Let me instead just state that Herr Doktor is still under contract with banjocollege.com (that's banjocollege.com) and, while we continue to negotiate in good faith with his estimable (and lovely) agent, the August Advisor continues his work unabated.

Don't believe me? Check out the latest column, posted just today on the old home place.

As is typical of the Lying Damned Liberal Media, many news outlets have charged that the Professor's words were pre-recorded long before contract negotiations broke down. They further charge that the good Doktor is now chillin' in the South of France (or SoF for short) on my nickel.

Let me just say that these charges are total bullshit.

Even as we speak, the Physicist in Question (or PiQ for short) is slaving away in the bowels of the Banjo College Administration building, poking violently at a 1956 Underwood Extremo with his index fingers. As long as the chains hold, we'll have content throughout the new milleneum and beyond.

Fear not, banjo enthusiast. His contract is as iron-clad as the cell (I mean cubicle) where he now languishes. The fair Ursula herself could not habeas that corpus with anything short of C-4 and a fully loaded Abrams.

So, once again, for your spiritual edification and the good of all, I give you

Ask Dr. Schroedinger, Episode 2.

5-7-5

2005-05-07T12:30:00.000-05:00

Happy Haiku Day
Don't like our date format, pal?
Go back to Europe.

My wife Xanthippe
Pisses me right the hell off
Twenty years so far

Professor Haff's girl
Went to the prom yesterday
What could go wrong, hmm?

That cat better move
I'm getting out my hammer
Then we'll see what's what

Doktor Schroedinger
Wants to renegotiate
Demands more money

Xanthippe contributes the following:

You'd better not bitch
It really pisses me off
I might punch your face

Can We Please Just Leave the Fucking Clocks Alone?

2005-04-05T23:36:00.000-05:00

It happened again this past Monday, the first day back to work after the start of Daylight “Saving” Time. Someone just had to say the most insipid phrase that I hate more than any, including “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity!”. The phrase I hate most always comes shortly after we, almost as a nation, somehow collectively agree to change our clocks forward by one hour.

And the award for the most hated and insipid phrase goes to… “I sure am glad to have the extra hour of daylight!”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Excuse me if you have never seen the movie “Logan’s Run” in which a room full of holograms intone over and over “THERE IS NO SANCTUARY”. But I just can’t help but repeat that scene over and over in my head this time of year. Instead, the menacing mind-projections chant “THERE IS NO EXTRA HOUR OF SUNLIGHT”. Some of these images then try to go on about how we still have the same amount of sunlight as before (okay, maybe there are about 45 seconds of extra sunlight this particular day). But it isn’t like we all did the gods for a trick and pulled an extra hour of sunlight out of our collective ass, is it?

Maybe it is. Maybe this explains the Biblical account of the battle of Jericho where some clever dick, it is written, got the sun to keep from setting long enough for the Jews to slaughter a few extra thousand bad guys. Maybe they did it by convincing the bad guys to keep setting their clocks ahead, or back, or whatever, while the Israelites went about the business of kicking their sleep-deprived asses.

THERE IS NO EXTRA HOUR OF SUNLIGHT! Of course I know that everyone who has expressed gratitude for the “extra hour” probably really understands this at some level. Just as I’m sure that the people who make value judgments on heat versus humidity realize that the fault of the current discomfort does not fully lie in the humidity. Even they know that the humidity would not really be such a concern if the heat would just let up a bit. But if rational thought were to ever prevent conversation, this whole country would probably just shut right the fuck up.

And that would be a bad thing.

I guess these topics, insipid as they might seem to the self-righteous bastards like me and Stubby (mostly Stubby), do serve some purpose and are not actually evil. But the whole bit of “gaining an extra hour of sunlight” does particularly irk me because I really hate the whole business of Daylight “Saving” Time. I could just go off on a major rant about that. Since that is what Stubby pays me for, it is about time I got started on it.

My earliest recollection of taking an interest in the whole concept of D”S”T goes back to the 6’th grade when I was a student at St. Irishguy’s School. I remember our teacher making the kids in my class write letters to our state representatives expressing our displeasure with D”S”T.

I don’t recall why the teacher thought this to be a worthy assignment. I don’t even remember who that teacher was, honestly. But I do remember trying to come up with a good and reasonable argument against D”S”T. What I came up with, and wrote to my state representative about, went along the lines that schoolchildren waiting at bus stops in the morning would be more susceptible to kidnappings because D”S”T made it darker in the morning. Kidnapping is a very primal fear to kids. I was just trying to exploit it.

It sounds pathetic now, but at least I as a child understood way back in the 6’th grade that nobody was saving or gaining anything by this. We were just robbing Peter to pay Paul. Life sucks when you are Peter. If Paul had tried this with St. Irishguy, he’d have had his ass kicked!

As I grew into manhood, I set aside such childish thoughts. I gained a true hatred for D”S”T because it always fucked up my sleep patterns. Sure the same thing happens to me whenever I travel to destinations in other time zones. But there is a reason for voluntarily allowing that to happen. I’m actually paid to do that. In both cases, I adjust and get on with life. But with D”S”T, I’m not paid anything and there is no reason for it.

Having grown up in a town named “Franklin”, I was indoctrinated early and often that this man was a genius. We were told that he invented all kinds of stuff like “electricity” and “bifocals” and the “Franklin stove”. I still believe the latter, but I’m betting he at least had some help with the other ones. One of the great truths I grew up with was that he also invented D”S”T, so I should just shut the hell up and set my clock ahead/backward when the government tells me to. I guess I should just be glad we don’t do this in 20 minute increments over three weeks like the godsdam “genius” once proposed.

I still believe that Ben Franklin was a genius. Hitler was a genius too but not all of his ideas were all that good either.

I have read many articles on how D”S”T is such a great thing. It saves energy. It cures cancer. It gives you more time, and time is money. It gives you more money. Can’t argue with that can you?

Well let me try, please. If D”S”T is so godsdam great, why the hell are we not doing it all year round? That way we don’t have to be fucking with the clocks and getting our sleep patterns all messed up. The chickens will always know when they are going to be fed. It is a win-win isn’t it?

It is not like I hate D”S”T in and of itself as much as I hate the whole fucking with the clocks. I guess the real enemy is “ST”. Why isn’t D”S”T “Standard” all year long if it is such a bloody wonderful thing? Please. This cannot possibly be an original complaint. Soup, help me out here. Is there a real argument why we don’t just do D”S”T all year long and leave the clocks the fuck alone?

I’m sure there is. And then I’ll have to admit to being a jackass about this whole thing. I’m used to that and you’ve come to expect it from me too. The great arguments that prove me wrong are probably out there and I just don’t know about them. There must be a reason. I just know I’m not getting paid shit for putting up with this.

The thing that makes me wonder that there might not actually be a good reason (other than the fact that I’ve never found one) is the fact that Arizona and half of the state of Indiana refuse to partake in these reindeer games. Two of the greatest deserts in the USofA (one actual, one cultural) have rejected this foolishness. Hawaii has nothing to do with it either. What do they all have in common? What do they know that the rest of the country doesn’t? I’m not setting you up for a stunning answer here. I really just don’t know. Call this “audience participation time”…

In my fantasy, dream-land, I imagine a USofA where when the sun is directly over Kansas, it is noon. For the whole country. When the sun is directly behind Kansas, it is very, very dark out. And the rest of the country can just learn to live with it. Think of the possibilities!

Californians would not have to miss church to watch football. They wouldn’t have to skip work early or even miss dinner to watch Monday Night Football either. They would no longer be considered dumber than their eastern countrymen because it took them three hours longer to get the jokes on Leno and Letterman.

Easterners, you’d think would be a harder sell. But what this idea has to offer them is that they could sleep in every day. I’d buy that. Also, they wouldn’t be able to do yard work when they came home from a hard day at the office. Save it all for the weekend! I’d buy that too. And our kids wouldn’t have to worry so much about being kidnapped at the bus stop. I would have bought that too, some time ago.

As for the energy savings and expenditures, they would all come out in the wash. And nobody even suspects that conservation is the foremost of goals of the current administration anyway. Hell, think of all the “extra” daylight we’d have to drill for oil in Alaska.

Please, somebody tell me why this is a bad idea. If you like to do yard work when you come home from the office, go west young man. If you like to sleep late in the morning, then the east is for you.

As for you Kansans, the sun would truly revolve around your flat earth like you already believe. Just don’t go getting all uppity about this. We have instructions on how to make the sun stand still while we all kick all your asses.

- 1/2

We pause now for a word from our obfuscators

2005-03-26T01:06:00.000-05:00

When I was in Germany, I saw an ad on TV for deodorant that featured wimmins’ bare-naked underarms alongside their bare-naked breasts as they bounced along the beach. Thirty years later, I still remember that ad better than I do the Oscar Mayer Weiner song. I can’t remember the actual brand name of the product but that is likely because they made the mistake of speaking it in German. “Rollenunterstenckremovenprodike” maybe?

Imagine the stink if that commercial would ever run in a more enlightened society today; say during a Super Bowl half-time show. Think of the harm that would cause to the children. The little freaks might grow up to be like me. Or like Germans.

Here in the good old USofA, the kiddies play with model racing cars splattered with the trademarks of products designed to help adult men accomplish something as basic as sport wood. I guess that is okay because the commercials for these products lead you to think they are designed to help you accomplish more innocent tasks like throw footballs through tire swings or bathe outdoors.

I can get innuendo but I hate having to when I’m being sold. Show me the product, tell me what it is for, show me some tits, and get back to the game. If you can’t do that, then I’ll just go on about sporting wood the old-fashioned way, thank you very little.

I’m just saying that if advertisers showed me some bare-naked underarms bouncing across the beach, I might make a more positive association with the product. Hell, they might even convince me to start using deodorant.

But American prudishness won’t allow that. This results in commercials for products to help women when they don’t feel so fresh “down there”. Down where? Georgia? And don’t get me started on “Natural Male Enhancement” (or, NME).

Too late.

What the hell is NME anyway? I tried to connect those dots but the picture never developed. I think I’m grateful for that so please don’t answer my question. I’m afraid the answer might be related to the cult of “Bob – The Sub-Genius”. That scary shit has been around since the Reagan administration. You don’t believe me? Then go see “Bob” at http://www.subgenius.com/.

My already male-enhanced brain immediately suggests that these products are meant to make a specific male-specific organ bigger. I don’t think Sybil (my wives) would be in favor of any further development in that department. She has enough in her life to put up with, what with being married to me, to have to deal with even more of me in any department. I could be wrong. And I usually am when it comes to figuring out what my wives is thinking.

My male-enhanced mind wonders further that NME might refer to increasing the duration of mating. I can’t speak for Syb, but I sure don't want to miss the second half kick-off. Maybe that is why these kinds of TV ads are shown so much during the Super Bowl. That half time show is long enough for a two-fer as it is.

Or maybe these NME products are being produced by less than male-enhanced minds. Maybe their idea of "enhancement" is to make males appreciate shopping for the sake of shopping, or get into those TV shows where people go and redecorate each other's living rooms to look like whore-house parlors. If that is the case then I’d rather have an extra measles shot, extra-mercury.

There are endless screeds and jokes made about TV commercials that don’t even give you a clue as to what they are advertising in the first place. I just figured those came about because some Darren Stevens character somewhere missed a deadline due to witchcraft-related shenanigans and had to pull this theory out of his ass at the last minute: “Since we can’t find any reason why anyone would want to buy your product, let’s not tell them what it is.”

Poor Larry Tate and some client product representative probably then rubbed their chins and thought that this was a brilliant idea. No doubt due to some nose-twitching on Samantha’s part.

I guess it must have worked or else this unfortunate side effect of Samantha’s coke problem would have died at the first launch. Instead this practice has thrived and mutated into the “personal hygiene” and “NME” ads, where obfuscation is used to peddle products that can’t be discussed openly unless you live in a free country, like Europe.

I imagine that European “football” games (or “matches”) would be filled with ads for “Der Bonnen Pillen” and feature all kinds of nekkid women. But no. They don’t even show commercials during their sports broadcasts. This is too bad because their football matches are dreadfully dull. You might as well be banging the Mrs. the whole match through for lack of any excitement you could possibly miss.

So imagine you have to choose. On the USofA side, you have exciting sporting events to watch that are periodically interrupted with confusing advertisements that you can go ahead and miss by having a quickie. On the European side, you just bang away throughout the whole match without the risk of missing any excitement in the broadcast.

It is a tough choice but I’ll opt for the American approach. Grab a quickie during half-time and then bang the drum all day during baseball season. Which does now seem to be upon us. I wonder where I can get some of that “Der Bonnen Pillen”…

- 1/2

Dr. Schroedinger's Stunning Debut

2005-03-20T09:29:00.000-05:00

Pittsburgh

banjocollege.com (that's banjocollege.com) scored another coup today when they announced that they had signed renowned Mad Scientist Dr. Allistair Schroedinger today as Adjunct Professor of Applying Physics.

The internets have been abuzz ever since Dr. Schroedinger's amazing introductory statement was published on the website. A banjocollege.com exclusive, you can read it here.

banjocollege.com (that's banjocollege.com) is proud to have such an emminent scientist join our little academic community. The Banjo Board of Regents (or BBoR for short) sees this as another giant step towards redeeming our reputation after the Recent Unfortunate Events.

Again, we'd like to invite you to join us in welcoming the Mad Doctor to the banjocollege.com team.

A Wonderful St. Patrick’s Day Was Had By All

2005-03-15T00:30:00.000-05:00

A long time ago in a galaxy all too close to home, some former colleagues and I decided to get together for some drinks as it was the season. The “St. Patrick’s Day” season that is. This season is famous for these kinds of gatherings and they tend to build up well in advance of the actual day.

In Pittsburgh, the actual day is seldom the actual day. The peak of the drunken revelry here is the day of the parade which is always held on the Saturday before the actual day. On the actual day, a reprise is made to try and reach the drunken revelry of the past Saturday. This usually fails to live up as most people have to go to work the next actual day.

This doesn't stop the “True Irish” who, of course don’t have jobs because they are lazy, shiftless, drunkards. Being of much Irish descent, I was told that this was my birthright. But it turns out my heritage is “Orange” Irish, so I’m told I must get piss drunk and still show up for work anyway. Turns out I get paid the same so I don’t have a problem with this.

If you are a fan of parades, the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Pittsburgh is a good one to bring the kiddies to, even if it is overloaded with politicos and local TV and radio “personalities”. (How come I never have a sack of rotting tomatoes when I need one?) If they are throwing candy, then I don’t mind. If they aren’t, well, then where the hell are those tomatoes?

But after the parade is over it is best to get the kiddies the hell out of Dodge. The town is taken over by alcoholism, debauchery, and fighting. Which is fine if you are a young, over-sexed, alcoholic. Not so fine for the kiddies. (“Daddy. Why is that man’s wiener hanging out of his pants?”)

So my friends and I picked an Irish pub at random and met a few days in advance of the whole Sodom and Gosh-and-Gomorrah scene. It turns out that the pub’s house band was holding a mock wake. This is an event they had been doing for some years past and continue to do today. It was great fun and the band was fantastic. Not a banjo in site.

The band was led by a kid who sounded like he was fresh off the potatoe boat from the old sod. He double-clutched bottles of whiskey as he bellowed out the Irish blues. Between sets, he would stagger from table to table and act as if he was the oldest and dearest and certainly the most piss-drunk friend you ever had. (In my case, he would be wrong.) I’m sure this was done partly for the entertainment of the crowd as much as it was for the drinks everyone bought him just to see if he really could drink any more.

My friends and I were so entertained that we made it a regular event to meet here for the “wake” every year. But after five years or so, the lead singer was no longer with the band. We just figured his liver exploded or at least got a restraining order against him. The event was still entertaining enough but just not the same anymore.

A few years later the band added a fiddle player. This was a nice touch for some songs but the play list took a noticeable turn towards traditional bar band fare. I mean, how “Irish” is “Sweet Home Alabama”? This venue was no longer Skynnard-safe. And when they let the fiddle player sing, it reminded me of a wildebeest with dry heaves.

So this year we gave the wake a miss. We picked another Irish pub at random but we dared fate by arranging to meet there the day of the parade. We figured we ought to be safe since we were separated from the parade by about 5 hours and one river. Not so good thinking. The place was packed. And it didn’t help having bagpipers blocking the path to the toilet playing yet another rendition of “Scotland the Brave”. At least they didn’t have “Sweet Home Alabama” in their repertoire.

We eventually got a table and looked over a menu offering such Irish cuisine as the “Irish” Buffalo wings, and “Irish” Philly cheese steak. I’m not making this up.

The real entertainment began a few hours later when I made a repeat visit to the men’s room. The line there had been remarkably reasonable earlier – when not blocked by bagpipers, but now it was almost out the door. The sinks were looking inviting but I bided my time. For some reason, the guy at the head of the line just let everyone go past him. I just figured he was waiting for a stall because he had to do something nastier than pass a few pints.

And speaking of stalls, how come the handicap stall wasn’t having any turnover? I could have taken a major dump and solved a Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle in the time I spent in line, yet the poor soul in there never came out. One of the guys in line was a waiter and as a company representative, he felt obliged or at least empowered enough to peek over the top to see if everything was okay in there.

I guessed there was no bloody corpse to be seen or the expression on his face wouldn’t have been a mix of “Oh my god” and stifled laughter. I didn’t feel empowered enough to look over the top of the stall but I was curious enough to look around at ankle level. I saw a pair of ankles that were leaning forward so I figured the poor sot was driving the porcelain bus, as it were. It was the thrusting movements that made me wonder. This guy either had some serious wildebeest heaving to do, or…

And then another foot touched down and picked itself back up rather quickly. Okay, if this guy was heaving, he was heaving on someone in the way. Or maybe he was... Nah. A pisser opened up and I took advantage and got the hell out.

By the time I got back to the table, a look back showed that a crowd was gathering outside the men’s room door. Either I was lucky to get there before the rush or something was going on. A cop made his way through the crowd and went in. Gun not drawn, I should add. If he had really needed to pee, I’m sure he would have drawn the gun. I know I would have if I had one earlier.

A few minutes later, he escorted a man and another person who was in the wrong restroom entirely. That is to say, a woman. The crowd was delighted. I would not have been so understanding. These idiots were taking up valuable and desperately needed pissing real-estate. If they had tossed some candy or otherwise performed some kind of entertainment for the crowd, I might not have minded so much. Where are those damn tomatoes when you need them anyway?

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Why I love blogs

2005-03-13T02:34:00.000-05:00

Why I love blogs

Okay. Maybe I've just been out of touch with all of the fruits of the information age for a while. Like, maybe, twenty years. Maybe my peeves and prejudices towards the internets are archaic or at least only barely valid anymore.

When I first heard of the blogging phenomenon, I immediately equated it to the "message boards" of olde with which I had had mostly negative experiences. As I mentioned before in my posting on why I hated blogs "Why I hate blogs", I had high hopes for the information revolution back in the day for all of the good reasons for which it was launched in the first place. But as much as I tried to communicate and do research on technical matters, the internets provided little of use and instead seemed only to provide a forum for juvenile name-calling. And porn. The porn aside, these early experiences left me with a bad taste in my fingertips when it came to all things associated with media in which any and many anonymous idiots with modems could obscure a major highway with graffiti.

Maybe the maturation of internets search engines are behind the maturation of the internets themselves. If I have a technical problem or a casual interest in any given topic, one of these fine search engines can help me get to where I want to go - mostly without running into the juveniles who now seem to be left tagging the walls of their parents' basements. Unless I deliberately search for arguments over which country sucks most, I find I can walk the streets of electronic discourse quite safely.

But when I first started checking out blogs, I came across a lot of the old ugliness of the pre-internets era. Only now it seems that the topics have evolved into which political parties suck more and how certain "real" TV characters should be dealt with in situations that have already been decided. But as liberal whiners defending the plethora of filth in the rest of the media say, I can always "change the channel". The difference now is that now I can sometimes find something good.

I always enjoy running into Stu in the halls of The Company. He is always discovering interesting species under the rocks he his keen to flip over in the media stream. It is usually a good and special thing when he tells me about some of the things he has found. But the day may come when Stu and I find our professional paths diverge and I will no longer have regular occasion to enjoy his thoughts on something new under the sun. And I probably wouldn't like it if he was active enough to keep me posted on all of these things via regular e-mailings. But I can always go to his blog and find out about some cool stuff he uncovered or some new thought that came to him. This gives me some comfort. I can't argue with comfort. It is my favorite thing in the world.

And to think I owe a complete reversal and rejection of years of unnecessary fear and loathing towards such a simple and wonderful phenomenon like blogs to my association with www.banjocollege.com (that is www.banjocollege.com). It is almost as if I learned to like sour cream. Only better. Because I still hate sour cream as every human being should.

That sounds like good material for another blog. But first I have to write that one about the great Valentine’s Day dinner I had recently.

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Scandal and Disgrace

2005-03-12T08:58:00.000-05:00

As you have probably read in the news, Banjo College has recently come under a cloud of suspicion and scandal.

Numerous allegations have been leveled at our athletic department by the NCAA. These center around the Banjo College Bocce team. There have been rumors of eligibility infractions, illicit payoffs, and perhaps most troubling, the use of performance enhancing pharmaceuticals.

This, combined with the hazing deaths of two dozen freshmen bowlers, has tarnished the heretofore stellar reputation of BC athletics.

Further, our charter has been revoked by the Most Esteemed Banjo Council (or MEBC, for short) and the only academic accredit agency in the free world willing to touch us with a ten meter pole has burned down under suspicious circumstances.

Here at Banjo College, we seem to have lost touch with the lofty and august goals we started with:

To be the finest cut-rate diploma mill on the internets, sucking the hind teat of the Country Music Industrial Complex (or CMIC for short).
To bring together the finest minds in the field. To establish a banjo-related think-tank on a global level.
To bring forth important information to the public on various topics of universal concern, including, but not limited to cautionary tales of physics misapplied.
To field a team of the finest student-athletes who demonstrate the highest character on and off the green.

Sadly, there are many in our current administration who believe that the best way to return to our lofty roots is to stay the course. They believe that these scandals will die down and we can all someday return to Business as Usual (or BaU for short).

This is not the Banjo College Way. Subsequently, these backward-looking faculty members are being terminated even as you read this message.

The Registrar, for example, was a charter member of the Banjo College Faculty. In all this time, he has never issued a diploma, earned or otherwise. He was the first up against the wall.

Obviously, problems of this magnitude need swift remediation. Here is an outline for the changes we plan to make:

Invest in some crappy certificate maker program and start churning out worthless sheepskins like the disgrace to academia we were chartered to be.
Bring in new forward-thinking faculty. This process has already begun with the hiring of Professor 1/2 as a Research Fellow and Department Head.
Whomp up some kind of a bogus accreditation organization to bestow on our bogus university the kind of bogus recognition it deserves.
Immediately implement a strict steroids testing program for our student athletes (and to a lesser extent, our athlete students).
Terminate the entire IT staff. They're all just a bunch of fucking nazis anyway. This step has been calculated to increase productivity by 362 percent.

Banjo College Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Diplomas R Us Enterprises, does not ask you to forgive these transgressions. We accept full responsibility and pledge to make these changes to our organization in the event that, some time in the future, we are given a second chance to earn your trust.

March is the Month of Dreams

2005-03-09T12:40:00.000-05:00

March is the month for crazy dreams. Weird scenes pass through our sleeping minds painting pictures that would make Hieronymus Bosch proud. These mad vignettes are at their strongest in those precious nine minutes after we slap the snooze button.

"But Stubby," you interject, "my dreams haven't been very unusual. I hardly dream at all."

That's because you're not doing it right. The rest of us are having crazy dreams these days, and I'm here to explain the physics of it all.

March roars in like a lion. I know this because a) I helped Xanthippe make a giant poster with a message to this effect and b) the wind has been blowing my grill cover into the neighbor's yard every couple days.

So why, of all the Months that the Caesars gave us, is March the dreamiest? To answer this question, we need to examine the true nature of dreams and the true nature of March.

Normally, a dream is like a fog that surrounds the dreamer. The dream clings to us like a fart in church. No matter how we shift or toss or turn, the dream hangs like a psychic funk in the air around us. Throughout the night, this psychic funk guides our dreams in a fairly sequential manner (as sequential as dreams get, anyway).

March is the month here in the Northern Hemisphere where the earth wakes back up after winter's hibernation. Earth's morning ablutions take the form of wind, rain and snow, punctuated by clear days of dizzying beauty.

At the same time, there is a psychic wind blowing across the land. This psychic wind is the only thing that can jar loose the dream funk that envelopes us. As we sleep, our dreams cut loose and fly like a grill cover across the neighbor's yard.

Pretty soon, the air is full of the half-realized dreams of you, your neighbors, and all the folks who aren't positioned in the psychic lee-side of the mountains. As they blow past, our own sleeping minds pick up on the passing wisps of other people's dreams. Our Dream Processing Units (or DPUs for short) make every honest attempt to weave these dream-snippets into our own stream of consciousness.

All these factors work together to create the wacky dreams that March brings us.

I for one am a big fan of March dreams. Heck, even the nightmares are interesting. So if you don't see me around until the Lamb comes back, it's because I'm sleeping.

Why I hate blogs

2005-03-09T00:45:00.000-05:00

I can not tell you how pleased I am to have gained enough tenure at www.banjocollege.com (that’s www.banjocollege.com) to be allowed to post to the web log (or “blog”, as the kids call it these days). But with great power comes great responsibility. And since this is no great power, I can just spew vomit and get away with it. So let me start there…

I’m beginning to hate “blogs”. It seems that the media can't but keep crapping out stories about how blogs are threatening to replace them. This, for some reason, is suddenly breaking news. Reporters want to appear knowledgeable enough on the subject to either explain why the phenomenon isn't really significant or to set themselves up as having enough (what is the "blog" equivalent of "street cred"?) in order to jump ship should they actually be right for a change. If I were they, I’d stick with the former because the pay scale on the latter probably isn’t what they’d be hoping for.

Idiots posting rants on the Internet is older than the Internet. Yes, this is possible. Hell I remember posting messages on DARPANET back in the Reagan administration. Sometimes I got helpful responses to my questions on how to write device drivers for the Mac. But even these would eventually evolve into idiotic, school-yard name calling for no apparent reason other than nobody was stopping it.

I learned long ago how to filter out the crap. I learned early on that apart from e-mail and efficient ways to access porn, the whole information technology revolution was crap. And when these two partners got married, and gave birth to SPAM, I was convinced that the fruits of the whole information revolution were things to be dealt with rather than used.

But back in the Clinton administration, some idiot who was apparently smart enough to have a friend smart enough to create a web site where he could post his ravings in a more pimped-up format, comes along with the earth-shattering news that the President enjoys blow-jobs. The next thing you know we are impeaching the sonnofa bitch. The President that is, not the idiot with the web site. If this were the Nixon administration, the idiot would have been killed. The idiot with the web site that is, not the President.

So the “bloggers” were emboldened. Rather than serving as a forum in which bastards too lazy to actually write to their friends can unload their thoughts for the day, they have become more and more a forum for bitching and moaning. Seriously, I think many (not most) bloggers feel that they finally have a means to have their petty grievances aired and appreciated. Hell, I bet they secretly fantasize about someone from CNN reading their rant on how fucked up their company’s IT policies are that it will make Headline News.

And then, a year or so ago, some racist senator made a few racist comments about some other racist senator at a racists' function along the lines of what this country really needed was more racism. Nobody invited any of the established news media to the function so the speakers thought they could get away with the moral equivalent of telling a few "Nigger Jokes" among friends. But someone in that audience figured he/she (okay - HE) finally had something more interesting to post on the Internet (or "Internets" - as George W. is fond of calling it). Something beyond the typical "The USA Sucks! - NO! The UK Sucks! - NO! Canada REALLY Sucks!..." tirade, or the eternal debate over who the best "Star Trek" Captain was.

This posting makes it to the mainstream media and you just know that does nothing but further embolden the whiny-ass crybabies. All of the nice blogs from people remarking about how they spent a wonderful Valentine’s day having a fine meal with their loved one ain’t going to make the news. But some snipe in the back of the room hearing a CNN executive spout about how the US military in Iraq is targeting reporters for assassination IS going to make the news. Even on CNN.

So everybody it seems now is out looking for dirt and spewing filth. The number of folks eavesdropping at "Beula's Beauty Shoppe" went off the chart! Everyone is listening to everyone and reporting on all the dirt that isn’t fit to print.

This can only be a good thing, you'd think. And I do too. I don't like it when a senator can get off telling the moral equivalent of nigger jokes and then campaign for the black vote when I never tell these kinds of jokes. (I still pick on safe groups like people who eat at Subway, and banjo players.) But I'm not running for anything, except maybe out of ideas.

A part of me worries that all of the bloggers and message-boarders over the past 25 years will somehow feel vindicated. As if their "discussions" over who sucks more ("The US or the UK or Canada...") now may actually carry some clout. These idiots are now "cool". They have been represented. Can you imagine that they imagine that we are to soon hear teaser lines for the evening news announce that "It is in fact France that sucks, and in a related story Jean-Luc Piccard has been declared the most flaming Star Trek captain. “

Can we bloggers please stick to the issues that belong in this forum? Tell me more about that romantic dinner you had with your loved one on Valentine’s day. And don’t spare any details about what happened afterwards.

Not that I intend to adhere to any of my advice. I’ve had too much experience with this idiocy not to use it properly. Besides, I’m hoping that Andy Rooney at “60 Minutes” is still smart enough to have a friend smart enough to come across this tirade and turn it into a nationally publicized commentary. The college could use that kind of exposure. And now that I have that kind of power, I must accept that kind of responsibility.

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