Happy Anniversary Kate & Steve

We headed out to Iowa this weekend to celebrate the 10th wedding anniversary of MizBubs' sister Kate, and her husband Steve. Steve's family owns a farm and we make it out there a couple times a year to camp and visit.

This weekend was wonderful. While there was no Sunday Afternoon Cocktail, there was a keg of Pabst Blue Ribbon, multiple bottles of bourbon and at one point Saturday afternoon a delicious Bloody Mary appeared, made by some guy named Andy we'd just met for the first time, chock full of horseradish and minced garlic. Whew. I'll have to get that recipe.

There was singing, party games, adventures with chainsaws, and fishing, and a ratio of one dog per every 2 people. It rained a little, but it didn't seem to bother anyone. There is no better feeling than being in a warm dry tent at night and listening to the rain falling.

Here are some pics from the weekend. Hope y'all had a good one. Now it's back to work.

Is Iowa trying to be the new Wisconsin?

That's the question I ask myself after reading this story:

Pacemaker attack stuns townspeople

The Delaware County Sheriff's Office said the younger Fierstine hit his father with a flashlight and a piece of firewood late Saturday night, then attacked him with a pocket knife.

He cut a 6-inch gash in the older man's chest and removed the pacemaker, leaving an opening 3/4-of-an-inch wide, according to search warrants.

When Delaware County sheriff's deputies arrived, wires were protruding from Charles Fierstine's chest.

Alcohol was involved.

Halfway to a Tom Waits song

48-year old Scott Bennett of Lawton, Iowa, was working as a bouncer at Mavericks, a strip club in Sioux City, Iowa, Saturday night. Bennett went to break up a fight (a fight, can you imagine that--how could anyone be anything other than happy and peace-loving in an environment that features both alcohol and naked women) when he got punched in the eye by 34-year old Ryan J. Brodie. Bennett's injuries were so severe that he lost the eye.

There's no word on when or if Bennett will be returning to work, since he is now blind.

It seems that, 3 months earlier, Bennett had lost his other eye, also as a result of being hit in the eye during a fight at Mavericks.

His best hope now is to become the corn-fed Zatoichi of the American midwest.

Morning Coffee: Now with 100% more bat!

Many times I like to grind my coffee and fill the coffee maker with water before we go to bed at night, and just turn it on first thing in the morning.

I probably will not be doing that any more.

The reason I won't be doing that is because I just read this story in the Chicago Tribune. It seems a woman in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, prepared her coffee the night before just like I used to. She enjoyed her coffee and went about her business. That night, when she cleaned out her coffee pot, she found a dead bat in the filter. Officials were unable to determine if the bat had rabies because its brain was too thoroughly cooked by the scalding coffee water.

To me, the most surprising thing about this story is that it didn't happen to MizBubs' sister. She lives in Iowa, and has quite the history with bats.

A bike, a shovel, a severed nose, a hungry dog--Iowa!

When I first heard about this story I assumed it happened somewhere down south.

I was wrong.

I'll just go ahead and quote the article in its entirety:

IOWA (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - A man in Iowa is without a nose. He lost it after a friend bit it off in a fight.

It all started when Donroy Merrival used Matthew Osing's bike to go to the store for more beer. He broke the bike in the process.

Osing told him to get out of his apartment, but the guy wouldn't leave.

Osing hit him with a shovel. That's when Merrival went for his nose, biting it off his face.

Now, Osing is not sure what happened to it. "I don't know if he swallowed it or if my dogs might have eaten it. I don't know," he said.

Merrival is now facing assault charges and could spend more than 12 years in prison.

It turns out that Donroy, no doubt wanting to be thorough, also took off part of his friend's lip. You can read more about it and see Donroy's mug shot here.

We've got a clown problem

I'm tired, but I had to get this out there while it's still relatively fresh.

Two clown stories in the news, and both have a midwestern angle.

First, in frightening news from Marion, Iowa, a trio of scary clowns are apparently going around kicking in front doors (perhaps in advance of Halloween?) and punching homeowners in the face.

Now my second story.

Right about the same time I was reading about A. Paul Carlock's arrest on child pornography charges, southside bureau chief Dena was sending me a link to this Smoking Gun story. The Smoking Gun has an extra-creepy promo video from Klutzo's trip to the Philippines.

A. Paul Carlock, a Springfield, Illinois resident better known as Klutzo the Clown, is something of a renaissance clown. Not merely a clown, he is a Christian Clown. He has also been a police officer, juvenile counselor, youth officer, police trainer and has served in a variety of other Illinois government jobs. Oh, yeah, he's also worked at a couple of day care centers and is an ordained minister with the Missionary Church International.

In short, this sick bastard has had nothing but jobs giving him access to children for something like 20 years. According to this story in the Lincoln Courier, Carlock's last marriage ended in 1984 after "an incident" forced him to resign his job as pastor at a local church. His current wife filed for divorce last week citing "mental cruelty" after clowning around with him for several years.

I had a link to Klutzo's webpage, but as of 10:45 pm CST it's no longer operational.

After a little digging, though, I was able to come up with A. Paul Carlock Jr.'s Amazon.com profile. These were the tags he used in the reviews he wrote of ten movies:

boy (3), devotion (2), loyalty (2), bonding (1), child (1), coming of age (1), comitment (1), commitment (1), crafty (1), endearment (1), goofy (1), hope (1), kidnapping (1), love (1), miracle (1), mischievous fun (1), moving (1), parenting (1), relationship (1), silly (1), socialization (1), trickster (1)

According to this story in The Daily Journal, a downstate Illinois newspaper,

In December 1986, Carlock wrote a letter to the State Journal-Register complaining about a cartoon. In the letter, he said he was a conservative Christian and not ashamed of the fact.

"I am not in favor of censorship, but do feel that far too much 'smut' has been poured into the minds of Americans by all forms of media," he wrote.

"I have spent the past 16 years in law enforcement and related professions. I have spoken with victims and offenders and have read many case histories in which pornographic materials played an overwhelming role in the events that have left lives shattered and homes broken."

Later in the letter, he wrote: "Why is it so unreasonable to assume the government has the right to protect the public from the harmful effects of pornography (especially in light of the vast amounts of evidence to support this claim)?

As in so many stories like this, it's not just the child victims of the clown who suffer. In this case, law-abiding clown Klutzo, also known as Algonquin Village Clerk Jerry Kautz, has retired his wig and floppy shoes after being confused for the evil Klutzo.

What's new in Iowa?

Iowa is so much more than corn, soybeans and Pork Queens.

I know that some east and west coast elites refer to the midwest as "flyover country." I think they'd be surprised if they understood just how interesting places like Iowa are, if you just put aside your prejudices and get to know the people there.

For instance, in Des Moines Iowa they have deranged, naked, hammer-wielding lesbians going on rampages.

How's that for diversity, east and left coast cultural elites? Huh?

32 year old Satin Delfrano, got pissed off, got naked, got a hammer and went on the attack against several other women, some car windows and ultimately a cop.

Alcohol was involved.

Whew...

Good morning.

We spent the weekend camping at the farm and I'm still recovering. 90+ heat can kind of wear you out, but at least it was cool and breezy at night. One way of beating the heat was glorious in its white-trashy simplicity: slap on some sunscreen and drag your lawn chairs and your beer into the creek. Then just sit there, not moving much, while the water cools you. Well, cools your feet and your ass anyway. The rest of you is still baking in the sun.

A camping trip usually results in the purchase of some new piece of equipment. I now have an official camping cocktail shaker, made of high-impact plastic, with helpful recipes and measurements printed on its sides. Friday's drink was the Mint Julep, made with fresh mint from our garden. Saturday's drink was the Mojito. The only problem was in each case I had to use cubed, not crushed, ice.

An important part of car-camping (as opposed to wilderness canoeing or backpacking) is the concept of the camp kitchen. To me, eating well in the outdoors is a big deal, and I like to have a good space to prepare food. This is a picture of the official Sprawling Ramshackle Compound Mobile Kitchen. Note the Gadsden flag flying proudly. This identifies you as a potentially armed crackpot in case any Iowa meth freaks wander near your campsite.

Inside the screen house, out of direct sunlight, is a collapsible table, a cooler and a honking big propane burner. Over the weekend this area was used more for drink mixing, but I still made a tasty dinner Friday night: lime & chipotle marinated chicken breasts served on tortillas with fried black beans and corn which had been cooked with green chiles and caramelized onions.

A word of advice for anyone training to run a marathon. If you stay up drinking until 1:30 in the morning, smoke a couple cigars, sleep 5 hours on the ground, then run at midday when it's 90 degrees, running 4 miles on a hilly gravel farm road with no shade really counts the same as running 8 or 10 miles. I'm thinking of including this in my forthcoming book, "Marathon Training for Lounge Lizards".

On Saturday night we experienced an awesome thunderstorm. Not much compares to the feeling of being in a dry tent while the lightning flashes outside and the rain falls in sheets.

Overall it was a fine weekend of doing nothing.

Dude! Will White Castle profits soar along with US weed production?

According to this article in the Guardian, marijuana is now the NUMBER ONE CASH CROP IN THE UNITED STATES. I'm sorry, didn't mean to yell.

As someone from the midwest, who's spent hours driving through apparently endless fields of corn and soybeans, I find the idea that American-grown weed is worth more than all that corn and soy just mind-boggling.

The study appears here on the Bulletin for Cannabis Reform page. You can read about their estimation methods here.

I remember reading, years ago, that marijuana had passed tobacco as the top crop in states like Kentucky and North Carolina. Well, here's the top ten producing states according to this table:

1) California (no surprise there)
2) Tennessee
3) Kentucky (do I swell with home state pride? Or what?)
4) Hawaii
5) Washington
6) North Carolina
7) Florida
8) Alabama
9) West Virginia
10) Oregon

Illinois placed 19, behind our Hoosier neighbors to the east (17). We are, however, way ahead of Iowa (43) and Wisconsin (27). Evidently cornfed meth freaks and brandy-swilling cheeseheads don't have what it takes to make good pot farmers.

Decoration Truck Monday

Driving to and from Iowa was just like this:



Thank you Dena. Before she sent me this link, I'd never heard of Dekotora. Now I have, and so have you.

News from Iowa

Meet Marcy Grant.

According to this story, this cornfed dame from Davenport, Iowa, offered her 4 year old son as payment for a wedding dress. She did not attempt to barter away her 10 year old son, presumably because of the income he brings in working at the local pork mill.

Ten minutes into Monday and I can't wait for next weekend

Is there something wrong with me that I'm sitting here at ten minutes after midnight, technically Monday morning but really still Sunday night, and I'm already counting the hours until next weekend?

All this bourbon talk from Melinda June left me with a wicked thirst tonight. SO...I'm now on my second Sazerac (I know, it's not bourbon, it's rye, but still...) In this condition I'll probably end up posting crap from YouTube. I apologize in advance.

Considering that I had to work, this was a great weekend.

We started off by heading down to the Renegade Craft Fair in Wicker Park. We first read about it in the pages of Bust magazine a couple years ago, and this was the first time we could go. Wow. You couldn't swing a cat without whackin a hipster. It was a good time, and we all came away with some cool stuff. My youngest got a ring with a little cameo of hipster god Tom Waits in it from these people, and my eldest, the mad seamstress, got a book titled Sew Subversive from the gals who run the Stitch Lounge in San Francisco. Both of my younguns got stuff from Alli's Oddities: a set of bone dice (like the ones Oogie Boogie uses in Nightmare Before Christmas) and some whacked-out key chains with bulging eyeballs. I got Miz Bubs a little cherry pendant necklace and these fine Don Ho tiki mugs. (Note to Kate and Steve--the Don Ho Motherf*cker is about to become a reality.) Miz Bubs got me the t shirt at the top of this post, which I'd been admiring. OH, one more thing! I also got another new tiki mug, to replace one that I broke--a monkey wearing a fez. And there's nothing cooler than a monkey wearing a fez, folks, unless it's a fez-wearing monkey having a smoke. All the tiki stuff came from DvA Gallery right here in Chicago.

I was relieved at the relative lack of B.O. at the fair. Aside from a couple of panhandling white kids I wanted badly to smack around, the crowd smelled remarkably fresh. I appreciated that.

I was also struck by the fact that a lot of the stuff on display was, on close examination, not really that well made. I saw some really half-ass jewelry--it felt, I dunno know, clinky and cheap, and a close examination of much of the clothing revealed poorly-executed stitching and seams. And I'm really tired of people thinking that all you have to do is silkscreen some vintage advertising image onto a surface and then print some random non-sequitor or ironic slogan across the image to make cool art.

Miz Bubs makes some excellent jewelry (wire work, glass, stones and polymer clay) and my youngest has created some fantastic little dolls, and of course my eldest is a talented seamstress. I told them they need to set up a booth next year and sell their stuff. But, alas, they all have lives and schedules and tell me that will not happen. It's a shame, because I know quality, and the compound girls' stuff is way better than lots of what I saw on Saturday. I was trying to be encouraging and supportive, letting them know how good their work was in comparison to what we were seeing on sale, and of course in my clumsy oafish way I ended up making them feel pressured. I meant well, anyway. I just wanted Miz Bubs and the girls to know how talented and cool they are. They don't believe me, because they figure I have to say that stuff to them anyway.

This morning me and my bride went to the farmers market and got an armful of fresh produce. Something I noticed this morning, that we also saw on Saturday, was the number of adorable dogs in attendance. Owners of adorable dogs, thank you for bringing them out with you. It makes me smile.

This week is going to be a total waste of time for me, unless something disastrous happens at work. You see, next weekend we're going to be out at the farm in Independence, Iowa. I'm cooking dinner on Saturday night (pork loin and roasted sweet potatoes, peppers and onions) and there will be music and singing and good beer and a huge fire, and horses. And maybe some gunplay. And the best conversation with good people anyone could ever hope for. So my big challenge now, is getting from here, to there.

Wish me luck.

A tale of two compounds...continued

This is the farm owned by some of MizBubs' extended family (her sister's in-laws) about an hour west of Dubuque, Iowa. I keep these images on my desktop at work as a reminder of what I'm working for.

Blue skies, old barn, gently rolling landscape. Ahhh...there's a nice creek rolling through also. They have about 200 acres, with a nice variety of pasture, alfalfa fields, bottomland and woods. We'll be camping there in a few weeks, drinking, playing music, dogs running around, cooking over a big-ass fire. We usually camp alongside the creek, down in the bottom.

This is the first vision of the compound I wanted to show you. It could look something like this, and it could be anywhere in the upper south or midwest.

Girls Go Wild in Iowa

While driving through eastern Iowa looking for cornfed talent, the Girls Gone Wild tour bus ran over a cyclist. This story in the Iowa Press-Citizen doesn't say much, but they do quote some local ghoul who got plenty of pictures of the victim pinned under the bus:

“I saw the individual lying under the bus’ tire,” he said, adding that the man looked to be in his fifties. “He was not moving — I thought I was taking pictures of a dead man — but I kept taking pictures until my film ran out. I wanted to try to photo document the accident.”