It's a Beautiful World

Erik from Erik's Choice reminded me of this video from Devo. While I'm sad to report that this video does not feature the same mambo lovelies as appeared in my earlier post, there's still plenty of goodness in there. At one point I thought "NICE MARACAS", and get this--the Bell Rocket Belt even makes an appearance!

Yes, it's a beautiful world today. MizBubs, girl dynamo, and I have started our annual de-whitetrashification of our yard, and I'm taking a brief break while she goes out for mulch. She's pretty and she's strong. I got to see my niece and nephew this weekend to celebrate my nephew's first birthday. I managed to slip away from work without any major hassles, and now I'm off for a couple of days; starting Tuesday I'll spend the rest of the week at a conference that I've really been looking forward to. I might have more on that later.

Today is our youngest daughter's 15th birthday, and hopefully, when she gets home from school, I'll get to go for a run with her while she rides her new, shiny pink, retro-looking bicycle. She's just incredibly smart and good-looking and feisty, and I can' t wait to pick her up after school. We "celebrated" yesterday, so tonight will just be a relaxed family evening. She shares a birthday with Henry Mancini, so we might celebrate tonight with some swanky music. Who knows. I know I've got a tasty dinner planned--roast pork tenderloin, roasted beets, and cabbage braised in red wine.

Our eldest, Dystopia (the one who tells me she can't blog because, unlike her sad, bitter and ineffectual father, she has a real life) just got accepted into Phi Theta Kappa, an honor society for community colleges. Pretty slick for an 18 year old whose peers are just finishing high school.

So, without further ado, Devo:

R.I.P. Don Ho

One of my witty friends notified me of the passing of Don Ho with this headline:

"One less Ho in the music business."

Yes, Don Ho has died of heart disease at the age of 76.

I feel good that we developed our drink in honor of Don Ho while he was still alive. My sister in law Kate is pictured here, holding one of the festive libations.

Did you know that Don Ho was a fighter pilot? He was also quite fertile, fathering 10 children.

Farewell, Mr. Ho.

Morning Mambo

Now that spring is here, MizBubs and I have started a new morning regimen.

F.R.T.

No commentary, just titles and artists:

Ghouls—The Horrorpops

A Place in the Dirt—Marilyn Manson

Run Run Run—The Velvet Underground

Trouble—The Flying Lizards

Waiting for My Ruca—Sublime

Night of the Living Rednecks—Dead Kennedys

Going Down Slow—Leadbelly

Slippin' Out & Sneakin' In—Joe Clay

White Girl—X

Hoist That Rag—Tom Waits

Bible Thumper

Minnesota Jail Guard Suspended After Inmate Is Hit With A Bible

(AP) A jail guard has been suspended after allegedly thumping an inmate with a Bible.

James Lee Sheppard, 56, has been charged with two gross misdemeanors for allegedly swatting a Blue Earth County Jail inmate with the book, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him against steel bars on Feb. 8, according to the criminal complaint.

I HEAR MUSIC

I have been tagged by Splotchy, thusly:

Seeing as the traffic to my blog is nearing a fever pitch, I thought I'd try and start one of them taggy things that meme all over the place...so I tag Bubs and Mizbubs. And you, dear reader. I tag you.

Let the wild stallion that is this meme run free.

I ask you, how could I resist?

What was the first recorded music you bought?
-It was a used copy of the Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" that I bought at a thrift shop when I was in 6th or 7th grade.

What was the last?
-I can't say here, because it was a gift for MizBubs that she won't get until June. Before that it was Tom Waits' "Orphans".

What was the first "professional" music show you ever went to?
-Oh, I'll always remember this one--Johnny Cash and the Carter Family at Madison Square Garden. June Carter was big and pregnant at the time, and couldn't perform with everyone else. I'm guessing this was in 1969 or 1970. What was really cool about this was my dad took us, and he wasn't even much of a country music fan.

What was the last?
-The Raconteurs at the Riviera Theater in Chicago.

What's your "desert island" album?
-Probably "Rain Dogs" by Tom Waits

What's your favorite album/song title? (the *title* which is your fav, not the actual album or song)
-Without a doubt, it's "Weasels Ripped My Flesh" by the Mothers of Invention. I've never owned it, never heard more than a couple of tracks from it. Rzzzzz!

What's your favorite album art (include an image of it if you can)?
-I can't think of one off the top of my head, but most of my favorites are in this collection here.

Ideal choice for a karaoke song?
-My favorite is "Suspicious Minds" but when I'm boozed up like a big hillbilly with Tourette's, my friends and family want to hear me sing Tom Jones' "Delilah." Did you know that "Delilah" is the Tom Jones song most sung by impersonators and karaoke fans?

Song you don't like that WILL NOT LEAVE YOUR HEAD if you hear it.
-There are a few choices on the Weebls Stuff site that, if my youngest daughter plays them, will be stuck in my head for days. But I'm not sure I don't like them...I'm not sure if "My Humps", which is annoying as hell, is stuck in my head or if it's just still being played to death; those Blades of Glory ads don't help.

Which is cooler? -- Vinyl? CD? Cassette? 8-track?
-Dude, vinyl! Everything about it, the album art, the sleeve art and lyrics, the promotional extras you could cram inside, the anticipation watching the needle lower onto the record, the slight hiss and pop, everything.

Ok you primitive screwheads, listen up! The following people should consider themselves tagged:

Dale, Beth, Mob, in particular, and anyone else who reads this and has some time on his hands.

Get to work.

Mister Donut Cosplay Dance Party

Yes, this is a group of Japanese cosplay enthusiasts forming a dance party flash mob in front of a Tokyo Mister Donut. The party is broken up by two cops on their way for a coffee break.

Here's a link to the original story, courtesy of Southside bureau chief Dena.

Freak of the week

Recently Coaster Punchman and Dale have written, entertainingly and frighteningly, about dentists. Mob over at Dear Bastards has written of his ongoing dental torture.

Call me a kooky optimistic do-gooder, but I like to try and make my friends feel better whenever I can. Or at least I graciously, and without a hint of smug know-it-allness, point out that things could be far, far worse.

Which brings me to this week's FREAK OF THE WEEK:

British dentist Alan Hutchinson

Dr. Hutchinson is to dentists as Harvey Keitel was to lieutenants--bad. Bad and unclean:

Updated: 12:34 p.m. CT April 5, 2007

LONDON - A British dentist was found guilty on Thursday of urinating in his surgery sink and using dental tools meant for patients to clean his fingernails and ears.

A medical tribunal said it was satisfied the evidence showed 51-year-old Alan Hutchinson, who "routinely" did not wear gloves or wash his hands, had risked the health of "himself, staff and patients" for more than 28 years.

A dental nurse who worked for Hutchinson for 16 years said she had caught him urinating in the sink more than once.

"He was tucking something into his trousers before zipping them up hastily. I walked over and I was behind him. He moved to the left and I could smell urine," the nurse told the tribunal.

A later hearing will decide if the dentist's unhygienic habits impaired his ability to treat patients, and if so, whether he should banned from practicing.

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited.

Why do they all use Spry?

HERE'S WHY THEY ALL USE SPRY!


"It's marvelous. It creams so easily."


"Foods fried in Spry are as digestible as if baked or boiled."


"Spry is so white. I just know it's purer."



Valued readers like Dino, aka Katy, want to know about miracle product Spry Pure Vegetable Shortening. So, putting aside the fact that I get oddly and inappropriately excited when talking about fat and deep frying, here it is, in all its white whipped oleaginous glory.

Back at Thanksgiving we visited a few antique shops in Marion, Iowa, and I picked up a few old cookbooks. Not regular cookbooks, the little pamphlets put together by food companies, books like Medley of Meat Recipes from the American Meat Institute. Lucky me--I buy a few old pamphlets, and then, a few weeks later, I get some neat presents from my mother-in-law: some modern home magazines from the 50's and 60's, and a guide to building the "modern vacation home" from Popular Science. Anyway, one of the pamphlets I got was from Spry. Imagine a 48 page cookbook in which every single recipe calls for vegetable shortening. I love it.

Spry was a vegetable shortening (like Crisco) made by Lever Brothers. They had a spokeswoman known as Aunt Jenny, who hawked the product from the 1930's through the 1950's. You can see for yourself why Spry is the superior shortening here and here.

There are plenty of good recipes in here, but my real find was the newspaper clipping hidden inside. Click here for this delicious recipe for pineapple and carrot salad, circa 1940.


F*ck you Rachel Ray.

Plug it in, fire it up, Mr. President...

From the April 7 Detroit News "Business Insider" section:

Plug it in, fire it up, Mr. President

The Detroit News

Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the leader of the free world from self-immolation.

Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford's hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week. Ford wanted to give the Commander-in-Chief an actual demonstration of the innovative vehicle, so the automaker arranged for an electrical outlet to be installed on the South Lawn and ran a charging cord to the hybrid. However, as Mulally followed Bush out to the car, he noticed someone had left the cord lying at the rear of the vehicle, near the fuel tank.

"I just thought, 'Oh my goodness!' So, I started walking faster, and the President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did. I violated all the protocols. I touched the President. I grabbed his arm and I moved him up to the front," Mulally said. "I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen.

This is all off the record, right?"

What shall I blog today?

Happy Easter IV: Now it's dark

My eldest noted that someone appears to have photoshopped an evil bunny head onto a scary Santa. No problem--either way, the kid cries.

Happy Easter III: Lord of the Harvest

See that poster in the background? Does it refer to the big moldy-smelling pink bunny, back from the pet sematary to visit the kids at Sunday school? The little girl on the left knows it's harvest time, and bunny has come to collect.

Happy Easter II

Happy Easter

OK, time to move on

After yesterday's tattooed granny I felt a responsibility to provide my readers with a more positive image. I think this fits the bill.

This lovely young stewardess is from the George Petty gallery at a neat little animation website called The Pin-Up Files.

HELLO!

MizBubs frequently gets forwarded emails from a friend of hers at work. You know what I'm talking about--heartwarming stuff like cute pictures of dogs that adopt fawns , or of Finnegan the squirrel pup, or natural oddities like frozen landscapes, and jokes like the elephant and the camel.

Sometimes MizBubs forwards them on to me, and they're usually a welcome diversion for a few moments.

This morning was different.

This morning she opened this email:

Subject: [Fwd: [Fwd: FW: Fwd: FW: oh no.... mom went to another of Marcos' tatoo parties]]

The email had been forwarded more than 5 or 6 times, and it took a lot of scrolling. A lot of scrolling, to get to the woman you see pictured here. I have placed a discreet black square on this photo to make it family-friendly. Because seeing a bare, tattooed septuagenarian breast is only offensive if you can also see its pierced nipple, right?

This is one of the mildest pictures in the series. Granny appears in a variety of red and black vinyl outfits, looking like, in the words of my oldest daughter, "a ho'd-up Betty White." Toward the end of the series she displays a, uh, unique set of piercings.

You can see the rest of the pictures here. They are most definitely not safe for work.

Have fun!

Friday Random Ten

Lately I've seen folks like Dale and Johnny Yen give some commentary on their shuffle choices, instead of merely throwing out ten random song titles. Dale has even been generous enough to provide the tunes themselves, through the wonders of his data bus.

There are four of us here at the compound using iTunes on the computer, so a lot of these random ten lists don't just reflect my tastes--it's really more of a glimpse of what the soundtrack to our family life sounds like.

Rains—Jim Edgar & the Roadrunners

This is one of mine, from a collection called "Rockabilly Gold."

Sweet Rockin' Baby—Sonny West

Another one of mine from the excellent Rhino collection "Rockin' Bones."

La valse d'Amelie—Yann Tiersen

This belongs to my youngest, from the soundtrack to her favorite movie Amelie. For a while now she's been on a tear where she listens almost exclusively to old and/or foreign language music. It's really cool to hear Edith Piaf or Fats Waller coming from her room.

Peace in the Valley—Johnny Cash

This was a gift to me from MizBubs' family. It's from a boxed set: The Essential Johnny Cash 1955-1983.

Pretty Boy Floyd—Woody Guthrie

MizBubs loves Woody Guthrie. This track is from a 3-disc set titled This Machine Kills Fascists.

Tainted Love—Marilyn Manson

Here we see the influence of our oldest daughter. She's listed as a contributor to this blog, and I'd love to see her write more (she's appeared as a Tromette at some horror conventions and goes to lots of cool shows that we don't have time to go see) but she tells me she has "too much of a real life" to spend time blogging. Ouch.

Ballade Von Der Sexuellen Horigkeit—Kurt Weill

I found this version of the Three Penny Opera for my youngest. It doesn't get much play because, in her words, "it sounds too new." She prefers older recordings that have some hiss and pop to them; she's especially fond of Bertholt Brecht singing "Mac the Knife" in German on a collection titled September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill.

Ever Fallen In Love? --The Buzzcocks

From Singles Going Steady. I can't remember if I got this on CD to replace old vinyl, or if our eldest got this as part of her ongoing quest to listen to all of our old favorites from the late 70's and early 80's.

Abba Zabba—Captain Beefheart

This is a recent acquisition of mine. I've never listened to an entire Captain Beefheart album, so I figured the reissue of Safe as Milk would be a good place to start.

Stompin' The Bug—Fats Waller

Another one from our youngest. This is off the collection Young Fats at the Organ. She got this after she saw Eraserhead, and wanted some of the soundtrack music.

Now, if you want some more fun, go see Splotchy's take on the Friday Random Ten. I'll use just these four words as a teaser: pussy pussy pussy marijuana.

I had opinions that didn't matter

I had a brain that felt like pancake batter

I got a backyard
With nothing in it
Except a stick, a dog
And a box with something in it...

This is your brain on country music.

Psych Evaluation Ordered For Supernaw

In a pretrial hearing, Supernaw, 46, listed off police agencies that he said had beaten him to ruin his recording career and his chances at a baseball career.

"It has been a political economic conspiracy, and I have proved it time and time and time again," he told Brazos County Court Judge Jim Locke. Supernaw said the abuse started when he was "held hostage in Paris" in a "mentally retarded home for terrorists" for two weeks in 2002.

Country singer Doug Supernaw also claimed that he was a "test monkey" to see if someone could smoke marijuana and play baseball at the same time.

I don't know about you, but I don't think there's anything in the world, really, that's cooler than a smoking monkey. Except, as I've said before, a smoking monkey wearing a fez. Or a cowboy hat. A big cowboy hat.

**special thanks to Dream City Bureau Chief Bawb the Revelator

Let's Make a Sandwich!

"Part of the trick to entertaining unexpected guests, is keeping on hand certain generally useful foods. One of these is cheese of an easy melting type...Mother is a great believer in the aesthetic value of parsley..."

Tagged?!?

Bubs tagged me! So, this is Mizbubs, in expository mode.

A- Available or Single?

Even when I was single, I was never truly "available" to anyone but Bubs.

B- Best Friend?

Bubs, my daughters Nora and Hannah, my sister Kate, my niece Terra. It's all about family...

C- Cake or Pie?

Totally pie. You can put anything, sweet or savory in a pie, and it's fabulous. Even a moose turd, right Dad?

D- Drink of Choice?

We're talking alcohol here, right? C'mon, you know we are! Beer. Really good beer. Dark and rich, malty with a creamy head in the winter. Paler, hoppy, but still full-bodied in the summer...

E- Essential Item?

I know it sounds ingenuous, but I'm not much for essential items. Ask Bubs. Ask my kids how I react when a beautiful vase, piece of china, etc. is broken. I like to be warm, dry and well-fed, but I have low standards for all of those things.

F- Favorite Color?

Green.

G- Gummi Bears or worms?

Who can resist sour gummi worms slithering down your throat?

H- Hometown?

Chicago. I'm from an area that was called Hollywood Park when I was a kid. Now I think it's called Peterson Park for the park that used to be a tuberculosis sanitarium. I was only in grammar school, but I cried when Mayor Daley died.

I- Indulgence?

Undeserved self-pity. And chocolate, of course.

J- January or February?

February. If I make it to my birthday (February 28), the rest of the year is a piece of cake!

K- Kids?

Yes, thank god. If life were a sci-fi novel, Bubs and I would've been designated breeders. We breed easily, and produce a superior product.

L- Life is incomplete without?

Family.

M- Marriage date?

June 21, 1986. Twenty-one calendar years, and yet I haven't aged a day...

N- Number of siblings?

Oh, this can get complicated! Three much older brothers on my mothers side, one much younger sister on my fathers side. I also have a nephew and niece who are near my age, and endured much of the same childhood trauma I did. How many does that make?

O- Oranges or apples?

Apples, but fruit nirvana for me is a perfect, sweet/tart, juice-running-down-your-chin plum.

P- Phobias/fears?

Heights. Especially standing at the top of a flight of stairs. Don't ask.

Q- Favorite Quote?

"Take it easy, but take it." Woody Guthrie

R- Reasons to smile?

Family.

S- Season?

Fall. I would love ten months of October, punctuated by July and December.

T- Tag 3 people

No, it's not in my nature to tag anyone.

U- Unknown fact about me

I'm a repressed girly-girl.

V- Vegetable you hate?

I have learned there are no bad vegetables, only bad methods of preparation. What made my mother think boiled carrots and celery would be good?

W- Worst habit?

Not really listening.

X- X-rays you've had?

Chest (bike injury as a kid), left ankle (snapped the tendons jumping over a puddle), right ankle (slipped on ice down the stairs), MRI's of neck for herniated disk, obligatory mammogram when I turned 40.

Y- Your favorite foods?

Hmmm, I really like food....

Z- Zodiac?

OK, it's often accurate, but isn't that how it's written?

The Future, the way it used to be: The Bell Rocket Belt

When people think of the future the way it used to be, they almost always think of the rocket belt. Specifically, the Bell Rocket Belt. Pictured to the right is the Bell Rocket Belt Traveling Team, relaxing poolside in Williamsburg, VA. The inventor of the Rocket Belt, Wendell Moore, is the fellow leaning on the umbrella stand.

The US Army Transportation Research Command and the press got their first look at the Rocket Belt at Fort Eustis, Virginia, on June 8, 1961.

Who got to fly this masterpiece? Hal Graham. Hal Graham, who in my book is one of the 10 coolest human beings in all of history, has a fascinating website devoted to the Rocket Belt.

Here's a link to the official US Army Transportation Museum page dedicated to the Rocket Belt.
Click here to see a cool picture of another individual flying machine concept, the solar copter imagined in 1957.

Now enjoy the educational video.

What percentile are you?

Believe it or not, my life is not all joy and dope fiends and sex perverts and circus clowns and alligators. Nope. Some times I try and focus on serious topics, like the economic health of our great nation. And when I do focus long enough to read stories like this one in the Boston Globe, my head hurts.

The chart at right is from the March 28 Economic Snapshots page at the Economic Policy Institute. Here's the title:

Recent income gains went to those with highest income. Here's an excerpt:

The economy expanded in 2005, with gross domestic product and productivity both posting solid gains (3.2% and 2.1%, respectively). Yet, as shown in the chart ..., real market income (i.e., income aside from government transfers) actually fell slightly (-0.6%) for those in the bottom 90% of the income scale.

Income growth for households within the 90-95th percentile was moderate in 2005, up 2.2%. But higher income households did much better. In fact, income growth among the top half of the top 1%—a group whose average annual income is already $1.8 million—was up another 16% in 2005 alone.

So, in other words, wealth distribution in this country has come to resemble Bruce Campbell's pitch in those Old Spice ads:

If you have it, you don't need it. If you need it, you don't have it. If you have it, you need more of it. If you have more of it, you don't need less of it. You need it to get it. And you certainly need it to get more of it. But if you don't already have any of it to begin with, you can't get any of it to get started...

Look around: a million Americans went bankrupt as a result of medical problems in 2004, and half of all bankruptcies in this nation are due to medical issues. Household debt continues to rise.

The subprime lending market is falling apart, having suckered millions of people into buying houses they couldn't really afford, or borrowing against the paper value of their homes.

I got an email from my friend Bawb the Revelator under the heading "And from the 'I GOT MINE, UP YOURS' desk". That caught my eye, and I opened it to find this L.A. Times story about the latest business failure:

Subprime lender New Century files for bankruptcy, fires 3,200 people

You know, you just know, that for those 3,200 drones who are now out of work, and all those thousands of foreclosures and bankruptcies, that there were quite a few people (maybe that top 1 percent?) who made out like bandits.

It seems to me that for the last 7 years there's been a conscious effort to ransack the middle of this country to enrich a handful of cronies and greedheads at the top. Enron, the subcontracting of the war in Iraq, the bungling horrors of Katrina--if we thought about it we could probably name even more examples of that predator mindset, the one that says maximize profit and f*ck the consequences. This is what happens when you have a president who's quite open about looking out for that top 1%, and doesn't care at all about the bottom 90.

Get Splotchy

I just found out that someone in Miz Bubs' extended family has started up a blog:

I, Splotchy

He's only got two entries so far, but it's clear he plans on tackling all the important issues. One of his posts explores the connections between bee colony collapse and song titles, and the other addresses one of our favorite compound topics: the relative merits of various retail outlets in the event of zombie attack. I expect that if he puts his mind to it, he could probably replace me as the world's foremost narcozoologist.

Mr. Splotchy has one of the most phenomenal and extensive music collections I've ever seen, and he's a wealth of odd pop culture information. He's responsible for my newfound love of Tropicalia, which I've been listening to a lot of lately. While you're waiting for him to put up more material, go check out his loving tribute to Lincoln Avenue hooker motels.

Take my word on this--he bears watching.

Clown O' The Week: Spring Break Edition

This magazine has valuable "tips for travelers abroad."

I imagine the first tip is, don't leave your daughter unattended.

A B C

I've been tagged by both Katie Schwartz and Johnny Yen, and if it's rude to ignore a tag, how rude would it be to ignore two? I had no choice but to comply:

A- Available or Single?

-Available nearly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week--but only to MizBubs.

B- Best Friend?

-I've got a few good friends, but I've been unbelievably lucky to marry my best friend. Sounds hokey, doesn't it? But it's true.

C- Cake or Pie?

-PIE! Sweet potato pie, pecan pie, lemon chess pie, strawberry rhubarb pie, apple pie...I could go on about pie like Forrest Gump about shrimp.

D- Drink of Choice?

-Water, lots of it. Followed closely by strong coffee, bourbon, sweet tea and nearly anything served in a festive tiki mug.

E- Essential Item?

-A gun and a smile.

F- Favorite Color?

-Black

G- Gummi Bears or worms?

-Probably the worms, if they're the really tart/sour kind.

H- Hometown?

-Louisville, Kentucky. I miss the south, and I can't wait to move somewhere below the Mason- Dixon line in the next few years.

I- Indulgence?

-My entire life is one long indulgence. I can't even begin to list them.

J- January or February?

-January, I get to rest up from the holidays, it's a new year and I have a whole new crop of vacation days to use.

K- Kids?

-Two daughters, both fine young women. I spend my time alternating between pride at how wonderful they've grown to be, and sadness that they increasingly have very full lives away from their parents, thank you.

L- Life is incomplete without?

-Adventures and bold failures.

M- Marriage date?

-June 21, the summer solstice.

N- Number of siblings?

-Two brothers. I am the oldest.

O- Oranges or apples?

-Apples. You can bake them in a pie, and one of the best smells in the world is apples frying in butter with some bourbon and cinnamon.

P- Phobias/fears?

-Heights and falling, which is why I force myself to go on roller coasters.

Q- Favorite Quote?

”Only a country as mad as ours could be such a roaring success.”

-Norman Mailer, “Tough Guys Don't Dance”

R- Reasons to smile?

-Getting over on the Man.

S- Season?

-Summertime, and the living is easy.

T- Tag 3 people

-Miz Bubs, and anyone else with time to kill.

U- Unknown fact about me

-I am an art school dropout.

V- Vegetable you hate?

-None I can think of. Canned wax beans might come close.

W- Worst habit?

-Anger, procrastination, lack of follow-through, gluttony, sloth, profligacy.

X- X-rays you've had?

-Do MRI's and other imaging count? Dental, leg (broken fibula), hand (fractured 5^th metacarpal), knees, and abdomen.

Y- Your favorite foods?

-Biscuits and sausage gravy, gumbo, pie, barbecue (PORK, not beef!), raw oysters, any hand- rolled sushi, damn near any kind of pasta, noodle or dumpling, whether it's Italian or Asian, anything soaked in butter, fried, heavily seasoned with garlic or bacon.

Z- Zodiac?

-Read the book, haven't seen the movie. I heard it's good.

Sweet Dreams

Ignore the Christmas tree, and the snow in the background through the window. Just dig the understated cool and relax...

I apologize in advance

I was looking through my clown collection for something disturbing to kick off the weekend. This is what I came up with:

Ten Friday Randoms

Sentimental Journey—Esquivel

Love Will Tear Us Apart—Nouvelle Vague

Eat My Words—Marti Brom

La Julie Jolie—Edith Piaf

What Keeps Mankind Alive—William Burroughs

Fade Together—Franz Ferdinand

Sunglasses After Dark—Dwight Pullen

I Ain't Got Nobody—Fats Waller

Parque Industrial—Caetano Veloso

The Winner Takes it All—Abba

And you thought you had a bad day at work...

Yes indeedy, no matter how bad your day at work might be, it could probably be worse:

Man's penis caught in saw mill

TOM ZED, POLICE REPORTER

March 29, 2007 03:00pm

Article from:

A WORKER was injured this afternoon when his penis became caught in machinery at a northern suburbs saw mill.

The man, 30, was working at the Parafield Gardens Saw Mill at about 1.50pm when his crotch and penis became caught in the chain of a piece of machinery.

He was taken to the Royal Adelaide Hospital. It is believed his injuries are not life threatening but he initially suffered uncontrollable bleeding.

A company spokesman said the man's injuries were not serious.

"He got caught in the log moving mechanism on one of the saws," he said.

Freak of the week

This week's Freak of the Week goes to 24 year old Garth M. Flaherty.

Mr. Flaherty was caught with 93 pounds of women's panties and bras, and was charged with multiple counts of burglary and theft. Police were able to link Mr. Flaherty to specific items of underwear "based on the unique descriptions from a couple of women" according to the story. The police are unsure if the stolen undies will be returned when the case is disposed of; here's a quote from Commander Tennant:

"Would you really want them back?" he asked. "I would say not."

First runner-up goes to an unknown Michigan woman, identified only as "Melissa", who walked into a frat house during dinner, stripped naked and masturbated. She left before the police arrived, presumably to return home to feed her pet caimans and ferrets.

Melissa didn't win first place because, according to the article, she appeared to be under the influence of drugs. Award-winning freak behavior should be the result of dark compulsions only dimly understood by the freak, not the result of some cheap high.

And now it begins

What a difference a little congressional oversight makes. Fresh from the Bloomberg.com website:

Gonzales Aide to Take Fifth About Prosecutor Firings

By James Rowley

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- An aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will invoke her constitutional right to refuse to testify before a Senate panel investigating the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, her lawyer told the committee.

Monica Goodling, who helped coordinate the dismissals as the attorney general's White House liaison, will invoke her Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, her lawyer said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee. She will refuse to be interviewed by committee lawyers and decline an invitation to testify at a public hearing, said attorney John M. Dowd, citing the ``legally perilous'' environment of congressional probes.

The Future, the way it used to be!

This is the first installment of a new feature here at the compound:

The Future, the way it used to be!

Today we feature the Ampex home videotape recording unit, featured in a 1966 newspaper story. Ampex also had a fancy model that came as part of a massive console television. The console model came with a pert blonde who would sit and stare longingly at the screen for hours on end.

The portable home model shown above was a huge improvement over the 1956 model pictured here.

Sunday morning coffee

The big news is that we spent the better part of Saturday afternoon dealing with dog fur.

Rio is a wonderful Shepherd/Husky/Rottweiller mix; we adopted her from some of MizBubs' family who couldn't keep her any more. I love having a big dog around again (our standard poodle Dougal MacDuff died a year ago in February) and she gets along great with our two terriers.

Anyway, now that spring is here Rio is in full shed. We've never owned a big shedding dog and I'm amazed at how much the fur flies. The good news is that our house is, oddly enough, cleaner since we've had her, because we have to vacuum and dust more often. The plucky and industrious MizBubs has taken on the majority of the grooming chores and she's got a heck of a way with that metal comb. Here's the output of a half hour of grooming:


Nature and human frailty continue to vex us. Tuesday was a beautiful day in the Chicagoland area, and my day started great. MizBubs and I both had the day off, we got to laze in bed like people on the welfare, and then I ran 3 miles and exorcised a week's worth of tension. Late that afternoon a nagging little cough started, and by early Wednesday morning I was doing my best Doc Holiday impersonation, feverish and hacking. Damned illness used up the rest of my days off. (Side note: I watched Gunfight at the OK Corral on cable while recuperating, which explains the Doc Holiday reference. Kirk Douglas looked damn good as a gunslinger dying of tuberculosis, but what really struck me was the fine quality of his pomade. I've got some good hair, but I would not have looked nearly as good as Kirk Douglas if I'd had to get in a gunfight this week.)

I went back to work Friday, God knows why, and after making it through the day decided to use some comp time and take this weekend off. Now our youngest is sick, sicker than I was, and having one sick kid and a semi-sick grownup alters reality to the point that you can feel like you've really accomplished something, as a household, because you cleaned up the dog fur.

There's always an upside, though--sometimes you're even lucky enough to see it. We got to catch up on some movie watching this weekend, a rare treat for all of us to be in one place for so long. We watched Idiocracy (it had its moments, but was no Office Space), The Prestige, Stranger Than Fiction, and The Devil's Backbone. I thought Stranger Than Fiction was surprisingly good, and really sweet, which was nice. Really enjoyed The Prestige, made extra-interesting by the presence of ultra-cool Michael Caine and an odd David Bowie as Nicola Tesla. Finally, The Devil's Backbone. What a good movie. Best ghost story set during the Spanish civil war I've ever seen.

Another benefit of being relatively house-bound is having the opportunity to catch up on some organizing and household paperwork, and boy did I benefit. The thrifty, thoughtful and selfless MizBubs realized, while going through her stuff, that she's racked up some serious thank you points on her credit card, and she's never redeemed any of them. She also told me I needed some new clothes (it's so sweet how she wants me to look nice). The end result? Yours truly is the lucky recipient of a couple of Macy's gift cards. Woot! Yes, I know I said I'd never patronize that store since those New York bastards killed Marshall Field, but I figure it's poor form to refuse a gift from my bride just because I'm angry at corporate America. And I finally had time to fill out the rebate forms for our cell phones, which, at some hopefully not too distant point in the future, will put $200 in our pockets.

Ah, cell phones. I finally have my own cell phone (not the electronic leash provided me by work) and all the girls got rid of their Virgin Mobile service. It had been years since I'd done any cell phone shopping, and back then I found the process of comparing various service plans to be maddening. That's really how MizBubs and the girls ended up with the Virgin Mobile pay-as-you-go phones: none of them were big talkers, and they just needed phones for emergencies. Now we're all busier, and the girls are older, and it was time to look again.

I found this place on the interwebs. Pay attention, because if you ever want to switch services or get a new phone, this place is GREAT:

LetsTalk.com

You enter your zipcode and up pops a list of all the plans available in your area. You're able to go through and compare them side-by-side, without having to bounce around through all the individual carrier's websites. We ended up with a plan from T-Mobile (whose service has been fantastic) and 4 Motorola Razr phones. The phones were free, and after the rebates I'll make money from the deal, and they threw in two Bluetooth headsets for free. And, if it matters to you, LetsTalk.com is an American company, and their call center and customer service is all right here in the US of A.

Good news!

Strindberg and Helium is back! Strindberg and Helium has been around for several years, but most of the site had been inaccessible for the past year or so because of some arrangement with Comedy Central. Now there's no longer any Comedy Central link on the page, and you can once again view all four films.

The films chronicle the interaction between grim Swedish playwright August Strindberg (here's a quote: "When they say Christ descended into Hell, they mean that he descended to earth, this penitentiary, this madhouse and morgue of a world") and a cheerful pink balloon sidekick named Helium.


I think my favorite is Absinthe and Women.

For many are called, but few are chosen.

"For many are called, but few are chosen."
-Matthew 22:14

And some who are chosen, it seems, become clowns.

A few weeks ago I put up a clown training video, and it opened a door for me into a world I knew nothing about: the world of Christian Clowning.

The door opened while I was looking through some of the YouTube links to try and find out more about that clown training video. I found out, for instance, that there is a website called GodTube (the "t" in tube is a big cross) that has many, many inspiring videos. I found websites where you can get clown ministry skits to use for free. Skits like "Beating Hearts", described as "an unashamedly pro-life skit for 6 clowns." You can find all that, and more, on the website Clown Ministry.

There are websites devoted to Christian Clowning Resources; there are websites for individual performers like Kingdom Karactors (if clowns aren't your thing, they also make and sell puppets!)

But it's not all yucks and poignancy in the world of Christian clowning. There is controversy.

In January, the Milwaukee Catholic Herald featured a cover story about a Pallottine priest named Fr. Greg Serwa. Fr. Serwa, in addition to his regular duties, also appears and ministers as Stripes the Clown. Here's Fr. Serwa on his ministry:

"As a priest, you’re always dealing with things that are important to people’s lives. You have to be real gentle with people. The same can be said for clowning; little kids can be quite frightened of clowns.”

Well, this feature provoked a somewhat angry response in the "Off The Record" section of Catholic World News:

Putting aside the fact that many people are creeped out by clowns, it's hard to see the point of foregrounding this kind of story as part of vocation promotion. ... After all, do we want to entice into the priesthood the kind of 22-year-old male that would be attracted by Stripes?

Finally, I stumbled onto an organization called Clowning 4 Christ. Clowning for Christ hosts a series of 2-day conferences around the country. The next one will be in Cincinnatti, Ohio, in April. There's a clowning competition, and workshops on hospital clowning, marketing your clown show, and "mime juggling."

Now, I don't know, personally, if a Clowning for Christ Clown Conference would be as much fun as Jesus Camp or Hell House, but I'd like to find out.

You park like an a$$hole

My friend Dena turned me on to this site a couple weeks ago. Consider this a public service announcement, a small attempt to encourage more considerate behavior in others:

You Park Like an A$$hole

YPLAA encourages readers to send in photos of egregious parking, and they thoughtfully include a sample citation here. Print out a few of them and start your own politeness campaign.

OK, another musical interlude

When it's time to snap out of it, what better way to do it than shaking your ass to the fine musical stylings of Sir Tom Jones?

And now, a brief musical interlude

Courtesy of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds:

I believe the children are our future

Meet Andrew Riley. He's 13 years old, has a bowl haircut, likes playing basketball, and, according to Athens County, Ohio prosecutors, has committed 128 crimes, mostly felonies. Here's the response from one of his neighbors:

“When we did find out who it was, it sure didn’t surprise me any,” said Tammy Glick, who said neighbors had suspected the 13-year-old of breaking garage windows and stealing bicycles in recent years.

This link features a video that includes a brief interview with Andrew's "stepfather" James Blake. Mr. Blake expresses his bafflement, and seems to blame birth order for Andrew's problems:

"He's our oldest, you know. He's our first born and he's been through a lot."

Please remove me from your mailing list.

This was a strange weekend. I don't do a lot of hands-on work with bodies much any more, but I got involved in two death investigations this weekend. The guy in the car yesterday, and today was an 80 year old man who shot himself while his girlfriend was in the next room.

The place my victim and his girlfriend lived in was a clean little one-bedroom condo with a balcony. The place is newer construction, and had nice oatmeal carpeting throughout. The walls were still bright landlord white, but covered with artwork.

You get a vivid picture, sometimes, just standing in someone's home and looking around at their stuff. The guy today had served in 3 wars--WWII, Korea and Vietnam. They had bookshelves along one entire wall of the living room, full of interesting volumes, and you could tell he'd traveled. He had shadow boxes on the wall showcasing his military achievements, and had several antique pistols in another. I liked this guy, and I respected him.

He had Alzheimer's and was failing physically as well. We recovered 11 different prescription medications. Not only did he need a walker, but his equilibrium had gone to the point that someone needed to practically hold him by his belt to keep him upright while he used it. Everyone described him as being a very proud man, and he'd grown increasingly frustrated at his physical weakening and at his failing memory. According to his girlfriend, he was trying to find something and was looking through paperwork and books. As he looked for whatever it was he was looking for, and couldn't remember, he became more and more upset.

While we were there we noticed books removed from the bookshelves; some were placed on the floor in small stacks, and some were placed in a brown paper Trader Joe's bag. There were 15 or 20 envelopes, some open, of junk mail on the floor in front of the sofa. It looked like someone had been going through them and tossed them there.

The girlfriend told us that he suddenly walked into the bedroom, and then she heard the gunshot. She looked up and saw him on the floor, and she called 911. There was no doubt he was dead.

After we finished with the scene, and his body had been removed, I did one more walk-through of the condo. I hadn't noticed this before, but there it was, a note in a typewriter on a table between the living room and the kitchen. It wasn't a suicide note, but I thought that, given the scattered mail on the floor and girlfriend's account of my man's agitation, it was an indicator of just how angry and frustrated he was.

There was only one line typed near the top of this page. I can't replicate the exact typos and improper capitalization, but it read:

pLEASE Remove ME from YOUR mailing liST.

What I learned today...

Here's what I learned today:

If you have a body slumped over in the front seat of a car, and rigor mortis has set in, it can be pretty difficult to remove that body from the car. Specifically, it can be difficult to remove the body without banging the head against the steering wheel, causing the horn to sound repeatedly. And watching a corpse head repeatedly sounding a car horn, while the air fills with the smell of dead body poop, is, at once, tragic, embarrassing and pretty hilarious.

Return of the Random Ten

James Bond Theme—Monty Norman Orchestra

Pasties and a G String—Tom Waits

Walking on the Sun—Smashmouth

Red Hot—Billy Emerson

Flat Tire—Johnny London

Bourbon Street Jump—Raymond Hill

Blues Waltz—Ripley Cotton Choppers

Your Time Now—Fats Waller

Your Southern Can is Mine—White Stripes

Green, Green Grass of Home—Tom Jones

Welcome to Eau Claire, Wisconsin!

Welcome to Eau Claire, Wisconsin--one of the 100 Best Communities for Young People!

And, according to this story, one of the 100 best communities to set your johnson on fire with lighter fluid when you're drunk!

Oh, and yes my friends--alcohol was involved.

Best search phrase yet

Someone from Canada found us by typing "baptists bourbon snakes"

That is awesome. I'm a very proud blogger right now.

Implosions, rubble piles and progress

This is a picture of what's left of the Stardust, one day after the implosion. You can see the little slice of white trash hell on earth that is Circus Circus in the background.

See the McDonalds in the upper right corner? Part of the vacant lot next to that is the site of the former Westward Ho, home of the 99 cent, 3/4 pound MEGA DOG, the 99 cent margarita, and a 5 cent cup of coffee. In addition to being the place in Las Vegas that I've most often been mistaken for security, it was the scene of the first badly-rendered version of George Harrison's "Something" experienced by me and MizBubs. Ultimately we would experience many, many badly-rendered versions of "Something", but none was as magical as that first time at the Ho. Oh, yeah--it was sung by an Elvis impersonator who was partly out of uniform.

I got the picture of the rubble pile from Vegas Today and Tomorrow. If you click on this page you can see all the new projects either proposed or under construction. There are plans for a new Maxim casino, a Harrods-themed casino, and expansions of the Tropicana and Caesars Palace. The mind reels.

I've started going through my Las Vegas files again. I have a bidness trip planned in May, and the nerves are starting. Slowly, but surely--I'll be in full twitch by late April. There are new places I have to find out about, and sadly there are places I've had to scratch off my list because they no longer exist: the million dollar horseshoe at Binions, the Sky Lounge at the top of Polo Towers, the tragically short-lived Taboo Cove at the Venetian. I could go on, and if you get a few drinks in me I will.

I'll sign off with a little video clip, because if there's one thing we love at the compound, it's fireworks:

R.I.P. Stardust

Another piece of old Las Vegas disappeared this morning with the implosion of the fabulous Stardust Resort & Casino.

Back in the day the Stardust was BIG, baby: biggest hotel in Las Vegas, biggest pool, a huge drive in movie screen...no fancy lawns or sweeping circular drives like other casino hotels at the time--no. Just a big-ass parking lot full of cars with tail fins. In 1960 the Aku Aku Polynesian restaurant and tiki bar opened, and the space-age Stardust was graced by a big stone tiki head out front.

Siegfried and Roy started at the Dust. Wayne Newton played the showroom in the declining years but bailed and let George Carlin take over toward the end.

The Stardust was a famously mobbed-up casino, run by Frank Rosenthal and Tony "The Ant" Spilotro. While it was referred to in the movie Casino as "The Tangiers", the Stardust appeared in all its glory, as itself, in the classic "Showgirls". It also appears in "Swingers".

MizBubs and I have only one Stardust story. On our last trip, in August 2006, we stopped in one afternoon after visiting Elvisarama, and had a drink while a karaoke competition was going in the lounge. There we saw one of the coolest old men we'd ever seen doing the most hep version of Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love." This guy wore a sky blue baseball cap and some high-waisted jeans, and when he was done he sat down at a table with a couple of boozed-up young pretties. What a guy.

Two months later, in October 2006, the place was closed. And now I'm sad, even though I never stayed there or gambled a dime in the casino. I just liked knowing it was there, a bit of old-school class, surrounded by vacant lots, porn slappers and tacky souvenir shops, in what my brothers referred to as the "bitch end" of the Strip. It was a good place to catch a cab after leaving the Peppermill Fireside Lounge (which is perhaps the swankiest place in all of America.)

I've only been going to Las Vegas since 1998, and I'm amazed at how many places have been torn down and replaced in 9 short years:

The Aladdin was torn down and replaced by...The Aladdin. Which is now Planet Hollywood.

The Desert Inn (the first place I ever stayed in LV, and the best-smelling hotel lobby ever) is now the site of the Wynn.

The Boardwalk, formerly home of Purple Reign, and one of the most horrible clown facades in history, is gone.

The Westward Ho, where I was frequently mistaken for security, is about to become luxury condos for rich assholes from California.

Mandalay Bay, The Aladdin, Bellagio, Paris, The Venetian, and Wynn have all come online since my first visit. The San Remo is now Hooters. The Treasure Island, which used to have the coolest sign in the world, is now "TI", with the pirate show replaced by some buccaneering showgirl atrocity. I know I'm forgetting stuff, but you get the picture. Imagine how this all looks to someone who pulled up at the Stardust back in 1959, eager to check in to his $6 room.



You can read about the final days of the Stardust, with some really cool pictures, here. You can find a good chronology of Las Vegas implosions here at Vegas Today and Tomorrow.

So long, and thanks for all the no-bid contracts

Halliburton to move headquarters to Dubai

Where do you start with this? You can start with a nice, angry overview of Halliburton here at Halliburton Watch. You can read an editorial here, a Salon piece on Halliburton in Iraq here, and a nice little piece from that left-wing rag Business Week here. If you've got some time to kill, you can Google "Halliburton Profiteering", "Halliburton wrongdoing", or "Halliburton greed".

*Note: the facility pictured above is not the new Halliburton HQ in Dubai. It's a picture of the Khalifa Resort in Kuwait ,where Halliburton subsidiary KBR set up shop in 2002 to prepare "support" for American troops about to invade Iraq. KBR ran a hotel tab of about $1.5 million per month while they subcontracted (and overcharged) billions of dollars worth of that "support."

How long, Lord?

Cops 1, Killer Weasel 0

A killer weasel attacked a Glenville, NY woman as she took out the garbage. The woman, thinking fast, beat the weasel off with a fire extinguisher after it sank its inch-long fangs into her foot.

Two intrepid cops responded to the scene as the weasel fled, resulting in a half-mile long chase through the snow. The weasel was shot and killed when he refused to show his hands.

Today in Clown History

On March 12, 1980, Pogo the Clown, noted Democratic Party precinct captain and independent contractor, was convicted of murder.

One would think that John Gacy would have pretty much killed the use of "Pogo" as a clown name for decades after, but no. This freak has assumed the Pogo the Clown identity and is now getting his clown on in the U.K.

Can I retire yet?

Swing, baby!

News from Pennsylvania:

A woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to swinging her four-week-old son like a bat to hit her boyfriend...

This may come as a surprise to some of you--alcohol was involved.

Scaling new heights in depravity

See, here's the nice thing about Site Meter: when you're sitting around, burned out as thoroughly as a failed Greek restaurant, nothing to say, you can still come up with material by going through your Site Meter results.

So that's what I did. And Site Meter paid off.

An inquisitive Hoosier in Chester, Indiana Googled for "scab photo." I'm proud to say that Sprawling Ramshackle Compound is the first result, ahead of the entry titled "oral herpes picture information."

Even better, someone in Baltimore found us by looking for "quadruple amputee" +nude +girl +picture"

Finally, on French Google, we are a leading source for "video horrible."

Make mine FREEDOM

Yeah, yeah, a lot of things might suck: snow and ice all over the back stairs and driveway, a March that seems up to this point to be a wretched extension of a shitty February, work, my poor record keeping that resulted in not keeping track of all my expenses during the year which resulted in a much lower than expected tax refund, a stupid allergy attack at one in the morning right before going to bed that is only marginally helped by bourbon and inhalers...well, like I said, a lot of things. A lot of things.

But listen up, here's the deal. If this blog is dedicated to anything, it's dedicated to the creation of a deeper understanding of what has made America the finest place in the world to live. Honest to God, folks--sometimes my sense of duty to humanity is the only thing that keeps me going.

So watch, learn, and be grateful:

Table leg? I thought you said human head...

DHL Import Express: One Invoice, One Currency, One Company, One Liver and Part of a Human Head.

There's plenty of Chianti and fava bean jokes to be had after DHL accidentally delivered a human liver and part of a human head to a couple in Michigan who were expecting parts of a table.

Best part of the story? This:

Authorities believe 28 more bubble-wrapped human organs and body parts could be dispersed across the country, the newspaper said. Two of five packages headed to the northern Michigan lab broke open, scattering their contents.