Tips For Happy Living: Don’t Worry About A Thing

All About Me, Culture, Home Life, Politics, Politics & Culture, Religion, Wives

” ‘Cause every little thing

Gonna be all right”

That Bob Marley was a smart guy.

Happy living is an elusive bird. We all want it, but it seems like no one wants us to have it. It’s kind of aggravating.

Lately, I’ve been kind of worked up about things. It seems like the world is just spinning out of control. Confederate flags, gay marriage, dozens of people shot over the July 4th weekend in Chicago, violence of every sort run amok, churches burning, terrorists, conspiracy theorists screaming that Obama’s invading Texas, it’s just nuts. And everywhere you look, somebody’s got the answer: Take down that flag, leave it alone, give the gays equal rights, gay marriage will destroy traditional marriage, ban guns, make everyone carry a gun, stricter laws, we need better prisons, we need worse prisons, seal the borders, do what I say, I’m the one with all the right answers. It doesn’t matter where you look, FOX, MSNBC, CNN, NPR, the Facebook, Twitter. Everyone’s got the answer, or knows someone who does. Just watch this video . . .

It’s kept me stirred up for several weeks now. I’ve started several posts presenting powerful arguments capable of crushing all opposition to my viewpoints. Being predisposed toward irascibility and somewhat pugnacious in temperament, I just can’t seem to help myself. I seem lately to just be looking for things to make me angry. I read articles that I know are biased, and often blatantly false, and then, just in case I’m not angry enough, I read the comments too. Sometimes I think there is something very, very wrong with me (and those of you who know me will probably agree). Unfortunately, rage is the one emotional I am truly comfortable with. Also unfortunately, I’m not alone in this. Everyone seems to be angry about something, or several somethings, usually at least one or two from the list above, or something that someone else said about something from the list above.

In fact, anger is a growth industry right now. There’s gold in them thar internet flame wars. Frankly, that’s one of the things that makes me angry. Vast fortunes are being made by making people angry, and I can’t seem to get a piece of the action. My last post was, I thought, at least fairly controversial. I even went so far as to actively solicit responses. I did everything but beg people to comment. Now I’ll admit that my intentions were good, and I genuinely wanted to hear what people thought, but still, I thought I’d at least get some hot interweb troll action. I mean, if there’s one thing I’m usually pretty good at (besides telling fart stories), it’s pissing people off.

I have to say that the response was pretty disappointing, overall. First of all, there really weren’t many comments at all, and those that I did get were uniformly civil, well-thought out (even the ones that disagreed with me), and even loving. Even the woman I had offended (the basis of the post), messaged me on the Facebook, a very civil, kind, and generous response. It was really kind of disappointing (admittedly in a sick and twisted way).

On the other hand, it did confirm what I had always suspected; that the vast majority of people are generally kind, generous, and decent. Even those with whom I vehemently disagree. I hate to admit it, but I think Anne Frank was right: “Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart.”

It troubles me that I see and hear so many swearing that we are in the End Times. That God has abandoned us because we have abandoned Him. The sentiment that, because of gay marriage, “persecution” of WASPS by minorities, and the fact that, okay, maybe you should think about what that Rebel flag bumper sticker on your truck really stands for, the world just can’t get any worse. It’s just not true. The world can get worse. It has been much worse. Yes, there are still a lot of things that are wrong. There are still a lot of things that need to be fixed. But my feeling is (and I know I’m no kind of religious expert) that if God didn’t abandon us because of 400 years of genocide, 300 or 400 years of slavery, 150 years (give or take) of institutionalized racism (complete with lynchings, rape, and murder), along with a number of land grabs, imperialism, and war profiteering, all committed frequently in His name, or according to His will (or rather our interpretation of it), then letting a few gays get married is probably not going to put him off of us, either.

I see and hear a lot of Christians hollering, “Please Jesus, come back soon,” and I can understand the sentiment, but if I’m honest, I’m not really in that big a rush for it. When he does come back, we’ll have eternity, but for now, I’m not through with this life yet. There are way too many books I haven’t read, too many fart stories I haven’t written. I haven’t told my wife, the lovely and all-round best woman ever, Jess, how much I love her enough times yet. I haven’t lain awake at night listening to her snore enough. I haven’t hugged my grandkids enough. There are too many places I haven’t been, too many things I haven’t seen. I haven’t written enough, or worked enough, or played enough yet. Maybe I’m wrong for feeling this way, but God gave me this life for a reason. He gave us this world with all its wonders for a reason, and I don’t think it was to just mark time until he came back.

Anyway, I know that you probably only read this blog for the fart stories (don’t worry, I’ll get back to ’em), and I didn’t mean to get all heavy with my half-assed theology. Sorry. This is all just stuff that I needed to get off my chest. The thing about being angry all the time is, it’s exhausting. It saps your energy, your will to live. I don’t know about you, but it wears me out, and really makes it hard to write the fart stories, which are, frankly, much more fun.

So last night, I was in bed (calm down ladies), reading The Ball and the Cross, by G.K. Chesterton, and I read a passage that really brought it all home to me; “The whole peace of the world was pent up painfully in his heart. The new and childlike world which he had seen so suddenly, men had not seen at all. Here they were, still at their old bewildering, pardonable, useless quarrels, with so much to be said on both sides, and so little that need be said at all.” That seems like a pretty apt description of today, with the fear-mongering 24-hour news networks blaring out their prophecies of doom, and alleged “satire” news websites promulgating panic-inducing videos, and ourselves buying into it all, and joining in by smearing our fears and petty hatreds across the Facebook, insisting that “everyone needs to see this”. Well, guess what. We don’t. Neither do you. Give it a rest. Give yourself a break. And trust me, I know I’m just as guilty of this as you are, but I’m working on it.

I think that’s why I never finished any of those argumentative posts I wrote about earlier. Deep down, I knew it was pointless, and that it would just add to the problem. It would be a better world if everyone quit arguing, and spent some time actually thinking, because, believe it or not, not everyone who has a Rebel flag bumper sticker is a racist. Liberals who point at the south and jeer them as racist rednecks should listen to Randy Newman’s “Rednecks” (a word of caution, it contains offensive language, but it’s contextually necessary, not gratuitous. Also, you have to actually LISTEN to ALL THE LYRICS in order to get the point he’s getting at.). Also, if you are a proud displayer of the Rebel flag, you probably should spend some time thinking about what that flag really means, what it is telling people about you, and whether it’s true.

Christians, not every gay person wants to ruin our marriages (admit it, we were doing that just fine without any help from them). Gays, not every Christian belongs to Westboro Baptist Church. We don’t all hate you or want you to go to hell (Sorry, I don’t have a song for this one).

The point is; well, I guess the point is that we all have a point, and we’d be better off thinking carefully about them before taking our hats off and showing them to the world. Get off the Facebook, and read an actual book. Concentrate on the things you love more than the things you hate. In the words of Ray Wylie Hubbard, “the days when I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations . . . well I have really good days.”

Be grateful: Happy living tip #1.

World’s Biggest Hypocrite Seeks Answers: A Christian Conundrum

All About Me, Culture, Politics & Culture, Religion

So, I’m sitting here feeling like the world’s biggest hypocrite (of course, I realize that that may be self-aggrandizing. There are a lot of televangelists, politicians, and pundits out there). By the way, this post is probably not going to be very funny. Sorry.

Rich Mullins (with whom I am vaguely familiar) once said, “Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in your beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken.”

So here’s my problem: I am one of the leaders of a mission group that goes to an Indian Reservation every year. Recently, I was contacted by a woman, whom I am pretty sure is a homosexual, about her and her partner going with us. Now, to be clear, I realize that whether she is or isn’t gay is NONE OF MY FREAKIN’ BUSINESS, and, to be honest, I don’t really care, because, again, it’s NONE OF MY FREAKIN’ BUSINESS.

So I talked to some of the other leaders of the group about it, and we hem-hawed around like Christians always seem to do when reality meets our genuine desire to serve God. Well, we beat that horse pretty much to death, and it devolved (as these types of discussions always seem to), into a discussion of whether being gay is a sin or not.

At any rate, I, in my own inimitable idiom, decided that the most respectful approach was the head-on, blunt, bull-in-a-china-shop approach. Earlier, I sent her a message asking her whether she was gay and expressing my concerns and why they exist. I haven’t heard back from her. I’m really hoping that I haven’t offended her, because, as I said before, it’s REALLY NONE OF MY FREAKIN’ BUSINESS, and I hope that she doesn’t take this as a rejection, because it’s not.

WHAT I THINK:

Now, just in the interest of clarity, I’m going to let you know which side of that discussion I fall on: I think sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t. I think if you (not YOU in particular, but just a general you) decide/choose to be gay, because it’s becoming more popular/accepted, or to piss off your parents, or as some sort of “lifestyle” statement, then I think it is. But, I’ve known too many gay folks who never “chose” to be gay, it’s just something they are. In fact, I’m pretty sure that all of the gay folks I’ve known (and it’s quite a few of them) were born that way. Just like I was born with brown eyes. They didn’t ask for it, or choose it. It was chosen for them, by genetics, or DNA, or whatever. Regardless of the scientific or psychological, or sociological reason, if you believe, like I do, in God the Creator, then he created them that way, just like some of us were created with blonde hair, or green eyes. The point is, it’s what God chose for them to be. I believe that God is, as the Bible tells us, a loving God. I have a hard time reconciling that with the belief that God would intentionally create some of his children to be aberrations or abominations in his sight. I believe that, thanks to free will, we all have the choice to become abominations, but I don’t believe he makes any of us that way.

Now, I realize that that doesn’t exactly line up with the common views of the Church, or even of most Christians, but that’s okay. There are lots of times when I don’t necessarily like the Church (I have a deep-seated dislike and distrust of any kind of hierarchy. Ironic, huh?), or even a lot of Christians (can YOU think of a more by-and-large, self-important and self-righteous group? I, of course, include myself among them). Besides, I cheerfully and fully admit that I could be wrong. God knows it’s happened before (at least on a daily basis, if not hourly).

THE POINT:

The point however, isn’t whether being gay is a sin or not. I’m not trying to convince anyone that I’m right (see previous italics). That is a pointless effort. The odds of me, as feeble as my faith, theological, and philosophical abilities are, of convincing anyone to change their deeply-felt and long-held beliefs are, and should be, slim. Right now, I’m just telling you what I think, and why. Mostly because I hate ambiguity. It’s okay if you don’t like me, or what I say, but I want you to be crystal-clear on why.

The point is, should practicing (and that in itself is a stupid word. I don’t know why it would take any more practice than being straight) gays be welcomed into our merry band of do-gooders, and if not, then why? We have had openly gay people come on the trip before, but they were alone, and it never became an issue (of course they were also relatives of mine, which may have had some bearing on it). I’m pretty sure we’ve also had closeted gay people on the trip, and it never became an issue. We have recovering alcoholics who still take a drink now and then come on the trip. We have people who have been divorced and remarried multiple times come on the trip. I’m pretty sure we have adulterers, and liars, and gossips, and gluttons, slothers (slothites?), and sinners of every other stripe come on this trip every year. I mean, good grief, I’m one of the leaders of this group, and I have successfully resisted the siren call of sobriety for decades. When I was single, I tried to indulge in pretty much every straight sexual sin I could, as often as I could, and the only reason I didn’t succeed was that (believe it or not) I was not exactly an Ace with the ladies. I don’t know that I’ve gotten through a single day in the last 40 years without indulging my penchant for profanity, obscenity, and vulgarity. I’m petty, I’m greedy, I’m a gossip, and a glutton, I’m proud and vain, and I know that my faith is infinitesimally smaller than a mustard seed. I know that Paul claimed to be the worst of sinners, but I’m pretty sure that I’d give him a run for his money.

So, if that’s the case, then why am I worried about a gay couple coming on the trip? Because of what others on the trip might think. We’ve had a hard time keeping this thing going, and we’re afraid that folks might not come back if there’s a gay couple in our group. And I’m not pointing fingers. I understand that many of the folks who come with us (like youth ministers, etc.) bring kids that are not their own, and that, kids being kids, they go home and tell their folks all about the trip, and that could easily have a deleterious effect on their employment and/or relationships with those parents. If nothing else, it’s a matter of pragmatism.

There’s also the point of view that would see it as an endorsement of what many Christians call “a sinful lifestyle”. Okay, fair enough. People justifiably need to be concerned about what their children see, and how it could influence their developing brains. However, I have to ask those people, what effect would it really have on their kids? Could it really be any worse than the “Kill ‘em all” movies and video games that they watch? Okay, it might make them question what they’re taught at home and in Sunday School and Church, but would not the sight of people treating each other decently, the sight of “sinners” trying to do the Lord’s work and help people also reinforce the far more important things we’re supposed to learn, like about loving each other, not judging, etc.?

Let’s face it; I’m not advocating some kind of homosexual recruiting program, I’m saying that people who want to serve the Lord should be welcomed, and that their personal relationship with God is between them and God. I don’t believe that any gay folks who might come on the trip would be aardvarking in front of the group, any more than any of the alcoholics would be getting wasted in front of them. Even I, with all of my foibles and propensities for sin, try to practice restraint when with the group (not always successfully, I might add, as anyone who has witnessed me trying to get my Gravely mower up into the truck can attest.)

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

I guess the question is only partly, “Should gay couples be included in our trip?” A bigger question might be, “What kind of Christians are we when we need to be more worried about what other Christians think, than we are about doing, and helping other sinners to do, the Lord’s work of reaching people?”

Another question is, “What kind of Christians are we that we ask others to live a lie in order to associate with us without judgement?” It doesn’t really matter if homosexuality is a sin. If it’s not, then they should be welcome in our homes, churches, and lives, to join us in fellowship and worship of the Lord, and our own efforts to grow closer to him. If it is, then they should be welcome in our homes, churches, and lives, to join us in fellowship and worship of the Lord, and our own efforts to grow closer to him.

Anyway, I hope this long-winded and rambling blather makes some sense. I really do want to know what you think. Like all of us, I want to do what’s right and pleasing to the Lord. It’s just that in this case, I’m not sure what that is.

Please feel free to use the comment section to let me know what you think. Feel free to disagree with me (you can also agree with me if you want, it’s a free country). I just think that this is something that needs to be discussed, and rarely is.

As always, thanks for reading.

Further Adventures of a House-Husband: Cooking and Laundry Edition

All About Me, Home Life, Pets, Wives

I’ve gotta say; this house-husband thing isn’t working out the way I had thought it would. I came into this expecting hours and hours of Oprah Winfrey and bonbons. Since I’m not really much of an Oprah fan, I thought I could substitute John Wayne or Clint Eastwood movies (I figured that whole Oprah thing was probably more of a guideline than a rule).

Well, I’m two weeks into this, and not only have I not had time to watch a single moment of Duke-based entertainment, I still don’t even know what a freaking bonbon is, or where to get ’em. Obviously, I’m doing something terribly wrong. I mean besides the things that I know I’m doing wrong.

Take today for example. It started out pretty good. I drove my truck into town and filled up all the gas cans for the lawn mower. Came home and filled up the mower. I even checked the oil and hydraulic fluid. I was feeling pretty darn manly, I don’t mind telling you (Did I mention that our mower is a Dixie Chopper? Advertised as the World’s Fastest Mower. How manly is that?). You could almost hear the testosterone coursing through my veins, like a bullet-train through a tunnel in Manly Mountain. For two or three glorious hours, I mowed the crap outa this place (in many places, literally. We have a lot of dogs). But like all good things, it came to an end, and I had to return to the house to fulfill my domestic responsibilities.

Now, at the risk of being called a girly-man, I’ll admit I don’t really mind doing some of the household chores. When you think about it, even the word household is really kind of manly. Household. To hold the house. It conjures up visions of defending your castle, even if your castle is a split-level 3 bedroom with 2 1/2 baths and an attached garage, and you’re only holding it against dirty dishes and dust bunnies (hey, allergies kill, ya know?). You just have to use a feudal mind-set.

Anyway, I like to crank up some Stones, or Rush, or Lucero, and rock out while I do the dishes or whatever. But today was laundry. I freaking hate laundry. But, my wife, the hard-working and diligent Jess, is out there bringing home the bacon, so fair’s fair, right? WRONG! I was taught to work by my Dad, who taught me that if you do things right, then you make things easier later, a philosophy that I have been unable to impress on the partially hyper-efficient light-of-my-life, Jess.

One of the things that I previously admired and valued in her was her ability to get naked faster than any other human being in history. Even in winter, when she, as a firm believer in dressing in layers who hates to be cold, can divest herself of approximately 12 layers of clothes in about 3 seconds. Time to go to bed? FFFTHOOP! She’s naked, in less time than it takes to type the sound effect. As I said before, I always thought of it as one of her most endearing qualities. Until I had to start doing the laundry. Now I’m faced with trying to separate all these layers into individual pieces of clothing so I can get ’em in with the correct load (and before you accuse me of being overly fussy and not nearly manly enough about the laundry, let me just say that, inconvenient as it is, I feel like I need to do my best for her. After all, she’s always done her best for me.). The point is, her method of undressing significantly increases the time and effort required to do the laundry correctly.

Of course, once the laundry is done, it’s time to fold the laundry. Now, when I was single, I never bothered folding laundry. I figured, screw it, it’s clean, that’s the important thing. Worrying about wrinkles just seemed silly and vain when there are so many really important issues in the world. However, once we were married, the lovely and sometimes terrifyingly persuasive Jess pointed out to me the error of my thinking. Honestly, I was okay with it (as I said before, it’s always best to defer to her anyway), but that was when she was doing the laundry. Now, I’m doing the folding, and I gotta say, I’m not crazy about it. Once again, her method of undressing comes into play. Not only does she get undressed incredibly quickly, she also manages to turn nearly every piece of clothing inside out, although, as an added challenge to me, she does like to leave a shirt or two right side out, and the occasional pair of pants 1/2 inside out. This usually causes multiple efforts on my part, because I just naturally turn all of her stuff inside out as it comes out of the dryer, in order to get it right side out. It is far more confusing and stressful than folding laundry should be.

Then, there’s the sheer quantity of laundry, almost all of it hers. I, myself, take the philosophy that if I didn’t do something today to get my clothes dirty, then there’s really no need to change them. Her viewpoint is different. It’s amazing the amount of clothes, even underwear, she goes through in a week. I mean, it’s like she changes them every day or something! She is an amazing woman.

Anyway, I finally get the laundry done. She gets home, and decides to go take a nap while I fix supper. Meatloaf, one of our favorite meals:

2 pounds of hamburger

2 big onions

2 eggs

1.5 tubes of Ritz crackers

Italian seasoning (how ever much seems appropriate)

1 fistfull of ketchup.

Mix it up, mold it into a loaf, stick it in the over for 1.5 hours at 350 or 400 degrees, or just remove before it starts smoking.

Since the dogs went with her to take a nap, I know there’s very little chance of her actually getting to sleep. It’s much more likely that they’ll use her as a trampoline until she takes them outside to play ball, so I figure I’ll do something, give her a little extra thrill. She has said that nothing turns her on like the sight of a man doing housework. I figure, if that turns her on, then just think how excited she’ll be if she comes out of the bedroom to find me cooking dinner . . . wait for it . . . naked! I mean, she works hard, she deserves an extra treat now and then. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t mind coming home and finding her cooking naked. Or vacuuming naked, or watching t.v. naked, or really just doing anything or even nothing at all, as long as she’s naked. Granted, it never happened, but she reads these blogs too, so . . . (hint, hint, please!, hint).

Okay now, before you get all freaked out, I’m not completely insensitive to the need for culinary sanitation, I mean after all, when you find a hair in your food, it’s nice to know that it (probably) came from the cook’s head (another reason to always be nice to restaurant staff), even if you were the cook. So, I nipped into the other room, and slipped into my culinary-themed banana hammock; the one with “kiss the cook” printed on it. And yes, it is in fine print. So what?(I tried the naked-with-an-apron thing once, but I just looked ridiculous).

Anyway, it all turned out to be pointless, since once the dogs figured out I was fixing food, they all came to investigate, and it was kind of disturbing trying to fix supper with a giant black lab licking my leg, and then I got cold because of the air conditioning, and besides, with the dogs harassing me, the hard-working and exhausted Jess actually went to sleep, so I just put my clothes back on. All in all, it was disappointing and disturbing on multiple levels.

The meatloaf was awesome though.

Being a conscientious and thoughtful house-husband is no easy thing.

The Dude, playing ball. Another reason cooking naked is not a great plan for me.
The Dude, playing ball. Another reason cooking naked is not a great plan for me.

P.S. Good luck getting that visual of me cooking in a thong out of your head. You know you pictured it. You’re welcome!

Sharia Law: It’s Everywhere! It’s Everywhere!

All About Me, Politics & Culture, Religion

Okay, I can’t believe I’m saying this. I’m afraid that Ted Cruz, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Alan West and others, whose right-wing whose grandstanding histrionics I’ve only paid attention to as a source of annoyance and/or amusement, may be right.

Lately I’ve been reading about all this Sharia Law being secretly imposed on us, and Jade Helm, Obama’s secret plan to impose martial law on Texas, using U.N. forces to crush the Lone Star State under his mighty heel, and, to be honest, I thought it was kind of ridiculous. I just really felt that all that stuff was just nonsense being spewed out to scare people and distract their attention from the real problems we have in this country. In fact, the other day, I had started work on a blog post that would have been a well-reasoned but scathing repudiation of it all as far-right fear-mongering.

After all, it all just seems so silly when you really look at it. Allen West was making a big deal about how a Wal-Mart clerk couldn’t sell him booze due to Sharia Law because he (the clerk) was Muslim , but I thought, well, isn’t that the reason for all these religious freedom laws that are getting passed? Besides, it turned out that it wasn’t Sharia Law, it was good old American law; the clerk (who’s name was not Steve, as West pointedly pointed out) was actually just not old enough to sell booze, so score one for the good guys! You can read it for yourself here (granted, you do have to kind of look for the bit about the real reason).

And Jade Helm. People in Texas, and across the country, are freaking out about that. Now I can see how someone who’s never been around the military could find the presence of all those foreign military personnel a little unsettling, but as an Air Force retiree, I have a hard time getting too worked up about it. My last squadron was the Aggressor Squadron at Nellis AFB. We (well, the pilots, not me personally. I was a lowly support troop.) were the bad guys in all of the Red Flag exercises, flying Russian-Bloc tactics so that both American pilots and those of allied nations (that means foreigners) would be prepared. During a Red Flag exercise, Nellis was crawling with foreigners, and yes, some of them even went shopping when off duty. But now people are posting pictures and “news” articles on the Facebook about Turkish pilots in Wal-Mart, and military vehicles on the roads in Texas. The Governor of Texas has called for the Texas National Guard to monitor the exercise to keep the potentially invading forces, both foreign and domestic (because there’s going to be a whole lot of American military personnel involved), from imposing martial law and putting the great state of Texas under the iron thumb of the U.N. and its minion (or evil mastermind, I can never get that part straight), Barack Obama.

Now, on the face of it, it just seems patently stupid to think that. I mean first of all, Barack Obama as an evil, conquering dictator? Come on, the guy wears mom jeans, not a Nehru jacket (the official jacket of evil geniuses from Dr. No to Dr. Evil; unless, of course, it’s just an evil doctor thing. See, he’s not even well-educated enough to pull this off.) Plus, apparently, according to the Interweb, they’re using those mysteriously-closed Wal-Marts as staging grounds (because, if there’s anything Wal-Mart is serious about, it’s the destruction of the exploitative capitalist system).

-Side note: is it just me or do you find it kind of weird how Wal-Mart has suddenly apparently become central to all these things? Something to think about. Or not.

Also, it seems that Texas would be a poor choice to try this sort of thing out. It is home to arguably the best-armed and, well, let’s just call it “excitable” population in the country, and it seems that a large portion of the rest of the country’s gun-toting population is ready and waiting to rush to the aid of Texans (it seems that a lot of people who have never served in the military, and never been closer to combat than a video game or Bruce Willis movie are really anxious to get some foreigners in their sights). One would think that, for an inaugural, partial invasion of the country, they’d want to try it out on Massachusetts or one of those other soft, already socialist-leaning eastern states. You know, kind of work up to a Texas-sized invasion.

Besides, Texas is surrounded on three sides by other states, with Mexico on the fourth. What if it doesn’t work? They’ll have nowhere to go but Mexico, and you know how Americans feel about Mexico. It’s a great place to visit, or relocate your factory to, but we wouldn’t want to live there.

Finally, there’s the fact that the U.N. wants to take over Texas. Seriously. Texas. A state so obnoxious that the rest of the country can barely bring ourselves to claim it. Why would the U.N. want it? Every other nation on earth has enough problems of their own. That would be like the Kardashians adopting Miley Cyrus. Sure it’d be fun to watch, but it’s a ridiculous premise.

Or so I thought, until today. I was taking a break from cleaning up the house, and decided to pour myself a nice, refreshing beverage. I was really looking forward to it, until I glanced at the bottle and saw this:

 

Here it is! Proof, in black-and-white that conservative pundits are not paranoid, fear-mongering gits!
Here it is! Proof, in black-and-white that conservative pundits are not paranoid, fear-mongering gits!

That’s right read it and weep, America. Our days are numbered. If they can impose Sharia law on our soft drinks, how long can it be before they conquer our snack crackers? Our sugary snacks? Our, God forbid, potato chips? This is even more insidious than the conquest of Texas. At least, with an invasion, you can fight back. But this. This shocking plan to make us all Muslims through our food makes us the enemy of ourselves! Face it, how long can we realistically be expected to resist the siren call of carbonated chemically-enhanced refreshment? The salty and/or sweet enticement of our beloved junk food? We’re doomed. DOOMED, I tells ya! And, not only is it depressing that they’ve taken over one of  our most beloved beverages, it also serves as an indictment of our education system. They didn’t even spell Sharia right!

I mean, it’s either that, or I just misread the label, and those conservative protectors of the American Way really are just a bunch of Jack-holes fomenting fear and paranoia for fun and profit. What are the odds?

Of course, on the up side, at least if we fall under the sway of Sharia law, at least we won’t have to worry about having to bake any more gay wedding cakes or having our marriage licenses invalidated by gay marriage. That’s surely one aspect of Sharia law that those guys can get behind.

Adventures of a House-Husband: Home Cooking Edition

All About Me, Home Life, Wives
The lovely and talented Jess. The strongest woman I know.
The lovely and talented Jess. The strongest woman I know.

So I was going through the Facebook the other day, and saw a post that Jim Wright, the author of the Stonekettle Station blog and very funny guy shared. Apparently some men’s rights activists are calling for a boycott of Mad Max: Fury Road. I won’t go into all the reasons why; I’ll just say that they’re pretty ridiculous. We went to see it (I’m so lucky that my wife, the lovely and discerning Jess, would rather see an action movie than a chick-flick any day), and all I can say is that yes, there are some outstanding, strong female characters, and the movie is what all action movies should want to be when they grow up. Remember how good The Road Warrior was? Mad Max: Fury Road is better. Way better.

Anyway, reading that post and seeing that movie got me to thinking about what it means to be a man in today’s society. Last week, my wife, the lovely and hard-working Jess, started a new job, and, since my plans for employment fell through, I have (inadvertently) become a house-husband. It’s not working out like I thought it would. I mean sure, I’m home all day, so I can get the chainsaw out and go cut up trees, or get my tools out and build something, or try to fix something (emphasis on the try), but it turns out there’s a whole lot of other stuff that I hadn’t really considered. Like cooking.

It may come as a surprise to some of you, but I’m not really much of a cook. I can brown hamburger, and I make a mean peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, and I’m great at picking up carry-out, but Jess is working hard all day and deserves the best I can offer. I mean, she’s got to get up at 5:00 a.m. IN THE MORNING. That’s just ridiculous. What’s even worse, is that now I’ve got to get up when the dogs start whining to be let out, usually around 9-10:00 a.m. Still in the morning.

I’m a night person. I tend to stay up late reading (something intellectual and sophisticated, of course), sometimes until well after midnight. If I have my druthers, I like to get up around the crack of noon. To get up at 9:30 or so, and have to face our pack of ravening beasties is almost more than a sensitive constitution like mine can take. But I digress.

So, once I decided that Jess deserved the best I could offer, as far as comestibles are concerned, there was really only one choice. My specialty. Possibly the greatest manly meal it is possible for a manly man to cook. Oh sure, you’ve got your barbecue experts fussing around with ingredients and formulas and whatever it’s called when you soak your meat in something overnight (okay, that just sounds wrong. Fun, but wrong), but really that’s all just fussy chemistry and slavish devotion to recipes and stuff which, when you get right down to it, how manly can it really be? All they’ve done is trade a lab coat for a “Kiss the Cook” apron, and a chemistry set for a grill and mixing bowl. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just not real manly if you think about it. A manly man doesn’t baste his meat. A manly man stabs his steak with a stick, holds it in a fire until it’s charred to his liking, and eats it with his hands. That’s how a manly man does barbecue (mind you, we don’t do much barbecuing at our house for some reason).

Manly cooking is like all the other manly pursuits. It’s rough. It’s tough. It’s dangerous and experimental and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants. It is the culinary expression of all the manly attributes of endurance, improvisation, daring, and courage. There’s only one meal I know of that combines all of those things: Slopbucket. A manly mess of gooey, spicy, cheesy deliciocity that, like Frankenstein’s Monster, shows an unnerving tendency to turn on its creator. It’s a meal that my family has enjoyed since before I was born, and was named by my brother Wayne. Of course, my mother’s recipe was not nearly as daring (or deadly) as my own version.

And so, after braving the horrors of grocery shopping, I had assembled all the necessary ingredients:

1 pound of hamburger

2 big onions

2 big green peppers

1 pound of macaroni

1 big jar of spaghetti sauce

1 pound of velveeta (the manliest cheese. Seriously. It’s the only one that I know of that’s entirely man-made, with no natural ingredients. Now that’s manly)

1 package of chili seasoning

1 jar of jalapenos

1 large jar of Tums (for dessert)

Step 1: Chop up the onions and peppers. Dump in a big skillet with the hamburger. Brown it all up.

Step 2: While browning the hamburger, go to the cabinet where your wife keeps all the spices and stuff. You know what I mean; all those little bottles of colored flakes and powders with weird names. Open them up. Smell them. If it smells good, dump some in. DO NOT MEASURE!!!!! Measuring is for cowards. Men aren’t afraid to make mistakes, and they’re willing to live with them. Be brave. Be bold. Dump it in. I personally always go with Crushed Red Pepper, Oregano, Basil, Garlic Powder (I prefer Garlic Salt, but unfortunately, that’s no longer an option. My wife, the lovely and caring Jess, seems to want me to live forever), and whatever else smells good. At this point, you can either mix the jalapenos in, or save them to add later.

Step 3. Stir it all up, and continue until it’s browned.

Step 4: Start heating water to a boil (In a separate pan of course).

Step 5: Once the burger is browned, drain the grease, then dump in the Chili seasoning and a little bit of water. Stir it all up, and heat it back up until all the water has boiled away.

Step 6: Boil the macaroni (in the other pan of course)

Step 7: Once all the water has boiled away, add the Spaghetti sauce. Stir continuously (more or less) and heat.

Step 8: Once the macaroni is ready, drain the water. Dump both macaroni and meat mixture (I’m not really sure to call it at this point) into a big pan and mix over heat.

Step 9: Slice up Velveeta.

Step 10: In a big dish (like a casserole dish or something), dump in a layer of meat and macaroni. Then add a layer of Velveeta. Then another layer of meat & mac., then Velveeta. Continue until it’s all in. Top off with one last layer of Velveeta. Stick it in the oven. Turn oven on to, I don’t know, 350, 450, whatever it takes. It really just depends on how big a hurry you’re in. Check it periodically. I recommend putting it in, playing a game of Solitaire, checking it, playing some more Solitaire, checking it, until it’s done. I usually figure it’s done once the top layer of Velveeta starts turning black.

Step 11: Dish it up, add jalapenos if you haven’t already, cover with Parmesan cheese, and brace yourself for at least 1 full day of digestive adventure, although it really depends on the size of your family. A batch this size will last us at least 3 days. Enjoy.

Now that is how a real man cooks. A real man doesn’t care that all the ladies at the grocery store are laughing at him because he’s wandering the aisles like Mad Max wandering the wasteland, trying to figure out where in hell they’d put the jalapenos. A real man doesn’t even mind giving up and asking one of those same ladies for help, because a real man has better things to do than wander around the grocery store. He wants to get in, get his stuff, and get out. A real man approaches grocery shopping with the same attitude that a bank robber has. In fact, in his mind, he’s probably got the Mission: Impossible theme playing in a loop while he shops, just to add the proper air of intensity.

Which brings me back to those idiots crying because there are strong women in Mad Max: Fury Road. Being around a strong woman doesn’t make a real man any less of a man. Strong women allow a man to be even stronger. Not even Mad Max can drive the car, and be in the back fighting bad guys at the same time. Strong men and women lift each other up, and help each other to accomplish much, much more than either could do on their own. Real men know this.

P.S. If you should decide to try out the recipe above, while you’re at the store, it would probably be a good idea to pick up some extra toilet paper, and a plunger. It’s very likely you’ll need them. Bon Appetit!

A Kentucky Courtship – IUE Tributaries 1st Prize for Fiction 2015

All About Me, Arts, Fiction, fiction

Okay, so I’m pretty excited about this. Tributaries, Indiana University East’s Journal of Creative Writing has finally come out, and my story “A Kentucky Courtship” won 1st prize for fiction. I decided to post part of it here, as kind of a teaser. If you want the whole thing, you can order it from the Tributaries website: http://www.iue.edu/tributaries/. Also, I think it might be free (although I could be wrong. It’s happened before). Even if it’s not, you’ll not only get my story, based on John and Rose Mullins, my dad’s parents, you’ll also get another story of mine about them, a non-fiction essay by me, and some really, really good writing by some people way more talented than me. There are stories and essays that’ll make you laugh, make you cry, possibly make you scratch your head and say whuuuuut? but they’ll make you think. There are also links to sample stories on the website if you don’t want to take my word for it (and who could blame you?).

Anyway, with no further ado, here’s the teaser for “A Kentucky Courtship”.

The Author, with the original John and Rose.
The Author, with the original John and Rose.

 

A Kentucky Courtship
By
Lloyd Mullins

Romance is for the birds. That was my first thought after the bullet took my hat off. Well, not quite; my first thought was, “Shit!” My reflections on the nature of romance followed, just as soon as I’d found a suitable tree to hide behind. It was romance that had brought me to this pass, and not even my romance. My brother Elvin was hunkered down behind a log, one hand over his eye while the blood poured out. “God, please don’t let him die, I don’t want no feud with anybody this handy with a gun, or this free with ammunition,” I prayed.
*****
My name is Alvin Cross, and I was fourteen years old in the fall of 1919. The trouble had all started when my older brother Elvin had taken to courting Rose LeRoy, whose father had some good bottomland right next to our farm. Rose was pretty enough, but that acreage was really what Elvin was in love with. Elvin was already a prosperous man, but if he could add that land to his own, he’d be the biggest landowner in the county. Between that, the dry-goods store in town, and the four stills he had hidden away back in the hills, and Elvin would be a man to be reckoned with. A man with that kind of money could write his own ticket. (And by the way, if you think Elvin and Alvin sounds ridiculous, how do you think our sister Alvinia felt? Our folks were good people, but kind of unimaginative in the naming department.)

Unfortunately, Rose wasn’t in a hurry to get hitched. To tell the truth, I think she scared most of the young fellers to death. I know she scared me. She worked in the fields as hard as any man, and took no guff from anybody. She was tall and strong, and she had a fierce kind of personality that made her even more intimidating. She didn’t seem too impressed with Elvin’s flashy ways, and she was death on drinking, so him running so much ‘shine wasn’t making it any easier.

“Alvin,” Elvin told me, “I ain’t never seen a woman so down on a man making a living. Men are going to drink. At least the ‘shine I cook is good, and not that busthead swill that killed her brother.”

Then the war ended, and John Andrews came home. Rose and him had had an understanding, until he’d left for France with Pershing. She’d given him up when his rare letters stopped coming altogether, especially after the news about the Marne, and Belleau Wood. Everybody just assumed he was dead, right up until he stepped off the train in Cumberland. Rose was some put out with John, but when Elvin heard through the grapevine that John was going to call on her anyway, he sent me along to spy things out and make sure she was as mad as she seemed.

“Get up close enough you can hear, but don’t let them see you,” Elvin said. “I ain’t looking to get on her bad side, but I want to know where things stand.”

So that was how I come to be hiding in the bushes along the side of Rose’s daddy’s yard when John Andrews come to call. He come walking down the road in his uniform, with a couple important-looking medals hanging off him, looking like Black Jack Pershing himself. He wasn’t big, not more than half-again bigger than me, and I was scrawny in them days, but he seemed to take up an awful lot of space for such a little feller. He come sauntering along with a bunch of flowers in his hand.

Rose was sitting on the porch with her momma and daddy, and John walked right up to the bottom step. “Evening Rose. Evening Mister and Missus LeRoy.”

“Why daddy, look who it is. If it isn’t John Andrews the heroic Kentucky fighting man. We all thought you were dead, John. Either that, or taken up with one of those fancy French gals. Why else would you stop writing, and after all we’d said before you left.”

“Rose, darlin’, I just didn’t think there was any way I was going to survive. I felt like you was waiting on a ghost, and so I gave you up. But I’m back now, back and in one piece.”

“Don’t you ‘Rose darling’ me, John Andrews,” said Rose, coming down off the porch like a scalded cat and stepping up nose-to-nose with him with her fists on her hips, “I’m not your ‘darlin’, not anymore, and it’s your own fault. I’d have waited until hell froze over for you to come back, but you couldn’t even bother to write, over there, having your big adventure. When you stopped writing, was it me you were thinking of, or was it those French maddymoselles?”
“Now you need to stop that line, before you make me mad,” John said, as he took a step back. “You know there ain’t no woman for me but you, not then, not now, and not ever. I was too busy trying not to get shot or gassed or bayonetted, to have time to think about women.”

“Well, I know one woman you should have taken time to think about!” she snapped, stepping right into him. Now everyone in those mountains knew that John Andrews was a hard man, but it was him that backed away. Like I said, Rose was an intimidating woman. “You think you’re going to waltz in here with a few medals on your chest, and I’m just going to come running, well you’ve got another think coming. You’re not the only bull in these fields, you know.” She kept right on walking into him, backing him up, right toward where I was hid out, so everything they said got clearer and clearer.

“Well now, what the hell are . . .”

“Don’t you think that kind of salty language will work on me! That sort of thing may impress those half-wit friends of yours, but it carries no water with me!”

“Now Rose, I didn’t mean . . .”

“I know what you meant, and I don’t care. I cried myself to sleep for weeks over you. Well, I’m all cried out. Now I’m just mad, so you’d better get used to it, or stop coming around!”

I looked up toward the house to see how Rose’s folks was taking this. They were drinking sweet tea and enjoying the show.
Out in the yard, Rose was still going after John like a hound after a coon, and he was starting to look as eager to get away as that coon. As he backed away, he said, “Now Rose, don’t go saying nothing you’ll be sorry for later . . .”

“The only thing I’ll be sorry about is that I’m too much of a lady to tell you what I really think.”

Well, there’s only so much abuse a man can take, and he’d had enough. He stepped forward and grabbed hold of her, and pulled her toward him to kiss her quiet, like I’ve seen them do in the pictures. The only thing he accomplished was to add velocity to the knee she fired like a mortar shell into his . . . well you get the point. John certainly did. He let out a high-pitched groan as his eyes rolled back in his head, and he changed from pulling her to him to clinging to her for support. Like I said, she took no guff from no one.

Despite myself, I let out a groan in sympathy, but they were so intent on each other that neither noticed. I didn’t reckon he’d be much competition to Elvin, at least not for a while.

John had recovered himself enough to let go of Rose, and stood gagging and retching, hands on his knees. “Good God Rose,” he gasped, “if you hate me that much, couldn’t you just shoot me?”

“I don’t hate you John,” she smiled, as she petted his back like he was her dog. “I just don’t want you thinking you can just waltz in here like Douglas Fairbanks and sweep me off my feet. If you want back in my good graces, you’ve got some work to do. You can start by walking me to church next Sunday.”

So John Andrews staggered down the road and up the mountain to his cabin, those flowers wilting in his hand, and Rose LeRoy stood there watching him go. Then she turned and stared daggers at the brush where I was hiding. She didn’t say nothing, but I tell you, that look made my blood run cold. I wanted no part in getting on the bad side of that woman. Eventually, she went off to work in the garden, humming to herself as she hoed weeds from the rows of corn.
Once the coast was clear, I slid out for a rondeevoo with Elvin. He laughed and laughed when he heard about that kick.

“Hot damn, Alvin boy!” Elvin gloated. “You know who the big bull in these fields is, don’t you? Old John Andrews better hunt himself up another heifer, or this bull’s going to give him the horn. ‘Course, from the sound of that kick, she may have done pulled his horns in for him already.”

“They say he’s a bad man to cross, Elvin.”

Elvin rolled his eyes, “Hell, boy, you heard Rose. He ain’t got nothing to offer but some army tinware, and she ain’t impressed. She knows he ain’t got a pot to piss in. I won’t have to cross him. It’s him should worry about crossing me.”
I wasn’t so sure. Elvin hadn’t seen the way she looked at John when his back was turned, walking away.

 

Okay, so you know you want more. So go the the Tributaries website and get more. You’ll be glad you did.

The Religious Freedom Shell Game

All About Me, Culture, Politics, Politics & Culture, Religion, Uncategorized

As much as I hesitate to do it, I’m going to weigh in on the current Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act controversy. I can’t help myself. I’ve wracked my brain, and can’t think of anything else to do to help me continue avoiding doing my homework. Besides, everyone else has, and it’s lonely out here. And kind of creepy, really. I feel like everybody’s looking at me, which is weird, because normally I’m pretty sure nobody cares at all what I think (which is probably the case here as well, but my inner narcissist is feeling saucy).

It’s also kind of weird because as a White, heterosexual, middle-aged, middle-class, male christian, whose only first-hand experience with religious persecution has been the waiting-for-the-punchline looks I frequently get from people when I say that I’m a Christian (you’ll note that I didn’t say I’m a good one. Honestly, I’m not sure there even is such a thing), I am undoubtedly one of the people who has the least to fear from this law. Seriously, I’m safely part of the demographic power majority in pretty much every category (and it’s pretty sweet, I can tell you). At any rate, I kind of feel like, since I’m safe, maybe I should just keep my mouth shut and ride it out (and if you’ve read this far, you’re probably thinking the same thing).

But enough about me. And I think that’s the problem. I think there is a very strong possibility that this is an intentionally planned nontroversy to keep everyone’s eyes off the shell that actually has the bean under it.

Let’s face it. Everybody thinks this bill is about them. Thanks to this law, religious bakers, florists, photographers, and other purveyors of wedding support services (because those are the only types I’ve heard held up as examples) can now feel safe from being forced to bake a gay wedding cake, make gay bouquets, take gay pictures*, or anything else that goes against their strongly held religious beliefs. They no longer have to worry about the hordes of litigious gays lining up to force them to ruin their gay wedding, although honestly, that just sounds like a way to spend a lot of money on lawyers to end up with spit cake, dead flowers, and bad pictures on your gay wedding day. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I’m just saying it doesn’t happen very often.

From the gay side of things, I can totally understand the concern. Right wing whack-a-do’s like Ted Cruz and Rick Santorum are coming out in support of the law, and that fact alone is enough to convince me that it’s a bad thing. Reading the law, it seems like businesses now have, at the very least, a legally protected way to discriminate against, and screw their employees (like they even need that in a “right to work state”). I also have no doubt that there are some few business owners out there who will use this law to discriminate against the LGBT community. I’ve never understood what religion has to do with civil rights. As I understand the constitution, we all have the same civil rights, in spite of our personal beliefs, not because of them.

I am kind of saddened though by the number of friends of mine, both gay and straight, who seem to be coming down very firmly on the “Fuck Indiana” side, because, just like the hordes of litigious gays, I’m pretty sure the number of religious business owners who can’t wait to refuse service to a gay person is largely imaginary. And, if it’s not, then that company will pretty much be signing its own death warrant, especially a small company.

I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff about how Mike Pence, the legislature, and the GOP didn’t expect this much backlash. I think that’s wrong. I think that not only did they expect it, they counted on it. I mean, for cryin’ out loud, the day after Pence signed the bill, the Indianapolis Star had a story on him signing the bill in a secret session. Some secret. Apparently, that’s one more word we need to add to the list of words that lawmakers don’t understand.**

I think this is an example of legislation at its best, from a public relations point of view. Everybody wins! The conservatives get to pander to the conservative Christians. The liberals get to pander to the LGBT community. Businesses and organizations as disparate as Apple, the NCAA,  Gen Con, and others get to look like heroes for loudly and proudly opposing the bill. People like me (see paragraph 2 above) get to choose; we can feel persecuted for our beliefs (Just like Jesus!), or we can take door number two and feel good about ourselves for being so loving and understanding of gays (Just like Jesus!). And the best part is, we get to pick in what way we’re Just like Jesus! (Seriously, it’s good to be us.)

The LGBT community gets to feel good about themselves because of the tremendous outpouring of support they’ve received from people, businesses, and organizations, and that’s got to feel extra good after being genuinely persecuted, ostracized, and frequently killed right here in the Good Ol’ U.S. of A,*** although really, that’s more of a consolation prize, kind of like receiving the home version after finishing 2nd on a game show (I never said everybody wins big).

The media get something to cry and/or scream about in their on-going 24/7 quest to completely polarize the nation for fun and profit, and the Internet comment trolls get lots of ammo for their ridiculous little flame wars. Like I said, everybody wins (sort of).

The thing of it is, I just don’t think that the bill’s intent really has anything to do with legalizing discrimination on religious grounds (although I’m pretty sure that the GOP would see that as a side benefit). I’m guessing that nobody in the legislature cares which side of the wedding cake you’re on, whether you’re the one spitting in the cake mix, or the one forcing someone to make your cake. I feel pretty confident that you don’t matter much to them at all.****

I look at it this way. We’ve already got that Bill of Rights, First Amendment, Freedom of Religion thing, right there in the Constitution, right? So what does this new law do that the first amendment doesn’t do? It specifically protects BUSINESSES from Government and Individuals. I think that the main point of this bill is to make sure that businesses, and particularly big businesses (like Hobby Lobby for example) have another legal basis for . . . well really, doing any damned thing they want, or avoiding having to do something they don’t want. Sort of a legal loophole, like a tax code loophole, only with lawyers instead of accountants. It also prevents individuals, specifically applicants, employees and former employees from being able to sue employers.

Mike Pence is already calling for an amendment to the bill to make sure it’s clear that business owners can’t discriminate in providing services, so how serious could he really have been about your cake? He doesn’t care about your cake, and neither does anybody else but you. What lawmakers care about is business, and businesses certainly care about the law. They have to. They’re the only ones who can afford it these days.

One bit of supportive evidence for this is from Gen Con.’s open letter protesting this stupid and pointless law. They, just like Mike Pence, ask for an amendment to the new law. If the new law is so offensive, why not demand it’s repeal? That would seem to be the sensible thing to do. You can’t abuse a law that doesn’t exist.

Ultimately, I think it’ll all come out in the wash. They’ll come out with some vaguely worded amendment that won’t satisfy detractors, but damp the fires enough to get the media to move on. Pence, Cruz, Bush, etc. will use it to garner support for Presidential runs, as will Clinton and Warren. Christians will still be left uneasy enough to fear persecution, gays will feel slightly mollified that people stood up for them. People won’t be forced to bake gay wedding cakes against their will, not because of government persecution, but because gays (at least most of them) aren’t stupid enough to go to a homophobic baker. There won’t be unusually large amounts of spit in the gay wedding cake, not because of an amendment prohibiting it, but because Indiana bakers (at least most of them) aren’t homophobic assholes in the first place. And businesses will walk away with a smile on their faces from being elevated one more step above the individual (gay or straight), at least legally, without any of the fuss that accompanied Citizen’s United.

The real question, for me anyway, is why, after so many years of being lied to and manipulated by government, business, and church, are we all still such easy marks?

One final note. This is all just my opinion. I have not meant to offend, belittle or demean anyone (well, except politicians, business, and what I believe to be an actually very small portion of Christian believers). If I did offend you, and you fall outside the parenthetical parameters previously stated, I apologize. Also, the very strong possibility exists that I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. I feel no particular shame about this, as I’m pretty sure that keeps me in the majority (always go with the numbers). But, just in case you care enough to prove that I’m full of crap, here’s a link to the actual law: https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2015/bills/senate/101#

There is every possibility that you will be much better at deciphering the legaleze than I am. Please feel free to let me know if I’m wrong.

 

* Warning: unlike the other examples of both purveyors and products, that last one is a real thing. Trust me, Don’t Google it.

** Where it will be in good company with words, concepts, and phrases like: integrity, decency, cooperation, ethics, honesty, and put your dick away

*** As opposed to American Christians who have to travel to some really unpleasant places overseas in order to be properly persecuted, and let’s face it, who has that kind of time? We’re all too busy thinking of ways to avoid accidentally endorsing somebody else’s lifestyle.

**** If it’s any consolation, I’m pretty sure I don’t matter to them either, and as a member of the power demographic, that really kind of hurts.

 

The Tao of Poo, or: Why I’m Not A Philosophy Major

All About Me, Home Life, Pets, Wives
The Dude at Christmas
The Dude, our youngest self-propelled poo machine on Christmas morning. It’s no wonder he’s hyper-regular, with all that fiber in his diet!

Ever have one of those days when the things you dread the most turn out to be the things that give you the greatest joy? I’m having one of those today. Don’t get me wrong, the day didn’t start out too bad, it just didn’t start out too good. My wife, the lovely and understanding Jess let me sleep in a few minutes, braving the feeding of the beasts all by herself. Anyway, I got up, and while I was getting ready for school, she asked me to go to the bank and grocery after class.

Man, I hate going to the bank. I hate going to the grocery even more than I hate going to the bank, and I hate that even more when we’re on a diet, which we currently are (more or less). But, since the industrious and selfless Jess is working 12 hour days, I told her I’d do it, and said it with a smile (fake) on my face.

Then, I take the dogs out one last time. I try to keep them out extra long, because I was going to be at school most of the day and didn’t want to come home to any accidents. Since it was 16 degrees outside, it was a little difficult forcing myself to stay outside long enough to make sure they got all their business done (if I go back inside without them, they just stand at the door like, “What the hell dad?). To kill time and give myself something to do, I decided that I’d clean up the dog poo in the yard. Since we’ve got 5 dogs, this is a never-ending task. Of course, Ralph, our chief stray, refuses to poop in the yard. In fact, he pretty much refuses to enter the yard at all. He seems to think that a fenced yard is for house dogs, not real dogs like him, and so, is beneath his dignity* (of course, he’s not above coming inside and spending the day sleeping on our bed when it’s cold or raining. He’s got a kind of selective dignity). Still, the other 4 keep us busy (and we have to keep on it because one of them really loves a good poopcicle. Disgusting but true. If you ever come to our house, you want to be real careful about which dog you let lick your face).

I get the poop scoop and rake and start to work, only to find out that it’s all frozen solid to the ground. I’d need a jackhammer to work that stuff loose, so I decide the heck with it. I get all the dogs stowed in their respective spots, and head off to school. First up, Geology. Let me just say, I hate science. I hate all things sciencey. Frankly, I find science depressing and scary. My first semester of school, I had to take Environmental Science. It seemed to pretty much be a class all about, “This is how the planet works. And this is how we’re wrecking it.” Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t some kind of left-wing, ultra-liberal panic-mongering thing, it really just seemed to be pretty much common sense. I mean really, if the chicken poo from these industrial farms is so toxic with chemicals and hormones and what-have-you that the farmers can’t use it for fertilizer, then it seems like a bad idea to put it in storage facilities along the major waterways (and, if it’s not so toxic, then why don’t they use it for fertilizer? Who in their right mind would want to keep it?)

Anyway, if Environmental Science was all about how we’re killing the planet, Geology seems to be the flip side of the coin, i.e. it’s all about the many, many ways in which the planet is trying to kill us. I suppose it’s all a matter of how you look at it really. If you take the short view, then we’re definitely winning. If you take the long view however, the planet is going to win. The depressing part is that win, lose, or draw, we all end up dead. So I find science kind of a bummer. However, I like the instructor. I’d guess he’s in his mid 70’s, and very funny. His mannerisms and way of talking kind of remind me of David Letterman, so he’s pretty entertaining. I guess it could be worse.

In the afternoon, I have Victorian Literature (and I can just hear you all groaning with jealousy). I like the subject well enough, but today I seemed to get myself branded the classes’ token sexist, just because I suggested that a book (Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell) might have been written the way it was, because it was written by a woman. You see, I think the professor is scared to death of what I’m going to say, so every time I start to say anything, she tends to cut me off. So she cut me off before I could present my very cogent, insightful, and not-derogatory-in-any-way explanation for my thoughts. Thus, all I got to say was, “It was written that way because it was written by a woman.” Naturally, the class being Victorian Literature, it is about 75% female (’cause the chicks dig that stuff. hahaha). You can imagine how my truncated remark went over. I was lucky to escape with my life.

It was after school that my day finally took an upturn. I didn’t have to wait in line at the bank, which was nice and, in my experience, unprecedented. When I got to the grocery, I walked inside, got a cart, and promptly forgot what the heck I was supposed to get. I could remember several other things that we could use, such as yoghurt for the dogs (cuts down on gas. Seriously), but not what we needed. However, as I was headed back to the dairy aisle, I walked past the cleaners and remembered what I was supposed to get. Fabric softener! Then, there was no line at the checkout, another pleasant surprise.

When I got home, things continued to improve. I managed to get inside the house without losing any of the dogs (there’s no fence at the back of the house, and our dogs are all far too stupid to be allowed to roam loose. If left free outdoors, they would have the life expectancy of a mayfly – except for Ralph of course. His disdain for the other dogs is not unwarranted). I got up the stairs without tripping over any of them, got the 3 basement dogs past Elsie (the Ripper), a 13-year-old English Springer Spaniel, who crouches at the top of the stairs like a leopard waiting to pounce on the first one through the door (she has a passionate and psychotic hatred of all things 4-legged, and affects a mere hostile indifference to all other living beings except Jess. Jess is her God.).

I got them outside, and decided to give the poo-picking-up another try. It had turned out to be a perfect day for the task. Cold enough to keep it intact and rollable, but warm enough that it wasn’t stuck to the ground like cement. The dogs were all being good, and the 2 youngest, Dude, a 7-month old Black Lab, and Mattie, a 1-year-old Beagle were running, wrestling, and wearing themselves out, which boded well for a peaceful evening.

So all-in-all, it’s been a pretty good day, and the high spots were all the things that I had spent the day, if not dreading, at least not looking forward to at all. Plus, I came up with this post which, regardless of how much or how little you enjoyed reading, I have thoroughly enjoyed writing. Writing it has also given me something to do that was so much more fun than studying for tomorrow’s Spanish test, which is really what I should be doing.

Anyway, to finish this off, let me leave you with this thought. Every day and every life has its ups and downs. It’s how you deal with the poo, even when it’s not yours (or maybe especially when it’s not yours but you still have to deal with it) that makes or breaks your day. Call it the Tao of Poo.**

Have a lovely day. Or evening. Or whatever.

 

*Actually, now that I think of it, I don’t know where he poops. He’s lived here on the compound for 8 or 9 years, and I’ve never seen him go, or seen any evidence that he does. All I can figure is either he goes way back to the woods to do his business, or he’s got a freakishly highly-evolved and efficient digestive system. Probably the former, but even that’s kind of weird, ya know?

**This is why I’m not a Philosophy major.

Things I Don’t Understand #4: Advertising

All About Me, Culture, Home Life, Politics & Culture
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Okay, so no one can escape the insidious and pervasive siren call of merchandising completely. Me and my Guinness hat on the shore of Loch Ness

I don’t get out much. Let’s just get that out there first thing. However, I do watch TV, and I leave the house to go to school every day, so, while it would not be accurate to say that I’ve got my finger on popular culture’s pulse, neither do I live under a rock. That said, I’m having more trouble every day understanding what passes for popular culture these days.

Take advertisements, for example. Have the American people gotten even more gullible than we used to be (how is that even possible?), or have the advertising wonks just abandoned any pretext of respect for us? I keep seeing advertisements for some new Nordic Stairelyptictreadmaster exercise machine thing. It starts out something like, “What’s the number one factor that prevents people from working out?”

Now I, like most of you, am sitting there watching this during my second or third hour of nightly TV watching, with a Diet Coke at my side, a party-size bag of Doritos in my lap, wishing it wasn’t so cold so I could go outside and have a cigarette, and this guy says, “Time. People just don’t have enough time.” Yeah, I think, as I shovel another handful of Doritos into my mouth, that’s why I don’t work out (well, time and allergies, since if I was to try to use any of the exercise equipment in my basement, it would raise such a cloud of dust that I’d probably sneeze myself into a heart attack long before the stress and shock of physical exertion did).

I mean, seriously, is there anybody on earth stupid enough to believe an ad like that? Anyway, this machine is going to solve the time problem for us because it’s been specially engineered to give you the same results as a regular 30 minute stair master or elliptical or treadmill workout in only 15 minutes or so. AND it’s so much more FUN!!! Okay, so I’ll probably buy one. At least then I’ll only have to feel guilty half as long when I walk past it on my way to the garage.

Even more mystifying to me is the advertising gimmicks that cigarette companies get up to. I’m so tired of opening up a pack of smokes and there’s some kind of “Marlboro Dollar” or “Camel Buck” that I’ve got to get past to get to my preciousssssss. I guess the deal is that I can save these stupid things up and trade them in for merchandise. They’ve got all kind of cool(?) stuff. Marlboro hats, shirts, lighters, posters, insulated cooler bags (I guess those are for carrying my beer around), etc., all so that I can proudly show the world that I’m using their product to kill myself. I would have thought that the bad breath, stinky hair and clothes, smoker’s cough, perpetual wheezing, and gasping for air after climbing three steps would have been enough advertising for them. Maybe they just want to make sure that everyone knows that their cigarettes are responsible for my bad breath, stinky hair and clothes, etc. Honestly, it seems kind of counterproductive to me.

It does however, lead me to the next part of advertising that I don’t understand: Why we seem compelled to turn ourselves into walking advertisements. When I was in the Air Force, myself and another guy had to travel to Canada for an exercise. He turned up at the airport wearing this jacket covered with Home Depot logos, so I figured that he must moonlight there. I also though, man, they really give their people some nice jackets. He was also a rabid NASCAR fan, and I had to listen to him go on and on about Tony Stewart. Everything I never wanted to know about Tony Stewart. His stats, his best times, his enemies, his wife’s name, his personal and professional philosophies (which seemed to consist of; drive fast, turn left, drive very fast), and so on. For three days, in cars, on planes, in restaurants, hotel rooms, and airports, I had to listen to it. By the time we got to our destination, I knew more about Tony Stewart than I did about my companion, and I’d worked with him for three years. It wasn’t until some time later that I finally realized that it was not a Home Depot jacket, it was a Tony Stewart jacket. Of course, the fact that it had Tony Stewart’s autograph and number on it probably should have clued me in sooner, but still.

Everywhere I look, people are walking around advertising everything from bands to booze to snack foods, and everything in between, often wearing multiple brand’s merchandise at the same time. And what about sports apparel? Why would anybody wear that? Does a guy built like Homer Simpson think he’s fooling anybody just because he’s wearing a Lakers jersey? Or does he just think that LeBron James (and I’m pretty sure that LeBron James doesn’t actually play for the Lakers, I just don’t care enough to look up who he does play for) needs that little bit extra publicity? Is he afraid that the $63 billion dollars that LeBron gets paid won’t be enough to keep LeBron motivated? That’s a lot of responsibility for a middle-aged, working-class guy.

Okay, so some athletic clothing is kind of cool. I myself used to wear a football jersey as a shirt. Of course, it was my jersey, that I wore for four years playing high school football for Northeastern High School (which is a whole other blog post). Granted, for the first year or so, I looked ridiculous. As a freshman, I got last dibs on the jerseys, so I, an extra-small freshman (4’11”, 98 lbs. seriously) got stuck with an extra-large jersey. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it was #69. It was so big, that when I tucked it in, it looked like #r0, and that was wearing it over the shoulder pads. Untucked, it hung to my knees. I wore that thing for years. I was proud of that jersey. I took some of the worst ass-kickings of my life in that jersey, but I always got back up and back on the line. That jersey meant something to me.

What could a fake Peyton Manning or LeBron James jersey mean to anybody? I mean, other than, “Hi there, my life is so pointless and uninteresting that I’m going around with someone else’s name on my back, hoping that will inspire someone to talk to me.” I guess I can understand it from the point of view of kids, but what kind of grown man does that?

Sometimes the stuff people wear is just disturbing. I’ve seen a lot of young women running around with “Juicy” emblazoned across their posteriors. Now, I don’t know what that’s all about, and there are a lot of adjectives that can apply to the posteriors of young women, but to me, “juicy” doesn’t make the list. When I think of juicy, I think of flying fluid, and that’s just not a visual I personally would want associated with my backside. I sometimes wonder what people are thinking.

Advertising is everywhere. There’s no escaping it. I guess to me the scariest thing is how easy it is for it to seep into your subconscious and make you think, “You know, if I could do it in 15 minutes a day, I would work out.”

Humor Is Hard: Living With A Humorist Is Harder

All About Me, Home Life, Wives

Ok, here’s a quick one:

It’s not easy trying to be funny all the time. In fact, sometimes it seems like the harder I try to be funny, the less funny I become. Comedy, I think in a lot of ways, just happens. Oh sure, you can work on it, polish it up, make it even funnier with word choice or presentation, but if that original grain of comedy isn’t there to begin with, it just ain’t gonna be funny. That’s why there are so few Holocaust jokes.

Let me give you an example: The other night, we’re getting ready to call it a night. I get up and take some dishes to the kitchen, and behind me I hear my wife, the lovely and understanding Jess say she needed to go to the bathroom before we took the dogs out one last time. Now, we’ve been dieting (sort of), and eating a lot of salads, which means there’s a lot more fiber and roughage in my diet than normal, with all the drawbacks that accompany that sort of dietary change. So I’m thinking, great, she’ll be in the bathroom, so here’s a perfect opportunity to vent a little internal pressure while she’s not around. So I did. You wouldn’t think that the human digestive system could withstand that kind of pressure, you know? Just another one of God’s engineering marvels, I guess.

So, naturally, as soon as I’d released enough natural gas to propel a small car across the continental United States, the loving and apparently potassium-deprived Jess got up and immediately started shrieking about a cramp in her foot. Unfortunately, instead of sitting back down where she was, she staggered across the house and into the kitchen, where she proceeded to brace herself against the counter right next to me while she gasped in pain. Now, I’m not totally insensitive, so I asked her if there was anything I could do for her, hoping that, while I hate to see her in pain, maybe it would be enough to distract her from the air’s newly aromatic qualities. It didn’t.

She replied, “You mean besides not farting?”, and then proceeded to alternate between crying with pain, and telling me I need to see a doctor because there’s something seriously wrong with me, and complaining, “Oh God, it’s gotten in my mouth!”

I pointed out to her that it was not my fault because: 1) She wasn’t even supposed to be in the kitchen, she was supposed to be in the bathroom, far away from my fetid glory, 2) I had vented before I knew she was coming into the kitchen, and 3) The diet and all the salads were her idea. Unfortunately, my protestations of innocence fell on deaf ears. She wasn’t having any of it.

Fortunately, once her cramp faded and she was able to escape outside to the fresh air, she soon began to see the funny side of it, and was even able (eventually) to laugh about it.

Anyway, so that’s an example of a funny story that just happened. It is, I hope, made even funnier by my own inimitable style of storytelling (of course, if I can’t make a fart story funny, I should just give up). But it’s not always that easy. This is about the fourth blog post I’ve started this week. Each one started out pretty funny, but then got less and less funny until, by the time I’d gotten to the point, I was really just kind of griping, and/or preaching, and not funny at all. Let’s face it, you’re not reading this blog looking for depth of thought, insight, or analysis (unless there’s seriously wrong with you), you’re here just looking for a good laugh.

I hope this gave you one.