Tongue In Check

A couple of weeks ago my cousin Jim called me.  His brother Andy had been found dead in Tempe Arizona.

It came as no surprise at all to me. It came as no surprise to anyone.

Andy was a whacked out freak nut job from day one. He had spent most of his life in jail, or rehab, or half-way houses, or hospitals, or otherwise somehow under the care of others.

I don’t think he ever knew love.  He has a daughter out there somewhere in the world, but I wouldn’t even begin to know how to find her. He had a wicked scar on his right arm from when he took a swing at me and missed and gashed his arm open on a glass vase. He nicked an artery when he did it. His brother took him to the hospital. I said “fuck him, let him die”  and wouldn’t even help. You’ve never seen such blood.

He thougt he was a poet.

synecdoche lap monster partial mountain
flagellant myopia fetid ingratitude gallatin
inquietude avail silky stuffy metallic yellow
metropolitan narcissist discount auto pest control
prime reality dish taken twice sliver retinal
certitude closure swollen mercury door corpuscles
of classical migrant fascist whirl machine
zenith intention in pugilism leaning art seems
to me injurious to are,,,,,,,,,,,

I think he was a nut.

For some reason when I heard this song on a Texas radio station the other day, it reminded me of Andy. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the voice. Maybe it was the words. Maybe it was the loneliness.

Go easy Andrew. Go easy.

Having computer/internet issues. Should be back on track soon.

In the mean time….

ECONOMIC STIMULUS

SEXUAL STIMULUS

Knowing the difference could save your life.

It was the damndest thing. I woke up this morning, let the dog out, and then

Shit.

Somehow my pissing in the wind post got deleted.

What the hell?

You know how hotels used to leave little complimentary bars of  soap and bottles of  shampoo and cream rinse in your room?

Boy, those were the days, weren’t they?

Now, in addition to soap, shampoo, and cream rinse, most places are leaving little bottles of hand cream, body lotion, mouthwash, and body wash. It’s getting complicated.

And I am getting dumber.

For example, today my hair has been acting really weird all day long. It feels like it has dust in it or something. Maybe it is mud. Anyway, it is messed up.

Wanna know why?

Well, this morning I shampooed my hair and then put hand cream in it instead of cream rinse. It felt a little different when I was using it, but it wasn’t until many hours later that I noticed that something might be wrong.

I bet I get laid with that look.

If any of you have the soundtrack to the movie Deliverance, go ahead and start the CD now.

I’ll wait.

For those of you who don’t have the CD, please take a moment to look at poor Ned Beatty just seconds before he was brutally anally raped.

Of course the purist among you will tell me that Deliverance was filmed in Georgia and not Arkansas.

Fine, you tell that to the hillbilly when he is brutally raping you in the ass and see if it makes any difference.

Now, bend over cause here comes my post.

Ha!

Driving through Arkansas, two things are very apparent.

1.) These folks love Jesus.

2.) These folks throw trash all over the goddamn highway.

Arkansas State Motto:

Jesus Saves, But We Throw It  Out The Fucking Window.

Oh, and one other observation. Remember when I said that they love Jesus here in Arkansas? There was a big ass billboard on I-30 warning drivers against committing adultery because Jesus says it is a sin.

I kid you not. You would never see that in Michigan. Christ, adultery is a sport there.

Not 5 miles more down the road was another sign advertising the World’s Largest Adult XXX Superstore.

I kid you not.

Apparently, adultery is bad in Arkansas, but whacking off is a-ok.

Perhaps now we understand the walking contradiction that is Bill Clinton?

Tomorrow Afternoon: Conroe.

In the previous post, I told you about the joys of eating and working with BOB. In this post, I want to give you a glimpse into the joys of flying with Batty Old Boss (BOB).

We were originally scheduled to fly out of Houston on Friday at 12:30. I remember looking at my itinerary and thinking “yeah right, ” because I know that when you fly with BOB you never fly when you are supposed to. It’s one of BOB’s unwritten laws. Never fly when you are supposed to and never order what is on the menu.

Before I tell you the whole story, let me  just briefly tell you a story about BOB from a few years ago. Our old company was about to be bought out by a much larger competitor and BOB left me behind to lie to the talk to the technical people while he flew off to a “high-level” meeting with the lovely young woman who ran that competitive company that wanted to buy us.  Somehow they managed to score an industry conference in Park City Utah, right at the height of ski season.  Imagine that.

Anyway, BOB and Tanya (not her real name) (Okay, I lied, it is her real name), jetted off to Utah while I got to stay behind with people who smelled funny but wanted to know all about our technology. After a few days I had told enough lies to the technical people that they were sufficiently impressed with the company and they went home with notebooks full of lies to report back to their boss.  BOB called from Utah and said that his flight was delayed, so he wouldn’t be home until the next day. This was not at all like BOB. Usually he is on the first plane out when the job is done, so something must have gone horribly wrong.

Well, let me tell you what went wrong. Tanya (not her real name) (yes it is) had spent 3 days with BOB and he drove her completely insane, so she got on an airplane and left his ass behind. I kid you not. Turns out BOB had tried to buy her a diamond ring from one of the local shops in Park City. This might not have been a big deal except that she was married and so was he.  I think this creeped Tanya (not her real name) (yes it is) the fuck out and she got away from BOB’s old ass as fast as she possibly could and left him standing at the airport.

Fortunately for BOB, they still bought our company and he made another 3 million dollars. Unfortunately for me, it meant I had to go to Ohio for a few years.

So on Thursday night last week while we were having a drink, BOB announced that he wanted to try to get on an earlier flight on Friday.

BOB: I don’t want to sit around here all day long tomorrow waiting for a plane. Let’s get on an earlier flight.

Me: Fucking Penis.

BOB: I’ll call Jim (his man-secretary).

BOB wandered off to call his man secretary while I sat at the bar wondering to myself how I had been able to drink so much Gin for so long. It really is an acquired taste and apparently, I have lost mine.  It reminded me of some lethal combination of Pine-Sol and lighter fluid.

After a few minutes I heard BOB yelling at the poor young woman at the desk again. Apparently he had tried to return to his room and his key didn’t work again. I was sitting at the hotel lobby bar completely on the other side of the hotel and I could hear him yelling. Jesus. From across the room I hear BOB saying to me, “Good news, we’re flying out of here at 8:30 in the morning.”  Spontaneous applause breaks out at the lobby desk.

I told BOB that this meant we had to leave the hotel by no later than 6 since it was going to take a while to get to the airport and we still had to return the rental car.

Me: We have to leave here at no later than 6 in the morning. I don’t want another repeat of this morning.

BOB: No problem.

Me: You said that yesterday and we were still late for my first day of work.

BOB: That wasn’t my fault.

Me: Well whose fault was it then BOB?

BOB: Fucking Penis.

The next morning I banged on BOB’s door at 6:00 AM.  To my surprise, he opened the door and was ready to go.  We checked out of the hotel without incident and headed out for the airport.He almost seemed proud of himself that he was ready to go. I think he slept in his clothes.

Now here’s the thing. We left that hotel at a few minutes after 6 in the morning. In any reasonable city anywhere in America, there is no one on the road at 6 in the morning expcept for idiots like me and BOB and a few drunk people trying to get home.  Well, apparently that is not the case in  Houston. I-45 was about as packed as it could possibly be and every single one of them drove like a fucking maniac. Perfect. I pressed down on the accelerator, leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes and away we went.

Bob screamed like a girl all the way to the airport.

By the time we got there and got the car turned in, we had plenty of time to go somewhere and get a cup of coffee, a bite of breakfast, and relax a little before we had to climb on the plane. Of course that is the way it would be if you were in a perfect world where BOB does not exist. BOB looked at his watch as we cleared security and said the words that I knew he was going to say:

BOB:  We should see if we can get on that 7:00 flight.

Me: Fuck. I knew you were going to do this.

BOB: Well there’s no sense setting here in the airport burning daylight.

So off we go hauling ass across the airport towards the gate for the 7:00 AM flight. I can’t even begin to tell you how many nice little restaurants we went past on our way to the gate. I could smell the coffee, pancakes, and bacon. God, I was so hungry.

We get to the gate and naturally, there is plenty of room on the plane. BOB insists that we sit together. I tell the lady at the gate that if the only seat left is a middle seat, I don’t even want to get on the plane.  The gate lady says no problem because this plane only has two seats per side. Oh great, a fucking midget plane.

So they rush us down the jetway and put us on the plane and then shut the door behind us. BOB starts asking the flight attendant if we get breakfast. I tell him that if that was an issue, we shouldn’t be on the plane and that airlines haven’t served breakfast in the cheap seats since sometime in the 90’s. BOB gets confused easliy these days. The good news is there was hardly anyone else on the plane. The bad news was, according to Northwest Airlines, I was supposed to sit next to BOB.

Oh, and in case I forget to mention it at some point in this post, Fuck Northwest Airlines.

I helped BOB  put his stuff in the overhead bin so he wouldn’t kill anyone while trying to lift his bag. I helped him into his seat and then I told him I would be right back.  I went about 4 rows back and one over and scored a nice window seat just ahead of the over the wing exits.  As the plane was taxiing towards the runway, I see BOB’s head pop up over the seat and hear him say “Mike, where are you?” I waved my hand just as the flight attendant  shoved him back down in his seat. I could still see his blue hair bobbing up and down as he looked around for someone to aggravate.

Had it been anyone else but BOB, I might have felt bad about it.But it was, and I didn’t.