"Klotz" As In "Blood"

Home, home again.
I like to be here when I can.
And when I come home cold and tired
It’s good to warm the porcelain by farting.
– Pink Floyd

I must remain somewhat vague here — lawyers, consent decrees, gag orders, maybe some common sense tossed in — but do you believe me when I tell you the most, um, stimulating aspect of our vacation was the full body cavity search in the airport security area on the way home?

It started innocently enough. I spot an acquaintance from many years ago standing across the aisle and give him an enthusiastic vu-hellew…. “Hi, Jack,” I holler, and am immediately surrounded by scowling TSA authorities, some quite large.

Upon request, I feign helpfulness and produce legitimate paperwork, but evidently they sense my innate hostility to authority and hustle me off, Guido following, rolling her eyes in resignation. “Who the bloody fuck says ‘hijack’ in the airport?” she hisses at me. “Where do you fucking hide the brains you were born with?” (Note the adverbial deployment of “fucking.” Guido’s a south Philadelphian.)

A married man, I’m accustomed to having my manhood and integrity derided by intimates as well as strangers. Of course, shivering naked in a cold room — I’m the one who lives without air conditioning, remember — enduring the incredulous stares and sneers of security agents who seem alternately nauseated and suspicious observing all 23 articles of jewelry I wear daily not counting the leather (most of which not apparent when fully dressed) — my family jewels simply disappear: they retract, I suspect, up my ass (where my brains reside along with my Oak of Amour). Security is at best bemused.

At this point I attempt to lighten it up a trifle and tell them that only contraband I have is Atlantic City salt water taffy (Fralingers), and that it’s packed in my suitcase, “not up my ass — that’s the fudge.” Bad move. Dipshit who said “hijack” just said “contraband.” It gets a little grimmer at this point.

Anyway, try as they might they can find/prove/display nothing at all to detain me further (there’s no law (yet) prohibiting wise ass conduct), so my clothing is returned — I resist the urge to walk out nude just for sensation — and we actually make our flight. An hour into it, I feel some intestinal distress, unbuckle my seat belt and make a run for the head, then end up farting out what appears to be a plastic identification tag that found its way inside during the examination. Or maybe it’s a homing device. Whatever, it’s now encrusted in blue ice.

Anyway we’re home and I’m blogging again. I missed you , too.

Guido and I are heading out of town for a few days starting Wednesday (today), so posting will be somewhere between absent and sporadic.

We had a choice: nail the doors and windows shut and set explosive devices in the driveway and lawns, or bribe somebody to stay here and keep an eye on things, feed the cats, watch for spontaneous combustion, etc. We picked (b), but nobody would babysit the crazy brain-addled dog, so we had her executed. Hey, shit happens. Shouldn’t have chewed up my slippers, bitch.

If we time this correctly, we might pass through our home town just in time to catch the Phillies lose their historic 10,000th game, most by any professional sports team in the history of the planet. I have more balls than the Phillies have World Series championships, and I was born well after 1883.

Check back, stay tuned, see you soonly.

He’s gone. Toast. Behaving like something other than a bureaucratic lickspittle is the kiss of death — when you’re a member of a bureaucracy.

As for that pesky public welfare business, well, why should we concern ourselves when people who get paid with our money don’t bother?

Actually, turns out the weather service bigwigs have our back. Right after tossing Proenza under the bus, they unveiled their new weather diagnostic device, now in beta-test, to replace their aged, disintegrating satellites.

Take heart, America. We’re in good hands. These fuckers are scientists.

Despite the passionate flip-flop performed by my learned colleague on the topic, the Bill Proenza / National Hurricane Center fiasco strikes me as just another case of entrenched bureaucrats getting their tits in a wringer when something comes along to threaten their private little domain. These are, after all, government employees — the same species of invertebrate one finds behind counters at City Halls, the Internal Revenue Service, Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the US Post Office, etc. Like cockroaches scurrying for cover when the light is switched on, they disappeared fast, only to whine their way to the top to avoid danger.

As Mike Royko said many years ago, “I may be wrong — but I doubt it!”

Over the weekend I asked my buddy Gale, who studied to become a meteriologist but was discouraged by the inexactitude of the science (“Hell — I might as well study astrology,” was her comment at the time) for her take on the subject. She thought for a moment, then said, “A moving high pressure system over the nation’s capital will generate strong winds and serious disturbances over southern Florida later this week. Seventy percent chance of storms, some with the potential to cause structural damage. If you’re Bill Proenza, a storm warning has been issued to cover your ass.”

I encountered a story in the Sunday Hurled about injuries resulting from yardwork, but damned if I can find in on-line. However, here’s the stats I wanted to cite, from another source:

According to the results, more than 663,000 people were treated in U.S. emergency rooms for lawn mower injuries between 1996 and 2004. More than 80,000 people required hospital treatment for lawn mower injuries in 2004, which means about 2 out of every 1,000 injury-related emergency room visits is because of a lawn mower injury. The rate is about half the number treated for firearms injuries annually. In addition to strikes from flying projectiles, the most common causes of injury for people over age 15 were non-specific pain after mowing and injuries occurring while servicing the mower. The most common injury requiring hospitalization was fractures of the foot.
– John Hopkins/ Bloomberg School of Public Health

See? Lawn mowers are deadlier than automatic weapons. Garden shears kill more Americans than gravity knives and zip guns combined. The crabgrass covered suburbs are more fucking deadly than the streets of the inner city.

I speak with authority here. I spend most weekends conducting all sorts of gardening activity, and I have virtually zero skills when it comes to lawn equipment. Every time I fire up that mower or weed smacker device, I place entire neighborhoods at risk, like a suicide bomber hollering “Asshole” in a crowded outdoor market.

My lawn isn’t large, but it’s overgrown like a rain forest: royal palms, carpenteria, arecas, rubber trees, bamboo, roses, deadly cacti, a gigantic thorny citrus mutant (sour oranges), and a zillion other natives and non-natives. I spend hours trimming, raking up dead shit, and pulling weeds, let alone mowing. Gets me out in the sun, moving, on my feet. I love yardwork.

My routine is to wait until 10 or 11, when the sun is high, before beginning. I wear nothing but shorts — no shoes, no hat, my only concession these days is protective eyewear (almost lost an eye to complications from Lasik 7 years ago, so I’m kind of careful) and sun screen on my nose. Over the years I have removed everything you can imagine from my feet — thorns, broken glass, wasp stingers, pygmies (everybody know that joke? If not, post comment), dog shit, buffo toad parts — I learned that no matter how young, green, and small the hanging fruit, it you run into it head first, it wins, your head loses.

It’s not like I’m irresponsible about sunstroke, bleeding to death, or skin cancer, though. E.g., I know now that when it’s 92 degrees with matching humidity, it’s vital to remain hydrated: drink liquids! That’s why I always take breaks every 40 minutes or so to pound a cold beer. Used to be Rolling Rock, but I swore off when Anheuser Mush bought them out, so now it’s Miller High Life Lite (not “Miller Lite”! Ugh!) or Grolsch, altho Grolsch is kind of heavy for half-blind middle-aged men undertaking strenuous activity involving machinery and sharp edges. Still looking for the ideal lawn-mowing-in-the-stifling-heat brew. I’ll gratefully accept take suggestions, particularly from dieticians and medical professionals.

In all the years I’ve been doing this, always barefoot, I have yet to cut off an entire toe, despite my extreme mechanical incompetence, even while struggling with a weed smacker. I have, however, dislocated bones in my back trying to start a recalcitrant lawn mower. I’ve walked into citrus thorns and bled like the proverbial stuck pig. I’ve disturbed wasps, nesting birds, mosquitoes, fire ants, no-see-ums, snakes, and hung-over neighbors, all of whom have attacked me. And once I developed a hideous rash after climbing a tree and coming into contact with some fuck-all toxic fungus or poison wandering jew or something. Consulting the doctor for treatment, the poor wretch stuffed his hands into his pockets at the sight of my suppurating pustules (a week of steroids cleared it up….and I hit 42 homers that season!).

Especially amusing: the stat on people injuring themselves “servicing the mower.” Once, I forget why, I reached under the mower to figure out why something I thought should happen wasn’t……the blade neatly clipped my index fingertip but I pulled back, thanks to lightning reflexes developed after years of nerve-damaging zaps off my bass guitar. (Usually playing barefoot. Coincidentally.) Cute blood blister, but no amputation. Alert the FBI: my fingerprints are altered. Fucking moron. Beer break!

Some inevitable day Guido and I will find ourselves forced into a condo, and that’ll be the end of my career as a Mexican lawnboy wannabe. With no bleeding, bruises, or broken tools, what will I do with all that free weekend time? Ah, well. At least there’s the cold beer.

P.S. Then there’s THIS guy.

I am truly appalled that (a) this particular athletic achievement received such scant coverage in our market, and (b) this kind of shit goes on at all…..but probably not for the reasons you imagine at first blush.

Phoenix, AZ — A California man smashed the world record for hot dog eating at a contest Saturday, gobbling up more than 59 franks in 12 minutes.

Joe Chestnut, 22, of San Jose, shattered the record held by Takeru Kobayashi of Japan by downing 59 ½ “HBDs” — hot dogs and buns — during the Southwest Regional Hot Dog Eating Championship at the Arizona Mills Mall in suburban Tempe.

“He’s unbelievable — he just keeps on going,” said Ryan Nerz, who works for Major League Eating, which he describes as “a world governing board for all stomach-centric sports.” — Fox News

Major League Eating. “Stomach-centric sports.”

Kobayashi-san has held the record for several years running, but thanks in part to some recent and painful dental work — man alive can I relate to that! — he was a taste off his game, and even committed a “reversal” — something a layman would call “barfing” — to lose points at the final scoring. Yeah, there’s rules, there’s points, and there’s protocol.

Well, over-eating ain’t pretty, not that the third of humanity that goes to bed each night hungry would appreciate. Or am I just being over-sensitive again? Anyway, I humbly (as always) propose an alternative.

Next year on July 4, let’s bump up the hot dog consumption contest by launching an event where the steaming hot, all-beef cylinders, slathered in bright yellow mustard and adorned with fragrant sauerkraut, are inserted straight into contestants’ rectums. Anybody can eat, right? How many real men (and better women) can take it in quantity and speed up the ole poopshoot? With condiments? Before crowds of howling spectators urging them on? Shove ! Shove ! Shove! DEE-fence! DEE-fence!

San Francisco is the ideal site for the Year One competition. Hershey’s Chocolate for named sponsor. How can this possibly miss?

And what’s the big deal about ingestion/insertion, anyway? Let’s see something completely different! What about a competition where athletes (“athletes!”) stuff their gullets all morning, then line up and barf on cue? They would be judged by the quantity, texture, and weight of their “reversals,” produced within a limited time.

And so as not to be as grossly wasteful, to ensure environmental responsibility unlike these disgusting eating competitions, their regurgitative product would be made available to the world’s farm animals. Preferably something delicate, like snails for the French, or geese for the fois gras crowd.

Don’t tell me the foodies wouldn’t line up for this event! Especially with Al Gore and Emeril Lagasse as Masters of Ceremonies!

Now we’re talking! There’s the edge that separates the banal from the bodacious! Beef up America! Lead the world! It’s your birthday!

I know I know: summer schedule is MWF but I put something (small) up Tuesday then took yesterday off. And today’s Thursday. So sue me. Or dock my pay.

Anyway, I saw this by William Douglas in yesterday’s Miami Hurled and found it reassuring news on the nation’s birthday, that the country still functions effectively to achieve its genuine goals, regardless of who’s in power:

Libby’s Connections

Call it “Six Degrees of Political Separation.”

President Bush’s commutation of I. Lewis ”Scooter” Libby’s prison sentence highlights some interesting connections between Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, a former fugitive from justice, an ex-president and two leading 2008 White House hopefuls.

Before entering government, Libby was a private attorney who represented billionaire commodities trader Marc Rich. Rich was indicted in 1983 by then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani on charges of tax evasion and illegal dealing with Iran during the American hostage crisis. Rich fled to Switzerland. He also occupied a spot on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for many years.

Giuliani, former mayor of New York, is now a leading Republican presidential candidate. He endorsed Bush’s decision to spare Libby jail time even though he had tried to put Libby’s client behind bars.

Rich’s fugitive days ended when President Bill Clinton pardoned him in January 2001, a move that prompted a congratulatory call from Libby to Rich. The pardon raised questions about whether large donations to the Democratic Party and the Clinton Library by Rich’s former wife, Denise, had anything to do with the pardon.

Clinton, of course, is married to Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, who is the Democratic front-runner for the White House. She blasted Bush’s decision on Libby, leaving out any mention of Libby’s connection to Rich — or Rich at all, for that matter.

”This commutation sends the clear signal that in this administration, cronyism and ideology trump competence and justice,” she said in a written statement Monday night.

So there you have it, friends. As clear a portrait of the way truth and integrity are deployed by the upper echelons of power in serving the citizenry. It’s the American Fucking Way.

A Houston teenager who survived a brutal beating labeled a hate crime and testified about it before Congress died after jumping from a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico. The teenager, David Ritcheson, 18, a Mexican-American, was beaten unconscious and sodomized with a patio umbrella pole by two men shouting “white power” at a drug-fueled party last year. He underwent more than 20 operations. Mr. Ritcheson testified about the attack during hearings on a hate-crimes bill this year. — NY Times

Inspirational stories like this make my Yanke Doodle Dandy 4th of July American red blood sing with pride and joy. Don’t you wish we could all be Texans? More details here.

If you can read this, Happy 4th.

The weekend papers had plenty to say, much of it not nice, regarding the Supreme Court’s work last week, which included trashing McCain-Feingold, overturning Brown vs Board of Education, and extending the authority of school employees outside the classroom. Wingnut Nation has finally arrived, led, ironically, by just the sort of “activist court” the wingnuts themselves decried for half a century. You remember — back when that “activist court” was liberal.

Personally, I can live with most of these decisions — I agree that McCain-Feingold has provisions that do, in fact, inhibit free expression — but I’m dazed by a court that rules that way, and simultaneously gets huffy about a high school kid’s sign (“Bong Hits 4 Jesus”). The hell’s the point of that?

And then there’s the sneering. Here’s the one from Jonah Goldberg that chapped my buns:

Don’t many of the same people who claim you have free speech rights in public schools also insist that you don’t have the right to pray in them? — Miami Hurled

I’m pretty sure Little Joe knows that virtually nobody with a pair of brain cells to rattle claims kids don’t have the right to pray in school. They can sit in their chairs and pray all goddam day if they want to, to any god they like and in any language they choose, even babble in tongues, just so long as they don’t disrupt the class. What’s not allowed is forced prayer, prayer officially sanctioned and presided over by some smirking teacher or rent-a-clergy.

Back in the middle 19th century when I was in elementary school, we were obligated to learn and recite the 23rd psalm, called “The Lord’s Prayer.” I distinctly recall not having the slightest clue what the hell it meant. The lord is my shepherd I shall not want? What? I don’t want him? Why not? Because he maketh me to lie down in green pastures? In my rowhouse neighborhood, there weren’t any fucking shepherds, and we didn’t have any green pastures. We had real short brown lawns. What are you people talking about, and why am I wasting my time babbling incoherently? Were you actually preparing me for life as a poverty-stricken brain-dead blogger?

We prayed all the time, right through high school. I prayed the girl behind me would open her legs when I “accidentally” dropped my pencil. (The view was called “tossing a hat.”) I prayed the science teacher would forget about the take-home assignment he threatened. I remember one grizzled teacher, a bat-breath alcoholic with teeth and gums like a diseased jackal, loudly announcing that “so long as teachers give tests, there’ll be prayer in schools alright!”

Kids can pray all the damn time for all I care if they think that’s to their advantage or expected of them, just don’t push it on anybody who has better things to do, like smoke on the lawn or visit the library. And let them say what they want after school. on their own time, in their own way. Don’t stifle their speech or creative juices, help them flow.

Little Joe Goldberg has it exactly wrong, as he often does. Maybe he needs a bong hit. Between the eyes.