Pondering one of life’s age-old questions

Saturday morning, early.
And its the first weekend I’ve had off in a very long while, prompting the question of whether or not to, as the saying goes—shit or go blind.
Raising yet another question.

Should I simply go blind first, or, shit first?
I know that by following the syntax of events, at least as the saying would have you believe, I should be shitting first.
But I’m not prepared for that. Not just yet anyway.
And going blind first means I’d have to Helen Keller my way to the lav when it is finally time to tweak-off a burning growler. And that could prove a tad messy.
Ewww, and double fucking ewwww.
But then again, shitting first, means that when I do finally go blind, I’d have nothing (metaphorically of course) to look forward to the remainder of the day.

I’m so fucking confused.

I thought today would be more far more fun than sitting around pondering one of life’s age-old questions.

Or is this witty saying really just a metaphor for getting shit-faced and or blind drunk.
Because, that, I can do without question, save without the pondering.

Enjoying the total redneck experience

Sometimes I like to write restaurant reviews on the popular website ‘Yelp’.
This was yesterday’s post.
D.

Kay’s Kafe
Category: Breakfast & Brunch
6/23/2012

Your major is sociology and the assignment is exploring the idiosyncrasies of America’s various counter cultures.
But you procrastinated when the professor was doling out the choices. Now there are only two left. Rednecks and Bikers.
You choose the former, but now comes the dilemma.
Where in Phoenix can you study rednecks in their natural habitat?
Well look no further. Kay’s is your first stop.

Kay’s is located in an industrial section of Phoenix surrounded by farms and nearby cattle ranches.
In a place where junkyards (complete with junkyard dogs) abound, and packs of wild dogs roam the streets.
And the people who harbor these dogs, drive combines, and milk cows, all light here…At Kay’s.
Yes, Kay’s will deliver the down-home atmosphere rednecks seem to flitter to and is just what you’re seeking, short of road-tripping to the hills of West Virginia.

Home to the dentifrice challenged, Kay’s is where men wear Wranglers, not Levi’s, Roper boots, and all fashion Carhart.
Where their musk isn’t Old Spice or Axe, but Dow Chemical’s #105 or Union Carbide’s Weevil ‘b gone.
Go inside, take a seat and eavesdrop on the next table, let’s get started with that assignment, shall we…

“N I told that little brown puke, this here’s Amerca boy, ‘n if you don’t like it you can gettttt the fuuuuckkkk out!, you lil rice-eatin, bean- fartin motherfucker.”

“‘N whad he say Earll?”

“Lil sumbitch got in his ’64 Impala ‘n made tracks, probably fer Me-hee-co.”

“Yeh do got a way with words Earll, I got to give it to yeh.”

I love going to Kay’s for breakfast, but not lunch, even though their lunch specials are to die for.
The breakfasts, especially if you get there around sun up, when you’ll get to see all the farmers, ranchers, and industry knaves in their natural habitat sipping coffee, wolfing down some kind of lumberjack special even Denny’s would be proud of, and telling crazy weird stories, are the total shit!

I typically get a bowl of cream of wheat and a couple poached eggs. It comes to nine bucks with coffee and the tip. A little pricey but not when you consider you’re smack dab in the middle of a racist sitcom, well worth every penny.

I think you’ll agree, Kay’s is truly a social case-study.
As you patiently observe—listening in on the conversations and wondering, just how it was Phoenix managed to adopt a little piece of Appalachia in its own backyard.
Oh well, in any case it did and it’s all yours to enjoy!

Note: I should probably mention the owners are nicest folks you’ll ever meet, and, there are a lot of police in here too. They must identify with rednecks I guess.

One more thing.
Since I gave you the tip on Kay’s, I expect to be included in your footnotes.
Edit Remove
Listed in: Boots, Jeans, and Stetsons

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I named him Brindle-Dog. I only feed him when he looks too weak to attack me.
He doesn’t shit much either.

When not to hit the ‘like’ button

My conspicuously long disappearances between social media visits often find me doing something I very well shouldn’t when I do finally decide to check out my FB page—namely, pour down the list of posts, randomly hitting the like button on practically all of them.
It doesn’t matter how silly the post, I like it.
Actually I don’t.
Actually, I could give a rat’s hoo-dilly that someone felt the need to tell us how hot it was working outside today—in Phoenix—in the summer. (huge DUH)
Or how someone made “the best” dinner salad e.v.e.r.
Or, and this was the best, copied an article out of Huffington about Obama’s re-election bid. Who the fuck cares.
Not me. (Personally, I think if America does re-elect Obama, it would be tantamount to Captain Smith ordering the Titanic into reverse to have another go at that iceberg).

But I hit the like button anyway on all of this inane bullshit and do you know why?
Because I’m just egotistical enough to believe my opinion actually matters to others. It doesn’t of course. But the very fact that I’ve been absent for so long, not weighing-in on life’s (according to them) more important matters, now has me frantically trying to prove to everyone how we’re still friends—validating their dumb-as-a-bag-of-hammer’s shit and ultimately, warranting their befriending me in the first place.

Yes, my hitting the like button is little more than a shameless effort to not appear as some indifferent asshole and I suppose, in short, the easiest way I know to tell someone I still care about them. And all for less effort than a tambourine player in a lame rock band.

Perverse as it may seem, this where I tend to shine.
By not only hitting like on all the posts, but by seeking out the stray post where I can get the most bang for my buck.
By singling out that one lonely post—the one where no-one out the person’s 513 friends has liked or even commented on it for a couple of days. That’s my big fat chance to pounce.
When, in the most shameless of attempts, the grandaddy of all things shameful, I maniacally hit the like button, illuminating someone’s little red notification button, putting  a ’1′ in it, saying in no uncertain terms…

“Hey, ya know what? Everyone else thought this post was too dumb to comment or like…but not me.”

The all caring, still supportive, loving, technological, fair-weather friend I truly am.

Does anyone have a kleenex?
I think I just threw up in my mouth.

Homage to summer

It’s summertime.

And I can’t help but think about kids everywhere, whom, at the urging of their older siblings (and mean spirited friends) are floundering around in backyard pools feigning blindness, shouting; MARCO!
Pausing.
Listening intently.
Waiting.

Not for the loudly reverberating POLOS coming from the other end of the pool, but listening for the shallow-breathing, non-splashing buffoon whose aversion to chlorine and swimming underwater with eyes wide open, have now brought him within inches of Marco himself.
And then comes the worst part of the game.
Where Marco without warning, his sonar functioning on high-alert, has detected your being and spastically lunges toward you with his eyes shut….viciously clobbering you in the head with a down-stroking elbow. [fucking-ouch]

This was the point in the game where I’d hastily leave the pool, beseech my friend’s mother for an iced tea or juice box booby prize and sit out the remainder of the game, watching from my perch on a deck chair. This of course as my eye begins to swell shut from Marco’s precipitous elbow attack.

I miss summer.
Or perhaps more accurately, I miss its days of youthful frolicking, even if they did carry with them trials best suited for strong, healthy bones.
I miss my childhood friends.

It’s 3 a.m. and the house is as quiet as a church mouse, and yet the sounds of summer continue to reverberate in my head.
I hope I always hear them.
The sounds of pure, unadulterated joy.

Traffic jams and other creepy stuff

Traversing three freeways on my daily commute, I spend a considerable amount of time sitting in my car not moving. This means the guy in the next lane isn’t moving either.
One minute, I’m speeding down a highway, focused and alert, careful not to let my eyes detract from the goings on of the roadway.
The next?
I’m sitting stationary with all the time in the world.
Still focused and alert, but now however able to look around, to see the other cars and their drivers, and to notice how some are feverishly preoccupied with various tasks.
I totally get this.
A moment ago, we were shrouded in a cloak of invisibility—not seeing one another as humans, but rather foes in need of vanquishing, as we routinely cut one another off in an effort to arrive at our destination a few seconds earlier than do they.

But traffic has slowed to a crawl and now we’re stopped, lifting that cloak of invisibility to reveal an actual human being behind the wheel.
Still alert, and still very much focused, I use this time to spy on other drivers…to see what they’re up to.
Some are texting.
Women are coiffing and putting on make-up.
And then there’s the nose picker.

The guy who without a care in the world, and apparently hasn’t figured out how we are now visible to one another is hastily exploring one of his nostrils.
I’m not talking about the guy or gal who takes an honest swipe at their whistling beak in an effort to rid it from some foreign presence.
I’m talking about the guy (and it’s always a guy) whose incessant mining efforts have now produced some kind of god-awful extraction, one requiring a momentary pensive gaze as he studies it for who knows what.
Size? Shape? Configuration?
Color? Is he examining it for color? Maybe its color and configuration.
Or maybe there’s a wayward nose hair in the mix. I can see where, at least visually, this could create a stir. That usually freaks me out when I see one on a kleenex. I can’t imagine my fingertip and in traffic no less. Eeewwww!
I’ve now drifted into a euphoric gaze staring at this dolt—one where I catatonically sit and stare at something bizarre—as if seeing it for the very first time.
One where time seems to slow, as the cacophony of traffic noise, car stereo, and any random thoughts now have mystically faded away, tranquilizing me into a deep visual fog.

 

 

 

 

Sorry, I’m back.
Holy shit, what’s he going to do with that thing I begin to wonder. Jesus I hope he doesn’t eat it.
I knew a girl in fourth grade who often picked her nose during math, and just when she thought no-one was looking, she inserted her mining finger into her mouth, pretending to bite her nails.
She lived with the moniker ‘Boogereater’ all through elementary school.

But this guy. I wonder about a guy like this.
Whether he’ll wipe it on his person or the seat of his car.
Or whether he’ll roll it up and flick it someplace. A lot of people I’ve watched pick their nose in traffic do this. Although I did see a woman use a kleenex once, making me wonder why she couldn’t have used it to blow her nose with, this in lieu of her full-scale pick. Weird.

But this guy is dressed to the nines, driving a late model BMW 750I, I seriously doubt he’ll be eating it, or flicking it onto his fine leather interior for that matter. I surmise he’s probably preoccupied, thinking about that big meeting he’s headed off to this morning, complete unaware of the fact that he’s knuckle-deep into his schnoz, and how any one of a number of other drivers are now monitoring his productivity efforts.

I wonder if he’ll stop off in the mens’ room to wash up first.
Or whether he’ll simply forget about his mindless activity during the commute, shaking hands with everyone pre-meeting, getting his remnant boog spoils all over them…this as they unsuspectingly gather for coffee and pastries.

A fellow blogger recently posted a bit about shaking hands with others and how detestable an act it is, for reasons such as this, I presume.
I wish I had never read it.
That’s all I can think about now every time someone sticks out their paw to shake my hand—thinking how they might have been stuck in traffic earlier, spelunking for that all elusive, once-in-a-lifetime boog—most likely the holy grail for the seasoned professional.
You know which one.
The one resembling a long wayward string of hot melted cheese right after you slowly pull the pizza slice away from your mouth.

Have a nice day.
I hope you’re not having pizza for lunch.