Half Past Awesome

Mississippi John Hurt: bluesman, fellow hater of humidity (I think)

“I believe I’ll get drunk, tear this barrel house down.”
—’Drunken Barrel House Blues’, Memphis Minnie.

Time to bitch about the summer. The mercury’s on the rise, and so’s my short temper with it. And the humidity. For the love of Satan’s breath, it’s humid already. That’s the problem with movies depicting scenes in the South, scenes in the desert, scenes in the Midwest: they never can replicate the scorching, syrupy mess that drips off your neck, running in rivulets down your leg hair, making your head hang with the weight of the whole hot and sticky affair.

People who say they just love this time of year should be shot. That includes several of my friends, so when the shooting goes down, I’ll make it an ankle shot, not a kill shot. These are the same people who generally work indoors for a living and consider the stroll from the air-conditioned comforts of the house to the air-conditioned comforts of the car “getting outside”. My own folks like to comment on how wonderful and green the area looks, especially considering that Coastal California is now turning a lovely shade of dead yellow and dead brown combined with just a hint of scrub-brush drab green. Green in pictures IS lovely, I suppose, but do you know what that takes? It takes steam and relentless sun, both of which are plentiful in the Ozarks. Which apparently is nothing, as compared to the South.

I once visited some friends in Mississippi in summer and came back with a whole new appreciation for the state of weather in Missouri. That region of the country is king when it comes to making sweat sauce soup. For the life of me I can’t figure out how one would work on a road crew down there without spending one’s evening’s with a revolver in your mouth, contemplating sweet release from asphalt and back sweat. But I also came back with a new appreciation of an art form that never held my interest: the blues.

The blues are a product of life in the South. The music has that lulling cadence, a result of expending all available effort to the  task of chewing the air before breathing it. It speaks of misery, heartbreak and unrequited passion that ends in gunplay. In short, the blues is complaint set to music, and I love it. It is driven by the sultry steam that is a constant companion of that part of the country. You can’t have the blues in New Mexico – I mean, sure, you’ve got the heat, the loneliness, desolation, all that but you’re missing two ingredients: sticky air and fried foods. Up North? Prairies and bitter cold seem like they’d make good fodder for the blues but they are a people far too practical to complain in that time signature (Chicago, of course being the major exception. Chicago is an entity in and of itself, but I know nothing about it, so I’m going to stop talking about it. Just pretend I know that of which I speak). And California? Forget it. When I go home and witness the beauty of the ocean, the irate drivers and self-absorbed fabulosity, it’s hard to picture taking them seriously with regards to cranking out blues tunes. They have no humidity, no fuel for the slow-pace of a music that moans and wails and not in a good way.

So now, as soon as it kicks past 80 degrees and I get all clammy and sticky from just sitting there, I know just the thing to commiserate with me. I want to bitch and moan, and the blues is, if nothing else, bitching and moaning to a soulful beat. So I’ll kick it onto B.B. King’s Bluesville on Sirius/XM radio and wipe the sweat from my brow as I contemplate another day of building random shit out there in the heat. Then, I’ll say “screw it”,  jump on the motorcycle, meet up with El Jefe and find a joint that’s selling some ribs and sweet tea. Because if I keep on complaining to the Wife about this weather, I’m the one that’s gonna be shot.

And that sounds like a song in the making.

Two Of My Facebook Friends From Russia. We Don't Talk Much Anymore

Facebook Security & Skankiness | Take It and Blog Friday

Been a while since I’ve posted, so I thought I’d tackle this issue as posed by the Springfield Bloggers Association:

“So there’s been some discussion on Twitter this week about Facebook and its security issues. Some of us have even touted that Facebook is more skanky than MySpace. Many of us, for one reason or another, are considering shutting down our Facebook accounts, but none of us have bit the bullet quite yet…. tell us what side of the fence you’re sitting on. Why are (or why aren’t) you concerned about Facebook’s security? Or are you contemplating a leap from Facebook for other reasons? What are the pros for leaving? The cons? It’s a personal decision for each of us, but it’s definitely good to hear from a variety of perspectives.”

I never had a MySpace account, because I felt it was the realm of teen girls and bands trying to make it onto MTV, neither of which fit my demographic. When Facebook came out and it was revealed to be developed for teen girls and “causes” such as hurling insults at people perceived to be not patriotic enough, I figured why not? I was born and raised out in California, so it was reasonably awesome to catch up with all the people I’d written off this Earth from the early days, and for that Facebook is an effective tool, if not a horrendous time sink.

Privacy? I have two small kids, I gave up on privacy when they started walking in on me in the bathroom with a surprising regularity. I’ve supposedly locked up all the pics on Facebook, but really, how paranoid is that? Most of my behavior, while smart-ass in nature, isn’t really that scandalous. Nobody in their right mind is ever going to do Jell-O shots off of my body, so I don’t need to worry about it. And if my behavior truly WAS scandalous? There’d be no cameras involved. It’s sort of like my stance on identity theft – if anyone stole my identity, all they would inherit is a bunch of debt and a name they couldn’t pronounce.

The topic is relevant, though, since I’ve had my finger on the trigger for a while now, contemplating popping a cap in Facebook’s ass. Why? Besides aforementioned time-sink, it just seems to have run its course for me. I enjoy the voyeuristic capability of catching up with people by simply lurking onto their pages (c’mon, EVERYone does this. Yes you do, don’t start lying to me now) and I like seeing if my high school classmates have aged as horridly as I have, but it’s mostly just not that interesting anymore. I’m always on the lookout for witty and sharp updates, and like a junkie, I’ve learned to filter out all the people who announce tragic/cryptic life events on FB,  and focus on the funny people. And truth be told, even though I have 536 friends on there, I might have a hard time conjuring up a conversation with a good portion of these people in real life, should we find ourselves in a broken elevator with some time to kill. I’ve been known, in a booze-fueled stupor, to begin deleting friends that I just don’t communicate with, only to sober up sometime later with my finger on the delete key thinking “now why in the hell did I do that?” There’s rarely a soul confident enough to truly “clean house” and limit it to family and a dozen friends, because few have the stones to be THAT GUY, the one who unfriended 98.4% people for no apparent reason. It’s almost like a trap. You either gotta go all out and quit (like my brother Barbara did, only to come on again and curse the entire FB universe, dropping f-bombs like he was at war with the internet) or just accept that it’s a continually updating Rolodex of people who are in your life, real or perceived.

And lastly, I like Facebook as a means for getting this blog out there. The page (here) allows people with whom I’m not friends, or even know, to catch up with the posts on Half Past Awesome and a way for us to interact with each other. I’m on Twitter too, which I like in terms of finding the funny in people who make me laugh in 140 characters, but which often turns into a forum for groups of people watching the same television show (allowing for play by play, which I guess is either funny or annoying, depending on the person). That or they are forever announcing their arrival at PetSmart or The Dancing Mule Coffee Shop or being crowned mayor of Kinkos (I’m not so crazy as to wonder where exactly people are right this very second. I want to know generalities, people, not your bowel movement trending tendencies.)

I’m sure the relentless drain on my time will continue for a while, and I don’t really hate Facebook for causing such bouts of procrastination; I save that kind of loathing for myself, and there’s no shortage there….it makes for good material.

No Beer On Sunday Morning, But This? Totally Okay ANY Time Of Day

“If you want to see some sin, forget about Paris. Go to Kansas City.”
-Editor of the Omaha World-Herald, during the Prohibition Era

According to Wikipedia (the limit of my researching capabilities), Missouri has some of the most permissive alcohol laws in the United States, ranking right up there with Louisiana and Nevada. As well, our stoic neighbors to the west, Kansas and Oklahoma, are apparently far more rigid in their regulations regarding intoxicating drink. Goody gum drops for them. Missouri is allegedly known for its laissez-faire approach to alcohol throughout the Midwest, highlighted by the fact that it allows residents over 21 to make up to 100 gallons of any alcohol for personal use each year, without any further state limitation, state license, or state taxation. You’d think this would be my kinda place, and for the most part it is, with one glaring exception:

I CANNOT BUY BEER/WINE/SPIRITS BEFORE 9:AM ON A SUNDAY. AND IT SUCKS.

There may be a few out there thinking I’ve slammed into a new low, imbibing first thing in the morning, on a Sunday morning. And I’m not fundamentally opposed to the idea, but it rarely works out that way for me. Here’s the actuality of the situation: I’m a shift worker, and our 24-hour shift ends at 7am, after which on Sunday mornings, I like to hit the store, buy a paper, some coffee and various stuff to cook for the family that day. Two items which make some Sundays almost holy for me are bacon and Guinness. I make the bacon in the morning and enjoy the beer later on, as we’re smoking meats for dinner or working in the shop or sitting on our collective asses. No matter.

I’ve asked clerks if they think I’m planning on getting wasted in the parking lot before 9. I’ve indicated that I appreciate their concern for my moral well-being. I’ve begged them to tell me the difference between a man who would buy alcohol at 8:59 am (filthy sinner) and one who would purchase at 9:01 am (sounds like a nice guy!). All employees look at me with the same vapid stare, and say “state law, sir, I’m sorry.” And rarely do they want to debate the merits of the law. Younger clerks sometimes sheepishly apologize, as if to say “yeah, it’s stupid, but it’s the law, man.” Older employees often visibly cluck to themselves, mentally stowing away the incident for their next nighttime study group (“and oh my word, Irene, I can’t tell you! Some poor heathenistic soul actually came in today and tried to buy b-e-e-r before 9am! On the Lords’ Day! Tsk, tsk….what IS this world coming to?)

It’s not the clerks fault. And I’ve made plenty of emergency medical runs on people wasted at 7am, so I can understand, societally, that it’s inconvenient to deal with the intoxicated before your morning coffee sets in. I’ve been tanked before 9am on several occasions in my 20′s and the allure of it is now lost on my in my 30′s. Yes, I’m on board with the pragmatic problems that come with drinking before the Today Show is over. What irks me to no end is that some law-makers feel the need to regulate what time on which day of the week you can purchase a delicious six pack of Guinness. How did they pass that crap through legislative session?

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I have before you an amendment to the law with regards to liquor sales. My church has demanded that we restrict sales of beer until 9am on Sunday mornings. This is because we most certainly don’t want our parishioners to miss services with their faces down in the gutter. After church? No big deal, they can go about buying their devil-juice all they want, but I’m most adamant about this. NO buying liquor before church. THAT IS THE LAW.”

And thus it was so.

Missouri is known as the “Show Me State”. I wish to hell they would show me how this makes any sense at all.

Okay, it’s after 9 now, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got go BACK to the grocery store and commit some barley sin. It’s thirsty business, working up such outrage.

I'd Totally Whip This Dude

Like most people I know, I lack discipline. And patience. And skills.

None of these attributes help when you find yourself in that situation where you really, really wish you could drop a bomb of utter bad-assedness in a completely surprising way. Here’s an example: you’re leaving a restaurant with a bunch of friends, having just enjoyed a fine meal, great conversation, what have you. As you cross the parking lot, some filthy sleazebag walks up with a knife/gun/machete in his hands, a wild look in his eyes and immediately demands that you hand over all your wallets. Unbeknownst to your friends, you’ve been quietly practicing various forms of martial-arts in your limited free time, and with little more than a sigh and rolling of your eyes, you completely incapacitate the bastard in three moves; you then act like it was no more than pushing a crosswalk signal button. Your friends stare in complete disbelief as the would-be mugger moans with multiple fractures and a crushed spleen, and there you are, nonchalant as a cup of black coffee, and you calmly state “….and you were saying?”

Who DOESN’T want that capability?

But, as stated earlier, I’m too fundamentally lazy to master a martial art in my spare time. I would be utterly incapable of keeping my mouth shut if I had reached master-level status of any sort of kick-ass skills. I’d threaten anyone who looked at me wrong, be they little old ladies walking with a stoop or my own children. These threats would be my undoing because, really, who goes around threatening their children with throat chops and shin kicks? People who get reported to the authorities, that’s who.

Nonetheless, I’d like to be able to quote the Bible in Hebrew, Aramaic & Greek, so that when arguing with someone about the sin of Harry Potter or those crazy people who find love with someone of the same sex, I could trounce their ass with informed debate. I wish I knew enough about Middle Eastern cultures that it made sense to me when shiites and sunnis go at it like maniacs. I’d like to be able to open a conversation with “so I was machining the new flywheel on my lathe when…..”. When hostage negotiations begin, I’d like to receive a call from The Mayor as the last, best hope. When the St. Louis Blues Hockey Club makes a pitch for me to play starting defense next season, I’d like to be able to politely decline, citing the rigors of life on the road and my responsibilities as a parent. I’d like my opinions to be the source of debate on talk radio, with hosts crying and screaming at the thought of logical, rational thought taking over partisan bullshit. I’d like to go to some random holiday party, find an unused piano lolling about in the living room and strike up a rendition of Piano Man that gets the party-goers into some sort of karaoke-frenzy.

All of the aforementioned attributes would have to be the result of years of study and an exercise in mastery of skill sets. I have no such capabilities nor time to devote to mastery beyond the characters in Transformers, if only so that I can keep up with the conversations of The Heathens. One must know his Transformers, and so I do. That, and random pop culture trivia minutiae that allows me to compete from the firehouse on such shows as “Celebrity Jeopardy” (“this day comes after Thursday and before Saturday”) and Cash Cab (“in what city is The Statue of Liberty?”).

I’m just waiting for the day I get called to compete on Non-Celebrity Jeopardy and get the opportunity to showcase my ability to recall worthless facts about bands from the 80′s. How I’m gonna showcase my hidden martial-arts skills while on the set is still up for debate.

The Dirtbag & Me, Circa 2030

In 5 days it’s officially over. By over, I mean my youth. May 15th is the day that I hit 36, and from there it’s a hop, skip and a shuffle to assisted living. Yesterday I heard Pearl Jam being played on the classic rock station; if that’s not a sign from The Flying Spaghetti Monster that the springtime of my life is past, then I just don’t know what is.

By 36, Jesus of Nazareth had been dead for something like three years. Bob Marley wouldn’t live to see 37 (ps- 29 nine years ago tomorrow!). Princess Diana and Marylin Monroe both checked out at age 36. Eric “Eazy-E” Wright of NWA infamy had been dead for 5 years by the time he would’ve hit 3-6. Even Mozart only made it to 35. And I’ve got one year left if I want to beat van Gogh to the graveyard.

Hardly my contemporaries, I grant you that much.

Still.

The incoming Prime Minister of Great Britain is only 43.  At age 36, Benjamin Franklin invented the Franklin Stove and Robert Jarvik invented a pneumatically powered heart.

I managed to remember to take the trash out to the street tonight.

WHAT. THE. HELL. HAPPENED?

And from this statement, I follow it up with this theory: the last time the world really was your oyster was at your high school graduation. Seriously. Think about it.

Set aside how the Class of ’92 was THE best class EVER!! and all that other bilge that you endured at your graduation about how your high school would never see the likes of a class like this again. And think about this: never again in your life will you be afforded any opportunity like this. You can really do whatever it is you want, and people will applaud you for “following your own path”. You want to be an astronaut? Get your ass in gear and brush up on your physics in college, next thing you know, you’re guzzling Tang in lunar orbit. You wanna get stoned all day long and live under the pier? People will admire you for “finding yourself” before you dedicate your life to living in dumpsters. There really are no limits.

Take your 30′s: you’re expected to do your job, and do it competently. No one looks at a 32 year old machinist and says “hey look at Bobby. Can you believe it? Only 32 and he shows up to work every single day!” And Bobby silently seethes each night as he cracks open an Old Milwaukee, wondering how in the hell he ended up making cylinder heads for a living. I can’t just up and tell my family tomorrow “I think I shall be a mathematician, starting around lunchtime.” They would verbally lynch me and tell me to get my ass into the firehouse and back on the ladder truck. My path is set, to a certain degree, and so is yours.

B.B. King is universally hailed as the King of The Blues, and I’m 67% sure he plotted that course much earlier than 36. And while his music has more and more appeal to me every day, his path is one that never occurred for me to take, except for a short period of time in high school. My stepdad pointed out to me “yeah, I can see you like playing music; so did I. And so do thousands of starving musicians. Keep studying.” And I listened. And I’m not starving, so there’s that. But I abandoned my nutty ideals and wayfaring dreams somewhere along the way. So did most people I know.

Now lofty flights of fancy like owning a tugboat with The Dirtbag and plying the mighty Columbia River are little more than front porch mumblings into my cocktail tumbler. And I look at the Heathens playing in the yard and envy them not the pain they’ll endure at life’s hands, but rather, the opportunities they’ll be given as they approach double digits. I see it as my job to help them embrace their dreams and encourage their risk-taking. Heathen #1 told me the other day he wants to be a volcano scientist, and I was stoked. I told him that was the coolest thing I’d ever heard, and I’m sure when he changes his mind next week, I’ll like that idea too. I might be hitting middle age, but I refuse to let my enthusiasm for their dreams be dimmed by my crotchety outlook on other aspects of this life. That, now, is my job.

Of course, Julia Child began cooking at 36.

I think I’ll start looking on Craigslist for a good deal on a tugboat.

Do You Know What Nemesis Means?

“But this time…
…I do want him to go down in the fourth.
And I DO mean it, this time.” -’BrickTop’ in the movie “Snatch”

TODAY it began in earnest. We left for our trip out west somewhere around April 15th, returned somewhere around the 25th and I’ve been to precisely two (2) workout sessions from then til this morning. That’s almost a month. One month is more than enough time to re-animate all the latent laziness and idling lard-assedness in my system. One month of crappy food. One month of getting sweetened up shit-laden coffee as opposed to the standard black fare. One month of the jump rope in the rolled up position and the gut in the horizontal extension mode. It’s as though I’ve gone back beyond square one and am now looking upwards out of this hole wondering just how the hell did THAT happen?

Here’s the thing about gyms: I hate ‘em. Even the highly-touted CrossFit Springfield intimidates and annoys me at times, and this is because I feel so far behind the 8-ball that the path of surrender seems much more inviting. Give in. Order some Sesame Chicken and a gallon of beer and talk about how you might’ve turned out, if only. Slip the belt out a notch and begin to justify the acquisition of multiple chins. What the hell, grow a goatee like every other man out here over thirty in an attempt to cover up said chins. I watch people get stronger and faster at the gym and I remain annoyed at my u-shaped biceps and catastrophic wheezing sessions. Here are three reasons I feel behind said 8-ball:

ThunderChicken Goes Nuts

Jeremy Skips To His Loo

G. Gets Freaktastic

You know about “Ryan” aka ThunderChicken.(no? well there’s a post here and here to catch you up. ) The other two are owner/trainers of our CrossFit gym and yes, this is how they go about their daily lives. These boys mean business. It’s amazing to watch the transformations these people can inspire in others who work out there. I am not one of those people who has had an amazing transformation, and I blame no one but me. I’ll see a little drop in weight or belt size, get cocky and wipe out 32 Guinnesses to congratulate myself. This does not lend itself to being in the kind of shape these guys are sporting. In fact, a more accurate picture of the look I’m cultivating goes a little something like this:

And deep down, I’ve been in a superfunk for the last three weeks. Not super-funky ala Rick James, I mean SuperFunk as in bummed and I can’t nail down why. Family is good, friends are fine, life’s trucking by at a reasonable pace. And then, this morning it hit me:

I’ve been missing the pain.

I’ve been missing the self-inflicted humiliation.

I’m depressed about avoiding the place that depresses me.

So I went in, and I wish I could say I suffered greatly. I wish I could say I was putting up weights that would make lesser men quiver in fear. The reality is nowhere near that. In actuality, I lifted barely above the weight of three pints of Guinness, and I gotta be honest, it felt great. It was pitiful enough that G (pictured above) made sure to mention: “Well, Uli, sometimes less is more, I guess”. So nice of him to try and find the positive – he’s a great coach, and well intentioned and all, but the truth is, I welcome the humiliation. Feeling like I have nowhere to go but up is somewhat inspirational. It’s as though each day I’m starting anew, like my body has low-grade Alzheimer’s. And I’ve been missing that feeling.

So today I started at the gym. And I do mean it, this time.

Drink The Lemonade. It Pairs Well With Rabbit.

Top 5 Reasons I Suspect There’s Something In The Water Lately

1.) Suspicious fire in the middle of the day. Firemen go predictably nuts when they happen upon gay porn stash in house, immediately accusing each other of “looking at it too long”. I can’t talk about the fire in too much depth, but I did experience massive hunger-induced panicky hallucinations while waiting for the Fire Marshals to methodically examine the scene. I accused them of spending too much time examining the magazine collection of the homeowner.

2.) Skull-viewing. While working a car wreck, we tended to an un-seatbelted passenger who had “spidered” the windshield with her forehead, tearing it open during the process of ramming a telephone pole. She was exhibiting mild concern over her hysterically screeching unbelted daughter/driver and paid no mind to the fact that we were looking at her exposed skull. I’m reaching here, but I’d bet a paycheck that it hurt like hell the next day, and that’s my semi-professional opinion. Although slightly confused, she was aided in answering our questions by the bearded grandma who was riding in the backseat and who WAS wearing a seatbelt. Outside of being royally pissed and barefoot with nasty toenails I could take an angle grinder to, she was just peachy.

3.) Gangster Chaos At The Courthouse. Another car wreck, this time at the seat of all local law enforcement, the county courthouse. A carload of thugs with gold toofs and gangtastic tatts on their faces pulled some stunts out on the road, then pulled into the courthouse parking lot and proceeded to slightly nudge a sheriffs personal motorcycle. Although there wasn’t any real injury among them, the high drama and yelling and wailing ensured the arrival of two ambulances and everyone looking around in a confused manner and pointing fingers. My favorite quote? “Don’t you take my name down, mister. Uh-Uh. Don’t you do it.” My guess? Warrants. Where’s Dog The Bounty Hunter when you need him?

4.) Rabbit Sacrifice. Today, while working on the dubious garden project, one of the shop cats I call Darth Macho proceeded to eat an entire baby rabbit right in front of me. Disemboweled, destroyed and devoured. Legs, fur and guts…gone. He enjoyed this entire feast while staring at me with a look that said “That’s right, you silly bastard, and you’re next.” I mean it was downright creepy the looks he was shooting me. He is called Macho for a reason.

5.) Don’t Drink The Lemonade. The Wife has been making some crazy delicious lemonade lately, thanks to the fresh lemons we procured from Rojo and his family while we were in Cali. Seriously, it’s like crack, it’s so addictive. She swears it’s the sweet lemons and 2 pounds of sugar per batch, while I’m prone to believe she’s lacing it with arsenic and making it wildly addictive so that I’ll consume up to a gallon per hour. She wound up the evening by slapping me in the face while saying “You show me some damn respect. I made you lemonade.” I suspect she’s pissed I’m not dead yet.

Pruning The Dark Side

I’m really, really good at growing weeds. Like, maybe pro level. I give them everything they need. Free reign to take over the choicest areas of our property, unfettered access to the best sunlight and copious amounts of rainfall here in the middle of the country, where we receive rain by the week. I never bother their growth patterns and I rarely try to kill them or do ANYTHING except leave them to terrorize the place. I could have a show on HGTV, wherein they showcase me drinking beer around several locations on the compound, watching my weeds grow and marveling at their progress. I think many people could relate to this show and it would become a hit with every other lazy homeowner in rural America.

I decided recently that we’d tackle this situation with a raised bed garden. We’ve had gardens in the past, simple affairs that yielded us a nice little bounty of fruits and vegetables. But that wasn’t enough, you see. I am a man with tools. A man with the desire to over-engineer the construction of a sawhorse. A man with a desire to justify the purchase more tools by taking on projects that require more tools. A man with a hankering for bankruptcy at the hands of tool vendors, apparently. And thus it was determined that we would have a garden of Leviathan proportions, fenced in, trimmed out and enough to slap Martha Stewart in her proverbial face.

As an aside, I feel the need to slap Martha Stewart on a regular basis. She’s just so damn smug and condescending and comes across like a royal bitch. My mother and I got into it when I insisted that she should have gotten The Chair a few years ago for her financial transgressions. Mom sorta worships at the altar of Martha, so naturally, I want to chainsaw said altar into many pieces. Hello, therapeutic breakthrough, you just came outta nowhere.

Where were we? Oh yeah, the garden project. This project has been about two years in the making, since my lazy gene is highly dominant, especially over the productivity gene. I set the fence posts a while back and then went on to insist to The Wife that I could do no further since “they had to settle properly” (yes, I realize the utter bullshittiness of this statement). So the NEXT YEAR, I began to string the fence wire up, and I’m pretty good with the ten feet of progress I’ve made. We’ve secured some cinder block, which I hope to get set before the boys leave for college. I’ve got to carefully weigh my procrastination with the level of resentment She feels towards me….it’s a delicate, tightrope-walking line I tread, and is best left to a pro.

All that’s left is…..well….most of it. You see, I can appreciate weeds, since they’re willing to do all the work and I can claim credit for their aggressive behavior. This whole business of constructing Fort Knox for bell peppers is beginning to lose it’s appeal. I can justify no tool purchases in the foreseeable future (thank you, motorcycle. I love you. Endlessly) and growing season is here. The Wife is beginning to demand results. Pressure is on for health conscious organic foods for my family, dammit.

And all I really want to do is drink beer out in my field and watch the weeds bloom.

Bobby-Joe, yer flannel's showing.

FORMER WHITE SUPREMACIST WON’T OPEN CLUB AFTER ALL.

This is a true, for real, fo’-sho’  headline in the local section of the online edition of our newspaper here in Springfield. Don’t believe me? Here’s the link. Just when you thought things were getting all crazy with Arizona and their immigration-law enforcement trainwreck, here in good ol’ Missouri we have ignorant morons trying to open up a nightclub while trying to assure town leaders, “no, really, it’s just a club. That’s all. No affiliations to idiocy. I promise.” ( I made that quote up, yes.) The town in question is Odessa, Mo, on the outskirts of Kansas City.

According to Google Maps, Odessa is located 159 miles northwest of my house and touts itself as “a community rich in history and inspired by the spirit of the Midwest. A family oriented city, providing its citizens and businesses with great services and opportunities” on its official website. I’ll give the city alderman this much: they successfully ran this ass-clown’s attempts to open a “social club” on the 65th anniversary of Hitler’s death into the dirt. I applaud them for this. And I wonder about Charles Juba.

Juba (I think it rhymes with rube-uh), was a “former self-proclaimed leader of the Aryan Nations”, and was attempting to recruit kids from area high schools to attend the opening of The Black Flag Club, the black flag representing, in his words “people who don’t surrender”. He has said he’s abandoned his racist and anti-Semitic past, but, you know, opening on the anniversary of Hitler’s suicide wasn’t exactly PR at its finest. Still, Juba has his defenders willing to come out in public to support him.  Said Monica Loges, who identified herself as a friend of Juba’s: “he’s got a past, yes, but who doesn’t?” Listen, lady, I’ve made plenty of crappy choices in my checkered past, but being the leader of a racist nation never even entered my mind as an option. My bad choices were mostly limited to personal self-destructive tendencies, not spouting, and worse, BELIEVING IN, that kind of bullshit.

And then? In the coup de grace that was supposed to make it all better? She states this: “he goes to church twice a week and is a fine family man.”

Oh. Well….my bad. That makes it all better. Church and family. How could you go wrong with such a winning combo? Again, kudos to the City Aldermen of Odessa for not swallowing the excuses; I applaud the citizens for showing up and angrily shouting his ass down. For once, I can back mob-rule. If that fool wants to practice his ignorance in the comfort of his own trailer, hell, that’s his business. But the last thing the Missouri, and the Midwest in general, needs, is to give license to ugly relics of our nations’ past like this to operate hives of hatred. Church or not, Juba, Odessa ain’t buying what you’re preaching.