Half Past Awesome

From The Dirty Churros Archives....

Tomorrow, I’ll be undergoing some sort of exploratory procedure. The details are somewhat murky, but the long and the short of it is that some people who practice this sort of thing will be trying to discover why I can’t hardly eat a solitary slice of apple without having a near death choking experience. Since it gets really, really old to constantly be clutching your throat at restaurants while your eyes shoot off in different directions, I’m on board with this whole thing. But since I’ll be under the influence of drugs the names of which I cannot pronounce, I immediately assume there’s a chance I’m gonna die, violently maybe. That being the case, I thought I’d update my will, the last copy of which was printed on a cocktail napkin one night in the throes of a rum bender and an argument over the origins of the M.A.S.H. theme song.

So here goes nothing, literally.

I, Uli, being of unsound, unstable mind and broken body do leave my entire estate to the following people in the event of my untimely demise in a bizarre industrial mishap or some equally chaotic end.

1. To my children, The Heathens, I leave the bulk of my substantial debt. This seems to be trend of our national leaders, and I’m nothing, if not a patriot. I would encourage them to utilize this situation to learn how to speak multiple languages and enjoy the concept of living abroad, preferably in the company of women of ill-repute.
2. To The Wife, I leave my 5 hockey sticks and my entire metric wrench collection. I never did trust her to use the standard size with the proper amount of respect. Also, I leave to her my collection of dirty and clean laundry, unwashed dishes and vast assortment of paper clips I’ve been hoarding over the last year.
3. To The Dirtbag, I leave my beloved dual-sport motorcycle. I should warn you, it’s not paid off yet, so rip the plate off and head south of the border when you come pick it up. As well, you’ll have access to my motorcycle gang of two, The Dirty Churros, and my friendship with El Jefe, but odds are you two won’t get along. Think of this as a team-building exercise, and my last gift to you.
4. To my shop cats, I bequeath my air compressor and all the associated pneumatic tools. I think it would be awesome if they figured out how to use them to terrorize the feline world. Best of luck, gatos.
5. To ThunderChicken, I leave my vast stash of frozen bacon. Lord knows, you look like you could use some, man. That staying fit stuff might kill you yet….in fact it may be why you’re now reading MY last will.
6. To my brothers, Bones, Buns, Chewie, Nan, and Barbara, I leave you nothing, because you’ve spent your lives making mine miserable, and this is what you deserve. Fine, the five of you can split my sweet collection of old red shop rags. No fighting.
7. To RoJo, I leave all of the books and magazines I’ve been quietly stealing from you since I was 18. Don’t hold a grudge.
8. To The Outlaw Trucker, I leave all the scrap metal in my shop. Weld me something beautiful, preferably a statue of me stabbing a savage, attacking wild beast in the eyes. Use your imagination.
9. To The City of Springfield Fire Department, I leave that tube of toothpaste that’s in my locker, and that itchy, nasty wool blanket I was issued in rookie school and made to swear I’d return in 25 years. Most lower mammals wouldn’t use that thing to nest in, by the way.
10. To my friend The Author, I leave my glorious, luminous and entirely non-grey head of hair and magnificent pelt of manly chest hair. You’re welcome.
11. Finally, to my beloved canine MoJay the psycho-killer boxer, I bequeath all of our domestic garbage receptacles since you’ve spent the last year knocking them over and rooting through them at every chance. Go on, help yourself to old banana peels and coffee grounds. I hope you gag on an old guitar string, you obnoxious bastard. I love you so much.

There you have it. I expect this will to be faithfully executed, but let’s be honest here: most of you are gonna come over, loot all of my worldly possessions and then burn my house to the ground, pissing on the flames as you pour out your malt liquor over the ashes. I’m good with that, too.

I'm So Over Waldo

Chaos is absent right now. My kids are healthy and full of piss and vinegar. The Wife has a birthday of indeterminate origin tomorrow. Good and decent people came to our house tonight to celebrate the simple joys of a home cooked meal. It’s as hot as Satan’s trigger finger right now, pretty typical for July in the Ozarks.

I’m still horribly out of shape, and starting to get a little nervous about competing in a foot race in Portland, Oregon in September, as well I should be. My stepfather arrives from the beaches of  the Central Coast of California on Tuesday and I’ve no doubt he’ll find the state of my shop to be horrific and may well shake his head in disgust at his slack-ass son. The neighbor procured a new tractor, and I swear that he’s driving back and forth in front of our house as a means of showing off.

The fire service is what is was last week, last year and last career. It’s a mess of people in dire need of something, anything, and a call to 911 helps put their mind at ease. And we’ll be there to hold their hand and administer oxygen or put our their garage fire or pry them out of some sort of horrific car wreck. All very predictable, really.

We need a new roof on our house, but really, that’s nothing new. More urgently, I need to get on the road, see a new town, preferably somewhere where you don’t have to chew the air. The motorcycle repair job is about done, perhaps when El Jefe gets back from California we can hit the trails out of town.

I hope to get some work capitalizing on my inability to pay attention for more than a few minutes. My status as an international sex symbol seems to be secure, especially in light of Mel Gibson’s latest fall from grace. I’m thankful that we haven’t had a medical patient refer to me lately as a “fat Vince Gill”. We miss hanging out with my Brother Bones out in Santa Barbara, especially when conversations focus on Area 51 conspiracies. I hear the Lyrical Jackass got engaged, much to no one’s surprise.

Above all, I’m thankful for the relative quiet of the last month. Because I’m sure that my ever-present sidekick, inconsistent chaos, will make an appearance before long, and I’ll have to go into spin doctor mode, trying to explain my latest deviation from the accepted norms. And then I’ll be grateful for the return of my normalcy.

Hope all is well with you, amigos.

Last night I hung up my firefighting gear for the foreseeable future. And by “foreseeable future” I mean “the next two weeks” since I have the attention span of a fly and two weeks into the future may as well be two decades. The family is heading out of Missouri, as mentioned in this post, the nerve-wracking, make-me-sweat-like-a-whore-in-church experience known as emceeing the Blogaronis is over, and Hotwire has been put in charge of maintaining the compound while we drive like mad bastards to my home state. All is good on the horizon.

Sometimes it feels like a royal pain in the a-double snakes to be a government employee – the bureaucracy, the constant cycle of loathing/admiration/hating/envy that the citizens feel towards public safety (pension problems, anyone?), the feeling of being a cog in a blue shirt, replaceable within about 5 minutes or less. The bureaucracy – yeah, I gotta mention that twice, and if you work in government service, you can appreciate this.

But on top of that, I feel really lucky. Lucky that I’ve found the career that makes sense to me. The fire service is loaded with all kinds of wayward issues, but really, what job isn’t? Anytime you have more than two employees, you have politics. Any time you answer to the citizens, there’s gonna be one old grouch out there who wants to kick you in the balls just because he got a speeding ticket once. So we accept where we’re at, but that doesn’t always translate into appreciating it.

Every third day I spend in the company of 5-7 others who endure my lies and copious bull. I drink ungodly amounts of coffee, I get to tinker with a three-quarter million dollar ladder truck and generally when people dial 911, they’re happy/relieved to see us arrive. Little kids never, ever fail to wave up at the truck, little old ladies always coo when we change their smoke detectors and our spouses are generally happy to get rid of us for one day out of three. When the economy is down, our business seems to pick up, not necessarily a good thing in terms of public safety, but it makes for interesting times. We operate on a level of maturity with one another that you may have last witnessed in sixth grade.

And still, we bitch about it.

For the next couple of weeks, I’ll hopefully sleep through the night. There will be no phantom alarms at 3am, no loudly lamenting the empty coffee pot, no staring off at the rest of the world going home at 5pm while we have a whole 14 more hours of gilded cage time. No staring at a giant truck knowing that there’s really several hours of checking it that need to get done. No arguing over what channel to watch. I’ll need to keep my mouth in check, since firehouse humor doesn’t necessarily translate smoothly outside the station. It won’t go well, and I’ll end up saying stuff I regret. The Pimp and The Pirate won’t be around to berate me, and tales of JoBoo’s adventures into Oklahoma will have to wait. I won’t think about funding issues, staffing issues, pension issues, rookie issues or the plain ol’ business of fighting fires.

The Heathens will spend time on the beach, time at Disneyland, and time on my nerves. The Wife will pass judgment on my driving skills and my brothers will point out how great it is to see us and how old I’m looking. The Lyin’ Dutchman will probably make some sort of appearance, trying to ambush Buns and me through a meeting that Bones will have unknowingly set up. I’ll spend an inordinate amount of time missing living on the coast. I’ll watch Barbara get married and lament losing time with my family. I’ll secretly wish for a return to a life that really never was. Hopefully The Author and I will have time to meet up and we can wax idiotic on classmates from twenty years ago.

And in two weeks? Putting on the turnouts and climbing on to Truck 2 will seem like a damn fine way to make a living. Even if the coffee pot is empty.

To paraphrase any number of lyrics of a solid 80′s tune: times/people/seasons change. If you look to the cast page of this site, you’ll see that I’ve not updated it in quite a while and maybe you’re wondering to yourself “who are all these people that this idiot keeps referencing? Why am I on this site anyways? Where are my pills?” If you find yourself in that situation, fear not; over the next couple of days we’ll give you an update as to what the stars of Half Past Awesome are up to, and then we’ll introduce a couple of new characters. Here we go:

Ruler Of The Roost

The Wife: she’s currently plotting my untimely demise. I urge each and every one of you to NOT believe the suicide note she’s gonna swear she’s found on my body. She’s also still running her salon out of the house, so I can’t get away with jack, especially if it involves a delivery that requires a signature. Despite the fact that she’s hacked off to no end about approaching an undisclosed age, she’s somehow still tolerating me. If you want a couple of random posts that focus on her, you can read them here, here and here. ps- you want a little known fact? She’s a sucker for Harry Hamlin in the original  “Clash Of The Titans” (circa 1981). NOW who’s the weird one?

Slugs and Boogers

The Heathens: they’re getting that much older and starting to utilize the question “why” in response to every request/demand made of them. Although it’s always wrong to ever shake a baby, they seem more than amused to be shaken as small kids. I’m pretty sure they’re gonna shake me when I’m old and frail, and guess what? I’ll have deserved it. Currently occupying the ages of 4 and 6, these boys have a serious attachment to all things Transformers, Star Wars and Mario Kart – thank you marketing departments of aforementioned icons, you’ve made them believe they can’t live without EACH AND EVERY ONE of your creations. Some posts with the boys can be found here, here and here.

The Jackass & Nachos In Happier Times

The Lyrical Jackass: I was recently and unceremoniously dumped by the Jackass in the manner of a couple of 14 year old girls – he “unfriended” me on Facebook. This should demonstrate the level of maturity on which we operate. Crazy is as crazy does, and his current relationship situation mandates a divorce of sorts from all things sarcastic & toxic in his life. Unfortunately, I happen to fill both roles quite well. I’m not 100% devastated at this point, though, since he and his current flame break up just about every other week . He’s still in Arkansas somewhere as the Propaganda Minister of some fire department and we wish him the best of luck. Well, I do, but he may well have crossed into dangerous turf by “unfriending” The Wife. She has the memory of a very pissed off elephant, whereas I forget just how I (no doubt) started this whole thing

Buns & His Woman

Buns: Little has changed for Son#2 (or #3, depending on how you counts all of The Lyin’ Dutchman’s progeny). After a few international forays, Buns has yet to find a nation willing to install him as a Benevolent Dictator, a fact that irks him to no end. Continuing in his career as a computer hardware pirate, he’s taken to recently wearing an eye patch and interjecting “ahoy, ye scurvy dogs” into all business transactions. Buns spends much of his free time trying to unhinge paradigms of the modern-day salesman.He has no plans to abdicate his title as Undisputed Tall Guy of Santa Barbara any time soon.

Bones, Right On Schedule

Bones: One of the advantages of being OCD is that you lead a life of consistency. Such is the case for the youngest of The Lyin’ Dutchman’s sons – as long as the routine is followed, no one has to get hurt, or worse, mumbled at under his breath. He continues to work as a photographer and photo editor for Couture Candy and has his own two avenues for his photography; one on JPGMag and another on his own site. More importantly, he continues to be a link between those of us who are considered “dead” and The Lyin’ Dutchman. His stories of times with our Dad, when you can drag them out of him, are the stuff of legend, both in the nature of the wild yarns being spun on one side and the ever so awkward reactions on our brothers side. One of my first posts was about Bones, and you can read it here.

That covers part one of our in-depth series. Tomorrow we’ll hit the other players, and introduce you to some fresh talent. You’re gonna love it. In the meantime, tip back a Guinness or three and enjoy all the idiocy the world has to offer. Pretty good chance you’ll see me there.

What The Pros Supposedly Rode.

I love lying to people, mostly my sons. If I was to be believed, Darth Vader built the Death Star on our 5 acres (right behind my shop), I used to be a Transformer until an accident at the power plant turned me into a human, I have a ninja on speed-dial on my phone who is ready 24/7 to fight crimes I encounter, I invented Legos one rainy Sunday and, coincidentally, I can both speak to and understand all animal life forms. These traits give me great credibility within the home, right up to the point where The Wife betrays me in favor of the truth. I curse her name when she does this. She has to, though, because I come by this capacity naturally, thanks to my father, The Lyin’ Dutchman. I grew up in a household where certain fabrications were spun out that we, his boys, were to take as gospel on pain of ostracization. An example, you say? Here are seven examples for you to consider:

• Pink Floyd , Supertramp and ABBA were Dutch bands (this is because my father is Dutch-Indonesian, hence, all things good in this world are, by default, Dutch. All bad things – well, those are usually Japanese, in his eyes)
• All major BMX stars purchase their bikes at Pep Boys Auto Parts, which is, coincidentally where my Huffy Thunder Road with the banana seat and get-your-ass-kicked fenders was bought.
• He invented the layout of the circuit board
• He got citizenship early from President Kennedy himself
• MIT was “a decent college”…..he’s a graduate, despite any sort of diploma or evidence of this education.
• He served as a tank commander in Korea ~ we’re not sure which country he was serving, none dared to ask.

…………..and most recently (as related by Bones, another of my five brothers):

• He invented the navigational strobe beacon found on aircraft as early as the 1940′s. Quite the achievement for someone under the age of ten.

Now, this might seem rude and crass to utilize this public forum to call out the old man for his fabrications, but I would argue to the contrary. If anything, they made growing up under his roof one constant adventure in fish tales. Yes, confusion reigned, especially when we dared to question the validity of his claims. A sad turn of events has led to the invention of the internet and search engines such as Google, thus making it easier to refute claims such as a long-referenced semi-professional soccer career (“stop being such a smart-ass. I was a pro. End of story.”) No, it was much simpler to weave a fabric of fabrication in the 70′s and 80′s, a fact not lost on me.

So now I’m faced with children who will have the ability to research my claims of leading a zombie army in the overthrow of a hostile military junta in South America way back when. But rather than being intimidated by technology spoiling my animated stories, I relish the challenge of  working around inconvenient truths. After all, part of the reason I became a father was to experience the thrill of lying to my kids in order to look cool. Some may label me a bullshit artist, but I prefer to go by “Dad”.

Smoking kills. Apparently, however,  it kills in a decidedly random pattern, as evidenced by my family. We seem to be tougher than cigarettes and there are quite a few of us who smoke like freight trains (present company exempt). We are the family that Big Tobacco wishes they’d known during all of those messy legal troubles a few years back. I’ve watched as my father, The Lyin’ Dutchman himself, swore on his grave to his pulmonologist that he’d never touch another smoke, only to pick up the habit within weeks of his discharge, blowing off his diagnosis of emphysema as “a bad cough”. Hard as a coffin nail, the old man refuses to give up his beloved butts, claiming that they’re really no big deal and that doctors, on the whole, are idiots.

As kids, this presented my brothers and I quite the conundrum. Most kids smoke as a form of rebellion against their oppressive parents who don’t know the meaning of cool. But we were actually encouraged to smoke from, like, age ten. I wasn’t a fan and never could manage to pick up the habit, something which no doubt brought my father great shame. He smoked during meals, in the car, in the shower, in other peoples homes, in stores, at work, at Little League games and any other time he deemed fit. To be fair, when I was growing up, smoking was NOT as socially frowned upon; in fact, if you looked at any faded pics from my youth, at least 87% of the adults are holding on to cigarettes, as ubiquitous as cell phones are today. Auto parts stores had a smoking requirement if you were ever to be taken seriously as a customer.

And this…..this was the environment that The Lyin’ Dutchman was born to inhabit – that era when it was thought that women really did appreciate a nice swat on the ass as they walked by, when veiled bigotry was a way of doing business and cars got 7 miles per gallon. There are pictures of him riding the carousel at Disneyland with a cigarette clenched in his teeth, eyes set with the maniacal intensity of a crusty sea captain, and me on the horse behind him, choking on the smoke and face twisted up tight to avoid his exhaust. All of our household furniture had the associated burns and smelling like Harry’s Cocktail Lounge upon arrival at school was the norm. Unfortunately, as society progressed and we left smoking to angst ridden teens and twenty-something models looking to cover up the scent of their bulimic lunches, The Dutchman chose to remain behind. He still enjoys referring to complete strangers as “sweetheart” and casually muttering racial epithets at dining establishments. And oddly enough, he still seems irritated when informed that he cannot light up in an airplane, an indignation that he’ll remedy by strolling around airports with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips; this lets everyone know he’s both cool and insane.

Just like they won’t know about life before the personal computer, riding in the back of a truck or the fear we had of the Soviet Union, The Heathens won’t have to worry about growing up in a house where there is the deathly pall of faded yellow on the walls or the mess of ashtrays and the associated stench. On the side of town where I work, we see a substantial share of folks who are living in squalor, and I’ve come to associate poverty with a certain smell; it always reeks of piss, cigarettes and cat shit. I think that’s a universal odor, known to firefighters, cops and EMS personnel the world over. So where those of my parents generation viewed smoking as a sign of urbane sophistication, I see it as living in a socioeconomic condition where cat waste is considered interior decor. No wonder my father hates cats.

This is not to say there aren’t plenty of good people out there who smoke: we ALL make conscious, horrible decisions when it comes to our habits and vices. I can’t rationalize my partaking of a dip now and then, nor my copious abuse of the liver, but then, when can we rationalize our bad choices? At the very least, should I take up smoking, my family history dictates that I can inhale with impunity. I just need to get my mind around having a cat using my house as a toilet.

A sinus rhythm is defined one way as the normal regular rhythm of the heart as generated by the sinus node. This is what you want to see in a patient when an EKG is performed- five healthy waves in a single heartbeat. But like each beat of the heart, life happens in these up and down waves that define our interactions with others.

I thought about this while I was enduring the cardiac event known as “training run” today. Currently at the end of week three in a twelve week cycle of sado-masochism, I’m attempting my first half marathon in December. Back story -the event is for St. Jude’s Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis, and I committed to it for a couple of reasons; on October 18 of 2007, the beautiful daughter of a coworker of mine passed away at three years old, the victim of a brain tumor. St. Jude’s was instrumental in helping the family, and I’ve been impressed with this organization since I first learned of it. Secondly, if I am gonna do more than just TALK about being in better heart health, there’s nothing like setting a seemingly impossible goal to guilt me into running.

While experiencing undoubtedly abnormal rhythms, my mind was wandering all over the place, focusing on the peaks and valleys that happen to us at this age. The craziness knows no limits: one classmate of mine is in jail for allegedly murdering his wife in the heat of a bitter custody battle, we have folks with marriages on the rocks or ending, The Lyin’ Dutchman has ostracized each and every member of his family (except Bones), The Wife broke one ankle and sprained the other two days ago just walking down our driveway; hell, I even went nuts to a minor degree this past spring, sold off the excavating business, lost my mind and took up yoga. On the plus side, Heathen #1 is rocking kindergarten, this site has been a fulfilling outlet for my creative impulses, RoJo welcomed a baby boy into this world, Lyrical Jackass is back with an old crazy flame, Dirtbag is busy building out in the northwest, JoBoo just got him a new Harley and my first tattoo is on the horizon.

And so it goes. These various waves in our lives give it spice, meaning, passion and heartbreak. When compared to asystole (also known as “flatline”), sinus rhythm is not such a bad option, even with all the valleys. Living a flat line life would be boring, repetitive, secure to the point of mad doldrums. I’m not advocating abandoning family nor commitments, but rather, learning to accept the valleys as just another point in my life’s rhythm. Caring for a temporarily crippled wife? That’s not too bad, especially when taken in the context of having a person in my life who is willing to even be seen with me. Mile 5 of the training run today? Well, there was nothing good to say about that one, save for that it’s about 4.75 miles further than I’ve run in nearly a decade.  As the knees were snapping, the sweat pouring down like a monsoon, and the feet protesting with each stumbled step, it actually brought a smile to my face. My shuffle might embarrass the hell out of me if I ever were to witness it, but least I’m out there, and not flat-lining here on the couch. I’ll never be a runner’s runner – I know this. To survive this thirteen mile race without congestive heart failure will be nothing short of a medical miracle. But I’ll take the unknown inconsistencies of this run, this life, over the alternatives any day.

Bones Ink

I have five brothers. Between them all, there are something like 683 pieces of art tattooed on their bodies. If you count The Lyin’ Dutchman, you can throw in another three or four to the mix.  When it comes to ink, my body is something of a hairy, blank canvas. I am the lone holdout.

The line of reasoning I’ve chosen to employ is not too unlike that of an aging virgin: it’s not that I haven’t wanted a tattoo, I just haven’t found the right tattoo. If you’re gonna make a commitment that you will literally be taking to the grave, then it needs to be right for all time, not right for right now. This is precisely why the names of lovers, movies, movie stars, phases you’re in, bands you dig, vehicle manufacturers and video game platforms are all bad ideas for a tatt in my opinion. How awesome are you gonna feel with “Spice Girls” boldly screaming across your chest in ten years? Or in ten minutes, for that matter?

Chewie Ink

For years, I wanted to have a piece of art that would reflect my tastes in a location that could be kept in private if I chose and would not bring the shame upon my mother that she’s no doubt feeling upon reading this post. So, of course, the Bob Marley cover art that I might have wanted plastered on my back (complete with vague references to the religious implications of smoking pot) would not qualify as such. Nor does my hardcore love of the red Peterbilt oval. As for my favorite movie, “Snatch“? A bad idea all around.

No, I’ve never been able to decide on what exactly I wanted inked on to me; as such, I’ve resisted all the urging of brothers and friends, waiting till the idea came to me in a revelation-kind-of-style. Being in a family that inks like an octopus in an ambush, I HAVE come up with a list of all the things I don’t want. Here’s a few:

Buns Ink

• ANYTHING with gangsta-style olde english style script. I’m not a Crip, in case you hadn’t noticed.
• Bicep ink. I have no guns, and there is no need to highlight that fact. None at all.
• Any art work that my brother Barbara has. I think he employs the Jackass methodology of selecting pieces.
• Tribal Style. Unless I start dating Pam Anderson, and then you can throw some barbwire tatts and Hep-C into the mix.
• Hometown dedications. I once asked a fellow trucker named Cricket why he had “Los Banos” tattooed all across his back (in gangster-script, no less), to which he replied, “So they know where to bury me, esse”.  I know where I’m from, and Santa Barbara and Cayucos aren’t exactly towns that need any more advertising
• The Wife’s name. She will eventually wise up and leave me and this will surprise no one, including me. And the Lyin’ Dutchman has proved that you can’t ink your way back into a failed marriage. So ix-nay on that crap.
• Patrick Swayze. As good an idea as it might seem in a drunken stupor, it ain’t. Ever. I must try very hard to resist this urge.

Barbara Ink

And then without any preamble, the idea washed up in my mental tide one day: I’ve been a fan of pinup art since I saw the Memphis Belle for the first time in the early eighties. As a kid, WWII-era aircraft nose art was as close to pornography as my dad’s tattered copy of The Joy Of Sex that my brother and I stumbled across one day – minus the creepy factor of THAT discovery. As I’ve grown older, it seems that there is less and less that people won’t do in the name of lust, but there was at least an element of subtlety in the risque yet suggestive artwork of that time. I am a big fan of the detail found in the works of Vargas and Gil Elvgren. Combine it with a respect for jazz music that came in my late twenties and I’m damn near ready for three martini lunches, traveling by train in a snazzy three piece suit and buying war bonds. There’s also been of late a healthy resurgence of the pinup girl look mixed with a little hot-roddin’ rockabilly,  and a dash of Gothic tramp – an all-win situation, as far as I’m concerned. The revelation had finally, FINALLY manifested. There was only one thing left to do.

I approached The Wife with the initial idea, and then the final kicker… “How would  you feel about being the subject of said pinup tattoo? No names – just the model……” (see earlier stances on names)

Long story short? As soon as the very talented Sarah Rasul finishes up her sketches, I’ll be hopping a flight with Heathen #2 to the West Coast to continue a family tradition. Details to follow.

Everyone needs inspiration. Bones is inspired by cleanliness and germ-eradication. The Heathens are inspired by Transformers, The Dirtbag is inspired by architectural innovation, Fury The Landscaper is inspired by a Subway sandwich done right and I’d venture that RoJo is inspired by the recent birth of his son. Artists get inspiration from pastoral landscapes and runaway flights of fancy within the reaches of their imagination. Some folks on the northside are inspired by a good meth rush, which in turn inspires them to stay up all night and peel insulation off of copper wiring so they’ll have a way to fund their next inspiration. Our kids inspire us to be better parents, our spouses inspire us to get off of our asses and do something with the day, and I would argue that coffee can provide some of the greatest inspiration of all.

But, like all creative types, I need to constantly hit my mental “refresh” button in order to feed the flow of ideas that come spilling out of my mind. Often times, this comes in the form of the neighbors, Truck 2 antics at the fire station, The Heathens or the myriad folks who play supporting roles in the comedy that is my life. I believe with all I’ve got that you can find all the material you might need right in front of your nose, if only you take the time to open your eyes and see the ridiculosity for what it is. But.

But…..once in awhile a change of scenery is in order, if for no other reason than to throw your chaos into perspective and give you an appreciation for little things like, say, the Amish out on the state highway. Sometimes I achieve this with a trip to the Northwest to visit The Dirtbag, I’ve found it on a road trip to a music festival in Steamboat Springs, Co and it’s been had floating down a river on a lazy summer day with a motley crew of amigos. The common denominator is that travel is the impetus for my inspiration. I may not be as worldly as I’d hoped to be by this age, but in my limited travels, I find it to be a crack cocaine of sorts: I always want more and more, there’s always more to see, more to experience, more to drink in and enjoy.

The corollary benefit to me traveling around more is that it also provides much more material to write about, and thereby gives you moments of levity (in the form of this site) from time to time. The reason I bring this up? I am in deep negotiations with The Wife as to the purchase of a dual sport motorcycle, which would give me access to a whole new range of material and inspiration. You may argue that you can hit the road in your truck just as easily, and it would be hard to counter that, but there is something about traveling by bike to small town festivals, redneck jamborees and different little hamlets around here that really appeals to the wanderer in me. To take a dusty county backroad with an amigo or two just to witness all that is offered for my visual consumption would border on a spiritual experience for an old heathen. You know, like my own version of  Zen And the Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance kind of thing.

And while she may have safety statistics, economic limitations and virtual practicality on her side of the argument, I’ll be utilizing divine inspiration as the cornerstone of my reasons to buy a motorcycle. I am also going to be relying heavily on needing to keep posts on this site fresh and funny, that you the reader have high expectations of low humor and that in order to accomplish this, I’ll need two wheels, a motor and a weekend here or there. I can’t let you down, and I won’t.  It’s going to prove a tough fight, my friends, and her ability to be all “rational” and “level-headed” is going to work against me  in ways I can’t even anticipate. Although it shouldn’t be necessary, I’ll even resort to guerrilla tactics such as…..well, I can’t say here, because she’s been known to read this once in a while. But trust me, it’ll involve behavior I am not used to, such as reining in some of my erratic ways. Hopefully the result will be a newly found sense of inspiration and a 650cc motor.

After all, who can argue against Zen and small town tractor pulls?

Few things can be ingrained in young minds as severely as shame. We are taught at an early age to be ashamed of letting our parents down by cracking a sibling across the head with a croquet mallet. We felt embarrassment when caught in a heinous lie as to our whereabouts at 3 am (ps- where ELSE would a teenage boy be?) When the other kids mocked you for being  – insert here - tall, short, thin, round, weak, strong, mustachioed, you name it – you’d look down at the pavement and kick your Vans in the dirt, hoping the attention of the group would soon turn on another, weaker member of class, while secretly wishing you had the ability of Mr. T to crush them against the cafeteria walls.

So tell me, if you can, why on earth some folks insist on naming their kids with a one-way ticket to an ass-kicking? I am a certified authority on the subject; not only is the Johnny Cash song “Boy Named Sue” relevant to me on a personal basis, I survived grade school through this very day with a name that still makes people say “huh?”

Somehow, in May of 1974, my sweet mom decided it would be a “good idea” to name her first and only son after his father: thus Ulrich W. Gulje, jr. was hatched into existence, more commonly known as “Uli“. Let’s get the first part out of the way. It’s pronounced “oooo-leeee” (uli), “ool-rick” (ulrich), “goool-yay” (gulje) and joon-yur (junior). The Lyin’ Dutchman (aka “senior”) somehow was able to get by with being called “Bill” when he arrived stateside, and while there are plenty of jokes centered around Bill, nothing makes you a marked target like a name that people think is pronounced “ooleygooley”. My own loving bride even made the comment to several people while we were dating that she would NEVER date someone named UleeGulee. As the marriage certificate states, I showed her.

So Uli it was through grade school, with teachers all taking great pains to announce on the first day of class, “myyyy, what an INTERESTING name, why don’t I subject you to further humiliation by making you talk to the class about such an UNUSUAL and UNIQUE name?” Then, after being drug out from under the desk of shame, and compelled to make up a reason why I had such a jacked up moniker (“my folks are international assassins, and I’m only here to hide out from the KGB while they’re at work, maam”) she would no doubt refer to me as “you-lee” for the rest of the school year. And I never quite looked like a “Rick“, “Rich” or “Ulrich“, even. When I first moved to Alaska and got a job with NAPA Auto Parts, my bosses all wanted me to go by “Ulrich”, because “Uli” sounded like too much of a kids’ name. WHAT? Who in their right mind would name their kid “Uli“? My parents, that’s who. And to say they were in their right mind is a bit of a stretch.

All of my siblings from The Lyin’ Dutchman’s other nuptial endeavors managed to escape serious harm; there’s Daxter, Trevor, Davis, Alan and Matt. Oh yeah, I also have an older brother and sister I’ve never met named Reggie and Penny. Get married enough times and I guess the law of odds mandates that ONE of your progeny is gonna end up with a name that seemed like a good idea at the time, but in reality, just sounds like something you might cough up. The situation was only exacerbated by moving to the Ozarks, where to stand out with a name like mine, you might as well declare that you’re currently engaged in a love triangle with Rosie O’Donnell and her cat. I’ve gotten all sorts of comments ranging from “You got some sorta disease, or is that yer name, son?” to “Man, your parents must have HATED you, to name you something like that.”

Any diseases I might have are long gone thanks to the advent of pharmaceuticals, and no, my parents did not HATE me per se, they just have an appreciation for a lifelong practical joke. I’ll never lack for conversational material with strangers, who often believe I am making up my name. I still get the treatment from cashiers and bartenders who want to know where the name originated, and I still tell them lies to amuse myself.  As we’ve all gotten older, and I am no longer the skinny little kid getting picked on, fewer third graders take liberties with mocking me to my face. As well, I took care to give the Heathens names that are easily recognizable in the Western Hemisphere.

After all these years, though, I think I’m gonna stick with Uli; I’ve earned the right to use it. Brad, Adam, David and Mike may well be fine names for fitting in in this world, but then, I’ve not been one for whom fitting in is a priority. Just don’t call me Sue when I crack you over the skull with my croquet mallet.