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.

More Leg Than I'm Comfortable Showing

As I casually surveyed a collection of friends  around our age, I found out that most of them had no plans to leave their homes for New Year’s Eve. We all apparently have kids and no burning desire to get a DWI, so it makes sense, I suppose. But after several years of turning in around 10pm after enjoying a SpongeBob Marathon, The Wife & I took up the offer to celebrate the occasion with some friends and a bunch of strangers at a costume party.

Normally, and up until our 30′s, this would not be an attractive option. When gathering in large groups, people like to enjoy the company of others that they already know; hanging out with strangers leads to many a party you attended in younger days being categorized as “lame”. We sullenly stand around, the girls all looking as though they’d rather be anywhere else in the world but here, the boys glowering at those they don’t know, silently sizing up the others’ capacity for violence, should a fight spontaneously break out. The tension is not broken by the cheap beer, at least until there’s a common rallying point: the cops get called, someone breaks a bone, there’s a loud and emotional breakup taking place in the kitchen. Then we left before anyone took the time to get to know one another, always in search of that elusive party featured in most raunchy teen comedies, the party that never happened.

So what do we do?

We stick with our own, then we grow up and have kids and focus on the merits of letting The Wiggles into our daily lives. Pretty soon, it’s just easier to remain home and reminisce about parties which were, quite frankly, lame. As people barreling towards our forties, we now consider two pints of beer on a Wednesday night at home really cutting loose, which is a tragic waste of potential, not to mention the ability to purchase quality alcohol, finally.

When the people started to gather at this party, as expected, segregation of the various attendees ensued. This time, though, something was different, and I think it comes with age. Instead of  than being deterred by this, we chose to look at it through a different lens. Rather than rolling eyes and looking for an exit, we let the vodka swirl in our tumblers a little longer, we took tentative steps into the kitchen full of strangers, and the casual prediction was made that after another round or two, we’d all end up friends for life, if not the night.

And it pretty much went down, just like that. I’ve sworn to keep the details secret to protect the not-so-innocent, but it was fun behaving even more immaturely than usual.

THIS is one of the few joys of aging: wisdom borne of experience, of heartbreak and failure and, most importantly, patience. Wikipedia (the most trusted source of the lazy) defines panache as “a word of French origin that carries the connotation of a flamboyant manner and reckless courage”. By simply combining patience with some reckless attempts at courage and ridiculous costumes, we’re finally able to bridge that awkward stranger-gap that has characterized just about every party I’ve attended since my first bonfire on the beach in 1988. That’s all it took to take a casual party up to the next level of memorable.

That, and a decent vodka.

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.

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.

Nan, Chewie, Oma, Amanda & Barbara

One week from today, the entire Missouri wing of our clan is rolling west to California, road tripping in what will surely be come to known as “I-can’t-believe-we-thought-that-was-a-good-idea fest 2010“. I’ve made the drive a handful of times, most notably in a newly purchased Peterbilt with the Outlaw Trucker (back when I had an excavating “interest”) and with SeaBass (on a trip to gather up the Lyin’ Dutchman’s abandoned possessions when he left the country, saying he wasn’t ever coming back. Two weeks later, he was back, but that’s another story).

This trip will be the first time I attempt 26 hours in a vehicle with The Wife and The Heathens.

Someone may die.

Neck-wringing will be determined to be the cause.

So here’s the plan: we leave at 3am, this way I can get at least 4-5 hours of solid, uninterrupted driving time. Time in which I get to pick the music (even if it is in ear buds), time where I can drive without constant “advice” from the passenger seat. Time without questions and pesky little voices declaring war on one another over Spongebob.

It’ll be the smoothest part of the trip, no doubt.

Chewie On What Shall Soon Be Mine

The reason we’re heading out there? Supposedly my brother Barbara is getting married, to a lovely girl named Amanda, and we’re going. I feel sorry for her, she seems so nice, and Barbara is such a, well, a Barbara. He’s actually extremely intelligent, but he doesn’t want anyone to know this, so he never displays this trait. He’s kind, but he’s my brother, so I refuse to acknowledge this fact, preferring instead to harangue him mercilessly online and to his face. I’m proud of him for becoming the man he has, but don’t tell him this, you’ll ruin our rapport. THIS is why I’m enduring a road trip with all the appeal of The Exodus.

But not really.

In an unusual alignment of the moons, it turns out my other brother Chewie is selling his motorcycle. To me.  What better way to get it back to Missouri from California than to be attending a wedding out there? Who better to buy a motorcycle from than my own brother? How perfect is it that he’s selling EXACTLY what I want? This logic is nearly flawless in my eyes. Not so much in The Wife’s or anyone who cares about “surviving”, but what do they know? This whole wedding affair is getting so many earmarks, I’m making politicians look like amateur pork-barrelers. The Wife has talked me into hauling the family down to Disneyland so that my boys can experience that whole hobnobshebob. Any objection I raise? “Motorcycle. You’re getting a motorcycle, so you just shut your face.” Can’t argue with that. In a little more than seven days, I’ll have my nasty, filthy hands on a bike. AFTER ALL THIS TIME! The road trips with El Jefe have already been plotted, I’ve already started a motorcycle gang, I’ve already pissed off my wife – this is just the natural progression of things.

I just gotta get the thing back here without choking the crap out of my family in the process. One week. ONE WEEK AND LIFE AS I KNOW IT CHANGES! YES! YES! YES! VICTORY IS ON THE HORIZON, BOYS!!

Barbara may feel the same way, although for different reasons, I suppose. Just give it a few years, a couple of kids and he too, will salivate at the thought of freedom on two wheels. Maybe he’ll give me a call, looking for a motorcycle.

That sounds like a road trip.