Writing Malaise

Unfinished Works...


Sorry for the light posting over the past half week.

It isn't for lack of writing because I've probably pounded out five  or six pages on two or three subjects...

...but before I got to the point of hitting the "Publish" button on Blogger I ran out of steam on the topic or else just thought that my work wasn't up to my usual standards and didn't have the time to go back though and fix it.

I'm really in a strange mental state these days being sort of overloaded with the new job and finishing up some personal details relating to moving cross country.

And now it's time to get back to studying my software manuals to support a new project I've just started working on.

Regards Y'all (I'll try to work up a good head of steam and issue a good rant when something comes up in the news...)

I'm BaaaaakkkkkkKKKKKK

Taking Time Off For A Little Blog Maintenance...


Well, after a week or so hiatus I decided to bring the Blog back online this morning.

In the process I've managed to spend a few hours doing some basic maintenance like backing up a complete archival copies of this Blog and my much neglected cooking blog The RedneckGourmet on to my hard drive and a SD Memory card.

I also did some other background HTML infrastructure stuff you won't notice at first and the work remains of fixing some things like broken/dead links and other crap you have to do when you run your own website.

I started to just delete the entire blog content while keeping the template and start over again this morning from scratch, but the free Blogger makes it impossible to do anything but delete the entire blog lock, stock, and barrel or go through the thing item by item and hit the "DELETE" button so most of my content is still here on line for now.

This thing has just gotten so huge over the past seven years and over 3,100 postings that it is hard to manage...but it is what it is.

That's right...I just realized that this whole crazy Blogging thing for me started while sitting in a hotel room in Chicago way back on August 10th, 2004!

THIS BLOG IS 7 YEARS OLD NEXT WEEK!!!

So any Waaaayyyyy...my head has been about to explode during this self imposed down time because I kept coming up with things I wanted to write about and being in a self imposed "BLOGGING MORATORIUM" I realized how much I really enjoy writing every day here.

In the process I found out that apparently there are a few people out there that enjoy stopping by to read and are almost as addicted to this place as I am.

I even had a couple of regular readers including some non-family members freak out and start trying to contact me and/or other Bloggers to see what happened to me.

Ed and Heather come to mind...and of course my mother...but believe me the resulting drama was unintentional.

I just had some things come up suddenly which required that I suspend operations here and there wasn't a good way to leave a message saying something like "TEMPORARY SERVICE INTERRUPTION..." or something similar.

So I guess I'll go now and do some reading...but I reserve the right to come back and rant a little if I find something worthy of my commentary.

Until then...Regards Y'all...

Firing My Bank?

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow...


Right now I've had it up to HERE...Ladies and Gentlemen (pointing to the top of my ever Greying, ever balding head)  with my Bank.

OK...actually my "Credit Union" to be more specific, but still...

What a bunch of ignorant, mealy mouthed, cross eyed buffoons they have over there working in the so-called "managment" positions at the University of Tennessee Federal Credit Union.

Seriously, I don't use the bully pullpit of this blog and the Internet randomly to take undeserving shots at people and things which I don't provide ample notice and time to correct any mistakes or problems I have with a person or group or organization, but THIS MORNING...

THIS MORNING I've pretty much had it with UTFCU and the inept people in charge over there at my local branch.

The silly bitch that sits in the chair with the lable of "branch manager" on the office door acts like she could care less if I ever did anything but have Pat's salary direct deposited along with the proceeds from my business coming in the door however I manage to get there, and then she will happily hand me a big old shovel full of "shut the f**k up" flavored cereal along with a puppy treat for the Turbo pup and consider our "banking relationship" complete.

What really pisses me off is a couple of things...the least of which is that I've wasted four years building a non-relationship when I really need a good working relationshp with a banker.

I drove into this town about four years ago with a five figure casheer's check wanting to set up a bank account to support buying the house we currently live in.

By default I picked UTFCU because they had a branch down the road between my new house and the building my new employeer's offices were in.

Pretty simple.

Since then we've never bounced a check with them except one time when some stupid rules about debit card holds at hotels caused them to want to charge us a bunch of "fees" and we had to come in and make them give us most of our money back.

Then when I started my corporation a couple of years ago it was a no brainer to just wander in and open a business account with UTFCU.

That event was the beginning of the end of my relationship with the aforementioned silly bitch running the branch, because in reality...no matter what the "branch manager" says, the UTFCU is not really in the business of business banking.

That day I handed her a check that day for a little over $5,000.

She proceeded to sit on and hold the funds from the aforementioned check for TWO WEEKS after promising me that she would release the funds as soon as the check cleared the issuing bank.

Then the aforementioned silly bitch--the "branch manager"-- proceeded to act like I was crazy and that she had never heard of the idea of releasing funds when a check clears rather than making everyone wait on the bank's "hold policy."

So now without boring you to death with other minutia and details let's just say that it's been one thing after another that I've put up with...little things like screwed up signature cards, and never ending oddesys to try to get into online banking, and not to brag here but after putting several hundred thousand dollars through their doors and into their coffers to have and to hold at my expense...

I'm DONE with my "relationship" with UTFCU this morning...

The problem I have now is not making the same mistake again.

How do I carefully consider and choose a bank, credit union, or other "financial institution" in order to not waste time and get the best service for my $$$?

I was hoping to apply for a credit line for the company this year to support our growth and cash flow needs.

I guess all of that is out the window, but UTFCU's financial health sucks as I've learned doing some research because they made a bunch of bad loans on houses and commercial real estate before the bubble burst so the odds of them opening a credit line for my little Sub S Corporation is nill...thus me making the executive decision this morning to move on to another "financial institution."

I swear I'd just like to go through an entire week without some kind of stupid bullshit rearing it's ugly head and confronting me with trouble and problems I have to address.

Or maybe if God would just have made me STUPID so I could just sit around grinning and not worry about the stuff I worry about most of the time...would that be the answer?

Probably NOT...and on that note...that will be all...FOR NOW...

The Dog Ate My Homework

Blogger Software Sucks Sometimes...


Dammit...

I just spent at least an hour writing what I thought was a pretty good posting.

It wasn't a simple personal diary entry or a spittle laced rant about something that was bothering me for a change.

It was for once a real piece of literature/opinion commentary that might have resonated with a few people.

Then I hit the "Publish" button here on on my  Blogger Software and everything went to hell.

Needless to say the entire document disappeared and I'm too lazy to try to reproduce anything similar because creative writing can't be reproduced as far as I can tell and the Blogger software only managed to auto-save only the first few paragraphs.

Just Damn...

Both of my computers have some lurking spam robot/viral bullshit wandering around on them that the idiots publishing Norton 360 can't seem to find right now, and I suspect that is at least part of the problem.

And then of course Mr. Gates' lovely Window's Vista and Internet Explorer's quirks could be behind the problem.

But it's Good Friday with Easter coming up Sunday, and I'm trying to stay undisturbed for a change.

I think I'll just try to stop bitching now and think good thoughts and work on my own spirit by getting the garden started this weekend...

Regards Y'all...

Cold Morning In Knoxtown

Oh To Live On St. Simons Island Again...


We're really missing our Little Island this morning.  Even little Missy the Turbo Pup limits her time spent outside to trotting across the ice on the deck and stays outside only long enough to do her "business" and then she's blasting back inside through the doggie door.

I have a ton of stuff that I managed to not get done out in the yard before it turned cold and now it's just not my style to go out and work in the crunchy dusting of snow we've gotten over the past 24 hours.

The remnants of my poor old Tomato Plants are still slouching on their cages and supports in the back yard, my Crepe Myrtles need pruning along with a bunch of other shrubs, and narry a Christmas light has been put up on the porch rails and in the evergreens out Front.

I should be in three dirrerent places at once this week, one of them being Indianapolis. Since it's a trip to take another  PLC programming class and I've screwed around and not bought a plane ticket so I'll probably scratch the event and reschedule for later in the winter or better yet wait for spring.

Then a client in Atlanta might need me down there and I have another new Injuneering Project I'm trying to close this week and of course the shop is full with three PLC panels which need completion and there's a couple of pneumatic valves that need tearing down and rebuilding and SooooOOOO...

...Blogging will be hit or miss this week, but I promise to be nice and not piss off any minority groups or diversity groups or endangered feces species as best I can.

But then again...you know me...a grouchy old angry, partly crippled, ever greying, ever balding slightly past middle aged white guy...

...sometimes I just can't help myself keep quiet and then all bets are off. So until next time



Regards Y'all

Hump Day

This Working For A Livin' Stuff Sucks...


Just in case you haven't noticed, I've actually been sort of busy professionally now for several weeks in a row.

Amazing.

I'm not quite sure how it happened, and some of the time I wish it hadn't happened, but it did any way in spite of my sometimes inept efforts.

And so here I am this morning., too busy to write much in the way of a blog posting.

That said, y'all have a LOVELY day, and I'll try to stop by later if something comes up worth complaining about.

"Out Damned Spot...Out I Say"

I Gave Myself A "Digital Enema?"


As my regular (and irregular) readers know by now, I've been suffering with the Cancer known as "Windows Vista" on what I laughingly call our "Server PC" since I let HP build us a custom machine in late 2007 and ship it down to our little Island on the Georgia Coast.

Giant hard drives and 22" monitors aside, the so-called Vista "operating system" delivered by Bill Gates et. al. at Microsoft, in my considered Redneck opinion...

TOTALLY SUCKS.

Not only does Vista TOTALLY SUCK, but it TOTALLY SUCKS harder than the gravitational forces of the largest black hole in the entire freaking universe/solar system/infinity.

All of that blithering aside, our so-called "server PC" finally coughed up a liver and a spleen and possibly a couple of kidneys yesterday afternoon and evening, and I ended up having to sit through doing a "restore your PC to Factory conditions" ritual complete with incense and sitting cross legged naked in the floor on the skins of a Bear and Cougar bowing down in front of a human skull with a burning candle sticking out of the top....

and when I got done with the process a week a couple of hours later I realized that AutoCAD and PhotoShop and my Microsoft Office Suite and my TV receiver card software and my Cannon Digital Camera software and EVERY F**KING THING I had installed since buying the computer was...

G O N E.

Fortunately I have an external back up copy of all of the data files, but it is a few weeks old because I was intending to move the 500 GB drive down to the laptop in the shop and never got around to it so Norton is a little behind on my archiving.

But any way...

As I set there looking at the then "restored" computer that was now dumb as a brick and asking to connect to the Internet with America On Line's free trial services, a little tiny light bulb lit up in my ever greying, ever balding head.

What began as a little trickle of thought rapidly surged to a torrent of emotion, verily a tidal wave of sparks and lightning bolts of mental electrical currents, as I had the liberating experience of realizing that I was now free to break the shackles, rend the bonds, and struggle free from the slimy mucous dripping grasp of the Microsoft Vista Home "Premium Edition" and crawl on my knees back to my beloved Windows XP Professional haven of safety and digital security.

I owned a legal copy of the Windows XP Professional 2002 edition which I had bought in my efforts to restore the little Dell laptop Pat's company abandoned in our posession when the hard drive failed back in 2006 (and on which I'm blogging right now beside the sick former Vista machine), and when I purchased a new hard drive I also bought an OEM copy of XP on E-Bay for something like $99 and I still had one legal install available.

So you know what I did?

I flushed Vista down the toilet without a second thought and within the next day or two, after a few dozen hours of work and a littany of curse words, I will hopefully have a squeeky clean Server PC running XP Professional, with AutoCAD and Photo Shop and my other programs all residing comfortably in a new and improved directory structure.

Companies producing crap like "Vista" which is so obviously flawed that they have to deliver the next generation of software and change the name (Windows 7) in hopes of keeping idiots from knowing it's the same thing slightly modified would be stoned to death in Iran/Iraq or Afghanistan, but here in the By-God United States of 'Merica their biggest fear is being called up before the Senate for a "hearing."

And on that note, I'm "hearing" my Server PC calling wanting me to push the "next" button and keep on installing software.

Regards Y'all...

Six Years Of Bitching In Public Blogging

I Hope It's Been As Much Fun For You As It Has For Me...


It's hard to believe that it was SIX YEARS ago this week I was sitting in a Holiday Inn Crown Plaza in Chicago writing my first couple of blog entries.

Up until a couple of days earlier in August 2004 I had never heard of Google's "Blogger" website which makes it possible for me to do what it is that I do here...

FOR FREE.

Free, that is, if you don't count my time...literally hundreds and hundreds of hours...OK THOUSANDS of hours to date.

Looking at my statistics page here in the Blogger software, this writing represents posting number 2861 on this blog, "What I'd Liked To Have Said", and there's an additional 110 recipes posted over at The Redneck Gourmet.

A pretty amazing body of writing I'd say coming from a guy that absolutely HATED English class in High School and College.

I know that I sometimes take liberties with my grammar and punctuation, and my spelling is less than perfect sometimes even with spellcheck, but still...

Other than a few days here and there when I didn't feel like writing or was just too busy, and a couple of month long stays in the hospital trying to die with blood clots in various parts of my body (and the three month time in the spring of 2007 when I thought I wanted to quit blogging), I've been pretty consistent in recording my attitude and thoughts here in a public forum for all of the world to view if they happen to stop by intentionally or by accident.

I don't write to get a high volume of internet traffic and I don't try to make money blogging, thus the reason you don't see any ads and pop-up banners here on my site.

I write for fun and to stay sane (if anyone could in any way describe me as being lucid) and I write knowing that when I'm long gone from this planet that some of the crap that ends up here will survive and possibly in one hundred years people will stop by and know some crazy guy (that would be me) once lived and breathed and wandered around in the world doing the stuff I've done and written the stuff I've said here.

And for me, that's all I've attempted to get out of this process.

And I hope I've brought a smile to a few peoples' faces and pissed a few people off that deserved it.

And as I said in my subtitle...I hope it's been as much fun for you as it has for me.

Dead In The Water

Paralyzed With Indecision...


Dang it...I can't seem to get crap anything useful accomplished the past few days.

OK, I've got some paper work done and put together some pricing on a new product I'm developing, but tangible, paying, work production has been limited.

And I'm going to get my tail in a crack shortly if I don't get this PLC panel out the door this week, but my head just isn't into the process right now for some reason.

Every thing's installed and working...sort of...but the fine tuning process is tedious and I still have to finish up the users' manual and working on stuff like this solo just further complicates things.

Owning the business, I can pretty much do whatever I want to do without having to deal with a "committee"...it's just figuring out what exactly to do that's the problem sometimes.

For instance, I suggest that you don't do anything like this...



That's hilarious, and I think I'll go do some laundry now...

I'm Your Huckleberry

Rambling Commentary On World Events


Oh...where to start this morning?

I'm sort of wild eyed and a little grumpy because I'm going to work through the weekend getting things done I couldn't or didn't manage to do last week, so...

Should I write about the hilarious antics of the Niggras Negros Blacks African Americans members of the Congressional Black Caucus up in DC getting their sorry race baiting demagogue butts into ethics hearings?

Waters and Rangel should have been tossed out on their stupid black rear ends 20 years ago but because of their color no one was willing to call them on their illegal deeds without risking being called "racist".

As the old saying goes..."give an idiot enough rope and they will eventually hang themselves with it"...

Or maybe I'll write about General Motors...aka "Government Motors" getting all the Obamamaniacs astir with the introduction of a $41,000 electric car--the "Volt"--with the interior room to accommodate four midgets and a capability of going 40 MILES before having to fire up the gasoline engine and burn only premium gasoline for the next 300 plus miles.

And then of course since it's summer and it hasn't rained in LA since February, it's big news that most of southern California has burst into flame and is chasing people out of their homes and businesses while the idiot reporters in the newspapers and on the TV act like it's never ever happened before.

Or maybe I'll predict that in the next two weeks that 2 or 3 decent sized tropical events will occur in the Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico and every single person working at ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN/MSNBC and the ASSociated press will lose their minds and proclaim doom and gloom and death and destruction because of the Bush Tax Cuts causing Global Warming...and the storms will disproportionately affect minorities and women.

But then again, I'm busy and don't have time to tell you what I really think.

Y'all have a LOVELY Saturday.

Eighty Eight Thousand...Eight Hundred And Eighty Eight Hits

Thanks For Reading


Click on the image for photographic evidence...

Life Is...

What You Make Of It I guess...


I'm sorry to say that I'm a bit short on words this morning.

Nothing really that serious by many people's standards or medical or anything like that, but I was slammed with a professional setback yesterday that has me once again having to re-evaluate my future.

AGAIN...

I'm getting too old for this stuff in a way, but then after owning four different corporations with two different business partners over the past 20 years I should know by now that no matter what...

Anything is possible.

Just like piloting an airplane solo (which I have) or sailing a ship solo offshore out of sight of land (which I have), when you start getting all comfortable and cozy and think you have things under control and you know what you're doing...WHAM...

Storm clouds pop up on the horizon and you have to make critical choices.

Turn back to port?

Try to go around the storm?

Or just maintain your course and heading and sail right through the rain and wind and waves and hail.

Right now I have the throttle wide open and I'm holding my course because I've come too far to turn back or change direction right now.

I just didn't have this situation on the radar until the past week and it's turned out to be a bumpy ride.

I'll get through it...wish me luck...if you will, and I'll be back here later with some more ranting and raving when I have the time.

Shuussshhhh....Be Veeewie Quiet...

I'm Hunting Wabbits Building PLC Panels


You get the picture.

So go read the news and find something stupid to mentally complain about until I can get back here and point some stuff out to you.

Somebody "Chop Sueyed" My Personal "Feng Shui"

Where's All Of My Spare Time Gone?


I don't know Ladies and Gentlemen...

I may have to call the "authorities" or an "expert" or something.

This week has started out even busier than last week did, and in spite of loafing around the later part of last week and the weekend trying to shake some sort of "creeping crud" that had taken hold of my spine, now I find myself WaaaaaAAAAAAyyyyyyYYYY behind in my duties.

I hope that you'll understand if the posting here is light and/or sporadic this week as valves fly apart and back together and into boxes.

Of course I reserve the right to see something on TV or in the newspaper and, after my eyeballs refocus after returning from being rolled into the back of my skull, explode here onto the pages of your computer screen so you should keep the Windex and paper towels handy I guess.

I'm "Extra" Inarticulate

A Pain In The Butt Writes About...What?


Sorry Ladies and Gentlemen, but I've probaby written about 10,000 words here in the past week which on second thought I haven't allowed myself to publish for public consumption on this blog.

It doesn't in the end diminish the value of writing them, it just keeps me from offending the delicate sensibilities of some of my regular readers and family and the occasional random visitor who ends up stopping by.

In my defense, as one of my favorite Authors...Samuel Clemmons once was quoted as saying:

"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer..."

Or this one...

"When angry count four; when very angry, swear."

In the end, I know that everything will be OK, and even if it isn't what I want, it will still have to do because after 50 years I've learned that things "are what they are" and life "is what it is..."

Don't worry...I'll probably be back full form within the week after regrouping and re-organizing and re-establishing a new head of steam, and until then...

Regards Y'all

Stumble...bUMBLE...SnorrrrRRRRR...

I'm Full Of Chili, & To Lazy To Post


Don't worry Ladies and Gentlemen...there's nothing really wrong here at the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.

Maybe after an early morning nap something will come to me to bitch about, but right now I'm too lethargic to Google let alone do a spellcheck on a few hundred words if I actually managed to write them.

Z
z
z
z
z
z
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zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZ...snore...

They Sell Everything I Ever Needed Or Could Need In The Future...

Where's My Credit and Debit Card?


So today, being manic depressive/Alzheimer's infected/attention deficit disordered, I'm busy designing an extension to our Turbo Pup rear yard access deck which I built last summer, to include a covered outdoor kitchen area/storage shed/greenhouse, while at the same time trying to coordinate with it another future expansion of the Master Bedroom and tiny little associated half bath into a full bath with a walk in closet with additional floor space in/around the main bedroom area.

Everybody got those specifications written down (there's a test later)?

In either Phase Two or Phase Three of the renovation process I expect to end up with a second bathroom with a bath tub and a toilet and a sink that's larger that the ones that they sell to midgets and bikini models at Home Depot.

After all, it's my toilet...and unlike an airline seat I'm renting from Air Tran or Delta Airlines, I want one built by Lazy-Boy from their "Double Wide" "executive" series...something with a heated "Naugahyde" seat with high speed Internet, high definition 1080P, and the new Wii I-Max surround sound video game console option.

They might just find me dead like Elvis on my toilet if I buy what I want...but I digress...

I was looking around for pricing and dimensions on some larger than "child sized" toilets and Jacuzzi Tubs and found this web site...Safer Wholesale.com and their product selection blew my mind as I surfed my way through their listings...

Where else in the entire world can you find, on one Web Site, such a bunch of excellent stuff like this for sale?

Elliptical Machines
Snow Blowers
E Book Readers
Cigarette Rollers
Popcorn Makers
Pool Tables
Bowling Balls
Train Horns
Trailers
Video Glasses
Kitchen Fun
Air Conditioners
Corn Stove Heaters
GPS
Electric Infrared Heaters
WindMills
Electric Saver
RC Cars
Fuel Saver Kits
UTV/Utility Vehicles
Cornhole/Bean Bag Game
Dirt Bikes
Electric Scooters
Kids Fitness Equipment
Kids Powerwheels
Exercise Equipment
Gaming Equipment
Generators
Go Karts
Golf Carts
Hot Tubs & Spas
Mobility Scooters
Mopeds / Gas Scooters
Trike - 3 Wheeled Scooters
Pocket Bikes
Saunas
Snowmobiles
Super Bikes
Tanning Beds
ATVs
Helmets (DOT)
Massage Chairs
Extreme Blowouts
Swimming Pools

Cigarette Rollers? Train Horns? Bowling Balls? Video Glasses? Kitchen fun (wink wink)?

Cornhole/ Beanbag Game?

ah ah ah ah ah ah ahh hheeeeeehhhhhaAAAAA

POCKET BIKES?

What the heck is a "Pocket Bike"?

I just decided to buy a DOT helmet and a Massage Chair and forget exactly why I brought all of this stuff up in the first place.

Seriously...there's a country song in there somewhere...

Somebody needs to call David Allen Coe.

Downhill Conditions Improving

New Afternoon Snow Elevates Spirits...


Surprisingly enough we picked up probably another inch or two of snow mid afternoon yesterday as the temperature started it's plunge down to the current reading of 22 degrees F on the back yard weather station.

I was in a cooking mood since there was no way I could get Pat and the Turbo Pup to venture out in the car, so I produced a late morning Brunch and then scrounged around in the fridges and freezer and pantry and found that I had the ingredients for a Moroccan Beef Stew I've cooked once before called Tagine (click on the link for the recipe) which features tomatoes and carrots and cinnamon and cumin and Chickpeas and I used Beef Tenderloin tips and a couple of older Tenderloins which I cut up into bite sized pieces.

Served over Couscous made with butter and chicken stock instead of plain water, and I'd put the dish up against anything found in any Mediterranean restaurant I've ever been to.

While the stew was cooking down I put back on the new ill fitting so called "long underwear" and "waterproof" top garments and wandered down the street for the purpose of generally being nosey and taking a few photos.

Here's my ancient mailbox...circa 1963...on the far right sitting in the snow at the end of the drive:



That sucker is mounted in a METAL DAIRY MILK JUG buried in the ground and filled with concrete. (There's no way I'm digging it up and putting in a new post and box, but I may get energized enough when it stops snowing this spring to grind the old silver paint off and install a new finish and street number.)

Here's a look down the street nearby...



and one of the small "mini-farms" nearby which haven't sold out to be turned into subdivisions (If we ended up maintaining a presence in knoxtown I want to move over there...)






On a sad note I found this somber sight of this year's Christmas Tree laying in the brush pile in the back yard...




and then I found a couple of happy snow covered fellows down the street which made me feel a little better...



I guess I'll go now and do some work fussing with stupid income taxes, then take a nap in anticipation of polishing up the skis on the sled and trying to stay out of the newspaper and off the evening TV news.

Blogging Re-runs

Falling Back On My Previous "Body Of Work"


I'm feeling sort of lazy this morning, so I was poking around the Blogger site and looking at statistics and stuff and I realized something worth writing about.

All of y'all out there that aren't bloggers probably don't know the amount of information that my "Site Meter" can give me about who's reading and where they're reading from and how many times they stop by in any given day to see what I'm up to.

Just in case you haven't been paying attention, you can scroll down on this blog and down there in the left hand column is a little box called "Site Meter" which is generally intended to stoke the ego of the blogger and be used to monitor demographics and other readership details for the purpose of making money selling blog ads...

but I'm too stubborn to make you have to wade through ads for silly consumer crap you have plenty of opportunities to buy while slogging your way through the rest of the internet to get to me and my ramblings.

So you don't see commercial ads on this web page but know that I'm sitting here watching YOU and I know if you've stopped by and I like it...torturing you with my demented thinking and humor.

You can go down there right now and double click on it (my "Site meter") and see things like that I average about 50 "hits" a day and I have regular readers living everywhere around the world--from the former classmates and friends down on the Gulf coast in Florida, to my fellow Blogger up in Kentucky going through some traumatic events needing God's Grace, and the frequent commenter over in Louisiana and let me just say that everyone is welcome and appreciated although I don't attempt to make a dime for my efforts here other than ensuring my own personal sanity and/or insanity such as it is.

Any way, using "Site meter," every now and then I end up noticing a spike in readership based on some particular topic.

Over at my cooking blog, The Redneck Gourmet, it is historically seasonal with the words "Grilled Crab Legs" and "Pork Butt" leading the way most of the year. The holiday season causes things to ramp up, and the summer holidays like Memorial Day and July 4th and Labor Day get a lot of views on the page with people trying to grill things and otherwise cook things I've already mastered and written about.

Over here at this blog, for some silly reason, my Gaza Stripper photo archive on Google gets the largest consistent number of hits...generally from the Middle East...so if I turn up with my head cut off I guess that you can assume that I succumbed to a" fatwa" issued by some third rate Islamic Cleric in a fit of yelling at me and all of the rest of the infidels out here in the world.

All of that said, I was cruising around "Site Meter" this morning and noticed a couple of hits from the same city in California--a state where the liberal residents generally avoid me like the plague or E-Coli, and when I checked the incoming link out it led me to a particularly eloquent piece I wrote back in August of 2005, entitled...

Why Does Government Fund The Arts?

After All, It's A Really, Really Bad Idea

I'm learning late in life that there has been an artist hiding inside my body. It must have been there all along because I haven’t had any surgery or an out of body experience or anything, but it’s rather surprising to me just the same.

I knew from a fairly young age that I liked music—learning to play at various ages and abilities the guitar, the piano, the trumpet and more recently taking to dragging a briefcase full of harmonicas around with me on the occasional musical evening out.

I actually like "blowin' the harp" the best because, although I have the least time and financial investment in the endeavor, I’m 200% better than I ever was on any of the other instruments. On the Harp I have the ability to improvise and “take a ride”—something I envied in a few trumpet players I knew back in high school and college.

I’ve also started working part time with water colors and acrylics and believe that I could really do some good, marketable work if I’d buckle down and stop wasting time blogging and watching the news.

My acting and theater adventures are pretty much over for the time being, not because I lacked the motivation and talent, but because of my inability to tolerate the petty politics and insufferable moronic ineptitude of the slovenly people that are currently posing as board members and individual show managers. Talk about EGOS…

Perhaps part of the problems I had with the “artsy theater crowd” here on the island was they were all flaming, bedwetting, sniveling LIBERALS and I’m such a blazing conservative LIBERTARIAN.

Just for fun I would go to rehearsals or to weekend set builds wearing my “Celebrate Diversity” T-shirt that features a dozen and a half different brands and calibers of handguns in a chart on the back.


My favorite Tee

Then again, it might have been my insistence to bringing MY radio into the theater during the week when I was working solo on the sets and listening to talk show hosts Neil Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity.

On a number of occasions people would come into the theater while I was working and out of the clear blue demand that they be allowed to change the station on MY RADIO to guess what—National Public Radio. I usually resorted to turning the radio off when someone else came in because I’d rather listen to “Nine Inch Nails” or “Tiny Tim’s Complete Greatest Hits” than listen to NPR for five minutes.

I think that it is a great idea for parents to encourage their kids to participate in the arts. Simple things like buying your kids a box of Crayola Crayons and a ream of plain office paper at a total cost of $5.00 is a great start. Buy your kid a cheep piano and make your boys learn to play like Billy Joel so they can date girls like Kristy Brinkley....er...um...any way...I think that it's great that our public schools have music class, art class, and drama classes for all ages of students and I’m completely behind the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for marching bands and class plays.

I guess what I’m saying is that I fully support government funding for the arts when it comes to ARTS EDUCATION, what burns my aching butt is other forms of government funding involving supporting unemployed, unemployable, idiots and morons that paint cows purple or put a Crucifix in a jar of human urine (brought to you with tax dollars by the National Endowment for the Arts), or guys like this that sew a dead fetus’ head on the body of a bird and display it as ART?!?!?!? WTF?

BEIJING --A Chinese artist who grafted the head of a human fetus onto the body of a bird has defended his work as art after a Swiss museum withdrew the piece from an exhibit.

"It's precisely because I respect all life that I did this," artist Xiao Yu said Tuesday. He said the bird and fetus "died because there was something wrong with them. ... I thought putting them together like this was a way for them to have another life."

Swiss museum visitor Adrien de Riedmatten, 29, filed a complaint on Monday with the district attorney of Bern, Switzerland, calling for an investigation into the piece, which was on display at the Bern Art Museum.

"I want to know where this baby comes from and if it was killed for this work," de Riedmatten said.

"We know about the problems of late-term abortions in China and we have the right to ask ourselves questions."


What was he thinking?

The work was removed, curator Bernhard Fibicher said Tuesday, because museum directors didn't want the controversy surrounding it to overshadow the rest of the "Mahjong" exhibit, which features avant-garde Chinese works from the last 25 years. The museum is planning an Aug. 22 symposium with artists, philosophers and ethics experts before deciding whether to re-exhibit the piece.

I know that I’m taking the story slightly out of context because it didn’t happen here in the United States—it happened in Switzerland—but I suspect that if the piece was offered for display in San Fransisco or NY City, the “usual suspects” and the rest of the “Artsy” crowd would somehow manage to crack open the government’s wallet and toss a few thousand dollars at the cost of the production of the show.

My question is, should the government be paying for the production, acquisition, or display of ANY ART unless the artist and the works have attained a status of bona fied historical value?

It seems quite acceptable to me for the Smithsonian Institution to attempt to acquire Vincent Van Gogh’s masterpiece “Starry Night” using government money (tax dollars) because the piece has historical significance and besides—it’s bound to go up in value.


Starry Night...

On the other hand, tossing my hard earned tax dollars at some starving asshole living in a sweltering Soho loft with his tie-dyed hairy legged girlfriend is NOT, in my considered Redneck opinion, making a good investment.

Just look at most crap they put on pedestals out in front of and hang on the walls of most public buildings. Most of this shit you’d have to pay someone to haul off after a yard sale, but the government and their “Artsy” consultants see fit to toss ridiculous sums of your and my money to support these struggling businessmen.

I have a message for all the little kids out there and their parents that think that they are raising the next Grandma Moses or Picasso—teach your offspring to read, write, and do math FIRST—then encourage them to draw, paint, etch, sing, act, sculpt, chisel, make wood chips in the floor, sew doll heads on stuffed animals, or whatever else you deem to be classified as ART.

What you don’t need to do is expect to raise an ignorant “Artsy” moron that can’t hold a job for two months waiting tables at a Pizza Hut and then expect to clamor and lobby the government to INCREASE FUNDING FOR THE ARTS.

OVER MY COLD, DEAD, DECOMPOSING BODY...

It’s just that simple...


That was a pretty darn good piece of writing right there, even if I do say so Myself...

ANY QUESTIONS???

Obscure Musical Stuff I Know

And Things I Think That You Should Know Too...


Have I mentioned that I spent a good deal of my life with a Trumpet in my hands a long time ago?

Probably not, because I never really mastered the instrument beyond a tolerable level of competence although I played it through junior high, high school, and into college in the GT Naval ROTC band.

In fact, the first time I went to Mardi Gras in New Orleans I was actually IN Mardi Gras, trumpet in hand, as our band was invited to march and play in three major parades--Bacchus, Edymoyn and Poydras (I think)--on Canal Street and in the Superdome.

Any way, today I currently own an old Holton B flat trumpet and a cheap Chinese Fluglehorn like Chuck "Feels So Good" Mangione plays, but best intentions aside they spend most of their time in their cases these days as my lips have lost their finely tuned pucker as a result of disuse. (By disuse I mean that talking and eating don't qualify for keeping your skills using an instrument with a mouthpiece in tune...)

I also have a real Australian Didgeridoo, a genuine Hawaiian Ukulele, and a whole box full of Horner and Lee Oscar Harmonicas laying around in my office at any given time, and I can make strange noises with my armpits and wet my hands and make funny fart like sounds and wait a minute...I lost my train of thought here...

...wait...

...I've got it...

...I know, what I was saying was that I consider myself to be sort of a musical person on and off through the years, and I pride myself in carrying fairly high standards when it comes to the music I listen to because I find silence or the roar of a power tool to be vastly superior to much of the stuff put out on CD since they stopped making 8 track tapes and vinyl records.

Any way, I've been working on singing the Blues when we do our karaoke nights out the past half year and you already saw the Elvis Presley's "Tryin' To Get To You" and some other stuff I've put up here in the past.

Tonight I present for your enjoyment a man I greatly admire--Big Joe Turner --who's career spanned 60 years from the 1920's until he died in 1985.

As I understand it, Big Joe started out singing without a microphone or electricity in taverns and juke joints and a result became famous not only for his singing but for belting out his lyrics at a HUGE volume, with no amplification.

I'm a fan of his work and if you Google him or go to Best Buy and check out the blues section you'll be surprised of the volume of his work and the songs he did that other people like Elvis covered in later years.

Here's a couple of links to YouTube showing Big Joe doing what he did best at the Apollo Theater in about 1954:




...then about ten years later in 1965:





And if you haven't had enough, listen to this:



I find it to be comforting to find stuff like this recorded for posterity on YouTube...maybe some day a hundred years from now people will see me singing Big Joe's hits at the local karaoke bar...

Then again...Probably not, but that will be all...for now...