Archive for March, 2011

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We Need Rain And A Pee Story

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

 

So. I walked the big garden yesterday and things are looking good. We had to water using pumps submerged in our ponds. Our part of Texas has been in drought for years now and my family is lucky we store our own water.

But even clean pond water is no substitute for rain. An inch of rain dropped from a spring thunderstorm is Mother Nature’s mother’s milk to plants. Lightening charges fill the rainwater full of nitrogen and the plants respond to it with unique vigor.

If it weren’t for the good compost and compost tea I produce, and the agronomy practiced by Streaker Jones, we’d be a sunk ship without rain.

I’ve been working on some product ideas for compost tea. I’ve got the product designers at our hemp clothing factory working on a material we can use to make compost tea bags. Compost tea is a quickly perishing commodity and I’m trying to make it more user friendly to home gardeners.

I keep wanting to use the term “tea baggers” in humorous advertising but I’d feel guilty with the associations. I keep seeing animated corn plants making compost tea for their garden and everything grows to gargantuan proportions. Like the Micky Mouse part of the movie Fantasia- The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. I was going to call the corn men Tea Baggers.

The once happy corn men start to freak out when they over-use and abuse the power of compost tea. The Japanese eggplants would become ninja warriors and the jalapeno peppers would be drug cartel hit men. Of course it would take a three-to-five-minute commercial to properly present the concept and who can afford that.

Streaker Jones and I drove down to Houston this one time back in the late sixties to see Fantasia at the old Alabama Theater located in the Montrose area of town. Streaker Jones had just perfected a new mushroom strain for one of his agronomy classes down to Texas A&M and I was doing a term research paper on hallucinogenic drugs for a psychology course I was taking at UT. That would be the real fucking UT– the University of Texas.

Anyway, we were stoned out of our gourds.

I love that Disney movie and will, obviously, drive hundreds of miles to see it. When we got to the Alabama, we were surprised to see how big it was. The center isle was fifty seats across, and we took the center seats in the center isle in what I remember to be row eight. Maybe it was row nine, but who gives a shit? We were right smack-dab in the middle in the front.

Maybe three minutes into it, I had to pee. But I somehow managed to sit through the entire movie without disturbing anyone by working my six-feet-four through twenty-five other stoners to the isle. But when the movie was over, I almost crushed a thousand stoners in mad rush to the bathroom.

When I got there, the line was out the door. I waited and did the foot shuffle that a full bladder instigates, and I bitched the bitches of a full-bladder sufferer. When I got inside the bathroom, I noticed that the urinals were the old fashioned kind that were built into the walls and floor, and placed close together for efficiencies. You could stand over the trough on the floor, lean against the wall and then point and shoot. Men were standing shoulder-to-shoulder leaning against the wall, peeing.

I’m looking at the rows of men lining each wall of urinals and I notice that the one at the far end is unused. I’m standing there hallucinating and maybe starting to bleed internally from excess bladder pressure, and these Houston assholes are leaving a blank spot ahead of me.

“Fuck it,” I said to Streaker Jones behind me and whoever else was near. “I’m using that one.”

I had that getting-started problem that you get when you hold pee too long, so it took me at least a minute to start. I’m leaning against the wall with my head rested on my forearm and my eyes shut in that practiced, forced relaxation method we all use at times like those. My pee stream started with a whimper– a bare trickle of urine, and graduated to fire hose proportions.

I’m standing there “Oooing and aahing,” likely making sex-pleasure noises I had to pee so bad. I peed and peed and peed. When I finished and opened my eyes, I noticed that I had out-peed the entire theater– I had emptied the place. I washed my hands, always have and always will, and walked out.

Streaker Jones was standing in front of a small crowd of men outside the door. The men were staring at me like I was a two-headed snake and Streaker Jones was laughing his ass off. “What’s so fucking funny?” I asked him.

When he could catch his breath, he said to me, he said, “Weren’t no urinal inna corner!”

“Huh?” I’m never at a loss for words. “What do you mean?”

Streaker Jones just laughed and pointed me back to the bathroom. I walked back into it and sure enough, I had peed on the floor. Hell, I peed all over the floor.

I’m told that a super-full adult male bladder might contain a quart of pee. Bullshit. A men’s room with a dozen urinals down each wall has a big floor plan, and I managed to wet most of this one.

I don’t worry about peeing on the floor anymore because I pee in sinks. A sanitary and socially-responsible pee alternative.

I need to go now because I have promised Squirt we would go out and try to get adopted by a cat this morning. So drink your Carta Blanca beer responsibly and I’ll see you manana, y’all.

Posted in Carta Blanca Beer, Environmental Issues, Home Grown Tomatoes | 6 Comments »

@Reckmonster Makes Mooner Mess

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

 

So. I just got up from the breakfast table and both my nerves and my ADHD are in a jumble. Gram somehow captured a political science major from Texas A&M, a senior and an officer in the Aggie Corps. The Corps in Aggie Land is the elite ROTC dealie, or whatever it is the military calls what ROTC used to be. I haven’t kept up with any of that shit since I was rejected for military service myself.

We had quite a crew at the big breakfast counter. Gram was bragging to her new temporary boyfriend that I’m a famous blogger; Aunt Hilda was arguing with her permanent boyfriend, a shrunken head in a mahogany box; Dixie was home for a visit to evaluate Squirt’s progress with mixing too many languages into one sentence; and SAC Ellen was sitting at the end of the big granite breakfast counter taking it all in with a smile. Streaker Jones was busy at the stove top preparing his specialty, Indian corn cakes.

The corn cakes are crispy and dense little patties that he grills with clarified butter. Mother has placed a dozen bottles of homemade jellies and preserves on the table and I put out some maple syrup we get from a place right on the US and Canadian border. Plain or slathered with condiments, either way the cakes are a hit.

Our relationship has been mostly settled for a week or so, and SAC Ellen spent last night here with me. She doesn’t like sleeping here all that much because Rush Limbaugh and Rick Perry spend the night snoring and farting and fighting in the closet. My gay pig and ostrich are a cute couple in that Abbot and Costello sort of way. Funny but a pain in the ass.

I’m still trying to get them to come out of the closet, but I’m out of logical reasons to use to persuade them. Maybe it’s time to go illogical, use some thought process of my giant bird’s namesake, the Texas governor. Like when Rick Perry, governor, carries a girlie handgun to protect himself when he runs, while under the armed protection of his security detail.

Anyway, the college boy is holding up pretty well. He’s Hispanic and his name is Robert after dropping the “o” for convenience, he says, and he seemed to be a smart thinker. Strong family values and a heavy dose of God and Country seem to be his guidance systems.

And don’t even start with any of that, “Well if those are his values, what the fuck is he doing with your Gram,” bullshit. Show me the first college aged boy who can ignore any woman in a bright red Ferrari and I’ll show you a eunuch.

Gram’s potions provide additional reductions in resistance.

Anyway, Gram pulls up the Mooner Johnson blog on her laptop and shows it to Robert. Robert turns out to be a speed reader and he blows through the last ten postings, and whatever comments show, in just a couple minutes.

When he looked up from the computer, the young man said to me, he said, “Well, Mr. Johnson, it appears that you have finally attracted a mature, straight-thinking reader. But who is this Reckmonster person, and what about her waiting to be your twelfth wife?”

Oops.

“Oh, that’s an Internet admirer with whom I joke a little.” I tried to sound flippant and casual.

“Why did that make you nervous, Mr. Johnson, it was a simple question.”

I adjusted my thinking about this Aggie in my kitchen. “Are you in pre-law, Robert?” I asked him.

“Yes, sir,” he answered. “I’m taking an advanced course in witness interrogation and we have an assignment to practice when we think we detect someone avoiding a subject. You seem to be unsettled when I bring up the subject of the Reckmonster, Mr. Johnson. Would you mind telling those of us gathered here this morning why that is?”

Little shitball. I responded with, “Look, you little shitball, let’s start this inquisition with you explaining how you explain spending the night sexing with my grandmother within the contexts of your religion, family and Corps values. How do you justify your deviant behavior, tell us that.” I know I told you guys to give the kid a break, but he started this.

“Well,” he began to answer but was stopped cold. SAC Ellen had risen from her stool and was giving the side of my head a laser-heated glare.

“No, Mister Johnson, answer the man’s question.” My lover’s words were cold-hot bullets.

Now I’m sitting alone at my computer with the swirling swill that is my thoughts. Maybe that should be swirling swills for thoughts. I’m not especially worried about SAC Ellen, she’ll forgive me my transgressions. What really bugs me is this. I’m wondering how it is that I can love my country for most of the same reasons as Theo and share many of the same sentiments as him, and yet I feel such a distance from him philosophically.

Really, howthefuck can that be?

How can he and I both value education yet seem so far apart on funding for education? I sense that we each think a man needs to take responsibility for protecting the weak among us but I feel at polar opposites with him on what that means.

Ugh.

I’m too fucking busy now to worry about my convictions. I’m trying to get my book to the publisher and my webber and bloggie site is a total mess. I’m trying to find a fixer-upper guy to fix things, but so far nobody wants to tackle it.

Makes me want to responsibly drink Carta Blanca beer.

Manana, y’all.

Tags:
Posted in A Life Lesson, ADHD, Carta Blanca Beer, Squatlo | 6 Comments »

Theo Responds Part One

Monday, March 28th, 2011

 

So. What a glorious weekend in Austin, Texas. In spite of the many technical issues suffered here to my webber, I’m in a great mood. The weather was crisp at night and warm during daylight. I love when the overnight temps stay in the 50′s. First, nothing beats open-window sleep when the temps are cool and the air is crisp. Second, and far more important, is that the blooms on my hundreds of tomato plants in our big garden will set with a high degree of success as long as the overnight temps are between 52 and 60-degrees.

I checked things yesterday and if we can get some rain, I’m harvesting a bumper crop this year. Also, and this is to “Nanny-nanny-boo-boo” the Tennessee Connection, I’ll be plucking Early Girls within a week! And you all know how I feel about early girls.

And in more good news, I have received emails from Theo and he has given me permission to post some, or all of them. My rule is that I will post any comment so long as it contains no threats and is not too repetitive, and I will not publish your emails to me without your permission.

Theo’s emails were in response to my challenge for him to step up and take a big boy swing at the plate. I asked him to tell us who he is, what makes him tick, and to give us some logic-based discourse in support of his conservative views. I promised him a forum, and I’m glad I did. Here is the first of Theo’s emails, unedited except to double-space it:

“Theo’s First Email”

“Mooner,

(1) It has been both hard to read and post on your website. Your last post stated you were having some technical problems. That post and multiple comments are now missing as of 3/27/11 @ 11:30am Pacific time on my computer. I hope they are fixed soon. I am e-mailing you this so you get it today if you can’t get things back up and running smoothly. (I have been noticing more than subtle changes in the internet but am not ready to commit to a conspiracy theory yet. I guess that’s what happens when Obama gives the internet away but that is a posting subject for another day)

(2) In regards to your history of sexual abuse, of course being raped DOES NOT make you less of a man. Men who have sex with men are not less than men for that matter ( I am not saying you do, I am making a point). I apologize for the priest-altar boy statement, it went too far. The psychological trauma and wounds may have healed but the scars last almost forever and should not be reopened.

(3) Here is my mini-bio if you’re really interested. I was raised conservative by hard working professionals in the northwest. Went into the military out of high school. Did a bunch of college credits throughout my enlisted time. Honorably discharged and went to college. Dual degree in biology and chemistry. My minors were poly sci and economics. Masters in chemistry. PhD in physical chemistry. Some asshole talked me into applying for medical school. Completed med school and went into internal medicine. Now sub-specialize in pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine. I work at a major medical academic center where I get to use both my PhD and sub-specialty training in research, teaching and clinical practice. I own and operate a successful business on the side.

(4) Single but was previously married. My wife and 2 kids were killed by a drunk driver. My wife was a physician and was head of the psychiatry department of where I work, thus my familiarity with psychiatric terms.

(5) I like and identify with the conservative Tea Party movement. (I know what you’re thinking, they are not racist as much as the MSM would just love for them to be.) I am not a fan of the “Rovian Republican Patriarchs” i.e. the Bushes et al as they are big spenders as well. I’ll make you a bet that the Republicans put up a Mitt Romney and Jed Bush ticket. I am probably less of a fan of the Clintons and think Obama is completely unqualified and grossly incompetent (which he has proved multiple times). My uncle was a long time Supreme Court Justice of Illinois, the stories i could tell about the Chicago Machine as well as Obama ………

(6) I do not blame God for my wife and son’s deaths and I have no problem with religion. However, I do have the same visceral reaction to alcohol and alcoholics that you do to organized religions. I must really maintain tight control and put it into perspective as there are high percentages of alcoholics and alcohol related disease at any hospital.

(7) I appreciate the offer to post. I am busy. I have 2 full time jobs that keep me at a dead run. I have time to make comments because I can multi-task unlike Squnt. I will place a post but will send it to this e-mail account and you let me know if it’s something you want to tackle.

(8) I have adopted Saul Alinsky’s community organizing technique now made more famous by Obama’s statement about “getting into people’s faces” when I post. I understand that people have the right to their opinion however, when they twist or misquote facts……

Theo”

This is but the first Theo posting in this series. I decided to make this a series. I won’t let this dominate my postings because, quite honestly, this is my fucking webber jobbie. But I like debate, I want to hear logical argument in opposition to my own positions. I can change my mind if it needs changing.

I find myself already positively influenced by Theo, and therefore I say to you, “Drink Carta Blanca beer, but do it responsibly.”

Manana, y’all.

Posted in Carta Blanca Beer, Politics, Squatlo | 3 Comments »

Update On Theo Comments And Theo Commenters

Sunday, March 27th, 2011

 

So. Basically what I’m doing today is making replies to posted comments. The reason I’m doing it here is because I can’t make a reply as the administrator on my own fucking website. I spend hours replying to the now voluminous comments, and my replies evaporate into thin ether-net air like compassion at a Teabagger Convention.

I can only hope that all of the commenter can view their comments. Sometimes it takes awhile for GoYoDaddy to update, so be patient.

Maybe the easiest and most understandable way to do this is to do a report. Since I promised Theo I would provide him an open forum to air his views, he has posted numerous times. So far, he has kept his efforts mostly civil, he has maintained an air of apparent intelligence and he’s said a couple funny things.

Progress.

I guess the next logical step in the progression would be for Theo to either pick up the gauntlet and run with it, or he can simply run the gauntlet as challenged. It isn’t enough to mention subjects and subject matters if your challenge is to state your views and explain why you support them. Several times, Theo, you have commented that I/we liberals don’t think there are any views other than our own; you accused us of being single opinionated.

That would be to accuse us of what we accuse you to be. Fair enough. But you need to express an opinion and support it with the why– facts, reasons, theories, emotions even.

Take, for example, a specific slam you directed at me. You stated that I, “Seem to have some real God issues…,” and, “…Was it one of those priest-alter boy things?”

Since you are a new reader here, let me help you. I have no God issue at all. I have an issue with any person who attempts to force me to live by his religious beliefs or standards. I also have a problem with anyone who thinks that his religion provides the only access to God and/or heaven. I think that there are many paths and many Gods a man can follow. So you missed the mark on that one, and by a large margin. Maybe you can show me why I should change my opinions there.

As for the priest-alter boy statement– bulls-eye. Same thing as a bulls-eye. It wasn’t a priest, it was my Baptist deacon Boy Scout leader who raped me as a kid. But what would be your point with that? Why is that important to you? Why am I less of a man to you because I was raped? Do you think that gives you authority to call me unflattering names? Why do you have disdain in your heart rather than compassion for me?

What was your point, Theo? Do you think I’m less a man for having been raped? Really?

I will say this again. Theo, I have a very strong sense that you have something useful to say. I think that you may have intelligent and well-thought positions on issues that might be cogent argument in support of conservative viewpoint.

We can make it personal. You can go back through my stuff here and pick something I’ve done, and then pick it apart. Show me where I’m wrong and tell me why. I have the thick skin of Hannibal’s reference. Or choose your own topic, I don’t give a shit either way.

OK, news. Gram snagged a big carp on yesterday’s fishing trip and refused to throw it back. We do our pier fishing with cane poles and light-weight spin cast rods. The carp, sixteen pounds when I weighed it at home, swallowed the hook on Gram’s rod and took it straight to the bottom of the lake to digest it. Gram’s struggles were almost as funny as Squirt’s reactions.

Gram is cussing and tugging and sweating, her skinny frame of knotted-rope muscles all taught and shaking. Squirt was right beside Gram the entire time, barking and swearing right alongside. Cursing and barking in a dozen different languages.

After ten minutes of laughing as we watched Gram and her shadow fight and cuss, I offered to take over for her. She thought she had a big catfish and refused to give up. I remain amazed at that old gasbag’s strength, perseverance and vocabulary.

“Ain’t no fucking way I’m a givin up, Mooner. Gonna land this pussy catfish an your cookin me one a them puddin Phillipines noodle dishes with it.”

What she meant, I think, was I was to prepare pad Thai noodles with catfish. But it was a carp, a nasty, smelly and slimy carp.

Didn’t matter. “Yer fixin me this here carpal, Mooner. I done worked too hard ta land him.”

I was shocked when the fish tasted good. I fixed it by deep frying the seasoned and flour-dusted fillets and then smothered a Thai sauce heavy with ginger, curry and lemon grass. It was actually yummy.

Served it with rice, carrots and Carta Blanca beer. Manana, y’all.

Posted in Carta Blanca Beer, gayrights, Squirt | No Comments »

Theo’s Chance To Be A Man

Saturday, March 26th, 2011

 

So. In an effort to provide the highest quality entertainment, I managed to coax Theo away from Squatlo’s Rant. What I did is when I said, “Fuck Rick Perry,” I also said, “Fuck Theo.”

Welcome aboard, Theo.

Theo. Now that you are here, how about showing us what you got. Give us a little sumptin-sumptin and impress us with your wit, or logic or maybe a little deep thinking. Tell us what you stand for, what you believe in, what you want from life.

Step out of the role of homophobic anti-socialist and step into some big boy pants. Put your ideas at risk and tell us about the things you feel good about. Put your feeling in front of us at the risk of our ridicule.

Pick a subject and tell us your thoughts. Like civil rights or gay rights or women’s rights. What about the de-funding of public education? What about state legislators stripping away the bargaining rights of state employees and teachers? Ooh, what about abortion?

Be a man, Theo, or a woman maybe. I think of you as a male, but who knows. Tell us about you– are you young, employed, married, educated, involved, a parent, a registered NRA member, a stringer for Rush Limbaugh?

Step up Theo. We all know that you can dish out angry criticism with the best. How about showing you can take it as well. This is your big chance. What are you waiting for?

Who knows, Theo. Maybe if you say something smart here, you’ll catch the eyes of one of the right-wing Christians who monitor my site religiously. Those silly fuckballs are desperate for an original thought. Hell, they’re likely to see you as the second coming if you can give them something intelligent to regurgitate a billion times a day.

I throw the gauntlet at your feet, Theo. You love to tell others to go to the dictionary, so look up gauntlet. I throw it and you can run it.

And now the Squirt and I are taking Gram and Aunt Hilda fishing. The weather is perfect and the Carta Blanca is icy cold. It’ll be fun watching Squirt as she tries to tend everyone’s bobbers. Squirt will be vibrating and buzzing all over the dock. She reminds me of a pair of plastic wind-up dentures with a too-tight spring. Dr. Sam I. Am-Johnson warned me that she’d commit me again if I drove her little dog crazy.

Which reminds me. Does anyone know if it’s OK for dogs to drink coffee?

Manana, y’all.

Posted in Carta Blanca Beer, Squatlo, Squirt | 2 Comments »

Theo Visits; Will Civility Prevail?

Friday, March 25th, 2011

 

So. Today is a very big day for me. I got up and went through the many required steps of my morning routine, and then logged on to my bloggie site. Much to my surprise, I had a message from Theo! That’s right folks, I, Mooner Johnson, got a comment posted to my bloggie by the one, the only… Theo.

I got a comment from Theeeeoooo, I got a comment from Theeeooooo!!!

That would be Squatlo’s Theo for those of you living under rocks. I am so fucking proud. Theo has placed me on the self-same pedestal as Squatlo, and I guess I’ll now be worshiped with the same passion as my bloggie buddy. Theo posts lengthy angry, homophobic rants in comment form where he, and here I’m supposing Theo is short for Theodore and not Theodora, suggests that Squatlo is the angry gay man.

Until today, the angry and rage-filled ranters on my site have been of the deeply Christian varieties. Their comments have been religious-based diatribes that condemn me to hell and threaten me and mine. When they aren’t carefully-crafted chain letter mass postings, they are just plain dumb and mean. And that is different with Theo. Theo seems both to have original thoughts and also an IQ above that of a goat.

His first comment here contains silly homophobic rhetoric same as with what he does at Squatlo’s. His second… that’s right, I got a second awhile ago, did not. If Theo can refrain from using gay bashing as his go-to put down, I’ll give him a forum.

Also, no threats, Theo. No gay bashing and no threats. As long as you can be civil I’ll let you on. If I feel the need to edit, I’ll kick you off as I have others.

Hell, I’ll even let you be a guest blogger if you can give me something interesting. You seem to be conservative but I’m not sure. You only seem to be against things and not for anything. Tell us what you think from a positive perspective and I’ll print it.

Theo, I don’t know if you’ll bother to return to my silly little ghost town. But if you do, make yourself to home.

I’m cracking a cold Carta Blanca and waiting to see if Theo comes back for a visit.

Manana, y’all.

Posted in A Life Lesson, Carta Blanca Beer, Squatlo | 8 Comments »

@Reckmonster Inspires Lie; Drink Carta Blanca Beer

Thursday, March 24th, 2011

 

So. Somebody needs to explain Twitter to me. How in the FUCK do people find a person on twitter?

I’m not talking about how the @Reckmonster found me, that one I understand. The Reck is in love with me, in a virtual sense, and is quite desirous to have sweaty virtual sex with my studly virtual self.

I very much get it that a woman with said motivations can do anything.

OK, that was a lie. I want to have sex with Reck, as evidenced by my continual sex dreams wherein she is the main attraction. The booty-luscious ninja-woman puts up with my crazy ass only because she is a mental health professional and likely worries I might be dangerous.

I don’t understand why people lie. I have worked hard all my life to be a good liar with no more success than a chain-smoking bomb builder. Every time I get a good lie all structured and set in place, it explodes in my face. I don’t mean the lied-to personages catch me lying, I mean my brain blows up.

I can’t stand anybody who lies for personal gain, and that includes me. When I tell a lie my ADHD-addled brain automatically focuses all of it attentions on me having told a lie and punishes me with guilt. Pecker-numbing, blinding guilt.

Guilt that rapidly becomes self hate.

Ugh.

I want to be a liar, I just can’t be one. Like I think I’d make a great President but Presidents are supposed to be “of sound mind”. That’s a fucking joke, but unlike many of our past Presidents, I couldn’t lie about the sound mind dealie. Therefore, and ipso facto, I can’t run for the office.

Ugh, again.

Anyway, I keep having people sign up as Twitter followers but they only stay for a day or so and then they go away. What is it that so attracts them to me that they take the drastic measure and go to all of the effort required to push the “Follow” button, when all they do is endure the ordeal of pushing the “Un-follow” button a day later.

Last time I counted, I’ve had something like 3,000 Twits following me at one time or another. But currently, at least this morning, my list sits at its standard twenty-three. I know there was this one church lady who was drawn to my site by a story I told about my father. It was mostly free of cussing and had some heart-felt sentiments that I’m told made people cry.

Old bitch had apoplexy after reading my next posting wherein I discussed my giant ass fissure and attendant stanky butt. That whole dealie might be another redo posting series.

Computers and the entire ether-inter-world are a mystery to me.

Makes me want to drink Carta Blanca beer.

Anybody have a suggestion?

Manana, y’all.

Posted in ADHD, Carta Blanca Beer | 11 Comments »

Somebody Stop Me; Originality In Short Supplies

Thursday, March 24th, 2011

 

So. One of the recurring themes in my psycho therapy sessions is my inability to know when to stop. This weakness in my personality manifests itself in several aspects of stopping understandings. I think it’s all about my ADHD, but Dr. Sam I. Am-Johnson tells me it’s as much about mu obsessive compulsivenesses as it is the AD and HD.

Like, say when I’m drinking Carta Blanca beer while I’m writing here to my bloggie and I wake up in the middle of the night face-down in a pool of sleepy drool at my desk. That’s a clear case of the ADHD keeping me writing until I pass out.

Then there is the aspect of not knowing when to stop that is closely aligned to today’s bloggie posting. That’s the inability to stop reprinting stuff from the past. This reprint will explain much to my new readers and it might bore longtime readers. I’m torn about reprinting today’s posting, but not enough to stop me.

If I wasn’t so well balanced from the mental perspectives, I’d be batshit crazy. But my coping skills make me more of a mellow crazy, and….

Who am I fucking kidding? I’m as loony as a sex-crazed ten-peckered Billy goat. So fuck it. Here, again from June 2010, is:

“Rush Limbaugh, the Pig, Comes Out of the Closet”

I’m waiting for the rain to stop so I can crank up the big grill and prepare the food for our big coming out party for Rush Limbaugh the pig. We have quite a crowd, what with all the immediate and extended family, an even half dozen of my ex-wives including Roshandra and her new beau, and Harry from over to Sprouts with his fiancée, Patty Pritchitt, and the Sheriff and his wife.

Roshandra brought this local politician as her date and I am reserving judgment until the end of the night. I can say in advance that I like his politics but I remain unsure as to his motive to date my ex. Patty is the camel toe lady out to Sprouts from awhile back and I really like her. She and Harry are a strange but fun couple what with him devout Catholic and her Wiccan.

Streaker Jones brought Sunny, the TV reporter and my ex-lover, who has the honorable distinction of being a person whose distinction I can’t distinguish for you. The reason I can’t tell you about what distinguishes Sunny from the rest of the women gathered here to the ranch is because my fancy pants Editorator, the one for my soon-to-be-published book, is also here.

When I told her I was going to bloggerate until the rain stopped she said to me, she says, “Look here Mooner Einstein Johnson. If you spoil one more secret from the book by writing in your blog I’m going to have Dr. Sam I. Am commit you again. You need to extinguish your distinguishments and establish some dignities.”

Then before I could snappily retort, she snapped, “Einstein my rosy red ass. Your Gram is right about that one. And establish some priorities as well. Nobody is reading your blog anyway, otherwise you would be getting more comments.”

“Bullshit,” my first snappy retort of the day. “I know with absolute certainty that I have many daily readers to the bloggie.” Then, when she looked at me like I’m crazy I gave her a sloppy raspberry, “Pfflluughhbbttt!” An appropriate second snappy retort to follow the first.

“Mooner,” she told me with not just a little scorn in her voice, “You are fucking clueless, you giant moronic shit-for-brains asshole.”

Now she’s got that “searching for words” look that intelligent people get when they are frustrated. I saw the opening and took it. “Ooo, listen to the fancy-assed professional word smith using all of those nasty words when there are so many better words to use for proper communication. How can you tell me to clean up my act with that trash-filled maw glued on your face.” Snappy retort number three, and one of my best.

She’s always telling me that I cuss too much in my writing and that curse words are the tools of lazy writers and only belong in quality prose strictly for emphasis. When she first told me this I said to her, I said, “No shit little Missy Edito-fucking-rator. I only fucking use fucking cuss words for fucking emphasis!”

Of course, later I realized that I also use cuss words to portray an act, like shitting, and as an endearment like when I say that Squirt is a cute little shitbird. Speaking of the Squirt, she is here with Dr. Sam I. Am-Johnson and has offered to help Dixie interpolate for Rush Limbaugh the pig.

Squirt wiggled up to me and did this adorable thing she does whenever she first sees me. She comes right to my feet and then throws herself flat to the ground with her head resting on her front paws. Then she’ll watch me with expectant eyes, whipping her little tail in a happy wag. She won’t speak a word until I address her, but she literally vibrates with excitement until I do.

“Well if it isn’t my favorite little shitbird. Besides your entire carcass, what’s shaking Squirt?”

Taking her cue, Squirt sits up like a bunny rabbit onto her back haunches and almost exclaims, “Gooten morgan Senor Mooner. Ein essen here to assist Hier Limbaugh mitten der oink snurt snuffloosh die gruber from el closet.”

She is so fucking cute when she mixes her syntax and scrambles my synapses. “Thanks for coming Squirt. I know that the Rushster will appreciate your support. Just remember that he only speaks piggie and a limited dialect at that.”

Then I thought to add, “And be sure you blow your nose before speaking too much Porcine. That’s why pigs’ noses are always snotty.”

Did you guys know that’s why a pig always has a snotty nose? Their entire language is snorted and squealed through their noses. Makes me wonder about anteaters.

Patty and Gram are sitting to a corner of the kitchen talking about magic spells and stuff. Since Patty is a Wiccan and Gram’s an old witch, they seem to be getting along. Gram seems to think she can charge more for her potions if she can give them a little boost by casting a spell on each bottle.

I heard her tell Patty, Gram says, “How do I tell tha differnce a tween a good spell anna bad un?”

“Well Gram,” Patty patiently replied, “You know what the spell is used for when you learn the spell. Good spells may be used for evil purposes and bad spells might be used for a good reason.”

Uh oh, Houston we have a problem. Now me- I knew what my Gram was going to say back to Patty without even thinking, but Patty is just newly exposed to the 90-pound vial of nitroglycerin that is my Gram.

Gram says, “Who gives a shit Patty. Spells is as spells does. Now answer my fuckin question an spill tha beans.”

I’m just glad that Patty is kind of heart and long of fuse. The last person to put a hex on my Gram cast this spell that my Gram would have sex with all the criminals down to the jail. Actually the hex word was “rape” and not sex, but you get my drift.

The Sunday after this lady put the hex on Gram I got a call from Sheriff Wozniac. “Mooner get down here right now and I mean pronto. Your Gram has managed to lock herself into the west wing of my jail and she’s abducted a full dozen inmates and got then handcuffed to their cots.”

Then he said, “I’ve never heard so many grown men crying Mooner. And these are hard men.”

Maybe that’s what Patty meant about knowing your spells. Is it a bad spell if you hex some old gasbag into doing what she most wants to do?

Wait a minute. Did I tell you about the ostrich yet? You know how city-dwelling assholes like to drive to the country and dump their unwanted pets out the car. Well, some country-dwellers do the same except they drive from their place already out in the country to a country place in another county.

Because our ranch is located near to multiple intersections of various major county arterial roads, we get more than our share of dumped animals. We get dumped people as well, but that’s another whole can of worms.

Maybe I could have saved word count by simply saying the ranch is on a busy street. Bottom line is that somebody got tired of feeding and caring for their six-foot tall, 126-pound can’t fly, but can run like a greyhound, bird. Cute shitbird except for the beady eyes and maybe a too surly attitude.

Anyway, last week Gram is out to the big garden and encounters this ostrich and she named him/she/it Rick Perry on account that it hides its head from the truth and then uses the same thick skull like a mace, you know that studded metal ball on the end of a chain that knights swing to slug things. That’s how an ostrich attacks- with his thick, numbed skull. Swings it like a mace.

We learned about the thick skull macing bit when Gram tried to sex the ostrich. Wait now, I don’t mean Gram tried to have sex with it, but rather tried to determine if it was male or female.

“I was partin tha tail feathers on that rascal to see iffn it had any danglies and next thing I know I’m flat on my back and ol Rick Perry was swingin its head like one of them bozo dealies like them Lithuanian cowboys do down ta South America.”

Have to love my Gram, but I am digressing like a sumbitch. My ADHD has been a touch fritzie today so maybe I need a beer.

Oh look, it’s stopped raining so I better get along. But don’t start bitching at me because you’re still getting 1,530 words by the time I stop. That’s almost five quality bloggie postings.

Now, go crack your own frosty cold Carta Blanca beer and toast to Rush Limbaugh for coming out of the closet.

Posted in ADHD, Carta Blanca Beer, Rick Perry, Rush Limbaugh the pig, Squirt | No Comments »

Tomato Trials Tres-deaux

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

 

So. I’m finally getting to the point with this last installment of my Barnes and Nobles story. Reading this again reminded me of how angry I am at my state legislature for cutting, make that slashing the budget for mental health care.

Our silly fucking politicians think that mental illness problems get better when you ignore them. They stick their heads up their asses and pretend everything will be all right if programs to provide medications and treatment are eliminated.

I have never thought that I actually hate anyone. Seriously. I somehow feel sorry for the man who raped me when I was a kid, and I even forgive the crazy man that murdered my other grandmother. My nice, grandmotherly grandma was brutally stabbed and bludgeoned to death by a crazy man and I forgive him completely.

He knew not what he did.

But the so-called Christian legislators are committing unforgivable sins in my eyes and I think I am starting to feel the ugly tendrils of hate creeping into my consciousness. They should know better. Looks like I’ve got a new story line for therapy.

Anyway, please enjoy this final installment of the B&N caper. From June 2010, I present”

“Will Rush Limbaugh (The Pig) Come Out Of The Closet?”

It’s Friday folks and time to clean-up a few loose ends. I’ll start by finishing the part about when I was over to the Barnes and Nobles and this one woman started a big scene. I know I broke my promise to finish yesterday but you just need to get over that. I’m doing the best I can with limited time and resources.

Besides, I’m not charging you yet and I think I have the right to disappoint you until you’re paying customers. If you are a Republican or a Baptist and that’s not acceptable to you, go fuck yourself.

As you recall, I was researching for Dixie in the kids section and the kids all started misbehaving and this one severely obsessive/compulsive woman had this book with the mug shots and criminal histories of all child molesters reported to be living in the area.

I think the woman is bi-polar, like Bi-polar Bob over to Shoal Creek loony bin. It’s all ups and downs with Bob and I was sensing some of the same from this lady. Mental health professionals call the two extremes Manic, the upsies part, and Depressive, which is definitely the downers. These extreme mood swings typically last days and longer as the pendulum swings back and forth.

Not for this lady though, no siree Bob. This gal could go from sweet neighbor lady to the Devil’s right hand man in what seemed to me to be two seconds. Maybe less.

When she comes up to Bert Massey, he’s the head of security for the Arboretum, and holds a picture of Clovis Williams up to my face, the lady was all triumphant smiles and confidence. However, when Bert points out that said Clovis is nearly a foot shorter than me, and that I show no evidence of ever having a Popeye tattoo on my forearm, she went ballistic.

“He only looks six feet four inches tall,” she yells angrily. “It says right on the bulletin that Clovis Williams uses disguises.” Then she starts stabbing at me with the pen she’s holding. “Gotta be body putty or something stretching him out.”

Body putty?

After maybe a dozen pokes I took the pen away from her.

“Don’t you dare touch me mister. I know your not you, you’re Clovis Williams.” Now spittle is flying from her mouth so I know she’s off her medications. Bi-polar medications give you the dry mouth something fierce.

It would take seventeen properly medicated bi-polar patients to lick a stamp.

This I know to be a fact from this one time when I was locked up over to Shoal Creek. But, my ADHD is digressing us. Let me just say this about that. The new no-lick sticky stamps are one of those, “Why didn’t I think of that?” kind of dealies.

So. She’s being restrained by mall cops now and she starts staring at my shoes with her just arrived crazy eyes almost spinning in circles. If you know a bi-polar person you know those eyes. She says, “Check his shoes for elevators,” and then she starts snapping with her teeth and kicking and writhing around trying to get at me.

Now, let me take a breath here and explain something to you. I’m not that crazy, like this lady, but I am crazy. Having spent many months locked away to the loony bin myself, I have a unique and experienced perspective on crazy folks. I always try to err to the side of compassion anytime I encounter one of what Dr. Sam I. Am calls, “Your people, Mooner.”

So I tell Bert, I say, “It’s OK Bert. You can let her go. She just wants you to listen to her. Crazy people don’t often feel well heard. I can handle this.” This is something I am sure about.

“OK Mooner, if you’re sure about this.”

I said, “I’m sure,” and he said, “OK,” and his guys let her loose.

She just stood there crazy-eying me for a minute, looking me up and down at the same time. It was like she had lizard eyes– you know where they kind of pop out and can move independently? Then both eyes latch on to the hemp tote bag that serves as my portable tomato kitchen and she says, “What’s in the bag buster?”

“Just my stuff,” I told her. “Not your business.”

I mean really, this was not her business.

Her eyes started that lizard dealie again, and then she says, “Make him open that tote bag Sheriff. He’s got kiddie porn inside.”

Now with her eyes doing that independent action she was looking at Bert and me at the same time, he and I answer at the same time. “I’ve/he’s got no warrant,” the I’ve from Bert and the he’s from me.

And then, again together, “And I’m/he’s not the Sheriff.”

“I don’t care whose who’s or what’s your problem, I’m looking inside that tote bag.” And with that, she grabs my tote by a strap and gives it a yank.

She was stronger than she looked so as I defended myself and the integrity of my private property, I yanked back and maybe just a little too hard. I pulled her clean off her feet, her still latched to my bag, and she smashed into me with my tomato-filled tote between us. I felt my precious reds get squished from the impact and felt a few squirt as vine ripened tomatoes will do when exposed to significant pressure.

When the lady pulled away from me still trying to steal my tote, her pretty white blouse was covered in deep red goo. Blood colored goo because of the mini plum bias to the varieties I was carrying that day.

The woman felt the wet through her blouse and when she wiped her hand across her chest and looked at the gatherings on her fingers, she screamed and said, “He stabbed me, somebody call 911!” and promptly fainted like an empty flour sack to the carpeted floor.

I opened my mouth to say, “It’s OK, it’s just tomato goo,” but all I got out was the “It’s.”

ZZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAAAPPPP!!!

I love the smell of ozone and fried synapses in the morning.

One of the silly mall cops got excited and blasted me with his tazer. I came to in the back office area of the store with Bert looking over me as I lay on the floor with my head in the lady’s lap. Bert’s just shaking his head as I open my eyes and says, “Can you focus Mooner?”

“Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow,” is all I can muster. “Oh wow,” is all I can ever muster when I first come to after getting tazed. “Take my cell phone and hit #1 on the speed dial. Tell the woman who answers that I’ve been hit with a stun gun and I’ll meet her at the La Quinta near her office in thirty minutes.” That would be the SAC Ellen. She won’t pass on this opportunity.

Now the crazy lady speaks up. “I’m so sorry Mr. Johnson, I had no idea it was you.” Then she eyed the boner that is the major attraction in the aftermath of all of my stunnings. “Would you like me to take you home and fix you a drink?” And then she whispered in my ear, “I’m not wearing any underwear– want a little peak?”

What a nice offer. “That is a very nice offer, Miss, but I’m spoken for.”

The crazy eyes came back and she started getting surly again when the manager walked in.

He surveyed the scene for a bit and then said, “OK Bert. I’ll take this nice lady out the front way and you take Mooner out the back and put him directly into his car. You, Mooner, will drive away and stay away.”

He helped the lady to her feet and as he walked her out he said to me, he says, “You are one disruptive asshole Mooner Johnson. Please stay away from my store.” And then after a beat he pleaded, “Please.”

“Stop whimpering Stanley, I got what I need for now. Just call me when my Jeff Hwang poker book comes in.”

“Someone will meet you at Sprouts to deliver it to you. I’ll let Harry know when it gets here.”

Harry is the manager over to Sprouts and my buddy. And I just checked the word counter and we’re at 1,600-plus words.

Fuckballs.

The 400-word limit is basically one double-spaced page with 12 point type. I guess I do four or more pages with each posting so I’m giving you an entire week’s worth of postings for the price of one.

What a bargain. But I do need to get back to the ranch and spend some time with Rush Limbaugh the pig. He’s been in the closet and I’m trying to talk him into coming out. Hiding in the closet is never a good idea especially when everyone knows that you are in there and why.

I asked Dixie to translate for me and she says that Rushie said, “Tell Mooner that Gram will kill me if I come out of the closet. Gram just doesn’t understand me.” Dixie speaks pig.

Actually, Dixie speaks the Southern United States Porcine dialect, which is our version of the original Chinese piggy speak. But like Gram says, she’ll say, “Who gives a shit Mooner. I’m gonna Louie Louie that fuckin pig if he furts my ass agin.”

I hope Gram means she’ll Hawaiian luau Rush Limbaugh if he sticks his snout up her butt– you know, roast him in a hot rock BBQ pit.

I told Dixie to tell Rush that Gram will be hurt and maybe angry at first but she will eventually get over it. Then I said to her, I said, “Dixie, tell him I’ll gather a support group and grill some ribs and sausage and make it a coming out of the closet party for him.” That hog does love his pork ribs and links.

Streaker Jones said he’ll come and SAC Ellen has said that she’ll introduce him and make a nice speech in support of his decision to come out of the closet.

It is a terrible waste of your life to live it cowering in the closet. I just hope that Rush Limbaugh can muster the strength to come all the way out.

I just hit 1,750 words for shitsakes. I need a Carta Blanca beer.

Manana, y’all.

Posted in ADHD, Carta Blanca Beer, Home Grown Tomatoes, Rush Limbaugh the pig, Squatlo | 1 Comment »

Homegrown Tomato Torture, Part Redeux

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

 

So. Today we’ll have another installment of my Barnes and Nobles bookstore adventure, which is really, as now presented through the miracle of blog reprinting, a homegrown tomato story. Holy shit is that an awkwardly-built sentence. What I mean to say is this. I’m reprinting this story because Squatlo asked me to stop talking about my homegrown tomatoes and I wish to torture him back for poking so much fun at Texas.

Not that we don’t deserve the poking, I’m simply attempting to divert some of the negative attentions. I’m immediately impressed with the depth of texture in my previous sentence and wonder if my segregated double-negativism is lost on readers.

But like Gram always says, she’ll say, “Who gives a shit, Mooner. No means no and cain’t don’t mean squat. Now shut yer yap and git me a beer.”

Anyway, I give you, originally from June 2010, part whatever titled:

“Rush Limbaugh Is Hiding In Mooner’s Closet”

So. You can stop writing me and e-mailing me and calling me about the entire Barnes and Nobles Bookstore dealie because I promise I’m going to finish it right here, and now. I mean shitsicles folks, don’t you understand how complicated my life is even if I didn’t have ADHD?

I mean really. How can I stay true to my promise to write everything in real time as it happens in my head and only tell you stories from the past tense after they become past tense?

That has got to make sense.

Anyway, the exceptional layer of additional bullshit on this bowl of seven-layer dip is from when I went to that bloggie class from the Writer’s League a few months ago. They said that the absolute, written-in-stone, take-it-to-the-bank, bottom line maximum number of words in any blogger posting is 400 words. Anything more than 400 words is a blogging disaster.

400 words? I can’t blow my nose with 400 words. Take yesterday’s posting as an example. That puppy clocked-in at 1,900 words and I never got around to telling you about who I saw over to Sprouts and neither did I finish with the bookstore stuff. Like Gram says, she’ll say, “Who gives a shit Mooner. It still fuck-strates the crap outta me.”

It is frustrating.

But really, who does give a shit? I mean really. Who wrote the silly 400-word rule? And what about this- if I write “400”- one word count, wherein the speller checkie job to Microsoft Word calls “four-hundred” two words, so I’d be breaking the blogger rules if I had 401 words writing it four-hundred, but I’d break Roberts Rules for English if I wrote it 400.

Are you getting a sense of my problems?

Therefore, since I have found it impossible to live by all of the different and differing rules set by others, I simply choose to live by my own, carefully-planned and well thought-out rulers.

Which reminds me. Do you think I use too many hyphens- that would be these things (-), the little dash thingie I placed between the parenthesis- those are these things- (( ))? And why don’t we spell it paranthisisses. That makes more sense and would make a great Spelling Bee word. I’d write a song like the one for spelling Mississippi.

Anyway, fuck the rules and let me get back to my story. So, this morning I went to my usual Sprouts store to get some kale and a bag of those edamame beans because Mother had a hankering for greens and beans. Dr. Sam I. Am-Johnson got Mother hooked on that particular Sicilian dish way back to when we were still married. Gram, however, has never acquired a taste.

“Git that damned Eddies momma’s beans outta my face Mooner. Them damn things taste like sweetened laundry starch.” Then she’ll say, “Ruins a good batch a farm greens iffn ya ask me.”

Anyway, I was actually looking for Lima beans but Sprouts was out so I substituted the Chinese variety. Or maybe they’re Japanese. I got some other stuff to make the trip worth making and went to check out. Santiago was my register man and Katelyn was my smiler and bagger woman. Santiago was smiling as well because that’s just what the people at Sprouts do. It’s just that I’m more susceptible to the smile on an attractive lady’s face than an attractive man’s toothy grin.

OK, look. That doesn’t mean I want all you men to stop smiling at me. I just mean that a woman’s smile melts a little deeper.

Anyway, they were telling me that they were afraid to talk to me because they are concerned that I might embarrass them here to the bloggie. I was careful to not promise anything except that I would entertain and inform. They also were afraid that I was saying bad things about the store.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said, startled by the question. “I love Sprouts Farmers Market.”

I love Sprouts. Which brings us back to the bookstore dealie. Let me summarize thusly:

  1. Dixie is writing a kids book, and asked me to research formats of kids books.
  2. I went on Friday morning awhile back, early and in shabby shorts and UT tee shirt, a greasy ball cap and without shaving.
  3. I looked for a poker book and didn’t find it, went to the info stand and waited in line behind this Baptist shitbird who was difficult to help.
  4. I had, as always in season, my portable tomato kitchen and shared a slab of red wonderment with my fellow line standers, but not the Baptist.
  5. When I cracked and shared the required cold bottle of Carta Blanca beer, I was chastised for drinking in the bookstore. So, I guzzled the bottle and put the empty back into my tote.
  6. When I finally got to the head of the line….

 

I asked the information lady about which children’s books are most popular and she asks me, “What age children,” and I say, “I’m not certain,” and then she says, “I know who you are Mr. Johnson and you are just as difficult as I have been told.”

I’m thinking to myself, I thought, “What the fuck is this all about?” So, I asked her.

“What the fuck is this all about?”

And she says, “Mr. Johnson, I am in your Gram’s prayer group at the church and your rotten soul is number two on our standard agenda. It was number three but then we seemed to lose interest in Tiger Woods soul. Pastor Browningwell says he’s not sure Buddhists have one.”

I thinking that maybe I’m proud to be moving my way to the top of this list so I ask, “Who sits at number one?” You’d want to know who sits at one if you were two, right?

She looked me square in the eye and said, “That’s easy, Mr. Johnson. Your sweet grandmother and mother, God bless their souls and give them strength.” Then she added, “Now go look at whatever you want but don’t bother anybody.”

“Fine,” I said. “But if you knew how things really are you’d put me to number one.”

Now, this Barnes and Nobles is the one there to the Arboretum, and I hate to admit it, but the kids section is pretty cool. Located deep to the back of the store, it’s kind of like a little store of its own. With short benches, chairs and tables spread about and these little play areas, it’s what I’d design my kids section to be if I had a bookstore.

So. It’s pretty crowded with moms and their kids or maybe nanny’s with other folks kids, but many women and children, whichever. I start perusing the stacks looking for what might be popular books, and after maybe an hour I have at least glanced at every title in the entire section. And I’m totally lost.

I get a brain storm and figure, “Who best knows what a kid likes better than the puller of the purse strings that hold the cash that buys the books?” So, I gather maybe an armload of what looks good to me, and I’m stopping at each group and asking the kids their opinions.

“Do you like this book, little girl?” and, “What do you think about puppy books Willy?” I knew he was Willy because his name was embroidered on his shirt pocket.

By the way, remember that I told you I guzzled the beer so I wouldn’t waste it? I did and I had been belching the yeasty beer gas during my perusals.

I was finally getting a feel for things and was stooped to talk to these adorable twin girls about The Little Engine That Could, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I figured it to be one of the kids with a small ball bat but was wrong. As I stood to address my tapper I came to realize that the entire Arboretum Security staff was there to back up the head of Security, Bert Massey, the tapper and using his night stick.

“Hey, Mooner, can you come quietly with us?”

I answered, “Sure Bert. You need my help with another snake escape?” Bert and I are well acquainted from several previous incidents here to the mall. Well, it isn’t really a mall but I think of it the same way. The last time I saw him was when this stripper from Las Vegas left the car window rolled down too far and her python escaped.

“Na,” he said. “Different problem today.” Then he shuffled his feet around and said, “Look Mooner. I’m sorry to do this to you, but will you mind stepping outside with us?”

“Sure,” I told him. “Just let me get a final opinion on the Little Engine and Little Lucy Songbook.” I turned back to the twins.

“Mooner!” It was almost a shout. “Now. Please, now.”

“OK, Bert, keep your knickers on. What’s the big rush?”

That would be about the time the first little kid started crying and then Willy took the plastic hammer away from this other kid and whacked him on the nose and then things got a little chaotic. Now, everybody in the store has gathered to see what was up, and this one lady came over to me and said, “I know you. You’re that child molester from Florida. The one that was stealing little kids from the bookstore.” Then she added, “Look– same ratty shorts and greasy cap as from the picture.”

She held up this three-ring binder with a bunch of mug shots that were in those plastic sleeves. When she held this one photo up to my face she said, “See?”

“Let me see that,” and I grabbed the book from her. “Look here Bert. This is a picture of some asshole named Clovis Williams. Says here he’s 5 feet 7 inches and has a Popeye tattoo on his forearm.”

I rolled my sleeve up for inspection and said, “See here– only thing I’ve got inked on me is my Salvador Dali drippy clock tattoo. Not a Popeye in sight!”

OK, now stop the presses. My little tool bar word counter daealie says I already hit 1,682 words at the end of that paragraph before Bert showed up. And I think it’s time for me to have a little tomato snack and a cold Carta Blanca beer. This morning I plucked the first of the little miniature plum variety, the one that looks like little tear drops. These get a deep ruby red, almost purple color when they ripen.

These little guys are the bird’s favorites right now. And the acid is way up in everything after the great rains we had the last several days. By this time next week we’ll be harvesting everything we planted this year excepting for the okra. We salvaged as many okra plants as we could and replanted them back in rows after Rush Limbaugh the pig tore them all to hell and back.

I’ve been hiding him in my master suite to keep him out of Gram’s sights.

Fuckballs. Now I’m at 1,840 words.

Manana ya’ll.

Posted in ADHD, Carta Blanca Beer, Home Grown Tomatoes, Rush Limbaugh the pig, Squatlo | 1 Comment »

A Not Clever Title; Mooner’s Bushed

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

 

So. I’m posting some more of the Barnes and Nobles story. It won’t complete the circle jerk that is my story telling, but it will leave you lathered up. I think Wednesday’s installment will finish it. You guys need to go checkout Squatlo’s Rant and see what he’s up to. His insights are spot on and I’m attempting to drive him crazy with homegrown tomato talk.

So let’s cut the bullshit and get to it. Reprinted from June 10, 2010, I give you:

“Serialized Tomato Talk, Part Three”

You can stop writing me and e-mailing me and calling me about the entire Barnes and Nobles Bookstore dealie because I promise I’m going to finish it right here, and now. I mean shitsicles folks, don’t you understand how complicated my life is even if I didn’t have ADHD?

I mean really. How can I stay true to my promise to write everything in real time as it happens in my head and only tell you stories from the past tense after they become past tense?

That has got to make sense.

Anyway, the exceptional layer of additional bullshit on this bowl of seven-layer dip is from when I went to that bloggie class from the Writer’s League a few months ago. They said that the absolute, written-in-stone, take-it-to-the-bank, bottom line maximum number of words in any blogger posting is 400 words. Anything more than 400 words is a blogging disaster.

400 words? I can’t blow my nose with 400 words. Take yesterday’s posting as an example. That puppy clocked-in at 1,900 words and I never got around to telling you about who I saw over to Sprouts and neither did I finish with the bookstore stuff. Like Gram says, she’ll say, “Who gives a shit Mooner. It still fuck-strates the crap outta me.”

It is frustrating.

But really, who does give a shit? I mean really. Who wrote the silly 400-word rule? And what about this- if I write “400”- one word count, wherein the speller checkie job to Microsoft Word calls “four-hundred” two words, so I’d be breaking the blogger rules if I had 401 words writing it four-hundred, but I’d break Roberts Rules for English if I wrote it 400.

Are you getting a sense of my problems?

Therefore, since I have found it impossible to live by all of the different and differing rules set by others, I simply choose to live by my own, carefully-planned and well thought-out rulers.

Which reminds me. Do you think I use too many hyphens- that would be these things (-), the little dash thingie I placed between the parenthesis- those are these things- (( ))? And why don’t we spell it paranthisisses. That makes more sense and would make a great Spelling Bee word. I’d write a song like the one for spelling Mississippi.

Anyway, fuck the rules and let me get back to my story. So, this morning I went to my usual Sprouts store to get some kale and a bag of those edamame beans because Mother had a hankering for greens and beans. Dr. Sam I. Am-Johnson got Mother hooked on that particular Sicilian dish way back to when we were still married. Gram, however, has never acquired a taste.

“Git that damned Eddies momma’s beans outta my face Mooner. Them damn things taste like sweetened laundry starch.” Then she’ll say, “Ruins a good batch a farm greens iffn ya ask me.”

Anyway, I was actually looking for Lima beans but Sprouts was out so I substituted the Chinese variety. Or maybe they’re Japanese. I got some other stuff to make the trip worth making and went to check out. Santiago was my register man and Katelyn was my smiler and bagger woman. Santiago was smiling as well because that’s just what the people at Sprouts do. It’s just that I’m more susceptible to the smile on an attractive lady’s face than an attractive man’s toothy grin.

OK, look. That doesn’t mean I want all you men to stop smiling at me. I just mean that a woman’s smile melts a little deeper.

Anyway, they were telling me that they were afraid to talk to me because they are concerned that I might embarrass them here to the bloggie. I was careful to not promise anything except that I would entertain and inform. They also were afraid that I was saying bad things about the store.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said, startled by the question. “I love Sprouts Farmers Market.”

I love Sprouts. Which brings us back to the bookstore dealie. Let me summarize thusly:

  1. Dixie is writing a kids book, and asked me to research formats of kids books.
  2. I went on Friday morning awhile back, early and in shabby shorts and UT tee shirt, a greasy ball cap and without shaving.
  3. I looked for a poker book and didn’t find it, went to the info stand and waited in line behind this Baptist shitbird who was difficult to help.
  4. I had, as always in season, my portable tomato kitchen and shared a slab of red wonderment with my fellow line standers, but not the Baptist.
  5. When I cracked and shared the required cold bottle of Carta Blanca beer, I was chastised for drinking in the bookstore. So, I guzzled the bottle and put the empty back into my tote.
  6. When I finally got to the head of the line….

 

I asked the information lady about which children’s books are most popular and she asks me, “What age children,” and I say, “I’m not certain,” and then she says, “I know who you are Mr. Johnson and you are just as difficult as I have been told.”

I’m thinking to myself, I thought, “What the fuck is this all about?” So, I asked her.

“What the fuck is this all about?”

And she says, “Mr. Johnson, I am in your Gram’s prayer group at the church and your rotten soul is number two on our standard agenda. It was number three but then we seemed to lose interest in Tiger Woods soul. Pastor Browningwell says he’s not sure Buddhists have one.”

I thinking that maybe I’m proud to be moving my way to the top of this list so I ask, “Who sits at number one?” You’d want to know who sits at one if you were two, right?

She looked me square in the eye and said, “That’s easy, Mr. Johnson. Your sweet grandmother and mother, God bless their souls and give them strength.” Then she added, “Now go look at whatever you want but don’t bother anybody.”

“Fine,” I said. “But if you knew how things really are you’d put me to number one.”

Now, this Barnes and Nobles is the one there to the Arboretum and the kids section is pretty cool. Located deep to the back of the store, it’s kind of like a little store of its own. With short benches, chairs and tables spread about and these little play areas, it’s what I’d design my kids section to be if I had a bookstore.

So. It’s pretty crowded with moms and their kids or maybe nanny’s with other folks kids, but many women and children whichever. I start perusing the stacks looking for what look like popular books and after maybe an hour I have at least glanced at every title in the entire section. And I’m totally lost.

I get a brain storm and figure, “Who best knows what a kid likes better than the puller of the purse strings that hold the cash that buys the books?” So, I gather maybe an armload of what looks good to me, and I’m stopping at each group and asking the kids opinions.

“Do you like this book, little girl?” and, “What do you think about puppy books Willy?” I knew he was Willy because his name was on his shirt pocket.

By the way, remember that I told you I guzzled the beer so I wouldn’t waste it? I did and I had been belching the yeasty beer gas during my perusals.

I was finally getting a feel for things and was stooped to talk to these adorable twin girls about The Little Engine That Could, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I figured it to be one of the kids with a small ball bat but was wrong. As I stood to address my tapper I came to realize that the entire Arboretum Security staff was there to back up the head of Security, Bert Massey, the tapper and using his night stick.

“Hey, Mooner, can you come quietly with us?”

I answered, “Sure Bert. You need my help with another snake escape?” Bert and I are well acquainted from several previous incidents here to the mall. Well, it isn’t really a mall but I think of it the same way. The last time I saw him was when this stripper from Las Vegas left the car window rolled down too far and her python escaped.

“Na,” he said. “Different problem today.” Then he shuffled his feet around and said, “Look Mooner. I’m sorry to do this to you, but will you mind stepping outside with us?”

“Sure,” I told him. “Just let me get a final opinion on the Little Engine and Little Lucy Songbook.” I turned back to the twins.

“Mooner!” It was almost a shout. “Now. Please, now.”

“OK, Bert, keep your knickers on. What’s the big rush?”

That would be about the time the first little kid started crying and then Willy took the plastic hammer away from this other kid and whacked him on the nose and then things got a little chaotic. Now, everybody in the store has gathered to see what was up, and this one lady came over to me and said, “I know you. You’re that child molester from Florida. The one that was stealing little kids from the bookstore.” Then she added, “Look- same ratty shorts and greasy cap as from the picture.”

She held up this three-ring binder with a bunch of mug shots that were in those plastic sleeves. When she held this one photo up to my face she said, “See?”

“Let me see that,” and I grabbed the book from her. “Look here Bert. This is a picture of some asshole named Clovis Williams. Says here he’s 5 feet 7 inches and has a Popeye tattoo on his forearm.”

I rolled my sleeve up for inspection and said, “See here- only thing I’ve got inked on me is my Salvador Dali droopy clock tattoo. Not a Popeye in sight!”

OK, now stop the presses. My little tool bar word counter daealie says I already hit 1,682 words at the end of that last paragraph. And I think it’s time for me to have a little tomato snack and a cold Carta Blanca beer. This morning I plucked the first of the little miniature plum variety, the one that looks like little tear drops. These get a deep ruby red, almost purple color when they ripen.

These little guys are the bird’s favorites right now. And the acid is way up in everything after the great rains we had the last several days. By this time next week we’ll be harvesting everything we planted this year excepting for the okra. We salvaged as many okra plants as we could and replanted them back in rows after Rush Limbaugh the pig tore them all to hell and back.

I’ve been hiding him in my master suite to keep him out of Gram’s sights.

Fuckballs. Now I’m at 1,840 words.

Manana ya’ll.

Posted in Carta Blanca Beer, Home Grown Tomatoes, Rush Limbaugh the pig, Squatlo | No Comments »

Tomatoes For Squatlo; Reckmonster Review

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

So. Here is another homegrown tomato story from 2010. June of 2010 to be precise. I know the Reckmonster will be checking dates and grammar and shit, so precision is my middle name. I’m trying to finish all of the pre-publishing tasks required to get a book into print and it’s driving me crazy. ADHD is an insidious calamity. And malady. Anyway, for your reading enjoyment, I give you:

“Don’t Drink Beer At Barnes And Nobles”

I just got finished with my morning psycho therapy session and the topic of discussion reminded me that I still haven’t told you guys about what happened when I went to the Barnes and Nobles Bookstore over to the Arboretum.
 I was doing some research for Dixie because she wants to write a children’s book  and needs formatting advice. I guess she wants me to do it for her because I’m already a successful author, and I have kids.
 Anyway, I was in therapy this morning and Dr. Sam I. Am asks me, she says, “OK, Mooner, let’s talk about your latest fuck-up. It’s been more than a week and you haven’t spoken a word about it.”
 I just sort of stared at her like she was the moron. I truly didn’t know what she was talking about. Then I remembered and I said, “Oh yea. I was up to the Sprouts yesterday to get some organic lettuce. It’s been so hot that all the lettuce burned out and the big garden at the ranch has only summer crops. Sprouts has the best price on a three-pack of organic romaine anywhere in town.”
 The good doctor was just staring at me so I continued. “I got my lettuce, some apple cider vinegar for salad dressing, and a big bag of turbinado sugar. Then I saw that they were selling berries for $.99 per half pint and I loaded up on those. When I checked out, Juli, one of my favorites, was my register person and she was sort of pissed at me.
 Doctor pain in the ass is still just staring at me so I say, “OK, look Sammy. I know I told Juli I wouldn’t name her by her real name to the bloggie in that posting last week but I forgot. She was hurt that I mentioned her name and was obviously embarrassed by what I had written.”
 Now the bitch doctor’s steely gaze is getting under my skin. “Oh for shit sakes Sammy, I told her I was sorry and would never do it again.”
 I decided to return the cold shoulder and not talk to her. I started looking around the office with my lips zipped tightly shut. I grew tired of counting the little holes in the ceiling tiles when I got to 13,188 and glanced at my watch to see how much more silence I had to endure until my time expired.
 “Fuckballs!” I said. “My watch has stopped.”
 And after I spoke, “Oh fuckballs twice. I was gonna make you talk first.”
 “You will never learn Mooner.” said Dr. Am-Johnson. “I am strong of heart and will and you Mooner are, simply put, still you.”
 I keep telling you guys she’s a bitch.
 “I need to call Scotty and get him scheduled to fix my watch,” I said with manly concern.
 “Stop whining about your watch Mooner. You’ve got bigger problems than knowing the time to the exact second. Now, tell me about the incident at the bookstore.”
 Have I told you guys about my buddy Scott? He retired from the TCEQ awhile back and now he does a little consulting but mostly he does retiring and watch/clock repairs. He is one of the few good men I know from my entanglements with government officialdom and he has become a friend. Maybe he does retirementing.
 Anyway, he is a watch and clock collector/seller and a terrific repairer of timepieces. He can fix anything and he is honest and trustworthy. He has a large collection of military watches and he is quite active in that market, I understand. If you need a repair or you want to buy an interesting timepiece, contact him at smccoy26@austin.rr.com . He might not get right back to you because he is after all, retired. But you will be glad you waited.
 Have I ever told you guys that I like my watch to provide me with the exact time? I don’t know why and I can’t place a single event in my life that was crucial in a to-the-second sort of way. Except for a few fireworks dealies and maybe the one time Streaker Jones and I decided to see who could hold his breath the longest.
 But I should have known that Streaker Jones could beat me in a breath-holding contest. He beats me at everything except wifing and the whole ex-wifing thing. Maybe that might need to be wivesing and ex-wivesing thing. And it would be things, plural.
 Oh for shit sakes. They would be things.
 “Mooner!” Dr. Sam I. Am yelled at me. “De-glaze your eyes and look at me.”
 I snapped out of my watch thoughts and looked at her. “What, Sammy? What, what, what?
 “Lower your voice buster, and tell me about your problem at the bookstore. Tell me now or I’m calling for the ambulance to haul you to Shoal Creek Mental Hospital where I’ll book you a three-week engagement.”  
 And then she added, “Maybe that will improve your focus.”
 “OK, fine. First of all, it wasn’t my fault. I just want to get that straight from the start,” I began. “Well, you know that Dixie wanted me to do some research for her and it was Friday a week ago. Not last Friday three days past, but the one before that. It was the Friday before Memorial Day, whatever day that was, maybe the 28th of May, I think.
 “So, since I was going to Sprouts anyway I decided to stop at the B&N books to look around since it’s so close and they have a big kids section.” Now I took a big breath and continued, “It was early and I didn’t shave and I had dressed myself so my outfit wasn’t fully coordinated, and I was wearing a greasy auto parts cap because I forgot to take it off.”
 Maybe I was providing too much detail because Sammy says to me, she said, “Mooner, get to the point.
 “OK, the point was this. I walk into the store and spy the kiddies section straight to the back of the store. I was headed back and remembered that Jeff Hwang has a new book out on Pot Limit Omaha and I’m trying to learn to play that game better to broaden my poker horizons. I walk over and they don’t have it on the shelf. There’s this guy standing beside me at the Poker Section and he’s holding the last copy.
 He says to me, he says, “Look here,” and he shows me the inside of the book. “You can order right from Jeff at www.jeffhwang.com .”
 “Thanks, man,” I told him. “But I wanted to get started right away. I’ll just see if another store has one.”
 “So. I go to the information desk and have to wait in line behind this shitwad who’s asking about do they have the new inspirational book by that TV evangelist Tupac Shamir or whateverthefuck his name is. You know, the Indian guy from India except that he sounds like a Harvard law graduate and dresses like a TV talk show host.”
 Maybe that guy’s name is Shupok Darfur.
 I took another big breath and continued. “I had my portable tomato kitchen with me and since this was looking like an endurance kinda conversation ahead of me, I sliced off a couple slabs of Early Girl and passed them to the folks now crowded in line behind me. I didn’t give one to the guy in front so’s to not disturb his already trackless train of thought.”
 Now I’m getting into my story when Sam interrupts me. “Get to the point before I kill myself, Mooner. You are driving me to distraction!”
 “The point is, you can’t drink alcoholic beverages at the bookstore. When I popped the lid off the frosty Carta Blanca beer from my little kitchen and passed that around, the information lady working with the brain dead questioner ahead of me got snippy.”
 “ ‘Put that beer away, sir.’ This was loud whispered like a teacher telling you to stop pulling on Susie Ashburn’s pigtails back to first grade. The teacher is whispering because you are supposed to be taking the spelling test that all the other students seem to be managing without distraction.”
 “Anyway,” I continued, “I just downed the rest of the beer myself, stashed the bottle back in my hemp tote bag, and headed to the children’s section to begin my research. When I got back there…”
 “Oops, sorry Mooner,” Dr. Sam I. Am-Johnson interrupted again. “Your time’s up. We’ll continue in this afternoon’s session.”
 I really think psycho therapy helps. I really think psycho therapy helps. I really think psycho therapy helps.
 Gram says that if you can say something three times in a row real fast it will become true.
 I love my life. I love my life. I love my life.
 Fuckballs. Manana, y’all.

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Posted in ADHD, Carta Blanca Beer, Home Grown Tomatoes, Squatlo | 2 Comments »

Suicide Prevention Redo

Monday, March 21st, 2011

So.  I’m busy with more book madness today and I can’t budget time for a new posting. Since I managed to make many friends jealous with yesterday’s homegrown tomato story, I figured, “Why not another?”
 As you can see from the opening remarks, computer problems are a constant in my life.  Here from June 5, 2011, I give you the command performance of:

 Suicide Prevention Technique; Mooner Saves Jumper

 Hoo-Yaa!!! I just met with my web expert, Dustin, and I am major league pumped. He is going to fix my many I-net problems and help me get things designed and pretty as well.
 He’s the man who told me about 99designs to do the logo contest. If you have been to the contest site the winner is Number 211 and the designer is SteveO. The contest drew logos from almost 40 designers and I looked at like 250 different designs.
 Several friends in advertising have chewed my ass out for going to 99designs because it bastardizes the process and you can’t get the highest quality. “All you will get are amateurs and stoners giving you designs,” was how one put it.
 But after the success of my 99designs adventure, I agree with Gram on this one. As she would say, “Who gives a shit Mooner. They’re all locos ta me!” And then she added, “Crazy artists ever one of em.”
 I started to tell her, “It’s logos, Gram, with a ‘g’,” but why bother. Every time I’m ready to choke the life out of that old bat she saves herself by lighting up my life with the same mouth that has brought me most of my life’s miseries.
  I am very excited about the logo decision as well as all of the stuff that Dustin is doing here to the webber and bloggie. He’s doing layouts and sliders and clickies and all of that technical shit that would drive me to drink if I was responsible for them. Fact is the thinking about it has caused me to crack open the first icy Carta Blanca of the day.
 If I was one of those suicide intervention officers for the police, I would always carry a cooler filled with Carta Blanca beer on ice along with my portable tomato kitchen stocked with some  of my  homegrown tomatoes. If the tomatoes are out of season, I’d substitute a bowl of fresh smashed guacamole, fiery-hot salsa and a bag of good corn chips- like the store branded ones from Sprouts.
 Then when I perched myself on the window ledge with the potential leaper, I’d give him a thin slice of vine-ripened heirloom with just a touch too much salt and pepper. Let him sit with that for maybe two minutes and get his salivary glands into action. Then I would pull a Carta Blanca from the cooler and make a big deal out of stripping the ice and icy water from the bottle, and I’d wipe the moisture from my hand on my shorts.
 Of course the police would require me to wear a uniform or slacks, but they will work as a coaster as well as shorts. Then I’d say to the guy, I’d say, “Man this is thirsty work.”  I’d make another big production out of opening the bottle.
 Grampa, that would be my Gram’s long suffering and glad to be dead husband, gave me my first bottle key when I turned eighteen. Made of thick stainless steel, it bears the deep, obviously hand-stamped logo and catch phrase of my Grampa’s second favorite beer.
 “Hamms- From The Land Of Sky Blue Waters, Hamms The Beer Refreshes!” are the words and the picture logo is of a happy, dancing bear. The sharp end used for punching the nifty triangular-shaped hole to the top of a metal beer can has long outlived its original purpose, but the pop top end is still going strong after thousands of uses.
 The etchings show the polished and worn evidence of my many uses, and all of my pants have small worn spots or even holes to prove that I carry this treasure with me at all times.
 So, after letting my charge sit with a mouth-full of over-salted tomato slobber, I would fumble with the antique church key and miss opening the bottle on the first few tries. Then, when I do get the cap pried off, I’ll let it flip off and over the side of the building.
 “Holy shit,” I’d tell my jumper. “That’s a long way down!”
 Then, I’d raise the bottle to my lips, but stop just short of my mouth and say, “Oh man, have I got terrible manners. Would you like to have this one?”
 Of course he would and he reaches for the frosty bottle. I’d let him enjoy that first amazing swallow and when he shuts his eyes in pleasure, I’d zap him with the stun gun I have hidden in the waist band of my pants and pull him backward into the building to safety. I’d sit on his chest and finish his beer while waiting for backup.
 Maybe I should trademark this move and sell it to the police. I would do training seminars and get the police to volunteer to play the part of the jumper. I’d get to taze their shaggy asses and get them to pay me to do it. Major win/win kinda dealie.
 All this beer and tomato talk has got me itching. I’ve got this giant Early Girl in my portable tomato kitchen today. Must weigh-in at a full pound. It’s one of those flat, fat jobbies that we get early in the season here to Austin. Today’s olive oil of choice is from Tuscany, sea salt by way of the Sea of Japan, and I’m going to use cayenne pepper on this baby.
 Who is yo daddy? Manana, y’all.

Posted in ADHD, Carta Blanca Beer, Home Grown Tomatoes, Sprouts Farmers Market | 6 Comments »

Homegrown Tomato Series Revisited

Sunday, March 20th, 2011

So. After a week of part time toiling in the garden, we’ve got everything planted for our summer crops. Squash, okra, beans, corn, beets, carrots, potatoes, and more, and each of several variety are planted in carefully-prepared beds in our giant garden.
 And tomatoes. Acres of tomatoes.
 Many of my blogger buddies back East have been talking about their gardens and most especially, their tomatoes. They have but recently tuned in here, so they likely missed my odes to homegrown tomatoes.
 As I seek to finish the publication of my book while fixing the posting problems here to my bloggie, I’m re-serving some samples of my homegrown tomato love. The following appeared May 19, 2011. Please get a towel to soak-up your saliva as you read.

 Summer has officially arrived to Austin, Texas. I just plucked the first fully-ripened tomatoes from our garden out to the ranch! Four heirloom purple jobbies, a bucket of grape size and another bucket of Sweet 100 cherries.
 Hoo-yaa!!!
 I love tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes, in a way I have difficulty explaining. Homegrown tomatoes are a different species from nearly all commercial choices, and my homegrown jobs are unusually good even compared to other home growners.
 “Why is that, Mooner,” you might inquire.
 Well, I will tell you. The why answer that is the root cause for me growing great tomatoes is my unnatural love and desires for the best that tomatoes can be. Since I love good tomatoes so much, I have endeavored to grow the finest.
 The how answer to the why question is simple. We grow all possible varieties in copious quantities; we use organic methods only; I make special compost and compost teas designed for tomato plant needs; I have vast experience; I am water conscious and use mulch; I monitor constantly and I care.
 Oh yea. And Streaker Jones is my best buddy and Streaker Jones can grow the best of anything. Streaker Jones has a doctorate of plant sciences from Texas A&M and from The University of Texas he has doctorates in chemistry and botany. Streaker Jones knows all there is to know about plants and how to best grow the best plant specimens.
 With his faithful sidekick, Dixie, they make a plant growing machine. Dixie can talk many plant languages so she interprets for Streaker Jones.
 Actually, if you ask Streaker Jones why I grow such great tomatoes out to the ranch he will say, “Cuz I don’t allow Mooner to fuck with um.”
 That is true at the micro level so I won’t try to argue about it. But at the macro level, it’s all about me. Like when I was doing this interview with Rolling Stone Magazine Europa after Dixie was nominated for a European Grammy Award last year.
 The little interview guy asked me, he said, “Meeshur Gha-an-son, to what duz Deexie owe hair great sook-cess?” and I told him, I said, “Well, I guess since I paid for her vocal lessons and never got her spayed, I can take most of the credit.”
 I was going to spay her but her voice coach felt it might ruin her upper register and maybe kill-off some of her emotional range. I had to agree with him because when Dixie is in heat, she sings in this screachie high voice and sounds like what I imagine the Sirens must have sounded like back to mythology days. You can hear her wailing for a man dog in the neighboring counties as evidenced by the collection of horn-dogs that accumulates to the ranch when she freshens.
 Freshens is the same thing as having her period except it sounds a little more sociable. And is animal talk.
 Every year when I harvest the first fully ripened orbs from the garden, I prepare my portable tomato prep kitchen. That is: a special hemp tote bag with tomato scenes stitched into the cover; a seven-inch Japanese chef’s knife with those crenelated indentions in the sides that keep the slices from sticking to the blade; knife stones, oil and chamois for sharpening; small cherry wood cutting board; two china plates for serving; three pepper mills with different pepper varieties; six dropper bottles of my favorite olive oils; my special cooler holding one Carta Blanca beer; and my antique silver snuff box filled with sea salt.
 The only thing that might change from one season to the next would be the kind of sea salt I carry. Everything else is set in stone unless it breaks or wears out. But the salt is an evolving pursuit to find the perfect salt for tomatoes.
 The last twenty years has seen my trips to salt mines and factories around the world. France and Italy and Korea and Africa and so on. This year is special because I got a chunk of that pink, so pink it’s almost ruby red hued, Himalayan salt. You see it on the cooking shows in big slabs that they use to both salt and serve the food like it was a plate.
 It has a great flavor and I think it is showing great promise as a tomato salt. As always, my first pluckings from the vines are less acidic and not as sweet as they will be, and the salt overpowered their flavors. But I am almost certain that when things hit full summer heat I might create me some magic.
 Wine snobs say, “Mooner, beer is a remote second choice to a fine wine to support the sweet acidity of a perfect slice of tomato.”
 To which I say, “Fuck you, shitball. Try this.” At which time the wine snob discovers the joy that is a thin slice of late summer Celebrity with Indonesian black pepper, gray French sea salt and two drops of Tuscan olive oil- which is folded in half and placed on the tongue for the thirty seconds it takes the salt to bring the juices out.
 After thirty seconds chew slowly and then swallow. Wait ten seconds and then drink two-to-three ounces of icy cold Carta Blanca beer.
 Call my name, Gabriel, cause I’m ready to go!
 And don’t try to sell me another brand of beer because I already know better through personal experimentations.
 I think my ADHD is almost under control and I am not even digressing at all. You guys think I can back off my psycho therapy to one session a day? Normally by this late in the day my ADHD would be digressing my socks off me.
 Like yesterday when I got so discombobulated when I discovered that Luigi Fulks gave me an erroneous e-mail address.
 Don’t you just love that word? And why don’t you spell it discomboobulated?
 Would anybody buy my portable tomato prep kitchen if I put them for sale here to the bloggie?
 Manana, y’all.

Posted in ADHD, Carta Blanca Beer, Home Grown Tomatoes | 4 Comments »

Mooner Johnson, MD- Tooter Doctor

Friday, March 18th, 2011

 

So. I’m really busy. My webber and bloggie are in desperate need of an exorcism, I need more sex and the Squirt has a urinary tract infection. My ADHD-addled brain is major league fritzed. I don’t know where to start getting things untangled.

OK, first, I have too much to do with everything above-mentioned plus everything else. The South-by-Southwest Music Festival is in town and I’m too busy to go to any of the festivities. Since my computer problems have resurfaced, my efforts to get my website fixed have ended in a mass ruination of my two trusted computer guys.

My at-the-house hardware/software fixer guy has stopped returning my calls, and my fantastic web design guy has suddenly landed a, “Massive design project that will use all of my time for months. Sorry Dude.” If I didn’t know what they have already been through in attempting to fix my problems I’d call them chickens. So now my solutions are unknown mysteries.

Wait. My problems are unknown mysteries and my solutions yet-to-be-resolves.

The main problem with all of this is that my computer problems are phantoms from the symptomatic perspective. They don’t always happen, don’t happen to every reader and simply refuse to happen for the fixer guys. You guys have seen the results of a few of the tests that have shown up both as posts and comments. Many have been removed from print after getting confirmation but I left a few as proof to you that I’m working on this shit.

And just so that you know, I can’t get my replies to your comments to post. I have spent hours writing snappy replies to your funny and also snarky comments, but, alas, to no avail.

My most problematic problem, however, is the Squirt’s malady, her urinary tract dealie. The little almost my puppy has got the cutest little girl dog tooter you ever did see. It’s this miniature crevassed-fig of of vaginal flesh that sits perched on her adorable rear end. Her butt is so cute I can’t wait until she is my actual puppy.

Dr. Sam I. Am-Johnson won’t let me use her dog in my moon shows. I have zero compunctions in that department. I’m somewhat desperate to get adopted by a cat so that I can make the swap with Sammy, and Squirt becomes my actual puppy. I need to get that done before the Fourth of July. I’ve got big plans for America’s birthday celebrations that include Squirt flashing her tastefully decorated hiney along side my own rakishly decorated behind.

Squirt’s little tooter is nestled in a fold of skin that sits as both a protector and tooter sweater, and also is the root cause for the urinary infection. See, when she piddles, sometimes a little moisture gets trapped between her tooter and the skin fold. Microscopic bad guys took roost in the moist environs and hatched an infection that managed to travel up to her bladder.

The infection requires a treatment program of twice-daily dosing with antibiotics and a tooter and skin fold swabbing. I actually enjoy ministering aid to my little buddy as a gift to her for everything she does for me. I lay her on her back in my lap and gently separate tooter from protective skin flap. Then I take a quarter of a medicated wipe and carefully dab and blot, and rub the areas.

Dr. Sam I. Am has gotten a touch concerned about my nursing.

In this morning’s regular therapy session, she said to me, she says, “Mooner, I think you talk too much about handling Squirt’s vaginal regions. Some people might misconstrue your concerned doctoring for salaciousness.”

“I don’t give a shit what they think,” I told her.

I don’t give a shit. So what if I play doctor with my almost my puppy’s tooter a couple times a day? Which reminds me of what prompted some of my ADHD brain fritz today. I have trouble remembering things like a medicine schedule. To provide memory assistance, I write things on Postie Notes and then tie them to strings that I wrap on my fingers.

But we’ve been planting the garden so I’m wearing gloves and I don’t see the stringed Postie Note about Squirt’s treatment plan, so I forget. To solve that problem, I drew a schedule to be checked-off with each treatment on a Postie, and tied the Postie to my pecker like a kite. Since Squirt and I pee in the sink together, I have her medicine and the medicated swabs used in the tooter-swabbing process sitting on the vanity by the sink.

Am I a fucking genius, or what?

Drink Carta Blanca beer and grow your own tomatoes. You will be happier with each.

Manana, y’all.

PS– if you can read this, please make a comment. I am gathering evidence for when I go to GoDaddy to demonstrate my problems.

Posted in ADHD, Carta Blanca Beer, Home Grown Tomatoes, Squirt | 3 Comments »

TESTING

Tuesday, March 15th, 2011

TESTING

Posted in ADHD | 2 Comments »

A Gun Safety Lesson; Please Shoot My ADHD

Tuesday, March 15th, 2011

So.  Spring has sprung in Austin, Texas. The trees are in leaf and full bloom, the birds are chirping and nesting, and the weather is gorgeous. The women have started wearing halter tops and sandals with shorts, and nothing is sexier to me than a woman in sandals, shorts and a halter top. Everything is marvelous here to Austin, Texas USA.
 And I couldn’t be any more fucking miserable if my nuts were caught in a vise and my feet were on fire.
 My bloggie is all jammed up and shit one more time. I have the same problems as before where comments and my blog postings don’t hit the I-net air waves. Which, of course, means that most of you won’t even be able to read this.
 Of course that means that most of you won’t be able to read what you aren’t able to read about not being able to read stuff I write and post about you not being able to read my postings and shit.
 Ugh. Ugh, yet again.
 Squatlo says I should just shit can the whole thing and start over and he might be right. But I’ve spent so much effort to establish pathways with all of the search engines’ spider monkeys I can’t easily give in.
 OK, then there’s the whole thing about me being stubborner than a mule. And I’m a slave to routine. And I hate changes that aren’t my idea. And then there’s that thing about me being a TOTAL FUCKING LUNATIC.
 Maybe two years ago I got rid of all the handguns in my possession and had Gram lock all of my long guns out of my reach. I did this because I was sensing the urge to pop some caps in some fuckers. I won’t go into any of that because, of course, some of it is in my book. But I will say that a certain famous Austin author, a dark-skinned professionally-dressed man driving a Mercedes 500, and a young man who littered the ranch road in front of my place with a dozen sick puppies, were not plugged by me emptying a full clip from my 9mm Glock in their asses because I took those precautions.
 Last night I asked Gram to loan me her double-barrel 12-gage shotgun. “What fer?” she asked me.
 “Don’t worry why, just get it for me,” I responded.
 The old woman eyeballed me up and down before saying, “You ain’t gonna shoot poor Henry are ya?”
 “No,” my best short answer.
 More eyeballing and then, “That asshole that keeps cuttin ya off over to the Arboretum?”
 “No,” I repeated. Why embellish when a two-letter answer says it all?
 “Hot damn, yer gonna shoot that fucking pig a yers and his gay lover too?” Gram jumped from her chair and headed to her room to open the gun case. “Bout time you put them two outta my miseries.”
 “I’m not shooting Rush Limbaugh and Rick Perry, Gram. My pet pig and his ostrich lover are family members. I killing my computer.”
 Gram eyeballed me again, and this time fiercely. “No, yer not. Yer gonna fix it an quit yer belly achin. Er I’m gonna kick yer ass. Now get me a beer and go fix dinner.”
 I got her a Carta Blanca, opened it and put it in her cup holder. I screwed cup holders to the table places where Gram and Aunt Hilda sit. Cuts down on spillage.
 My antique raw-boned old grandmother took her seat and drank a long pull from the sweaty bottle. She belched a satisfying gas bubble and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand.
 “Come here boy,” she said.
 When I hesitated, she said again, “Come here, I said.”
 I walked over and sat beside her to take my next scold. She instead put her calloused hands on my cheeks and kissed me full on the lips. “Yer a good boy, Mooner. Yer jist all fucked up and loonier than mockin’bird on China berries. I’ll kill that compooter for ya while you cook my dinner.”
 I love that old gasbag. After dinner I took her Ferrari to go buy my new monitor. Gram has a laptop and associates the word computer with the screen.
 Anyway, my ADHD is on the fritz, and I’m really glad I don’t have ready access to a gun.
 Manana, y’all. And please comment on this if you can read it. I’d like to know what’s up out there.

Posted in ADHD, Carta Blanca Beer, Rick Perry, Rush Limbaugh the pig, Squatlo | 1 Comment »

Mooner To Save The World From Computer Domination

Monday, March 14th, 2011

So.  I have been given another award and this time from The Reckmonster. I forget what it’s for or why I’m deserving, but I am most grateful and, I’m sure, deserving. I want to be excited about my award but I’m too tangled-up in the dirty linen that is my website. It’s working again but it’s a giant pain in the ass for me.
 I fucking hate technology for starters, and I really hate computers. I think that Watson dealie on Jeopardy is a foreshadow of the time when computers take over the world. Fucking computers will take over the world.
 But, that is all a part of my master plan, the “Mooner Johnson Master Plan to Save the World From Computer Domination” plan. See, I already have my computer geniuses working on the programming that will stop the computers dead in their tracks. When they think they have won the war, they’ll all be on the I-net with each other, bragging and drinking toasts to each other for pulling off world domination, and I’ll unleash my plan on their asses.
 The fucking computers will be sitting around telling war stories and shit about how they pulled it off and how brave they were and how dangerous it was. It’ll be like when my granddaddy and his war buddies talked about what it was like during the Big War over to France. That was World War One.
 My grand father was a Marine and spent over a year in a water-sodden wood-reinforced trench in France. He wouldn’t ever talk to the family about what happened but he spent hours yakking with his war buddies. I would hide and listen every chance I got. I won’t go into all the stories I heard but I will tell you one of them.
 My granddaddy had a corporal with him who went batshit crazy sitting in the trenches. They had endured months of  discomfort, “With tha Krauts lobbing mortar shells at us,” as he would tell it. When the craziness struck the guy it was as if he were hit by a bolt of lightening. “Old Smitty just sat onna floor with this dead look to his face,” my granddaddy would say. “Had ta cart him off onna stretcher tha next day.”
 For some reason that story unsettles me. Might be one of the reasons I’m anti-war. I miss that old man. My grand father was one of his kind. And one of a kind as well.
 Anyway, the smart ass computers are all sitting around telling their war stories when I unleash my plan. My plan is to send out a computer virus that gives every fucking computer in the world a double dose of the ADHD. The computers won’t be able to process all of the random thoughts spinning inside their hard drives and they’ll go nuts. They’ll all commit virtual suicide.
 That’s right, I’ll fix it to where all the processors get overloaded circuits because they have too many thoughts to process. They’ll be catching fire and exploding and shit and I’ll be a hero.
 The only reason I’m telling you guys about my secret Plan is because after I kill all the computers we won’t be able to communicate, so I wouldn’t be able to take my credits due. I’m taking them now.
 So, hoist a cold Carta Blanca and salute Mooner Johnson, the Man Who Saved the World From Computer Domination.
 Manana, y’all.

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Posted in ADHD, Carta Blanca Beer | 3 Comments »

Judge Jesus Rules; FRP!

Sunday, March 13th, 2011

So.  Yesterday that dumbass Michelle Bachmann, Republican tea bagger from Meenie-sota, informed the fine folks of New Hampshire that they, “Fired the shot heard around the world.” Here I thought it was only the right-wing Christian legislators in Texas pushing revisionist history. 
 But who can blame Mz. Bachmann? Massachusetts is solidly Democratic and we can’t let Democrats have credit for starting the Tea Bagger Party, now can we? If we can’t give Mother Nature and natural selection any credits in biology class, we for damn sure can’t let Bostonian’s have credit for igniting the Teabaggers.
  I had a dream last night that didn’t involve celebrity camel toes. My dream-scape dance card has been booked with pocket poochies of the rich and famous for months. While pleasant, these dreams were becoming boring. I have always had vivid Technicolor dreams with interesting subjects and subject matters. But how many times can you dream of having your nose buried in celebrity crotches before it gets old?
 Months, for sure, but after a certain time a guy wants to dream about something else.
 Anyway, last night I had this dream with Adolph Hitler, Texas Governor Rick Perry, Glen Beck and Jesus in it. It was a courtroom trial dream, which I often have, and I was the prosecutor and Glen Beck was the defense attorney. Rick Perry and Adolph Hitler were charged with “Crimes against the future of their peoples”, and Jesus was the judge.
 I won’t go into the details because I’m thinking if I write a second book, I’ll put them there. What I will say is this. Glen Beck’s defense of the Texas governor used precisely the same logic as his defense of Hitler. I guess the reasons for banning and burning books never changes.
 The verdict and punishment as judged by Jesus was incredible, and the reason I’m saving the bulk of this dream. But I will give you the personal insight I have gained from participating in that courtroom drama.
 Shallow wells soon dry up.
 So, I hoist a cold Carta Blanca beer to the future. Manana, y’all.

PS– FUCK  RICK PERRY! (FRP!)

Posted in A Life Lesson, Carta Blanca Beer, Religion, Rick Perry | 1 Comment »

A Hacked Blog Story; Thanks For Hanging

Friday, March 11th, 2011

So.  I think the webber glitches with my bloggie are fixed. I hope the webber glitches with my bloggie are fixed. My designer got into it and decoded and recoded all over the place, and it seems that it is back to what it should be.
 In an effort to provide a Public Service to other bloggers, let me tell you what happened to me. I was invaded with Trojan horses and a worm some months back. Somehow, I noticed something amiss at the instant the invasion started. I heard my processor clicking madly when it should have been lying quiet, and I tried to move my mousie to place the cursor on a click point and it was dead.
 I must have a primeval survival response signal buried deep within my ADHD-addled brain that says, “Computer clicks inappropriately + mousie no moves cursor = SHUT THE FUCKING COMPUTER DOWN!!!”
 I shut the machine down by ripping the power cord from its A/C plug. When I started it back up, it was a mess. I got my regular fixer guy over to see what was what, and he found the invader programs. He cleaned them out and went about repairing what he could find, but he isn’t a Word Press or I-net guy and he had no way to vet my website properly.
 Crash.
 My site crashed. I had my guy back over and he was able to get things scrubbed-up and operating again, and all seemed well. Then, over the last month, all sorts of weird shit started happening. My CAPTCHA program started providing copy screens that looked like a drunk peed Greek in the snow with black urine. The more times you requested another copy screen the more illegible the screen became.
 Then, you’d take your time as a reader and carefully craft a (usually) intelligent comment only to have the comment counter register your effort by adding one to the total, but your comment never showed on the site.
 Next, and listen carefully to this part because it might not be Word Press specific. On some computers, my latest posts display instantly. On others, the latest displayed post displayed would be days old, not the newest.
 And if that isn’t strange enough, on some computers you could try with Google and have everything all fucked up, but open my site with Explorer and everything was peachy– the latest post displayed and all of the comments showed in their correct spots.
 I don’t even know what my web designer did to fix it. It was some corruption of the Word Press coding or widgets or some shit. But if you will clean your cache and browser thingies, my webber and bloggie should be back to 100%.
 Thank you for hanging in with me. If you experience an invasion like mine, I’ll give you my guys name and maybe he can help you.
 Which brings me to this. I am firmly against the death penalty. Too many mistakes are made with charges and sentences in those cases. We must stop killing innocent people by chosen error just to be certain we kill the guilty. One mistake eradicates the correctness of all others.
 Except for this. I think computer hackers who hack as an act vandalism should be hung by the balls until dead. Or the tits, as appropriate.
 I wish I had allowed my computer to die, as was the intent of the hacker(s) who invaded it. My problems would have been limited to a simple starting over with a new computer purchase, loading of clean webber and bloggie software, and a kiss goodbye to murdered data.
 In several days time, I’d have been up and running again and my suffering limited to memories of lost contacts.
 Fuck computer hackers, and FUCK PRICK PERRY!
 Ugh. Six am and I need a Carta Blanca.
 Thanks for hanging guys. Manana, y’all.

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Posted in ADHD, Carta Blanca Beer | 6 Comments »

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