So. We were all sitting at the big breakfast table this morning, enjoying a delightful journey through the world of pig meat that only my mother could ruin. Fragrant sausage, bacon, Virginia ham, spicy Mexican chorizo, and this new English pork bangers recipe Dixie talked Streaker Jones into making. The porcine repast was supported by a cast of waffles, eggies of all varieties, and my famous potato cakes.

For those of you wondering what a banger might be, let me say that banger is British for bland.

Mother was reading the Saturday newspaper, editorial fashion, a habit of hers that is somewhat tolerated by the rest of us. The woman from whose loins I sprang uses these moments to make comparisons between stories in the paper and those of us in the family she considers to be of “low moral character”[.] Should I have said, “… from whom’s loins I sprang?”

To my mother, any Johnson family member and associate attending this morning’s breakfast not named Mother Johnson is of low moral character. Gram sexes with young boys, Aunt Hilda thinks that the shrunken head of a heathen African can talk, P-cubed runs with Gram, Mr. Dave is a gigolo, Squirt curses like a sailor, Yoda is so ugly he has to be the Devil’s spawn, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Perry are homo-sex-u-als, Streaker Jones and Dixie are involved in illegal business enterprise with me, and I… well, folks, I, quite simply, am me.

Some of Mother’s favorite news stories are when women teachers have illegal relationships with their students and the sting operations wherein the cops set a guy up thinking he’s meeting an underage girl for sex. These stories are fodder for Mother to lecture Gram and the P-cubed for their lust of barely-legal boys. I do admit that my randy old grandmother adds new dimensions to the term “cougar” and might have actually been the original model for it. But Gram and her best bud, Penelope Paxton-Parades, are strict enforcers of the eighteen is bare minimum rule.

“Oh quit yer bitchin’, ya old gasser baggie. We checks their ID an their teeth ever’ time,” Gram responded to today’s editorial chastisements. “Cain’t stand bad teeth, an’ yer startin’ ta git inta my short hairs.”

I’m reasonably sure that Gram meant “cross hairs” but why would anyone correct her?

Streaker Jones and Dixie caught their shit scoop with the story of a meth lab that blew up out in the country near Burnett, Texas. My mother doesn’t approve of any business enterprise that us illegal, and illegal is Streaker Jones middle name. Actually, Streaker Jones has no middle name, but illegal is his game. His and Dixie’s current project is breeding a new strain of sweaty toad. They think they can breed the little boogers to where you can lick them and not die.

Squirt had her chops busted over a story about the declining vocabularies of third graders. When Mother asked Squirt what she thought that might mean, Squirt said, “Who gives a shit? Those potato cakes are really fucking good.”

Another case where a different dog owner might feel compelled to correct his potty-mouthed puppy, yet I found humor and enlightenment in Squirt’s words.

My rasher of grief came from a very strange place. “Oh my, Mooner, would you listen to this. Jerry Jones just confided that he suffered more than fifty concussions while playing football at the University of Arkansas. He says he would have been President if he hadn’t played football. Now what do you think about that?”

“OK, first, I think that explains some things about Jerry Jones. Second, the little prick is always sticking his head where it doesn’t belong, so where’s the shock? Third, I think I’m glad I’ve already stopped liking the Cowboys because that kind of brain damage only gets worse, and I already can’t stand the sonofabitch.” I cogitated some more and said, “Besides, Jerry’s a right-wing Christian Republican. He’s never been more fucking qualified to lead that batch of shitballs than now that he’s lost his mind.”

I actually don’t know that Jerry is a right-wing Christian Republican shitball. I base my assumption on the simple fact that my mother likes him. Mother gravitates to her kind.

Anyway, I want to be interested in, and excited about, Sunday’s Super Bowl but I am, quite simply, not. I could not care less if it was with Jerry Jones’ Dallas Crybabies. Waaaaah, I had fifty concussions in college… Waaaaaah, Dallas lost an important game because of a bad call… Waaaah, I should have listened when my scouts told me Dez Bryant is a knuckle-head. Waaaaah, the plastic surgeon pulled the skin so tight on my face that every time I smile, my nipples twitch.

Fucking Jerry Jones. “I could have been President, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.”

I wanted the Forty-Niners and The Raiders this year. If BJ wasn’t my buddy, I’d have wanted the Niners and the Saints but that’s impossible since they’re both NFC. Hell, I’d be happy to watch them play a rematch of this year’s play-off game, only on a neutral field.

But as the Squirt and my Gram like to say, “Who gives a shit what you think, Mooner. It’s New England and The fucking Giants. Now pass the guacamole, and fetch me another Carta Blanca.

Manana, y’all.

So. Today is the last day that I’m saying anything about my quest for answers about Catholic Church dogma. I started this quest using the word “beliefs” instead of dogma, but the results of my research has beaten me like a dog, and I have come to realize that the entirety of Catholic rules are man made, not the Rule of God. Are those the origins of the word dogma—beaten like a dog and man?

That disappoints me for some reason. As you know, I was raised Baptist. In fact I have the distinction of being baptized twice in the same church by the same preacher—an events sequencing that was frowned upon by the church’s elite, including my own mother. I was saved and dunked the first time before puberty, a trip to Pastor Browningwell’s alter under the required repentant trance.

First time I was petrified of going to Hell—I was a sinner with my first breath of worldly air and never stopped sinning—and I was convinced that Jesus, sweet Jesus, was my only salvation. From that date until I was raped by my Boy Scout Leader—one of the same Deacons who approved of my baptism and membership into his church—I was a devout Baptist boy.

Post rape I was a changed man, and I didn’t even attend church until I fell in love at aged fourteen. She required me to rededicate myself before letting me fondle her breasts. I’d have become a fucking Catholic priest if that was a requirement to fondle her breasts.

Now you might think that I’m off the tracks here, but I’m not. See the Baptists have a hard-and-fast rule, a rule that says, “Once saved, always saved.” That’s right, folks, since I walked the aisle and honestly pledged my faith to Jesus, I can do nothing to that will put me in Hell. And since I walked the aisle twice, I figure I’ve got chairs reserved at both the right and left hands of Jesus.

As a Baptist myself, I can say with absolute surety that the Baptists make shit up. They might use the Bible as a false front man, but they just make shit up. They “interpret” Biblical words in ways to further their self interests.

As a somewhat-thinking man, I know that the very Bible itself is a confusing sequence of interpretations itself. If we believe the Bible, its oldest stories predate written language by thousands of years, which means that God’s original words had to be passed down through hundreds of generations of interpreters before anything was even written on rocks. If you then factor the changes of language that happened with all the wars and the transitory lifestyles of those olden days, you can only imagine how much of God’s Word was lost in translation.

As BJ said in a comment on an earlier post, the original religions served as the lawmakers for early civilizations. That vested power and authority into the religious leaders, many of whom were, simply put, the strongest. Not necessarily the smartest, nor the nicest.

Which raises another issue for me. Let’s say I’m the scribe for an early sect of Jews in the era before papyrus and lambskin paper. My fictional tribe actually pre-date formal Jewishness by a few hundred years. Here I sit with my limestone slabs, flint hammer and point. Maybe I’m smart and have invented a mallet using a rock tied to a stick with a catgut binding. I’m at the feet of our tribal leader and head Priestess, Remarka.

Remarka has grown old and wishes to pass her knowledge to her successor and I’m the clan’s scribe. I’m named scribe because I’m not strong enough to fight or hunt, and I’ve an artistic bent which lends itself to neat handwriting. Remarka has just finished dictating early Genesis and I’ve scribed my way to the fourth day.

The Priestess is growing weak, so she tells me to listen to the rest of Genesis while she has the strength. She doesn’t have time to wait for me to painstakingly scribe onto the stones, so she asks me to listen to the entire story and then write it all down. Remarka restarts the story with how God created Eve in Her image and then made man from an unnecessary flap of flesh that covered Eve’s butt crack. Early on God thought that assholes were going to be ugly and would need to be hidden under the fleshy cover, but She changed her mind. As a woman deity, God felt OK changing Her mind. This flesh became Adam’s pecker, and therefore was how man’s obsessions began.

I listen to the whole thing—all the way to when Remarka’s predecessor, Noahina, had saved all the living things in the Great Flood. Remarka sighs deeply and says to me, she says, “Lunarius, I want you to tell the clan that I name as my successor…”

The great High Priestess coughed, and without another word, she died. And the rest is history.

How many times did that sort of shit happen over ten thousand years? And have you ever thought of this? How fucking hard is it to erase a mistake from a stone tablet? “What do you mean you said ‘Jessia’ Master. I thought you said ‘Jesus’ was to be the Messiah’s name. Don’t worry, I’ll change that to Jessia” later.”

I actually feel a little dumb for thinking that I could find God’s hand in religion. Modern Christianity has killed spirituality and replaced it with the self-serving of the old men who rule each Christian cult.

I, for one, hope that there is a heaven. How cool would that be? But no God that I could trust would require me to act like a perfect contemporary Baptist or Catholic. My God isn’t an asshole.

This shit has absolutely worn me out. Manana, y’all.

So. It’s Thursday and a beautiful day here to Austin, Texas. Texas state Governor Rick “The Prick” Perry is still too wounded with embarrassment from his national political debacle to restart his dismantling of our infrastructure. The pompous little bastard is hiding out, no doubt meeting with his big money handlers to determine just how bad his national exposures damaged his state authorities. So, as I said, it’s a beautiful day here.

I have never failed to credit the right-wing Christian religious of Texas, and I suspect Ricky will soon start blowing his fetid, stupid air up their dresses again and re-inflate that balloon. I wonder if those of the religious right have ever stopped to wonder why it is that their best political spokesperson is dumb as a rock. OK, that was an unfair statement. He’s not dumb “as” a rock, he’s dumb “like” a rock. Like the painted rock at his family’s hunting lease.

I also wonder if those same supposed “models of Christ’s image” realize that it is we, the hedonistic, agnostic and heretical liberal left who are actually the ones pushing Jesus’ “love your brother-take care of your weak and infirm” political agenda. Do those guys realize that their right-wing me-first attitudes have made us look more Godlike than them. (they?)

Which reminds me to tell you that I heard from a spokesperson from the Holy Roman Catholic Church late yesterday afternoon. Please allow me to say, here in advance, that I had already cracked a couple icy-cold Carta Blanca beers and also ingested one of my Gram’s magic mushroom potions she calls “A bruised peach ain’t right”[.] The bluish spot high on my arm where SAC Ellen “tapped” me night-before-last had turned into a purple and yellow, swollen lump. Gram gave me the potion to reduce swelling and I guess also to stop my whining about it.

I’m still amazed at how much unwanted attention I bring to myself.

Those of you with inclinations to stay abreast of current science know that studies now show how psychedelic mushroom juice can enhance concentration as well as imagination. I have always attempted to tell people that Gram’s potions straighten-out some of my ADHD’s worst habits, and now I have proof. I tell you this to provide additional clarity to the information re: the call from the Catholic guy. I was on my third beer, which likely dimmed my wits, but I was also in a state of altered ADD and AD-with-an-HD effects with enhanced imagination from the mushrooms.

OK, let’s face it, I was shit-faced when my phone rang.

The call wasn’t from Christian Gonzales, the communications guy, but, rather, from Larry Covington, who is the “Ecumenical Officer” of the Austin Diocese. Turns out Larry is a Catholic who attended a Baptist Seminary and he was the perfect man to answer my questions when doing a compare/contrast of Biblical foundations between Baptists and Catholics on three key issues: birth control, abortion and homo, I say homo-sex-u-al-ity.

At first I wondered how it was known that I was ecumenical as it relates to the Catholic Church. I mean really, how did they know I wasn’t Catholic? The answer, of course, was in my question. As I later learned, only a non-Catholic would ask such a silly question.

I’ll preface my remarks by saying that Larry was forthright, forthcoming and didn’t blanch at any question I asked. He didn’t attempt to avoid or deflect except when he felt directing me to printed Catholic stuff would serve to clarify. Unless Larry is a devious little Catholic fucker and the same Larry I’ve met over to the Planned Parenthood where I anti-anti-abortion protest. Short of that, if I were a Catholic I would want Mr. Covington in my corner.

I also wonder if the local Catholic clan has other Ecumenical Officers who attended Church of Christ, Mormon, Lutheran and other seminaries who stand at the ready for callers like me. My simple request lead me through four entire departments and six people. They’d need like at least a dozen specially trained Larry guys each with training in a different world religion. I wonder how many of those guys convert to the religion they study?

It’s no wonder that need so much money.

To understand my quest you need to know that I was raised Baptist and one, Baptists believe in the “literal” words of the Bible, and two, Baptists believe that Catholics are not “real” Christians. I never really gave a shit as to why Catholics were viewed as heretics at my church and I stopped going at an age that predated my quest for knowledge. I’m pretty well-versed on the Catholic Church’s stand on the centuries of child rape committed by its priests and also its stand on women.

But I had never bothered myself with the Bible verses either the Baptists or Catholics stand upon to justify those stances. I made the call to the Catholic Bishop of Austin because he started whining about new health care requirements that require health care providers, those that that accept payments under government programs, cover birth control. I got all pissed off that the Bishop was pissed off about such a basic human right of women.

I had +/-thirty minutes of conversation with Mr. Covington and while I can say that he cleared several things for me, I am even more dumb founded than before making the call. See, according to Larry, the Ecumenical Officer of the local Catholic Church, The Holy Roman Catholic Church doesn’t rely on the words of the Bible for their positions on those three issues. Instead, they rely upon what they choose to call “Natural Law” and then through “The Theory of the Body” the Church pontificates modern beliefs.

Only after filtering whatever original intentions God might have had in regards to my issues through a succession of dried up old men—that would be the Popes and masses of Cardinals over time—several re-interpretations of the Bible, The Dark Ages, The Inquisition, the Catholic Church plundering of the New World, and the actual acceptance of a New Testament that totally changed Christianity, can the Catholics even decide how they rule.

I want to thank Larry Covington for clearing a few things for me and also for confusing the shit right out of me. I’m way too confused to know how I feel about all of this right now, because basically, Larry told me that over the course of Catholic history the high muck-a-mucks of their church have decided how to act, not the Bible. And in these three modern issues, the only reliance on the words of the Bible come AFTER we apply the Catholic interpretation of the Catholic interpretation of Natural Law.

OK, then we’re required to re filter all of that through “The Theology of the Body” which is the last Pope’s cogitations on life.

Let’s start our journey through the mind of Catholic dogma with Natural Law. I apologize for the highlights, funky lines and dead-end hyper links, but here is some of the info I pulled on a Google search of “Catholic Natural Law”[:]

“From Wikipedia:

Paul of Tesarus wrote in his Epistle to the Romans: “For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things contained in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law unto themselves, their conscience also bearing witness.”

(Author’s note: Holy fucking shit!)

The use of natural law, in its various incarnations, has varied widely through its history. There are a number of different theories of natural law, differing from each other with respect to the role that morality plays in determining the authority of legal norms. This article will deal with its usages separately rather than attempt to unify them into a single theory.

In English this term is frequently employed as equivalent to the laws of nature, meaning the order which governs the activities of the material universe. Among the Roman jurists natural law designated those instincts and emotions common to man and the lower animals, such as the instinct of self-preservation and love of offspring. In its strictly ethical application—the sense in which this article treats it—the natural law is the rule of conduct which is prescribed to us by the Creator in the constitution of the nature with which He has endowed us.

According to St. Thomas, the natural law is “nothing else than the rational creature’s participation in the eternal law” (I-II.94). The eternal law is God’s wisdom, inasmuch as it is the directive norm of all movement and action. When God willed to give existence to creatures, He willed to ordain and direct them to an end. In the case of inanimate things, this Divine direction is provided for in the nature which God has given to each; in them determinism reigns. Like all the rest of creation, man is destined by God to an end, and receives from Him a direction towards this end. This ordination is of a character in harmony with his free intelligent nature. In virtue of his intelligence and free will, man is master of his conduct. Unlike the things of the mere material world he can vary his action, act, or abstain from action, as he pleases. Yet he is not a lawless being in an ordered universe. In the very constitution of his nature, he too has a law laid down for him, reflecting that ordination and direction of all things, which is the eternal law. The rule, then, which God has prescribed for our conduct, is found in our nature itself. Those actions which conform with its tendencies, lead to our destined end, and are thereby constituted right and morally good; those at variance with our nature are wrong and immoral.”

*** OK, I’m back, and please allow me to repeat myself when I say, “Holy fucking shit!”

I need BJ to help me work my way through all of this stuff, I’m just not smart enough. One thing that Larry told me is that women can’t be priests because priests are stand-ins for Jesus and Jesus was a man. I assumed that to mean that Priests are supposed to only act like Jesus, but I’m again confused because the Pope is a priest first and he is bigoted towards many people and balks when given the chance to do what Jesus would have done.

Here’s my rationale. The only time Jesus EVER got angry to the point of physical acts against another was when he kicked the money changers out of the temple. Jesus was physically angry and assaulted these guys for the act of currency exchange on church property.

Yet this current Pope, and those several before him, have been mealy-mouthed about the priests who have raped and otherwise molested thousands of children while wearing the collar and performing the Holy sacraments. Pope’s have not only approved of the slaughter of millions of non-Christians, they have blessed and financed the missions to conquer. Popes have endorsed the killings and taking of slaves in God’s name, but they don’t want us to terminate a two-month pregnancy?

Have I managed to confuse you guys now? My head is spinning and I haven’t even addressed the Theology of the Body. Wait until you see that one. What I wanted was simple answers to modern issues and maybe in all of this confusion I have them. Maybe it’s one, simple answer.

Just like we Baptists, Catholics make shit up to suit us. Manana, y’all.

So. BJ over to the Dumb Perignon told me that I had additional webber commenter information available to me that would prove his innocence in a formerly-raging commenter debate, and when I looked into his suggested bloggie administrative functions I stumbled upon an interesting tidbit upon which I will now act.

OK, let’s stop here and examine that last sentence. Let me first say that I have read that little ditty thirteen times, and while each reading has brought new meaning to those words, I remain convinced that I said exactly what I meant. And they say ADHD prevents focus and concentration.

The tidbit I tripped over was that many of my recent first time visitors had come here via Good To Be Gay

What the fuck? I can’t continue typing up there in the last paragraph without having it continue the Good To Be Gay hyperlink. I had to leave that paragraph open like that to get out of the linkster, and that shit drives me nuts.

Anyway, I was banging around the Admin section yesterday after BJ told me something, and I discovered that one, I had a significant number of new visitors, and that two, many (most) of those newbies had arrived from GTBG.

I received an email from one of those viewers that said in part, “… and while I find much of your writing interesting, I feel lost with some of people and situations. Might you give your new readers a refresher?…”

For some reason this Emailer wished to go nameless and I hope that isn’t because she is still in the closet. I prefer to think that she’s the mother of a gay person and that she finds me attractive and that embarrasses her. Join the club, Ma’am.

Anyway, I though about her request and decided she’s right. It’s been over a year since I did the Cast of Characters button up there ^^^^^ and things change. So here is my best effort to clarify things:

Mr. Dave is an elderly gentleman in possession of a penis the size of a large Japanese eggplant, said penis is a physiological phenomenon when under the influence of Viagra, and my randy old grandmother rescued him from the nursing home and brought him here to the ranch where he services the matrons of the Johnson family ranch. Mr. Dave is a true gentleman who shares his bounty without prejudice and burns through extra large rubber like a drag car.

I have a menagerie of household pets that includes regular domestic varieties and also pets not typically considered to be of the household. Squirt, the half-Chihuahua/half-Dachshund puppy, currently speaks at least a dozen human languages and is taking the place of Dixie, my long-suffering Golden Retriever and personal translator for the previous sixteen years. Yoda, the supposed same half-Chihuahua/half-Dachshund puppy who is actually a mix of Chihuahua and fucking Whippet, is a bugeyed little shitball who is so ugly that he’s actually cute, and thus aptly-named. He was rescued from a puppy mill over to Oklahoma where they beat and choked him. He has resultant bladder control issues and he sounds like an old man with throat cancer when he barks. Only had him six months and love him like a son.

Honor the fucking cat is a minor character in my life and not because I have anything against cats. It is, quite simply put—because she’s a fucking cat. Honor is with us as the result of a therapy assignment (read “experiment”) forced on me by Dr. Sam I. Am-Johnson, my first-of-ten ex-wives and only psycho therapist. The cat “adopted” the Squirt and me when she escaped from the crazy cat lady’s house and hid in the back seat of my old GTO.

Maybe I should spend more time telling you about what little the fucking cat does. Do gay people have an especially strong leaning towards cats to where I should add some silly cat talk for their/your edification? Would I be showing a prejudice should I allow the construction of my viewer constituency to sway my content? Did Lee Harvey Oswald really act alone?

Rush Limbaugh is 550+ pounds of domesticated porcine drag queen, a pig named after the gigantic asshole of radio fame. If you buy my book, Full Rising Mooner, you’ll find the back-story on him. Rushie and his lover, the ostrich Rick Perry—a 350-pounder in his own right—live in my bedroom closet where they pretend nobody knows they are gay. The two of them are likewise aptly named as Rush Limbaugh is a pig in every way, and Rick Perry is a pretty bird who runs in circles and has a usable brain the size of a pea.

I love all my pets and treat them like family, a condition they return on me.

As far as prejudices go, I have several. Right-wing Christian shitballs, the Baptist church, Her Royal Highness The Pope, and people who are bigoted against other people because of differences in color, religion and sexual preferences headline the recipients of my prejudice. I am a liberal of just past rare cooking and I am an anti-anti-abortion protester. I think Dr. Marcus Bachmann IS out of the same closet where Michele Bachmann hides deep within.

My sister, named Sister, is a lesbian woman who happens to be married to my third ex-wife. Sister and Anna the Amazon are quite an attractive couple and next to Streaker Jones, my first choices as backup in a bar fight. Each is quite feminine and both are well-trained in the martial arts. They and my long-time friend Lloyd are gay persons who mean very much to me. Lloyd is the man I most admire of all men I have known.

Do you guys have men and/or women you most admire? For me the choice of a woman for the category is a difficult choice. I have so many strong and amazing women in my life that I’d name different ladies at different times. Even though I’ve had some incredible men near to me, Lloyd is the one man I wish I was more like. More alike? Lloyd’s actual first name is Curtis, but I guess that really doesn’t make a shit in this context.

OK, I’m going to stop with this line of discussion because I feel like I’m starting to pander to my gay readers. I’m not opposed to pandering buy I always attempt to pander with a specific goal in mind. Let me just say that I am a non-denominational admirer of good people regardless of their persuasions.

I’m also crazy. My aforementioned psycho therapist calls me a, “crazy lunatic redneck fuckbrain,” a diagnosis not found by me in any psychiatric journal. I am an environmentalist who owns a compost business, I ingest every known organic mind-altering substance so far identified, and when I drink beer I demand Carta Blanca.

Fuck Two X’s beer and those silly commercials. Have you ever had a Dos Equis beer? (imagine the sound of me spitting) Hopped and malted rat piss.

Which reminds me. Mr. Christian Gonzales—the head muck-a-muck in the Communications Department over to the Austin Diocese of The Holy Roman Catholic Church—has not yet returned my call. I’m not prepared to call him a chicken and make clucking noises quite yet, but I’m warming up my clucker.

Which just caused a thought to hit me. When I was transferred to the Communication Department I assumed that meant the place where information is disseminated. Maybe Christian (what a fucking name for this guy) is in the Communications Department meaning he’s the guy that de-communicates a Catholic from the church.

Holy shit but isn’t the Catholic hierarchy a complicated and critical bunch of prissy old gasbags? Who is that guy at the Vatican who serves as Papal spokesman? You know, the guy I call Ratso Rizzo the Second. Has a pointy rat face and speaks with these red, pouty lips all pursed-up like he’s got a mouthful of spoiled piss in his mouth.

Anyway, I’m running out of steam and time as well. Welcome, new readers, and I’ll see you manana.

So. I’ve been mostly missing from the scene since Friday because I’ve been busy with planned activities. As a sufferer of acute ADHD and ADD Types I through XV, I have also been busy with unplanned activities. Just last night I was flipping between the Texas mens’ basketball game and The Bachelor on the TV and I got into an unplanned argument with my sweetie.

SAC Ellen is in town for a few days and spent last night here. I don’t usually watch “Der Batch O’ Dummies” as Streaker Jones calls the ABC show, but the SACster is hooked on it. Under normal circumstances I would have watched my game, because I’m hooked on University of Texas sports, without interruptions in another room. OK, wait. Under normal conditions, SAC Ellen would have been in the living room with the flock of old Johnson birds watching The Bachelor on the big screen with Mr. Dave.

Mr. Dave is home from his visit over to the P-cube’s house and arrived back to the ranch with an extra bag. P-cubed is now staying in the guest room in Mother’s wing of the house where she can fit herself into Mr. Dave’s routine schedule. Things have gotten so confusing with that poor old man’s sexing schedule that the ladies asked Gnat to organize it for him. My able assistant set up a spreadsheet, and here “spreadsheet” is apt grammatical syntax.

Anyway, last night I hit the “Previous” channel button—I swear by reflex—and flipped to the game just as the bachelor, Ben is his name, removed his undies to skinny dip with the crazy woman. They always put one crazy woman on these shows to garner viewer interest.

“Dammit, Mooner, you ruined it.” My sweetie snapped at me and punched my arm high, near the shoulder. As I’m writing this my arm still hurts from the punch.

“Ow, dammit, ow, ow, ow!” I didn’t actual cry out in pain, but it hurt.

“Oh, stop being a cry baby, I barely tapped you.”

Have you ever noticed how persons with hands that are dangerous weapons always say “I barely tapped you” after they punch a bruise on you? My buddy Squatlo can back me up on this one. Right Bob? His sweet wife looks like a school teacher and has the balanced countenance of an Earth mother. But Bob says she can split a bowling ball with a stab from one finger.

I didn’t need to attempt the bowling ball dealie to know that’s quite a feat, and I suspect SAC Ellen might possess similar abilities. Her “little tap” left bluish imprints of her knuckles.

Holy shit but I have left the fucking building. I wanted to tell you about my little research project. The local Catholic High Muck-A-Muck, Bishop Joe S. Vasquez, issued a statement last night that he is pissed about “Obamacare” because it requires health care insurers and providers to cover contraceptives costs if they participate in government programs. I know that last sentence was poorly constructed but you catch my drift.

Le Bishy-Poo was pissed that his church’s dogma were required to take second place to the law, and he started that tired old “separation-of-church-and-state” argument where the church takes the opposite side of the coin than what was meant in The Constitution. They try to twist the Big C to say that a law shouldn’t ever contradict religious dogma, when the actual words are different. The new health care package does not REQUIRE Catholic hospitals to sell/offer birth control pills. But it does say that they need to offer the same full coverage as other health care providers on government programs.

Or said another way, the Federal plan needs to be administered in like kind at every fucking institution it is administrated. Another awkward sentence with specific meaning. The new program is designed for the human recipients of the health care and not the fucking institutions providing the health care. I know this is a change from the Bushie White House years where the providing institutions got all of the consideration in health care regulating.

But that debate isn’t what got me off track. It was, rather, that I started wondering what specific Bible verses (versi?) does (do?) The Holy Roman Catholic Church base its positions re: contraception and abortion? I was reared Baptist and those silly shitwads cannot make a clear decision where in the Bible they come up with some of their crazy ideas. But the Catholics are waaaay more organized and have been at the business of silly dogma for hundreds of years longer. Hell, the Catholics invented the fucking Inquisition, so you know they’ve got the whole dogma dealie down pat.

So, I called Bishop Joe (Jose) S. Vasquez to get some answers. I wonder what the S. is for—Stephen, I bet, or would it be Simon after the Apostle? I was passed from department-to-department as nice-sounding women answered the phone in each department. I guess the local Diocese of the Catholic Church don’t have the same rules as up to the Vatican. I guess women are good enough to be secretaries down here at the lower ranks of Catholicdom, but lack the needed proximity to God for holding the higher offices.

Anyway, I landed at the Communications Department and the voice mail for Mr. Christian Gonzales, it’s head. As I listened to his message I had a bigoted thought. I was thinking that I might have found the level at which the gender barrier was erected at the Diocese. I know that I have a quite real bias to bigots, and having that bias is a bigotry all its own.

I left him a message that said, “I’m doing research on the differences in Catholic and Baptist beliefs on several topical subjects and I would like an official position of your church.”

I’m going to ask him which specific Bible verses The Pope relies upon to make his edicts on contraception, abortion and homosexuality. I’ve tried since last year to get The Pope to answer for himself but my queries have gone unanswered.

I’ll let you know what I find out. Mooner Johnson, Investigative Reporter. Manana, y’all.

So. I’m still stinging and laughing at myself over the entire Theo business. Squatlo and I have been terrorized by our buddy Wild Bill BJ for so many months, now that the gig is up I’m feeling a sense of loss. I guess it’s like a separation anxiety or whatever psycho analytical term you would use.

In other news, I was at a coffee shop yesterday to give books away and encountered a nice older man with opinions on life that are my polar opposite. He was reading a Baptist Daily Prayer book and sipping a cup of tea. He sat at a corner table with the sun shining squares on his face through a lattice hanging outside the window. He and his table were checkered with sun spots.

I asked if I could sit and discuss a book with him—my book—and he welcomed me with open arms. Literally, he stood and opened his arms to me. We shook hands and introduced ourselves, and I will tell you that his first name is Bill, a coincidence, and he sits at this table at this time of day every MTTF and Saturday, five days every week. The reason he doesn’t sit at that table on W’s and Sundays is because he sits at the First Baptist church those days.

Baptist Bill is a true Southern gentleman—polite to the point of aggravating, gushingly supportive and very slow to burn. Did I say slow to burn?

We exchanged pleasantries, as Southern gentlemen do, and then he listened to my book pitch. I decided to let him read the Clarion four-of-five stars review before wasting any additional time, so I handed him a copy. Those of you who have read said review know that the last sentence of the second paragraph says, “Using strong language, he (the author) constantly lambastes the two things he dislikes the most: Republicans and Baptists.”

Baptist Bill began reading the review, and chuckled right away. He looked up and said, “Oh, you’re Mother Johnson’s son, aren’t you,” and he continued reading. It was a statement and not a question, and the chuckle came quickly, like at the “ten ex-wives” dealie in the first paragraph.

He read for maybe another twenty seconds, stopped and removed the half-lens glasses that perched on the end of his nose, and sighed. A deep, cleansing sigh. “I know all about you, Mooner Johnson, and I approve of none of it. Go away before I call the manager.”

What, no Mr. Johnson from the Southern Baptist gentleman? “Before you call the manager on me, might you tell me what it is about me that you find so disapproving?”

“How about everything, Sir. You are a disgusting heretical spawn of the devil. I heard what you said about Governor Rick Perry, and you should be ashamed of yourself.”

I asked him what it was I said and he told me, “You support homosexuality,” and then he said he would call the manager if I didn’t promptly leave his table.

He’s right, I do support homosexuality. I thanked him for his time, as a Southern gentleman would, and left his table to take a stance and find my next victim. I noticed the old fart picked the review off his sun-spotted table and started reading again. Baptist Bill grimaced as he read.

I found someone to approach, did, sold the book giveaway concept, and left the shop.

At last night’s dinner, at a point sometime before telling my Wild Bill BJ story, I mentioned Baptist Bill. “Oh, that must be William, the retired accountant from the First Baptist Church, a true gentleman. He came to our church to hear Pastor Browningwell’s special message on the sanctity of man/wife marriage.”

Have you guys ever noticed that these fucking right-wing Christian fuckballs still say, “Man/wife marriages,” when they think we aren’t paying attention? It would be a man/woman dealie, you ignorant shitwads. Sometimes preachers still announce at the end of a wedding, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”

That shit scorches my balls. Which reminds me. I want to name a new member to my Bloggie Roller. The new member isn’t a person but it’s rather a newsletter. It’s called “Good To Be Gay” and it has been a very good read for me. You can find it at:

http://paper.li/MaleFollower/1309626956?utm_source=subscription&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=paper_sub

You can also click over there ====}}} on the Roller to get there. Today’s issue has a story about the other Pricky Ricky running for President, and a situation that came up yesterday in Florida. Rick The Prick Santeria was asked by the mother of a gay American why her child, a productive and law-abiding citizen, shouldn’t be allowed to marry. Oopsie. I just noticed that my spell checker just changed Santorum to Santeria, a voodoo term. How fucking appropriate is that?

Anyway, the article has the following quote from Ricky S:

“There are certain things that government does that gives people privileges in order to promote activity that are healthy for society and are best for society. And those things we promote would give people advantages or benefits, government benefits because we think that is healthy activity. Mothers and fathers coming together, forming healthy marriages, having children and raising those children. Every American child has the right, and the government should support the right to have and know their mother and father and be raised by their mother and father.”

• Rick Santorum

Which of us knew that our Constitution gave Rick Santeria the right to grant privileges? Can you even get your heads around what this man said there? This asshole just said that the government needs to enforce (“support”) the right of every kid to have a mother and a father who raises them.

Does that frighten anyone but me? I can’t be the the only one. I’m now officially adding a Rick to my Fuck List. Fuck Rick Perry.

And FUCK RICK SANTORUM TOO!!!

Manana, y’all.

So. Here I sit, feeling pretty dumb. I’ve had a commenter on this site for awhile who is smart, informed almost as an insider, and snarky as all hell. This person knows every button to push with me and he’s crafty as shit when he pushes them.

This guy, this fucking guy, has been all in my shit for months. He uses different historical pseudonyms when he shows up, and each new name has significance to the subject he has chosen to use as a hammer to beat me with. He’s played President Obama’s mother and Civil War Generals and even long-dead Vice Presidents. I’ve managed to see through all of the pseudonyms but one. I’ve either already known or been able to research all but one.

Theo.

Fucking Theo. I looked and looked and the only Theo that seemed even close to right was Theo Of ancient Smyrna. That Theo was like Plato’s mathematician, but I could find no evidence that he was tied to this Theo. It had the Smyrna attachment, but nothing else I could find.

In all of his different skins Theo has managed to pluck and pull at me, using my own ideologies and emotions as pick and strings. He has played me like I was a Gibson 12-string guitar, and he’s managed to make me play every-fucking tune he wishes. He comes in softly with but a slight edginess in the tone of his subjects and wordings. Then he starts to gradually escalate matters to the point where I want to set my hair on fire I’m so pissed.

And now. OK, stop the fucking presses. I just got an email that has cleared all of this shit up. See, I was getting ready to tell you guys that I’ve had strange feelings about the pseudonymous bastard over the last several days. I’ve had the sense that Theo actually knows me—that he’s someone from my past or present. In fact, I actually had it narrowed to two choices—a family member who carries himself as my polar opposite, and BJ. BJ from Dumb Perignon.

I had decided that it must be BJ because he made a misspelling my family member would not have made. The email just confirmed that BJ has been messing with me and laughing his ass off for months. MONTHS!

I have spent hours trying to be nice to his various characters. I have spent entire nights trying to match wits with him and never felt like I was even close. I even told Squatlo, a mutual buddy, that this Theo asshole is just that, a giant flaming asshole, but he’s mighty smart.

BJ just confirmed that he has been fucking with me and having himself a gay old time. Rotten mother fucker. My naive ass fell hook, line and sucker ball for all of his nonsense. Every word of it.

This might be the funniest prank anyone has ever pulled on me. Smart in structure, timing and deployment, and a safe prank. He’s made me so aggravated that I could set my own hair afire but I’ve never wanted to do him harm. He even managed to get me to feel sorry for him and wish I could help him. He has fucked with me for months.

He has messed with me as good as anyone has ever messed with me. So I’m raising my first Carta Blanca beer to my mind-fucking good friend, Bill—BJ from Dumb Perignon.

Cheers, dude. Love you like a brother.

So. I’m headed off to South Austin this foggy morn to give more books away in coffee shops. I’ve taped the Author’s Request disclaimers into some books, signed them to: “Whomever you are”[,] and then penned my John Henry at the bottom. I’ve got a handful of books ready to go, and I’m going as soon as I finish this writing. To catch a glimpse of what book I herein speak to, click over there to my Bloggie Roller ====}}}} and you’ll find a video book trailer, Clarion four-of-five stars review, and Amazon sites for a paper-paged book and Kindle, both.

And maybe I’ve got a handfuls of book, each book with a John Hancock, and I might should have said, “To catch a glimpse of what book I speak of herein…”

I’m somewhat scattered, smothered, covered and extra-crispy with ADHD-fueled brainwaves. As my longtime readers know, I am visited by recurring-themed camel toe dreams on a routine basis. At least once each week the female dromedaries pay visit to my sleepy time. I get frequent overnight stays from actresses and political figures and even Queens and shit. For as long as I’ve had these dreams, I’ve never encountered pseudo celebrities. I’ve never had a visit from the Kardashian sisters.

Until last night.

I’ve been happy to lay claim to the fact that those three apparent nitwits and their nitwittier mother have been off the radar screen of my subconscious dream brain. I don’t have anything against them as I love pretty dumb women just as much as smart women and women without great physical beauty. I don’t have anything against them, I simply don’t want to waste valuable focus on them.

If you have ADD, you know how valuable a little focus can be. We sufferers like to make our focus count.

This dream likely grew from seeds planted at dinner last night. Gram cruised down to College Station over the weekend and returned with her Ferrari packed with Aggies. Freddie, a space science major from the Philippines, is a talky little fucker that even the Squirt can’t understand. When I asked what the cute little chatterbox said this one time, she said, “Oh for shit sakes, Mooner. I can’t tell if he’s speaking Tag A Log or Bikal. You need to call the Reckmonster on this one.”

Squirt went on to tell me that for starters there are over 7,000 individual islands in the Philippines and that there are sixteen different MAJOR languages spoken there. “Then,” Squirt told me, “you have all the different dialects. Like the Bikal has Bikal Central and dozens of regional Bikal slangs. It’s a fucking linguist’s nightmare!”

The second young man my randy old grandmother brought home was Dave, a pimply-faced eighteen-tear-old bovine husbandry ag student who is not to be confused with Mr. Dave. Mr. Dave, the giant-peckered older gentleman of Johnson Manor, is on an extended visit over to the house of P-cubed. Mr. Dave has managed to quench thirsts around here for now, so the ladies of my house loaned him out to Penelope Paxton-Parades—Gram’s best buddy.

Anyway, we’re sitting at the dinner table last night when the subject of booties came up. Sister and her wife Anna the Amazon were here, and Dave couldn’t keep his eyes off Anna, my ex-wife and my lesbian sister’s wife now. Gram was editing his watching of Anna’s ass and grew tired of it. She gave Dave the Evil Eye and said to him, she said, “What ya lookin’ at, sonny boy? I thought ya said ya was all tuckered out.”

Dave grimaced but held his back straight. I admired his spine in the face of the Evil Eye. “I’m worn right on down to the bone, Mrs. Johnson. But Anna looks like Khloe Kardashian except with Kim K’s bootie and that beautiful blond hair. Is that your real hair color Ms. Johnson-Johnson-Johnson?”

Now Sister’s face started the twitch towards an Evil Eye, but Dave saved his own bacon before I could intervene. “I don’t mean any disrespect, Ms. Sister, it’s just that your wife and you both look like famous people. I, simply said, like Khloe Kardashian’s looks better than Demi Moore’s.”

If you would buy my fucking book and read it, you would understand the full width and breadth of calamity Dave avoided with his further explanations. And why nobody asked young Dave what he was doing with my bony old grandmother if he liked his women plump is a second answer you’ll find should you read the book. But I’ll not give additional enlightenment for free at this time. What I will do is tell you that sometime after 3:00 am last night, I had a celebrity camel toe dream. OK, a pseudo celebrity camel toe dream.

In this dream I was sitting at a coffee shop in South Austin looking over the crowd to determine who to approach for a book giveaway. I guess I was in a South Austin coffee shop because I had already planned today’s visits. I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see who it was, but was forced to turn and look up. Waaaay up. It was Khloe, Kim and Kourtney K., and Khloe was in the lead.

“We want a free book, Mister,” they all three said in unison. Their unified voices were a chorus of estrogen and sex and youth. “We’ll show you our booties if you give us a book.”

“Well, ladies,” I explained, “I like butts, and a lot of like at that, but your booties are not what will attract my affections, it’s your camel toes. I’m Mooner Johnson, and I’m a pocket meat man.”

They all three giggled in unison and invited to to join them in the private room at the coffee shop. I didn’t know coffee shops had private rooms but this one does. I followed them back and admired the three world famous and world class booties every step of the way. Nothing, and I mean nothing, can beat the look of a well-groomed camel toe as it does the pocket rumba when its keeper is strolling towards me. But have to admit that this trio of asses gave cause to reconsider.

“OK, ladies,” I said as the tuxedoed attendant pulled the curtains shut behind us and I sat in a deep-cushioned chair. “Show me what you’ve got.”

I’ve got an observation for you guys. I think I can now say with a reasonable certainty that, “Big bootie in the back—robust camel toe leading the way.”

I was squeezing and tugging as I inspected the girls’ worthiness as recipients of free books. Then it dawned on me that these three young women gross more annual income that Guatemala.

“I’m sorry, ladies” I told them. “These appear to be world-class tootsies. If all I get is a peek and a squeeze, you’ll need to pay for books.”

Kim says to me, she says, “Oh, Mr. Johnson, I thought you’d ne-ver ask.”

Me, I’m dream-thinking what it was, specifically, that I asked when Kim hiked her already-hiked short, sequined dress over her waist and hooked her thumbs in the edge of the deep maroon-colored thong she wore. “Close your eyes, Mr. Johnson, and open them when I say ‘When’[.]”

I squeezed my eyes tight and might have started shaking. My mind started running through all the previous times I have been waiting for a woman’s panties to fall. Each and every one of those times I opened my eyes to a different wonderment. I tried to find a prior visage that I felt would match this one and came up empty.

I heard the rustling sound that tight ladies undies make as they are removed over two legs, slowly. I heard a deep intake of breath and then felt its hot, humid air as it was slowly released towards my face. The “shoosh” of air stood the hairs on my neck into bristles. The cushion of my seat depressed on either side of my head, and I sensed rather than felt soft fuzz approaching my face.

To my self I thought, “Do I stick my tongue out- yes or no?” I answered to myself, “No, not on the first date.”

Just at the moment I felt the feather-light contact of fine hairs on my chin, I heard, “When!”

I jerked awake with Honor laying across my face with her belly parked my mouth. “Shit, Honor, you managed to ruin my best camel toe dream in months.” Actually, it sounded like, “Thith,”

Fucking cats. Would somebody please remind me why I even have a fucking cat?

Good thing I have first date rules in my dreams. Manana, y’all.

So. We were all sitting at the big table for breakfast yesterday morning and I was attempting to express my feelings about Rick Perry’s having quit presidential politics. As I have several times here, I mentioned that I was happy that Governor Dumbass wasn’t going to be elected to screw up the entire country, yet I lamented that he’s now got all of his waking hours to finish the job he started to totally fuck up my state.

My mother is a Baptist right-wing conservative Christian from waaaay back, and her Christian lobotomy hasn’t grown back. Since she routinely stops at the church to listen to the swill that spills from the mouth of The Right Reverend Pastor Browningwell, Mother’s lobotomy is cultivated quite nicely, thank you just the same. The dead space in her brain that stimulates free thought lays disconnected from the rest of her brain.

I was talking about the absolute insanity of Pick “The Prick”Perry’s endorsement of Newbt Gangrenich as he quit, and when Mother had gotten her fill of my rant, she said, “You shut your foul mouth and right now, Butcher Einstein Johnson. I’ll not have you saying such terrible, filthy things about MY Governor. Rick Perry is a fine, fine Christian man and you should be ashamed of yourself for speaking evil about him. You’ll rot in hell if you don’t stop.”

OK, wait. First of all, have I ever told you that is my given name? And for seconds, it wasn’t right then that my mother launched her standard “Mooner will rot in hell for (fill in the blanks)” speech. It was when I started asking if anybody could rectify (justify) the fact that if God told Ricky to run for President—and since the pompous prick does everything God tells him to do—he ran for President, and has now summarily ignored God’s demands and aborted his campaign.

I love it when Rick Perry performs abortions against God’s will. In fact, I now remember that is what I said when Mother went off on me. I mumbled something in replay like, “My ticket to hell has already been punched,” a comment that always brings out the mother in my martyred parent.

“You would see the rightness of Mr. Perry’s actions if you were a good Christian man, Mooner. But you have the Devil in your soul and evil in your heart.”

Now me, I think I’d rather evil was in my soul and that the Devil resided in my heart. I’m unsure why, precisely, but that is how I have felt ever since my mother first laid this trip on my head. We were back to second grade—Streaker Jones and I—and he dared me to moon Mrs. Leticia Browningwell during Sunday School. This was before my little incident with my Boy Scout Leader, so I was still allowing Mother to drag my ass to the Baptist church every time the unlocked the fucking doors. Streaker Jones went wherever I went most times and he was there.

If I remember correctly, we were studying the story about the father who gave his sons talents. Streaker Jones raised his hand and said to Mrs. Browningwell, he said, “Mooner’s got a talent,” at which time I showed her.

I think that was the first day that I sensed that Gloria Muckleroy liked me better than Walley Smalley.

Anyway, I got my ear tugged—first from my seat in Sunday School all the way to the car—and then from the car all the way around the house and out to the tool shed that used to be attached to the side of the barn. The tool shed was remodeled when I dug the deep basement under the barn for Gram’s mushroom growing operations, and what was the tool shed is now her potion storage facilities.

And they say that an ADHD-addled fuckbrain can’t follow the plot line.

After Mother ear-dragged me to the shed and then whipped my ass with one of the switches I had previously harvested for just such a moment, I got the “Mooner, you are going to rot in hell for being irreverent” speech. That was the first time I was told that the Devil would be dwelling in my soul and evil inside my ventricles.

I’ve also wondered if the evil courses through me with every contraction of my rotten heart. Maybe that’s how the Devil keeps oxygenated and fed as he hides in my soul. I must have a huge soul to house the entire Devil. As much as I like pig meat and Carta Blanca beer, I guess I can explain the intensities of those likes by saying, “The Devil made me do it. He likes pork and Carta Blanca beer.”

Maybe this line of reasoning should go unused when I make my pitch to Carta Blanca for sponsorship.

I love my mother, I truly do. She’s honest and hard working, she gives freely to others in need, and she wishes the best she knows for everyone, including me. It’s just that the best she knows is tainted and tinted with the caustic dye splashed around in the Baptist church. Not the Baptist church with the loving, inclusive God, the other church with the mean God, the God that hates gays and Muslims.

Every time Mother gives me this speech, I cook her favorite meal as my reply of unlike kind. She still, to this day, hasn’t connected all the dots. She thinks that I do it to make her feel better for my being an asshole, but untruer words were never spoken.

I do it to show her that the Devil might live in my soul and that evil might hide out in my heart, but I forgive her of thinking so badly of me.

The results of modern psycho therapy at work. Manana, y’all.

So. I was over to Squatlo’s place this morning and he was bitching and bellyaching as per his usual rants. He’s got a quite sensitive antenna for ignorance, dumbass and shit-headedness. And banalities as well.

He posted about Tuesday’s State of the Union Speech and how the President should just skip it. He has some smart insights and garnered some smart comments as well. Please go over to his place by clicking on the linkster button over there ===}}} , read that referenced posting and comments, and then return back here for the point of my ramblings this morning.

Go on now with your bad self, move your mousie and take a couple minutes to gather some elucidations from Squatlo, and then come back. I’ll still be here.

While you guys are over there, I want to make an observation for you. Have you paid any attention to what happened in South Carolina with the Rebubbies in the primary? Have you seen how far right-wing Christians will bend their morals to prevent a “non-Christian” from winning a political race in their state?

The Mittster is the very embodiment of the modern right-wing Christian family man. He hates Social Security and Medicare-Medicaid, he hates labor unions and labor-led business practices, he’s had but one wifey-poo and forever at that, he thinks Genghis Khan was a dove, he wants big business to run the entire fucking country. Oh yea, and he’s a bigot.

Except for that entire Mormon dealie, Herr Mittendorpher is the very embodiment of Southern American conservative Christian values.

But Mitty might as well be a Taliban tribal leader from the hinter reaches of Afghanistan who praises Allah with every other breath. Southern Christians will believe that God spoke to Moses multiple times and orchestrated burning bushes that spoke His word, but they will not eat John Smith’s porridge. Those fine citizens will listen in rapture as Pat Robertson spews his silly swill and makes the broad statement that God told him who will win the next Presidential race, yet they find it silly—blasphemous even—that God would ask His followers to wear magic undies.

Which reminds me. Don’t you even start to tell me that bigotry is dead in America. Do… not… start. When people like Pat Robertson and Newbt Grinchford, and Rick Perry can gain prominence as they have, our beloved country is still populated by those devils.

Ever notice that devil bears a strong resemblance to evil?

Is everybody back now from Squattie’s place? Here we go. I think that Herman Cain is a puppet—at best a Miss Piggy and at worst that lecherous dog puppet, old what’s-his-name. Hermie can’t string together cogent thoughts any better than Rick The Prick Perry, he is a serial adulterer as is Newbt, and he’s a big money-big business fuckball like SchMitt. Settle with this information as it is the foundation for my State O’ De Union address.

Triumph, I think was that dog puppet’s name. Or maybe it was Spitfire.

With that premise in mind—the one where Herman Cain cannot ad lib for shit—the Prez needs to send a draft of his speech to the other side that is nothing more than a rehash of what is expected, a same old tired and silly speech—just like Squatlo speaks of. Give them exactly what they expect to hear and let them spend their time prepping Hermie’s response based thereon.

Then Tuesday night, Obama can start his speech with all the usual greetings and across-the-aisle platitudes and silly bullshit of decorum, and then do the first couple of minutes of the canned spam. He’ll say something silly, like “Our number one goal is to put Americans back to work…,” and then he’ll stop, rub his eyes and then shake his head and say, “Turn off the teleprompter. Please, turn it off.”

The audience will moan with the murmurs of of both surprise and concern. People will be whispering in each others’ ears. The Prez will let the audience remain unsettled for a full sixty seconds. Have you ever encountered a full minute’s pause at a big gathering?

Now the audience is squirming and the talking heads for broadcast corporations are squirming as well. Those assholes can’t stand dead air so they’ll start filling it with the banalities that are their stock in trade. “This is remarkable, Peter. Has this ever happened before?”

At the ticked tock of sixty seconds, Obama takes a deep breath, pinches the bridge of his nose and says, “My fellow Americans, our country has been stolen from us, and we, The People, must take it back. The conservative right has placed an iron-fisted grip on the very throat of our country and will force us to yield to their every wish if we don’t fight back.

“We are being sold the idiotic notion that corporations are people with the same inalienable rights as human citizens. Then we’re told that corporate citizens are not to be held to the same standards of contact as are we humans.

“Our rights as citizens are taking backseat to religious dogma. We are losing personal rights of choice to their sometimes bigoted religious beliefs. If we do not believe as they do, we become second class citizens.

“They want to gut and privatize every governmental institution and place the authority in the hands of corporate citizens. They lie about Social Security and they lie about the US Postal Service and tell you that they are insolvent. Social Security has never been bankrupt and it is those same lawmakers who have put the Postal Service at risk with an unprecedented requirement that it fund decades of future retirement benefits today.

“Using marketing strategies that play on the fears of conservative Christians to sway their votes, the fractional interests of the extremely wealthy have seized control of many state houses, media outlets and the United States House of Representatives. Using the filibuster, they have managed to place a choke hold on the US Senate as well.

“America is under siege. America is on the verge of becoming a hostile environment to the very same human citizens it was created to protect. America is dangerously close to becoming a feudal state run by proxies of the corporations of the mega-rich.

“We, The People, need to take it back. We, the human citizens of the United States of America, need to take it back. Here is my plan…”

Anyway, it makes for good beer-drinking conversation so I’m grabbing a Carta Blanca and heading to the den to watch professional football. Manana, y’all.

So. It’s Saturday morning and things are swirling in my head. BJ posted a video story over to Dumb Perignon about an elderly man in Florida who was beaten by an asshole cop for no reason. The cop had turned his dash-cam off, beat an old man senseless and his bosses’ only reprimand was for turning the camera off. Someone somehow retrieved the video from the hard drive. Click over there ===}}}} to BJ’s place and see why I’m pissed.

OK, wait. BJ actually calls his place “Un-Original Thoughts” now.

I’m also conflicted about Rick Perry’s aborted Presidential run, the case for which I made yesterday. Rick Perry is a sickness that threatened to be pandemic should his authorities stretch beyond the borders of Texas. Confined within my state’s borders he’s managed to kill or maim most state governmental civility, and I fear he returns to finish us off.

I look around myself everywhere I go now, searching the faces of the people I see. They don’t all look that stupid. Most, actually, appear to have moral intellect. So how, in the fuck, has Rick Perry been elected over and over again? What, in the fuck, has happened to people?

Then, there is my guerrilla marketing program to stimulate book sales. That would be the plan to stimulate sales of the book I wrote, called Full Rising Mooner, that you can investigate by clicking to one of the linkster tabbies over there ====}}}}. There’s linkster tabbies for the book’s video trailer—a masterful advertisement if I say so myself—and also one for the four-of-five stars Clarion book review.

I have encountered both a conundrum and a dilemma with marketing the book in local bookstores. I’ve found myself in a perplexing situation with a difficult selection of choices to make, and I must say that this dilemmonic conundrum has dichotomous aspects as well—it’s full of diametrically-opposed aspects that are about to bring me to my knees.

Here’s the deal. I told you the other day about how Barnes&Noble Bookstores don’t give store managers any authority over book choices and that if I want my book stocked at the one store here to Austin, I must endure a vetting exercise somewhat akin to that time I was suspected of being a homegrown, domestic terrorist. I think the only thing missing is the rectal probes, but I’m only half way through the forms.

I’m normally a local business supporter but I shop at that B&N because I always buy my daughter gift cards to the bookstore and she has no local bookstore where she lives that I can online purchase from, and none of our local Austin bookstores are also local in Vermont, and this particular B&N is convenient to me and has a sister store up there with convenience to my daughter.

Rather than purchase from one of the two local new book bookstores of which I am aware, I go to the B&N in the Arboretum. Somehow in my ADHD-addled illogic, that makes perfect sense. Somehow, that is one of those rare ideas of mine wherein I feel no remorse for having locked, loaded and fired.

But I got to thinking after I wrote about my visit to B&N the other day. “Why,” I thought to myself and maybe out loud, “don’t I focus my marketing efforts on local bookstores?”

“A very good question, Sir,” was my response, aloud for certain. The first of Austin’s independent, local bookstores is Book Women. The title says it all. If I was a woman or had written a book aimed at a woman audience, I’d be all over Book Women. Hell, I might be all over Book Women anyway, but I’ve never met them.

The second local retailer of new books is Book People. Located near downtown, Book People is across the street from Whole Foods Market’s flagship store and universal headquarters building located at Sixth and Lamar. It’s a popular store and supports local writers.

But that support has a price. In order to be displayed on their shelves at Book People, a writer must be vetted—not FBI-styled like at B&N, but vetted just the same—and then if approved, the writer must choose from among a market basket of payment plans. Priced from $25.00 to get on the shelves and up to as much as $225.00 for shelf space, Local Author Display time, mention in the online store and a book signing in-store with three other locals, a writer is required to spend money to be read.

Intrinsically, as a businessman I get that. I understand that Book People cannot afford the shelf space to stock the book of every crackpot who can string 125,000 words together. Their store is maybe half the size of the B&N, and it already has the more crowded feel of an old corner bookstore. They can’t afford to support my bad habits and require me to support myself.

You guys are smart so you know where all of this bookstore bullshit is going. It’s only 9:00 am and I’m headed to the walk-in friggie back in our kitchen to load a cooler with Carta Blanca beers, and I’m taking the circus I call my pets fishing.

My gay ostrich and pig are both as pasty looking as a beached whale from all their time in the closet, and Rush Limbaugh has put on enough weight during the holidays to look like a whale, un-beached. His lover, the ostrich I named Rick Perry, called him “Fatso” last night at supper when the two of them fought over the last of the fried quail on the table.

That started a terrible row with the two of them bickering and spitting nasty remarks around. Rush Limbaugh told Ricky that he is as stupid as his namesake and then Rick Perry countered with, “And you are as fat and mean-spirited as yours,” and then the crying and hissy-fitting ensued. Rick finally had a belly full and stormed off to hide his head in his sandbox, and Rush asked me to refill his trough with beer.

“Nope, not gonna happen,” I told him. “You get your lard ass in there and apologize to him. And I don’t want to ever hear you tell him he’s as stupid as our Governor again. Once more and you’ll be served as the BBQ pork you so love to be served. That’s the meanest thing you could say to anyone.”

Later last night I got the payback for exhibiting good parenting skills and responsibilities. The make-up sex happening in my closet kept me awake until all hours and when I finally got to sleep, I had nightmares.

I’m a mess. I need another vacation to Tennessee where my most important decision was which kind of prepared pork food would be the first of the flavor of my day, and my biggest concern was if I could outlast BJ in the cold contest that is a visit to Squatlo’s Ice House.

Or maybe I should go stick my head in Rick Perry’s sand box. Hiding from your issues doesn’t solve any problems, but it is nice to escape them for awhile. Manana, y’all.

So. Now that he has walked away from the Presidential campaign, I’m thinking that I might have an opportunity to get through to my Governor. I’m thinking that he might have been humbled by this experience and that he could listen to my requests. This is my open letter to Texas Governor Rick Perry:

Dear Governor Perry:

As a resident of the state of Texas, I write this letter with mixed emotions. While I regret that you will now have time to restart your inane and systematic dismantling of my home state’s infrastructures, education systems and social support agencies, I find myself grateful to you for not continuing your pursuits to inflict those same damages on my entire fucking country. I can always move from Texas if things get too bad here, but I would have no place to go if you screwed up America.

It burns my ass down to the scorched bones beneath to say this to you, but please allow me to be the first to say, “Welcome home, Governor.”

Since you seem to be all about saving the state government money, as the first action you take back home, I would like you to please pay the state the sum of $2,315,342.46, which is 159 days of your $150,000 salary as Governor ($65,342.46) and 159 days worth of your out-of-state security costs at $14,000 per day. Those are but the two most easily-calculated line items from your presidential campaign budget that were direct drains on State treasuries.

I would think that if God told you to run for President because it was, “… the right thing for our country…,” then I think God will want you to do the right thing and repay your state for supporting your now-aborted run.

Your God seems to be all about doing the right thing, or does your God practice the same selective applications of the rightness of things as do you? Does your God play fair only sometimes?

Interesting word, aborted.

Which brings up an interesting point—a point that many Texans have raised. Tell us, Governor, since your God told you to run for the Presidency, did He also tell you to abort your run for the country’s highest office? If He did, did He tell you why? Please tell us why He wanted you to quit.

If He didn’t tell you to abort the mission, to abandon His ship if you will, then why did you go against God’s wishes? I find myself thinking that either He, your God, or you, Mr. Governor, is a two-faced polliwog. I’m no longer a practicing Baptist, sir, but I hesitate to call any man’s God two-faced without serious evidence to lean upon.

Are you the two-faced polliwog, Sir?

And that brings another thought to mind. You threw your support behind Newt Gingrich. Newt Gingrich? Really? Are you fucking kidding us? Did God tell you to do that? Would you please tell us what God said? Might you elucidate how God can think that a lying, two-faced racist and serial adulterer is a better candidate to be President than you? I mean, really, Mr. Governor, what the hell is there about you that God would prefer Newt fucking Gingrich?

Also, with you having such a close and quite personal relationship with God, what has He said about Mitt? Come on, Rick, your God must really have some funny insights into that entire dealie. Maybe Newt secretly wishes he was a Mormon—a solution to many of his image problems. Does God believe in Mormonism?

Wouldn’t that be a kick in the pants?

Reason and logic would tell you that you should come home and sit with an icy-cold Carta Blanca beer and reflect upon the debacle that is your aborted run for President. Were you to do so, you would be forced to conclude that God deems you unfit for that office and that your politics are wrong. Wrong for America and likewise wrong for Texas.

But I fear you to be an unreasonable two-faced polliwog, and logic appears to be a foreign principle of science to you, Governor. I fear you will take a deep breath, curse the National Media, blame them and not God for your demise, and take your anger and frustration out on the people of Texas.

You have managed to fool the majority of people who vote in elections here for many years. Fool us again, Mr. Perry, and show that you are humane. Stop ruining this fine state. Restore some sanity to your Public policies.

If you will, I’ll say, “God bless Governor Perry.”

If not, “Fuck you, sir, and the ass you rode in upon.”

Written with intentions most sincere,

Mooner Johnson- Austin, Texas

So. I have just a few minutes to devote to writing today because I have a luncheon to attend. The US Compost Council is honoring one of the finest women on the face of the planet here in Austin. Barrie Cogburn, head landscape architect and high muck-a-much at the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), is the honoree, and I wouldn’t miss this dealie for anything.

Barrie, along with Scott McCoy of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), fostered the use of compost to solve erosion and re-vegetation problems here in our state. Those solutions resulted in creating a new industry, providing safe and recycled options for longterm problems worldwide, and an Environmental Excellence Award for yours truly.

Barrie is a Texas Aggie, but her star shines so brightly in my eyes that her Aggieness causes no fading whatsoever. I’ll stop now before my effusiveness overcomes your abilities to stand it. Let me just say, “Cheers to you, Barrie Cogburn, well deserved.”

Which reminds me. Is today the day little Ricky Perry has the plug pulled on his ass by his big money backers?

The lunch dealie alone is not enough to overwhelm my day, it’s my book giveaway dealie—the coffee shop thingie. Yesterday I managed to give three books away to unsuspecting suckers—one at The Coffee Bean and the Tea Leaf (TCBTL) and then two at Pasha. The Coffee Bean was there to US 183 not far from the Planned Parenthood offices, and Pasha is on Burnett Road just north of 45^th Street. As is usual with me, nothing is ever easy.

I started at TCBTL and I entered, ordered and asked the nice man who helped me if I could do the book give-away dealie. He was quite enthusiastically positive in his response, and he agreed. I looked around the shop, which was full of customers. I evaluated the tables to determine just who might be best approached. My first choice, two men reading computer manuals, waved me away as I approached them.

My second choice was a table of seven people, each of whom had a laptop computer and a thick book open in front of them. Now me, I see seven people with two instruments designed to read in front of them, and I see readers. I approached the table.

“Hi,” I said, giant shit-eating grin plastered to my face. “I’m a local writer, I have a new book just out, and I’d like to give one away.”

“Oh, how thoughtful,” the lone woman at the table said. “And may God bless you with a bounteous life.”

“RED ALERT!!! RED ALERT!!! RED ALERT!!!” went my internal danger alarm.

“Why thank you, little Missy,” I answered, “but before I fully accept your sweet countenance, might I ask what you’re reading?”

“Oh, that’s just the Bible and our Church study lesson plan is on the computer.” Little Missy pointed at each in turn. “Would you care to join us?”

“Well,” I didn’t quite stammer, “what might be the subject of today’s insights?”

Now please allow me to take a moment here. I was raised in the Baptist church and spent many hundreds of hours with someone six feet up my ass with a Bible, hammering the words and interpretations of the words at my brain. Quite a bit of it stuck in my head, like so much dog shit on the crenelated imitation rubber sole of a waffle-sole tennis shoe, and my ass still hurts with the memories of those childhood lessons. Much of it did not stick. If I was to agree to join these folks, I wanted to be certain I could contribute.

“Well, we’re looking into Paul, one of the first Disciples and the one most devoted to Jesus,” little Missy informed me. “Paul knew the most about Jesus so we revere his words most.”

Two, three and four… “Oh, you mean Saul of Tarsus—the guy who made his living persecuting Christians until he met the already dead Jesus, was struck blind and then converted to Christianity? You mean that guy?”

“Uh, well, er, I don’t know who you are talking about. I mean the Apostle Paul, one of the twelve Disciples.” This last part was spoken with a re-found conviction and faith—the words of a woman who knew what she was talking about.

“That’s who I thought you meant. Maybe I would like to join you because there are a few things about old Paulie that confuse the ever-loving shit out of me. Take, for instance, how, precisely, could he be one of the twelve originals and possess all of that first-hand knowledge about the Christ when he didn’t even believe in the man until after the crucifixion? Can you help me with that one?”

All I got was a blank, yet terrified stare. “And did you know that the methods used to persecute early Christians included stoning to death, taking of all possessions including wives and children, boiling in hot oil, and oh yes, don’t let me forget crucifixion. Those Roman cats were really big into crucifixions.” I might have made up the boiling oil part, but it rolled off my tongue like the truth.

I guessed she couldn’t because she turned, red-faced, to the young guy to her left. “Bobby, can you help me here?”

The young man looked up from his computer for the first time, and his entire face went sour. “Jennifer, might I introduce you to Mr. Mooner Johnson, one of the most hedonistic men in Austin, Texas?” Bobby crossed himself in classic Catholic style.

I looked closer at Bobby and it hit me. “Oh, you’re the guy that brings the water to the anti-abortion protesters, right?”

“Yes, Mr. Johnson, I am. And you are no more welcome here than you are at our protests. Now, please leave us in peace.”

“Glad to, Bobby. Little Missy here just wished me all of Gods bountiful blessings, so I’m good to go.”

I walked away from the table with no arrest and not pitched out the store—a major win. I looked for a third target. A woman sat alone with a small tablet computer of some type, and I approached. She tried to ignore me, but I lit my best smile with a few thousand more watts and sat down with her.

I went through my speech but she remained dubious. I don’t know if she had witnessed my dealings with little Missy or if she was simply wary of large men encroaching, uninvited, into her space.

Please allow me to stop, again. I couldn’t finish this earlier and left at the end of that last paragraph. I’m now back home to complete this writing, and Rick Perry is gone from the Presidential race. Hip-hip-hooray for America! The worst of them is gone, the most evil and vile asshole wanting to run our country into the ground is out of the race.

Good fucking riddance. I abhor the knowledge that Rick Perry is ruining my beloved Texas. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if he had a chance to ruin America.

So, I was conversing with the nice lady and she was stand-offish, and rightly so. But I kept working it and she finally relented to listen to the deal. I read “The Author’s Requests”[,] that’s the little blurb I’m taping inside each book I give away in this fashion. “OK, as long as I can be honest, I’ll do it,” she told me.

When I asked if she had a card so I could keep track of my marketing, she said, “You know, I’m a therapist and I should always have one handy.”

Guess what. She is a former master’s degree student of Dr. Sam I. Am-Johnson and is now in private practice. Small world, grown smaller. I’ll not disclose her name but you will sometime soon see her review of my book, Full Rising Mooner.

Ugh, I need a beer or three. I’m all discombobulated over this Prick Perry dealio. Here’s the sheet I am putting in each book. Please look it over and let me know if you think I can improve on it. Manana, y’all.

“The Author’s Requests

I have written my first self-published book and I would like to get some third party feedback from unsuspecting readers. The book is adult humorous fiction written by an Austin author that takes place in Austin.

These are my requests:

1. That you read, or at least attempt to read the book.

2. That when you finish your reading, you will contact me from the business card, below, and either comment on my website or send an email message with your thoughts about the book.

3. That you tell the truth about your thoughts about the book—good or bad. If you think it sucks donkeys, say, “Your book sucks donkeys.” If, however, you think otherwise, say it.

4. That if you have your own website or have favorite websites, that you spread the word, again good or bad, somewhere else.

5. That you give the read book to another reader who will agree to do the same.

Please note: If you are offended by adult language and adult situations, or you think Texas Governor Rick Perry would make a great President of these United States, do not agree to read my book. I already know that tight-assed, close-minded people disapprove of me. Don’t waste your time with this.

Thank you for your consideration.”

What do you think?

So. This is a big day for me. After visiting the Barnes & Noble store over to the Arboretum yesterday and having a discussion with the store manager, Charley, I have been doing some serious thinking about book marketing. I shall endeavor to persevere the battle that will be my ADHD-riddled self completing the “Barnes & Noble Acceptance Criteria” to get my book on the shelves of my personal B&N brick and mortar store, and I have come up with what might be a brilliant alternative marketing strategy.

Think about this. Where do people read books? At home, of course, at work during lunch, in bookstores, on benches outside and in coffee shops. Those are the places I think of when I asked myself the question. From the marketing perspectives, I can’t reach many people at home—few sane people open the door to me as a stranger and likewise few businesses would allow me to intrude with a fucking book to sell—you don’t find many benches crowded with readers and I’m already denied access to the fucking bookstore, so that leaves coffee shops.

Here’s my plan. I’m going to print a sheet of requests, I’ll call it “The Author’s Requests” or some silly fucking thing, that states my wish that a person reads the book and then passes it along to another reader who will agree to do the same thing. Then they have to agree to place a comment—good or bad—on my website and they agree to say something on their own site, should they have one.

I’ll paste a copy of The Author’s Request on the blank inside cover page and I’ll tape a business card with all the contact info there as well. I’ll make rounds to coffee shops around town, buy a cup a Joe, ask the manager if it’s OK to give a book away in his store, and then I’ll find an unsuspecting but visibly suitable candidate as reader and request follower.

OK, wait. Maybe I should cut the “ask manager for permission” part out when I enter shops controlled by big corporations, like Starbucks. I can see the corporate rulebook for managers now. “Unyielding Starbucks Corporate Rule Number 793.2, Part B.: Never, and we mean NEVER, allow writers to use your store to market their wares. Most writers are poor and have loose personal boundaries, so they likely will not purchase a premium upgrade product, and they will accost your paying customers. Many writers also have poor personal hygiene and smell of onions and garlic. Onion and garlic odors do not combine well with the rich aroma of fine, free-will and perfectly-roasted coffee beans.”

Ugh.

But I don’t give a shit, I’m forging ahead. I’ve got waaaaay more things to tell you but I’ve got books to move.

Manana, y’all.

So. I was surfing around yesterday and somebody was wondering why the Pope is against same-sex marriages. To me the answer was patently obvious—jealousy. That’s right, the Green-eyed Monster has Her Royal Highness La Pope gripped firmly by the balls.

See, back in the 1950′s when the Pope was known as Joey Ratzinger of Marktl am Inn, Germany, openly-homosexual lifestyle options were limited to the Catholic clergy, Hollywood, a limited number of writer colonies, and the occasional big city bathhouse. Marking an exception for the bigoted fuckwad Christian right—who have their heads stuck so far up their asses it’s still 1959—today’s American populace both excepts and embraces gay folks simply as folks.

Gay people are in important elected positions as legislators and husbands of women running for President, they head giant corporations to be important members of the One-Percent Club, they cut our hair and work on our cars, and hold responsible positions in every aspect of American society.

Gay people are in every… single… place… in… America.

But back in little Joey’s time, openly gay lifestyles were not expectable. Gays were shunned and treated sometimes worse than blacks and Hispanics. Which reminds me. If we say Hispanics with a big H, why isn’t it Blacks, and even Whites for that matter?

Back in the day, almost every extended Catholic family had someone who joined the priesthood or a convent. Hell, my family is Baptist all the way back from before the family name was changed from Jones, and my third cousin from over to Virginia ran off and became a Catholic monk, or some fucking thing. That’s right, Bubba Jones become Brother Eusebius.

I didn’t know him well—just met him the one time at a family reunion—but I had serious questions about Bubba. I was but a tyke, but he seemed out of place at a Jones/Johnson family reunion with his bowl-cut hair and brown robe.

I had this great uncle who was an especially large asshole. My own daddy found cause to place a particularly tight left cross on his nose for how he spoke to a Mexican worker at our place one time. Uncle Herman was his name, and what sticks in my head most about my cousin Bubba was that Uncle Herman kept telling everyone that, “Bubba’s a queer,” or “That boy’s a sissy-queer.” My Gram’s the one who made him stop saying that, and did it with just a look.

Anyway, poor Joey must not have been a good actor or artist, and anyone who has listened to him speak knows the silly sonofabitch can’t write for shit. So, he joined the priesthood and became a member of that “secret” society. And now, dear friends, he’s mad as all hell that all of these other gay people can live openly and get married and shit.

Hell, I’d be jealous too. So would you if you had spent your entire adult life living a lie for the same thing that today’s gays are openly proud.

And look, all of you pious Catholics. Before you go getting all pompous and pissy with me, think about what the reason the Popester is down on gay marriage if I was proven wrong. He’s either jealous, or he’s a ranting, raving bigoted flaming right-wing fuckball. Take your pick, and I choose to give the boy the reasonable doubt.

Which reminds me of something else. I went to the Barnes and Noble over to the Arboretum—that’s the one my regular readers already know about. I needed a b-day gift for my daughter and she loves books more than me, so I always get her gift cards to B&N. There’s a B&N within walking distance of her apartment in the town where she lives.

Anyway, I’m walking out after making my purchase and it dawned on me that one, I’m standing in a bookstore, and two, I have written a book that is not stocked on the shelves of said bookstore.

I stood near the exit to the store while my ADHD-addled brain processed a few thousand ideas as to precisely what steps I might take. Long story short, the very nice woman at the information counter whose name I failed to obtain but I will tell you was nice, helpful, interested, and interesting, listened to my requests and turned me over to Charley, the store manager.

Holy shit was that a complex and confusing sentence. Maybe I’ll self edit later and fix that. Maybe not.

Now, I know that at least 87% of you have already jumped the gun on me and assumed that the manager was a man, because that’s what 87% of us do. But Charley was no man, and I found her as attractive as the woman whose name I failed to get, and for all of the same reasons. We had a discussion about her stocking my book there to my personal B&N, and although she was EXTREMELY helpful, she couldn’t help with this one. See, they don’t allow the store managers to make any decisions as to what books are stocked on the thousands of fucking feet of shelf space in a B&N store.

Charley gave me a few sheets of paper with instructions as to how I go about getting my book into position where they can “special order” it if someone requests one. “We can’t even have it listed in our computers if you don’t follow those procedures first,” Charley told me.

I went to the car and retrieved a copy of Full Rising Mooner, brought it into the store and signed it, “To: the store.” The woman whose name I didn’t get because I can be a thoughtless jerk said she needed something to read, and Charley agreed to place the copy in the break room as what I think she called a “reader”[,] but maybe she used a different word.

And that, dear friends, is the reason I sat down to write this posting. I could never be a big company boss because I don’t think their way. I could never be the boss of people that I hired, trained and paid big bucks to run multi-million-dollar retail stores without giving them some at least small measure of control over store inventory.

I’ll bet you that there aren’t a dozen local, Austin writers who would give that store the kind of service and support for one silly book the way that I would. I’d give them books on consignment, I’d visit the store for signings and stand outside on the sidewalks and invite people to come inside. I’d dust their shelves, for shitsakes.

I read all the time how the bookstore is a dying animal. Hmmm.

I love bookstores and buy every book I buy from one, and I buy many books. I read like a machine and I give books and book cards as gifts. So, I’m going to attempt to follow the procedures for getting licensed by B&N and see what happens. Whatever happens, you’ll hear it here first. OK, here first unless something happens and I accidentally get arrested on a visit to B&N. Again.

Manana, y’all.

So. This is the second posting in the book launch party series of updates written by me, and, hopefully, read by you. I don’t want to beat this too deeply into the ground, but it was a nice party. I have ruminated the entire last twenty-four hours as to what form and format these informative pieces should take, and I’ve also wondered what happened at the party that you will give a shit to hear me yak about.

Was that a dangling participle back there, you know that “about” I was yakking about?

I lay awake most of the night last night, tossing and turning as my ADHD-fueled anxieties swirled and swilled in my skull. I was experiencing what I imagine hot flashes would be like for a menopausal woman. First I’m hot, then I’m cold, then hot, cold, hot/cold/ho/co/h/c… I was flipping from side-to-side like a gymnast—spinning like a top from resting on my right hip to the left, then back again in one motion. Covers off, covers on, repeated.

“Por el amor de Dios, Bwanna Mooner. Werden Sie liegen immer noch für Scheiße willen?” The Squirt was obviously displeased with all of my tossing and turning.

“I knew how to say ‘for the love of God’ in Spanish, but I have always wondered how you say ‘Oh, for shit sakes in German,” my response to the aggravated dog. I hear my Gram say that phrase in her back-woods redneck so often that I was wondering how it would sound spewing from a German’s mouth.

“I’m sorry, little lady,” I told my puppy, “I’m all distressed about the party. I don’t know what to tell people about it over to the bloggie on the webber.”

“Well, asshole, if you had taken us to the party we could help.” With that, at three in the morning, my sweet little dog waved her ass in my face and disappeared beneath the thick down comforter.

She was right, you know. My diminutive puppies are far better observers than am I. This realization came to me as I was reading your comments here awhile ago. All I need to do is listen to people and they will tell me what they want. Listening is a difficult task for me as it requires concentration and focus of thought. To be a good listener, you need to be able to look a person in their eyes, hear what they are saying and focus on their words.

To be a good listener, you need to be able to look, hear and focus for longer than thirty seconds at a time. Not traits I have in spades.

I lifted the edge of the comforter—a family heirloom stuffed with the fluffy down from a family of geese I fostered as a kid—and said to the lump of dog flesh now planted at the foot of the bed, I said, “I know, sweetie, but I was worried you’d get squished underfoot.”

“Harrumph,” was all the response I got.

Have you ever smelled the hot air that escapes from under tight covers where dogs lie? The cleanest of hounds produce an odor that can only be described as “dog smell” and it escapes from under the covers in a blast of fetid air when you lift the edge of covers. I know I’m sick, but that smell is comforting to me.

I was worried that the dogs would get stepped on if the party got crowded. It did get crowded and if they were attending the big bash, I would have worried that they would have been mashed under foot. My brain was too full of worries as it were, and I didn’t need to be concerned about the dogs as well.

Anyway, as I was reading comments from Mel and Granny Ook and others, it dawned on me that people just want to hear what happened and what was said at the book launch party that was interesting. So I’ve decided to start by telling you some of the questions that were asked of me and my answers, thereto. Therefore? Fuck, thereof, maybe?

This one guy, a writer himself, asked, “Where do you get the inspiration for your stories? Your writing seems to come from all over the place and lacks any cohesiveness at all.” He was dressed in a camel-colored corduroy jacket with patched elbows, brown slacks with faded knees, and a stained off-white shirt. The shirt looked as if it had been washed with too much bleach in the water too many times.

“OK, was that a question or a statement? I was distracted by the ink blots test printed on your shirt, so which is it?” I asked him.

“Both,” his answer and statement both.

“Well,” I started, “my shit comes from all over the place and ADHD fuels my inspirations.”

“Interesting.” This the writer said with an expression like he had just sampled a canapé of cat turd mousse on a rye crisp with dill and capers. I didn’t serve any frilly hors d’ oeuvres, so maybe it was the spicy artichoke with jalapeño chunks that soured his countenance.

“’Interesting’ is a microscopic slide of a new strain of syphilis, sir,” I told him. “My writings are suspicious and incredulous.”

Some writers are, basically, assholes dressed like writers. I have no patience for effete snobs, and I brace them at every turn of phrase. “Have you written anything of consequence, sir?” I asked him, “or are you one of the legions of writers who have nothing important to say?”

A second question, and one asked numerous times was, “How much of your book is true?”

How to answer that fucking question? “All of it,” would be an accurate answer in summation, but incomplete in its finality. “Most of it,” would likewise be mostly true but unfulfilling.

How would you answer that question if you were me? What would you say if you were a crazy redneck fuckball who wrote what happened to you and what you thought about the world? If you spilled your guts out in an unedited manner for all the fucking world to read, how in the fuck would you answer that particular question? Even if you remove all the “fucks” from my stilted prose, how in the fuck would you categorize it?

Fame is a frame into which I fit quite uncomfortably. With the keen knowledge and understanding of just how totally screwed-up I am, how can I accept the accolades given to a four-of-five-star reviewed author? Giuseppe Taurino, the Badgerdog man, said so many nice things about me that I could only hang my head in embarrassment. I know that I’m basically a good man, but I lack the chromosome in my DNA that allows a person to accept compliments with grace.

People laughed in most of the right spots and gasped when I wished them to gasp, as Rachel Wiese read Chapter 15 from my book. They laughed deep and long when I hoped for just such deep, long laughs. They laughed best at the “… scoop guacamole from a V-necked bowl..” part of the chapter. People said such nice things about me that I started to wonder if my body and soul had been taken over by some fucking Baptist do-good mother fucker who was out to trick the public with the smoke and mirrors of modern Christian dogma.

So many nice things were said of me that I started to question myself and my intentions. Did I write honestly? Did I tell the truth? Did I cast a clear eye on events, or did I look though the jaundiced eye of a bullshit artist?

I have the confidence of absolute certainty that I have written a four-hundred-plus pages book that is the truth as I see it—complete truth, unvarnished. But I have this nagging question that hounds me, a question steeped in the traditions of literature as timeless as man’s first turn of stain to flat rock tablet in vain attempt to chronicle events. I have a mother’s son’s lamentable, painful wish.

“O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.”

Sleep, dear Hamlet, perchance to dream.

Ugh. Ugh, ugh and ugh once more.

I, dear friends, am a seriously ADHD-addled crazy and fucked up redneck shitball. More party news manana, y’all.

So. It’s now a full day and a half after my big book launch party, and my feet are finally approaching reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. I’ve had a house full of guests to attend so I’ve been unable to attend to business and tell you about the party. I’m sneaking some time now while the others are eating breakfast, so I don’t have much time.

Which reminds me. Last Saturday I watched as Squatlo’s Vols kicked Florida’s ass in men’s basketball. I’m not planning to watch today’s game with his ugly orange and white-jerseyed team takes on Kentucky. My own burnt orange and white Texas team is on TV, so I’ll be tuned in there.

The party was a huge success. It was well attended, the guests were interesting and interested, the food and beverage was tasty and flowed freely, and the entertainment was top notch. Typically at book launch parties the author will read passages from their book—the book getting launched at said party. Not this time. See, I have ADHD and my variety of the ADD part prevents me from reading aloud.

I’m not shy, as many of you can attest, and I’m not completely illiterate. I simply cannot make my eyes follow the words written on a page for the time required to read an entire sentence. Unless, of course, the sentence is, “Fuck you,” or maybe, “Oh,” or something like, “My, what a lovely camel toe you have.”

Wait. Is illiterate an affliction of degrees? Can you be somewhat illiterate or all-the-way illiterate—can you be somewhat illiterate? Or is it a case where you either are, or are not, illiterate? Then, after concluding the answers to that, you would also know about the nuances of being literate.

My personal out-loud readings are burdensome as I skip words and rewrite as I read. When I write, I self edit each sentence dozens of times to insure that my words are as well crafted as I can make them. But I’m the Butcher of Seville when I read those same words aloud. Listening to me read aloud is painful and frustrating. Wait—Barber of Damascus?

The party was attended by some very neat people. My friends and family, of course, who are quite neat personages in their own rights, were all there. But here I’m speaking of the guests not directly-connected to me. The Badgerdog Literary folks and the writers and psycho therapists and such, each attending for their own reasons, are the interesting people I speak of here. And of course Justine and David with WriteByNight who hosted our shin dig.

OK, wait. All of my family attended except for Mother. I didn’t expect mother to attend and took no exception at her absence. My mother has not approved of my actions for long enough now that I can still remember the sting of her disapproval, but I don’t feel it. I admire my Mother for the force of her convictions and I find the steadfastness of her believing inspiring.

I would, however, be happy to state that my mother is a mostly Baptist and stogy woman with the closed-off mind and damaged intellect predominant in her type. I love you Mother, but you need to pull your head out your ass and think. You missed a hell of a good time because you worried what your fucking friends would think.

Nobody was arrested, nobody got TOO drunk or TOO wasted, and nobody had sex out in the open. So it was a great party but not a stupendous party. As I was saying, I chose not to torture my guests by reading my own shit and instead hired a reader. I chose to hire a young, professional reader and I chose a young, professional female reader.

And I chose to have her read Chapter 15 from Full Rising Mooner. Chapter 15 is the story from when I was over to the Sprouts Market there to the Arboretum. The time I saw the woman smuggling a fully-grown camel in her tight Lycra workout suit. I know some of you thought that was a bad idea—you know, having a woman read a man’s writings about a female pocket deli tray.

But you’d be wrong, Bosco, her reading was the hit of the night. And she wasn’t just a hit because of her incredibly near-perfect ass—displayed at the full moon stage as she stood atop a chair. She was a hit because she’s a professional, had spent enough time with me to get the jest of my temperaments, and because she had practiced both the reading and the moon show.

I say “near-perfect ass” not because there were any imperfections therein, or thereon. The only reason it wasn’t perfect is because I wanted to snuggle-up close to it and could not, would not if I could. Her name is Rachel Wiese and there is a Mr. Wiese. I never make married ladies the focus of my amorous attentions. And maybe her husband has a different last name. When Rachel introduced him to me, his name went in one ear and out the other. If it even went in the one ear. I was so distracted early in the evening with ADHD chatter inside my skull I could hardly think.

“Did I buy enough food… is the beer cold… will people come… will they donate to Badgerdog… will they like the reading… will there be a fistfight… will I fuck things up… will I get arrested… will I get tazered (a wish, as SAC Ellen was present)… am I being a good host… how do I write a smart book dedication to another writer who buys my book… what do I write in the book of the sexy lady writer who asked to see my moon show in the privacy of her studio apartment located two doors down from the party… other than the nice, large man standing at the food table, how many homeless people will wander in off the street?”

In the end, I said, “Fuck it, I’m having myself a good time.” So, I swallowed my concerns and washed them down with a giant swig of icy-cold Carta Blanca beer, told the nice lady I’d need to pass on the chance to have her slather my ass with ginger-scented edible body lotion, and autographed the books as they sold.

Actually, the books were not sold. If a person made a donation to Badgerdog Literary Publishing, they got a book as a gift. I was signing gift books, and quite happy to do so. As I have said before, if I can sell half as many books as I’ve given away, I’ll be three-quarters of the way to being a best-selling author!

OK, stop the presses. If I could sell AS many books as I give away, I WOULD be a best-selling author.

But I need to go now and attend to the crowd congregated in my kitchen. Mr. Dave is making omelets this morning and agreed to customize each to it’s eater. Mother was getting all prissy and pissy at some of the ladies’ requests. I thought my mother would feint when Gram said, “I want ya ta make mine an I’ll stand next ta ya an hold yer pecker fer ya. I hate when some of tha pecker gits in tha eggies.”

Gram laughed and clucked like an old hen at her own chicken/egg joke, and Mother almost passed out from the vapors. If I’m right on the timing of things, the Squirt is nearing her turn at Mr. Dave. If Squirt vocalizes her interests about Mr. Dave in front of my mother, I’ll need an ambulance.

Look, I’ll have dozens of photos from the party, I hired Nathan Black to take photos and he’s a good photographer—has this big digital camera like Squattie’s—and he spent the entire evening snapping-off shots. So I’ll write a bunch more and share everything I have with you.

Manana, y’all.

So. Today is the big day! The book launch party for Full Rising Mooner is tonight. I think I’ve got everything in place to have a nifty event—food, Carta Blanca beer, entertainment and more Carta Blanca beer.

Which reminds me. Overlord of the Fucking Universe law alert. It is now illegal to have children under the age of sixteen in beauty pageants. It’s also illegal to tan any child under age sixteen. This ban includes tanning booths, spray tans and intentional exposures to the sun.

I need to start numbering my O, FU laws. Let’s call this one O, FU Law # 7. Offending mothers will be sold to Saudi Arabia as sex slaves. The money from those sales will be put into the Veterans’ Affairs budget for the Reckmonster.

Speaking of the Saudis, do you guys realize that all of this Middle East strife and all of the Muslim terrorism worldwide is the fault of the Western World? The nomadic Muslim peoples of that part of the world were quite content with their life consisting of a goat meat and fig diet, camel farts and sand storms. They spent centuries perfecting, adapting their lifestyle to the harsh realities of their environment, and were quite happy while at it. Proud people with strict rules.

Strict rules are required for people to remain civilized when living in harsh circumstances with limited resources.

Then here we come, first as Christians, crusading and slaughtering them because they were infidels. Infidels who occupied the reported stomping grounds of Jesus. We swept in with our iron-clad armies and we raped and pillaged in the manner practiced by armies of the “civilized” world. Just like the racists of modern times, Christians of the Crusades and Dark Ages looked at the dark skinned Islamics as sub-human creatures—not up to human standards, but not apes either.

The net results of the Crusades were, basically, they kicked Christian ass back to Paris and London, and we managed to plant the seeds of hate that grew into the poisoned tree that is today’s Muslin extremist teachings.

To make the extremist Muslims problematic, our greed for growth and possessions made oil the most valuable commodity on Earth.

Our lust for their oil finances their terrorism of us.

If you think about it fairly, that would be one of those “Even-Steven” kinds of dealies.

I hate what terrorists do. Any terrorist. But I don’t feel any differently about Muslim terrorists than I do about Christians who display the same religious-based ideas. When you attempt to force your religious dogmas on others, or you bully others because they don’t believe as you—that, dear friends, is terrorism.

O, FU Law #8 says, “Terrorist shall be punished in like kind, squared.”

Ugh. It’s difficult being Overlord while attempting to be a writer. I should be spending time getting ready for tonight, yet here I am pondering the world views of a monarch.

Which reminds me of another law. Yoda just shit on my favorite Navajo rug, so O, FU Law #9 states that any person caught running a puppy mill, or any other grossly inhumane animal husbandry operation, shall be caged in five-by-five-five-foot wire cages and removed twice a day for meals of grub worms and corn meal, to take a shit on raw dirt, and a beating. Any time they act up, they’ll be required to fight another offender to the death.

It’s OK to breed animals as pets and food but it isn’t OK to abuse them or harm them for sport.

Ugh, again. I need new products with the O, FU logo. And I need a beer. I’m going to start focusing on the book party now. That should be quite an endeavor, me focusing.

So. I’m in a terrible rush and I have little time to talk. I never had any conception as to just how much work is required of an Overlord. I’ve been Overlord of the Fucking Universe (O, FU) for something less than a full day and I’m overwhelmed.

I’m more like an Overloadedlord. Who knew that being in charge of every fucking thing would be so much work?

All these details and I’m not a details sort of guy. Quincy ought to have his brain examined for naming an ADHD-addled redneck fuckbrain as Overlord. Q knows better.

Which reminds me. I have never heard anybody whine so much as Squatlo. I named him the First Underlord of something yesterday—Political Theory I think it was—and all he’s done is bitch and whine like a baby ever since. Wah, wah, wah, Ides of March and wah,wah, you need a defense minister, and wah, wah wah my nuts are still frozen because my wife keeps the house so cold.

Holy shit, man. Get a fucking grip! You can be the First Underlord and Defense Minister, for shits sakes. Now stop your whining and go start a war or something. Do some ethnic cleansing or go rape and pillage. Just stop your fucking pissing and moaning.

OK, wait. Stop the presses. Will you listen to me—do you hear what’s happening to me? Less than a day and I’m already corrupted by my absolute power. It’s true what they say about absolute power.

Ugh. This Overlord of the Fucking Universe might not be the party I expected it to be. If I’m to be the O, FU I need to be responsible and thoughtful and caring and shit. The very last thing I want to become is someone I want to assassinate.

Ugh, and ugh once more.

Have you ever noticed that assassinate requires two asses to complete? That might be poetic. Speaking of which, when I went to the Spec’s Liquor store to get all the booze for the big book launch party taking place manana, I met Francois Pointeau—poet and manly raconteur. Francois is the host of a radio show all about writers. He seems an interesting man, and I’m going to start listening to his show. Maybe more to come on Francois later.

OK, fuck it, I’m worn totally out. You guys need to buy my book, or else. The O, FU has spoken.

So. I have been “awarded” another dealie wherein I’m named as a big fucking hotshot. This time the namer is Quincy over at Thank Q For Common Sense, and the category is “Overlord Award”[.] Please allow me time to thank Quincy for this vainglorious award. My ego is properly swelled with pride, and well, ego.

Those of you with strong vocabularies already know that an Overlord gets to lord over other Lords and has omnipotence. Said another way, an Overlord is King of all Lords. I’ve been granted the right to make laws and edicts and decisions about anything and everything.

Overlord Mooner. Has a nice ring to it. Which reminds me that I need to get one of those giant, gaudy-assed rings to wear for my subjects to kiss. I don’t like jewelry but I’ll wear that ring. My loyal subjects will want to be able to pay homage properly.

Let’s get started with the laws. Overlord Mooner Law Number One states that: No law or rule shall be made in this land based upon any religious belief. Any lawmaker who attempts to introduce legislation that is religion based will be summarily executed. Do not pass Go and head directly to Jail.

That law of Overlord Mooner needs to be out there to the Universe pronto and post haste. I want all the fuckball legislators to have fair warning on all of this. I don’t want to hear any, “What do you mean you’re cutting my nuts off and feeding me, crying like a little baby, to alligators?”

I want everybody to have a fair chance to straighten up and fly right. Choo-choo-cha boogie and get your ass right back on the tracks.

I’ll try to be creative in methodologies as your Overlord. I’ll attempt to make your punishments fit your crimes, and I’ll find interesting ways to reward those loyal subjects who do good deeds.

Like, for example, all you rapists need to listen up. The punishment for conviction of rape will be that you suffer the same rape as you inflicted, once a day for the term of your incarceration. You aggravate the rape with a beating—you get beat and raped, daily.

I’m concerned about overcrowding of prisons with rapists and religious legislative fuckwads, so I’ll release all non-violent drug offenders right away. Drugs will be legalized in various ways, so those guys will all get full pardons and sanitized criminal records. For the hard drug users, we’ll have colonies where you can waste away in peace if you choose to do so.

Yes, I did say release them “ALL” and I did say “NON-VIOLENT”[.]

I’ll set up thoughtful and caring rehab facilities in each colony to help you break your habits should you wish to do so. The colonies will cost far less than police and prison expenses to prosecute druggies. We’ll tax all drug sales and regulate their production. We’ll start shipping cheap drugs back into Mexico to help with our trade balance. We’ll even grow poppies and ship heroin to Marseilles, France.

I’ll place Streaker Jones in charge. He’ll be my First Underlord of Drugs and Other Stuff. Streaker Jones is a multi-tasker so I don’t want to limit him. I’ll make Dr. Sam I. Am-Johnson the First Underthelord of brains and brain repairs. We’ll fund their fiefdoms with the money we currently waste on The War on Drugs.

You know what? Of all the silly wars America has chosen to start and drag the world into, The War on Drugs might be the dumbest of all. More lives lost, more money wasted and we’ve managed to ruin Mexico in more ways than we have Iraq. But here, again, when you try to rule based upon religion, things get all fucked up.

OK, stop. This is not the subject of today’s posting. Having assigned Dr. Sam I. Am to her new post has reminded me of what the actual subject herein was intended to be. I wanted to tell you about my recent psych evaluation. The one wherein I was evaluated by my psycho therapist evaluating the mental health of the Squirt, Yoda and Honor the fucking cat.

Sammie somehow has the idea that she can gain insight into my mental health through her observations of my two small puppies and the fucking cat. As unfair as it is, I’m to be judged based upon the behaviors of three of my pets. At least she chose the three most well behaved. If she’d decided to observe Rush Limbaugh and Rick Perry for a weekend, I’d be writing you from the confines of a padded cell over to Shoal Creek Mental Hospital. My giant gay pig and his 350-pound ostrich lover have habits that even unsettle me.

“Well, Mooner,” Dr. Sam I. Am-Johnson began my session yesterday. “What we have here is a mixed bag of tricks.”

“Fuck you and your mixed bag of tricks nonsense, Sammie. That’s the same thing as saying, ‘Good news, bad news,’ and you know how I hate that bullshit.” She knows how I hate that bullshit.

Don’t you hate those “velvet hammer” kinds of things? If what you’ve got is bad news, just give me the bad fucking news. If you want to tell me that my pecker is going to fall off because I let the gonorrhea go unchecked for thirty years, don’t start the conversation with, “The good news is that the gangrene hasn’t made it to your prostate yet.”

New law of Overlord Mooner. Anyone caught using the “good news, bad news” method of delivering bad news will have a clothespin stuck on their tongue and get both ears and their nose finger-thumped. Repeat offenders will be executed.

Ugh. Now we need to back all the way up because I have a new first law of Overlord Mooner. I have a new most important law of Overlord Mooner. I am hereby outlawing bigotry based upon race, creed, sexual preferences or religion. Lawbreakers will be forced to live with a family in an apartment building fully occupied with whatever group it is the offender hates on. We’ll manacle them like in A Clockwork Orange, and have their eyes and ears held open with those same wire devices they used on Alex DeLarge. They will be brainwashed until they come to love those they formerly hated.

Those that hate homosexuals will be turned into homosexuals. Unless, of course, like Dr. Bachmann you are full of self-hate. Maybe I need to rethink this one. Homosexuality is a complicated subject, and needs careful thought to adjudicate.

Have you seen those Funny or Die videos of Michele and Marcus over to Squatlo Rant? Priceless.

I’m naming BJ at Dumb Perignon my First Overlord of Uncommon Sense, and Squatlo will be in charge of Political Theory. Reckmonster will be charged with the care of all veterans, and Melanie, Melanie will be over all non-mental, non-military related health care.

Oh, shit on a shingle. My ADHD has digressed us. My psych evaluation—this posting is about my psych evaluation.

Ugh, once more and with emphasis.

As Dr. Sam put it yesterday, the good news is that I’m not headed to Shoal Creek to the loony bin and I can keep the pets. The bad news is, and I’ll quote my psycho bitch here when I say, “The bad news is that Yoda has some deep-seated issues requiring intense therapy, your parenting skills lack insight, and Honor is a cat.”

Then she gave me the bill for a weekend of therapies for three animals.

“Bitch,” I told her, my best under the circumstances.

“Crazy redneck fuckball.” Not her best, but really good.

I need to spend some quality time thinking on this Overlord stuff. Gram’s brewing me a magic mushroom potion formulated to give me insight as a ruler. “I’ll call it Ya cain’t git nothin’ over this here Lordie,” she told me. That and a long stick of mellowing hemp bud washed down with some icy cold Carta Blanca beers ought to do the trick.

Mooner Johnson- Overlord of the Universe. Has a nice ring don’t you think? Manana, y’all, when we’ll write some more laws.

 PS-  Overlord Mooner Special Rule:  Buy my book.  Click over there and buy it!