Facing The Music
My Press Conference (I Did Not Inhale!)
Kim Kardashian: Can I ask another question? My mom used to listen to this Paul Simon song about when he stepped outside and smoked himself a ‘j’. Does that mean he smoked with Jay Leno? Because Ray J wasn’t alive then, I don’t think.
Enjoy Your Flight!
A Friend Indeed
There She Is, Miss America!
But I don't see how I can fix it in a swimsuit on a stage
Damn Yankees!
Barking Spiders and Stepping on Ducks
The conversation turned to flatulence.
Let me rephrase… the conversation turned to the subject of flatulence. That’s better.
About fifteen or so fully-developed humans had gathered to celebrate the clock’s journey to 5 p.m., and someone had seen a recent episode of “The Doctors” that discussed the “embarrassment of flatulence.”
The doctors opined that everyone has it, it’s a very natural process of digestion, and there’s nothing wrong with it.
Oh, yes, there is.
Before I lay out my case, let me confess to being very – yay, extremely – knowledgeable about this subject. In fact, if there were a kingdom of methane makers, I would be their ruler.
Erect a totem pole of the top violators in the world, and you’d need a ladder to see my face.
I blame my short colon, but mostly because I can. A little dance with colon cancer in my 30s claimed about a foot of my digestive tract. I figure that leaves me with less equipment to properly digest food.
So, let’s assume that some of you reading this might consider yourselves challengers to the throne. While this is not really a contest, in fact, we are all guilty. We all learn ways to hide it.
Personally, if you ever see me in the grocery store aisle that sells bleach and detergents, know that I don’t buy bleach and detergents. It is, however, an aisle where there aren’t a lot of people.
Company at the house for something off the grill? My line is, “Let me go check on the coals.” I don’t really need to do that. The way I prepare charcoal takes 45 minutes. All I really need to do is look at the clock.
Riding down the road with someone else in the car? “Wonder what the temperature is like?” Roll down the window, stick my hand out for a few seconds. Then, pretend they don’t know what I just did by announcing, “Yep, still hot.” Or, “Hey, I think it’s getting cooler.”
So, if it’s something that everyone does, what’s the problem? I’ll tell you what the problem is.
WHO JUST DID THAT???
It may well be that everyone does it, that it’s just natural, that it’s part of the digestive process, but somebody just committed a crime on all mankind and they must be called out!!
“What is wrong with you?!?!”
During several of the years I was on the radio, I had two female partners that sat together on the other side of the desk. One year, for Christmas they gave me a charcoal filter cushion for my seat. They giggled about it a bunch, but I think it was just because I have a bony butt, and they knew I needed some padding.
My brother-in-law has literally fallen out of the golf cart when riding with me, but I think he has balance issues.
Yes, friends, we all suffer, but we do our best to suffer silently. Silence is golden.
Silence is also deadly.
Good luck.
Money for Nothin' (That Ain't Workin')
Being Thrifty
She is addicted to thrift stores.
Let me be honest: we’re DINKs. Double-Income-No-Kids. DINKs are not necessarily rich, but with both spouses working and no kids to suck money from their pockets, DINKs are not your typical thrift store customers. Oh, they can be spotted there, for sure, but it would usually be because they were donating to that store, not shopping.
Through the years, we’ve made a hundred donations to thrift stores. Dishes, clothes, beds… you name it. Most thrift stores support charitable organizations, and it’s a wonderful way to help those groups while uncluttering your home of no longer needed or wanted items.
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, that’s true. But constantly taking trash and calling it treasure is a sickness. And it needs a cure.
This tale of woe began in the hills of North Georgia. We have a little cabin and spend a fair amount of our free time there. There are other cabins, and some are owned by couples very close to our age. It’s made for a tight-knit group.
The ‘boys’ have always been able to burn their days with useful projects: building sheds, burning sticks from the yard, all day grillings, or bourbon-tastings. The girls have had a more difficult time finding such interesting things to do.
Until now.
Nowadays, when the girls are together, day one is spent plotting which stores in which cities will be hit on all the subsequent days they are together.
I thought this was good. All the husbands did. If the girls were off doing their thing, our thing became anything we wanted our thing to be. This was especially useful if there were televised sporting events to be watched or golf to be played. Everybody had something they wanted to do. Life in the hills was good, easy.
But this is just how this disease develops. It starts as a small adventure, a simple thrill to see if you can find that ‘treasure.’ But just hitting one store isn’t enough. Good lord, there are thrift stores everywhere! They must all be hit! What if we miss the big bargain?
That’s today’s issue. Thrift store visits have become junkin’ journeys, and my wife has become a junk collector. So have her friends. Knick-knacks and doo-dads that other people have discarded - because it’s junk! – have now become ‘discoveries’.
Well, you can give it any name you want; what it is, is crap. Furthermore, it’s crappy crap.
Let me ask you this: how many colanders do you have? Probably, one. Every household needs a colander. But all you need is one. You don’t also need a cute little red one, a rubber one, a collapsible one. One size fits all, and just one will do.
Further, the rubber colander she brought home won’t stand up by itself. Best I can tell, the only way to make it work it to put it inside a sturdier colander. OK, in that case, it makes sense to have two colanders, maybe. “Well, this rubber one doesn’t work on its own so I had to have another colander to put it in.” Pretzel logic, but let’s go with it.
On a recent outing, she brings home a rocking chair. I love rocking chairs, and this one she’s bought (“you won’t believe what I paid for it!”) is a good one. Quite comfortable. The problem? We already have seven rocking chairs in this house! What in the world are we supposed to do with #8?
She buys things, not out of necessity, but simply because it’s ‘a bargain’. Lamps, candle-holders, pots… the collection of unnecessary or duplicate… stuff… just grows.
I’ve tried intervention. Upon returning from a junkin’ outing, I sat her down and asked very calmly, “Honey, how may snuff glasses do you need?”
She has a sentimental fondness for those leaded glasses that used to be sold full of snuff. She remembers drinking juice from them at her grandma’s house. As a lot of us grew up, jelly jars became our juice glasses, so I get it. But here’s the number ‘8’ again. We now have eight snuff glasses – at the cabin! We don’t have eight friends at the cabin.
I’ve hatched a plan. I’m going to join her subtle little game. You see, in most cases, she doesn’t show me her ‘finds’, they just appear. One day you open the drawer and there’s a whole set of knives you never seen before.
That’s how it works.
So like a magician, I’m going to quietly start making some things disappear. Like a stealth magician. A stealthy ninja magician. My work will be invisible to the naked eye, under the radar. Only the worthless, crappy garbage I deem worthy of keeping will remain.
You like my plan? Oh, yeah. Game on!
Meanwhile, stay tuned. Pretty soon, I can give you some good advice on where to find a great buy on colanders.
French Fried and Vilified
“OK,” says the dude at the counter, “so that’s two grilled and two crispy.”
Oh, yeah. I forgot. We don’t say ‘fried’ anymore. So, yeah, ‘crispy’ works as long as the reason they’re crispy is because YOU FRIED THEM!!
I don’t blame McDonalds, honestly. I blame Kentucky Fried Chicken. I think they started all of this when they decided to change their name to KFC.
“Sh-h-h... Let’s not use the f-word anymore.”
I’m a Southern boy. Not only do I use the f-word, if you could f-f (French fry) my dirty socks, I’m sure I would eat them. With ketchup.
But fried has become evil. Actually, it’s not frying that’s evil, it’s the word itself. We still fry food – a lot. But we do everything we can think of to disguise the fact that it’s fried.
We use olive oil. We call our food by cute names like ‘crisps’ or ‘chips.’ You can go into a place that serves fried pickles, and they might refer to them as pickle chips. The menu might even say they are “the dill pickle taste you love, battered and lightly cooked in oil.”
Fried, fried, and fried.
By the way, ‘crisps’ and ‘chips’ should only be used under certain circumstances. Here’s my personal guide for the world to use:
-crisps: baked
-chips: fried, no batter
-fried: fried with batter, or just fried with no excuses
If you think about it, we fry some interesting things. I mean, who was the first person to say, “I simply cannot wait for this tomato to ripen. I think I’ll pick it now, batter and fry it.” Who gets that credit?
Do the French really get credit for deciding to fry bread? “Gosh, Pierre, we have spent all our money on wine and, all we have in our kitchen is this loaf of bread and a bottle of oil. Que pouvons nous faire? (What can we do?)” Ta da! French toast.
About the only sociable use for ‘fried’ seems to be for novelty food. I was in a restaurant in Boston that offered fried mac and cheese. I jumped in with both feet on that one.
At fairs across the county, it’s a contest to see who can successfully fry something odd. Jelly beans, ice cream, fried Coca-Cola, fried Oreos… the list is endless. But the stuff God intended us to fry, like chicken? Please use KFC. Or crispy. It’s just healthier if we don’t say that word.
By the way, ‘sauteed’ is also fried. The picture you see is one I took in Mexico recently. We didn’t order them but were served them anyway. The menu called them grasshoppers, but I know a cricket when I see one.
Again, the question: did Jose, one day, just up and say, “Dang, I want to eat these things, but they don’t taste good?” Did his wife respond by saying, “Here, let me stir them in hot butter. Then they will be delicioso.”
If that’s what happened, she was right. Because they were.
Here’s the problem with fried grasshoppers. When you eat anything, let’s stay on subject and say fried chicken, you wind up with crumbs on your lips. With grasshoppers, you also wind up with crumbs, but they are a piece of leg or wing or its head. You can lick your lips to clean it all up, but you know darn well what you’ve just taken in your mouth.
And expect repercussions. Best I can recall my wife has never refused to kiss me after eating fried chicken. Mexico was two months ago. I’m still waiting.
The Gay Apocalypse
Hello, and thanks for joining me.
Just for funsies, I brought my crystal ball. Thought we might rub this thing up and gaze into the future. Be forewarned, something big is on the horizon! (I peeked!)
It will have some dancing in celebration, others mourning in prayer for what must surely be the end of time, and the talk shows will have a field day.
This event will likely occur at some point this summer when the Supreme Court of the United States will rule on questions surrounding the legalization of gay marriage.
One of the questions they are expected to address is whether states can limit “marriage” to the traditional definition of being only the union of a man and a woman.
I think I see the outcome and some of you are not going to be happy.
If the legalization of gay marriage troubles you, stay with me. I once felt just as you do now, and I have come to help you cope with….
THE GAY APOCALYPSE!
Bonus: bacon is involved.
For this writing, allow me to use the word “gay” in a broad, general sense to refer to all same-sex relationships. I seek only to simplify.
Being raised a Southern Baptist served as the backdrop for the way I long felt about homosexuality.
Now, you know we Christians, especially those of us in the genteel South, we love everybody, even them gay people; we just don’t agree with their ‘lifestyle choice’ (words we’ll address shortly).
I must admit that for many years, I had a hard time getting comfortable with it being OK to be gay. While I reject any accusations of homophobia, I do have to confess to being insensitive with some of the things I have said on the radio. I could always hide behind words like, “I’m just kiddin’!”
By the way, gay people have a terrific sense of humor about themselves if it’s humor delivered with love and understanding. I’ve learned that.
So what has changed me?
Through the years, I’ve had several gay co-workers that I got along with very well, personally and professionally. We became… friends. Yes, I have gay friends!
Gee, I hope they don’t try to convert me. (I promise a good story on that before we finish.)
Having gay friends allowed me to ask some very honest questions about their sexuality, as if it was any of my business. In one such conversation with a lesbian co-worker about whether people can or do choose to be gay, she asked, “Why in the world would anyone choose to be ridiculed for being who they are?”
Those words stuck.
I am close friends with a lesbian couple, both of whom will tell you they were never anything other than gay. (It’s apparently a common question from a straight dude: ‘were you always gay?’)
One of them remembers being at a wedding at the age of 5 and wishing she could walk down the isle with the bride. At that age, it’s not a sexual urge, it’s an innate feeling. So, born this way? That is certainly her truth.
To that end, it’s important for heterosexuals to understand that being gay is as natural to gay people as being heterosexual is for straight people. It is simply what you are. Or who you are.
But now comes the hard part, especially for many Christians. How do we reconcile accepting homosexuality with what the Bible has to say about it?
As Christians, we are basically taught our prejudice against gays. There are, after all, scriptural references on these matters and those scriptures say homosexuality is wrong.
When you see Christian opposition to gay marriage, a popular stance involves Leviticus 18:22. Of homosexuality, that verse says, “It is an abomination.” (KJV). With that, opposing voices will declare that ‘it’s in the Bible,’ and the discussion is over, period.
Keep reading.
Two chapters later, Leviticus 20, it is written that not only is it an abomination, but the participants in homosexual activity should be killed.
So how does a Christian justify simple condemnation when there is specific biblical instruction for more action? If Lev. 18:22 is our armor of righteousness against homosexuality, why isn’t Lev. 20:13 the sword we use against it?
My guess is that killing people doesn’t sit well with most of us, even if it is scriptural.
Leviticus is in fact a book of much instruction. We are told not to cheat, not to lie. (Good.) We are told not to wear clothing made from two kinds of material. (Really? Hm.) We are told that the promiscuous daughter of a priest should be burned with fire. (That seems a bit unnecessary.) It tells us adulterers should be killed. (It’s happens but is not generally acceptable practice.) We are told that a woman on her period is “unclean”. (Now that’s just downright old fashioned!)
Fact of the matter is, that fourth book of the bible is full of instructions that most Christians find – even if not admitting it – outdated.
Leviticus contains instruction about what animals we are to sacrifice and how the blood of these animals is to be handled by the priests. It tells us that rabbits are not fit to eat.
It also says pigs are unclean for consumption, an idea that many people reject but others hold as being the reason they will not consume pork.
And that leads us to these questions:
What portions of the bible can we reject as no longer relevant for our world today while holding other verses up as God’s absolute law?
Further, on whose authority are those decisions made?*
It may just be me, but I’m having trouble with demands that God’s law must be obeyed as it relates to homosexuality but not as it relates to eating a pork chop.
So is it okay to change the laws (rules)? I think it is. I think our understanding of all things is an evolutionary process. Science teaches us things evolve; things change.
Medicine evolves. Mechanics evolve. Then why can’t our thinking, our understanding, evolve?
If we can make ourselves understand that the Bible didn’t drop onto Moses doorstep one day, fully written; if we will accept that much of the Bible is the written words of ancient stories and traditions passed through generations, often orally; if we can embrace the knowledge we have that the Bible has undergone many revisions, additions, omissions, rewrites and changes in translation through the years, then yes, I believe the Bible can still be used as an underpinning to the Christian faith without demanding that certain words must be taken as the absolute law of God while we completely reject others as no longer applicable.
It’s a fact that the contents of the Bible has historically been largely affected and directed by the man or men that were in charge at any given time over the many centuries it took for this great work came together as we now know it. Most were likely heterosexual. The vast majority of society has always been – still is – heterosexual. Heterosexuals often have a hard time understanding homosexuality.
Especially in an earlier time when those men of authority had absolute power, anything that felt uncomfortable or weird to them could simply be outlawed.
Better yet, let’s make it not only against the law, let’s make it against God’s law.
And so it shall be written.
There was a time in this country not so long ago that the black man couldn’t vote. Even more recently, women were denied that right. Some “rogue judge” would then make some “ill-informed” decisions that everyone should be treated equally, and the whole world went straight to hell!
It’s about to happen again. The Supreme Court is going to once again rule that treating one group of people differently than another group of people is discrimination, and another wall will come down. At least, that is what I think will happen.
In America, we seem to have a tradition of dealing death blows to discrimination, even if it takes a long time to get to the knockout punch.
I also believe that we will one day look back on our past treatment of gays much as we do now on the past treatment of black people and women. And we’ll shake our heads in disbelief that we allowed ourselves to treat certain people differently, especially in the 21st century.
By the way, for the most part, your kids are already doing this.
In sharing some long-ago Sunday School conversations about gays with my lesbian friend, I recalled during my teenage years one of our teachers, a truly lovely, older Southern lady putting it like this:
“I don’t really have any problem with gay people as long as they don’t try to convert me.” My friend laughed, then responded with, “That’s a shame. I’ll bet The Lesbian League had just upped their quota of converting 80-year old straight women that week.”
Amen.
*These are loose variations of questions posed by Dr. John Shelby Spong, a retired bishop of the Episcopal Church, in his book, “Living in Sin?: A Bishop Rethinks Human Sexuality” (Harper Collins. 1990)
The Con Man Cometh
“Grandmothers”, she said without missing a beat. “They’re kind and receptive.”
Aha. So they want to get to my mom.
It’s those same qualities that make grandmothers targets for scam artists, and it’s for that reason I try very hard to be protective of my mom. Even when she suspects something might be amiss, her kind nature makes her want to trust that everything is good.
If I hear of a scam going around, I usually will send Mom an email. “Remember, your bank is never going to call you to confirm your social security number.” Or whatever the scam of the day making the news might be.
But now, it was my turn to be warned by my mom. She has forwarded an email that showed up in her neighborhood listserv, and it’s a classic!!
The email warns of a gentleman goi
ng door-to-door selling small bottles of wine that are in a “woozie”, defined as a wine koozie. The sender of this email had been suspicious enough to enquire as to why the wine bottle was so small.
“It’s a port wine”, the seller said. He went on to explain that port wine is a dessert wine and is typically sold in smaller bottles. The neighbor knew that part was right, so she ponied up for a bottle.
Once inside her house, she discovered that she had paid $27.50 for a Bud Light, so she sent out the scam alert. Included in the alert was the man’s name. However, her email goes on to say, it was only after googled the name she realized who Gordon Shumway was. And if you don’t know the name, it’s because you didn’t watch the TV show that carried his nickname as it’s title: ALF.
Cover Me In Chocolate and Call Me a Fudgesicle
Let me spare you the long set-up. On a recent getaway to Mexico, we did a couples chocolate massage. I don’t know why. We were on vacation, and it seemed like it could be fun.
Perfect setting, perfect day, perfect partner. Everything perfect! Until it happened.
Besides, it had the word “aphrodisiac” in the name. Who can resist “The Warm Chocolate Melt Aphrodisiac Rubdown For Couples?”
AKA: If this don’t work, you must be dead.
For what they were charging, I thought Willy Wonka might make a personal appearance. Always wanted to meet him.
“Does this come with a guarantee?” I asked.
It didn’t. But I’m a guy whose body shape is roughly thirty years past its prime. If making me a walking chocolate bar makes me yummy, let’s rock.
Here’s the way it works. You take off all your clothes, get slathered in chocolate, get in the shower – together – wash it off, get slathered in chocolate again, get in the shower again, wash it off again, then get in a hot tub. In the hot tub, you eat chocolate-covered strawberries and drink champagne.
We’re all in for this.
With naked bodies on separate tables (not really how I imagined the couples chocolate massage would start) the rubdowns begin.
It’s kind of fun. The first part is called a chocolate scrub, so the chocolate has a grit of some sort. They tell you it’s sea salt, but we’re at the beach, and sand is much more plentiful. Just sayin’.
The smell of chocolate permeates the room, and who doesn’t love that? Hey, and the towels you lay on and that cover you are chocolate colored. Whee!
It’s pretty standard stuff: lay facedown, and they smear the legs, arms, back and butt in chocolate. Flip over and repeat for the tummy, chest and face. Then, it’s off to the shower.
Rubdown part two is where it all falls apart.
It’s good in the beginning. Warm chocolate syrup is being massaged onto your body. Maybe it’s a chocolate oil. Regardless, it has been heated and it feels really nice. But if you’ve had a massage, you know that when the masseuse finishes one part of the body, that part is covered with a towel or sheet.
In this case, the towel is placed over a portion of your body that is coated in chocolate syrup. Syrup that is starting to cool down and soak in, heavy and sticky on the towel.
By the time your entire back side is covered, you don’t want to turn over because she’s going to lift that gooey towel off your back, hold it up while you flip over, then lay that thing down on the only part of your body that is clean, and oh god, she just did it!
Now, she will lift up each portion of that chocolate-drenched towel, ladle on more chocolate, rub it in, then put that towel back over it.
No mas! I want to quit. I want my money back. On second thought, keep the money, just let me out!
It gets worse.
You know how a massage ends on your head? They massage your neck, your face, your ears, and finally, your scalp? Yeah, it’s all done with chocolate.
She is massaging my scalp with chocolate syrup.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have this now-cool 40-pound chocolate-soaked towel laying on me like a nasty wet blanket on a naked baby.
Finally, the masseuse whispers in my ear the sweetest words I have ever heard: “You can now go to the shower.”
I meet my wife there and we’re both putting a happy face on the experience. We say things like, “that was interesting” and “well, we’ve done that.”
The shower is probably where the aphrodisiac part is supposed to kick in. There is a lot of touching each other. After all, there’s chocolate in places you cannot reach and certainly cannot see.
A half-hour of shower-sharing and finally free of the chocolate that had covered our entire torsos, we head to the hot tub. It is filled with bubbles, and there are flower petals all around. As promised, chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne await. Mood music is playing.
It is scalding. Way too hot to sit in. We can’t find the controls and there’s certainly no one around to ask. This is, after all, our alone time.
We sit on the edge of the tub with only our legs in, clink our glasses together and knock back the champagne like it was tequila. Then, it’s off to the locker rooms to get dressed.
Time to find some real tequila and forget this ever happened.
Mommy Dearest
Wait. Yes, it is her real name. Sorry, lady, but when you post it on social media, you’re fair game.
Jenny’s 4-year old son has decided to change her moniker from ‘Mommy’ to ‘Mom’.
Ever the voice of reason, I try to counsel that this is just the natural progression for a child. Frankly, though, I don’t ever remember calling my own mom anything but ‘Mom’.
I recall a discussion with a fellow co-worker a while back (she’s also a mom) whose son still referred to her as Mommy even though the boy was turning seven. She didn’t mind at all as her biggest fear was that she would one day be called ‘Mama’.
My admonishment was stern.
“Lady, you live in the South. Mother is Mama. Mommy is Mama. Mom is Mama. One day, you’re gonna have grandkids and they’re going to call you Grandmama. Or Grannymama. Or Big Mama. Get over it, and get used to it.”
She wasn’t buying it. Today, as the kid hits 10-years old, she’s still ‘Mommy’. That’s creepy. It’s also the stuff that school-ground whuppin’s are made of. “Hey, boy, I got a little somethin’ for you. Then you can go runnin’ home and let your mommy kiss it and make it all better!”
I keep waiting to read about ‘Mommy’ in the newspaper. Something involving wire coat hangers.
Still, I’ve heard this discussion enough through the years to know that this change of name is meaningful. Indeed, several of Jenny’s friends agree that the event is traumatic.
Jenny has another child that is eight. He calls her ‘Mom’, but he’s eight, and to her, that’s the difference. One kid is old enough, the other is not. She’s a bit of a control freak, too, so there’s that issue.
Jenny has decided to deal with this new development by calling her youngest son by half his own name. He’s not Davis, anymore, he’s Dave because isn’t retaliation what all moms are supposed to do?
I sort of doubt Dave cares. He’s a second-born. I’m a second-born, and I wouldn’t care. We’re fun, funny, independent, and care-free.
And we’re smarta**es.
Lessons in Wine Snobbery
Why yes, I think I do. But I would never have come up with that on my own. Therefore, I will sometimes read tasting notes for a wine I have recently enjoyed. “I like this wine, but why?”
The 'Opposite' Family: Role Playing
Shopping With Grumpy Cat
Palmetto Bluff: Living Large and Beyond My Means
Grits and the People That Eat Them
Doing Disney, Part 1
