Channeling Gabby or Goober?

Let's face it.
Women want guys to dress like the handsome singing cowboy.
You know, Roy Rogers or Gene Autry attire. They like their men to be well pressed and nicely combed and it wouldn't hurt if they were good smellin' too.

Most of us of the male persuasion, however, prefer to be comfortable and ready for action--primitively decked out for either battle or the quick roll in the hay whichever comes first. Besides that, the only songs we like to sing involve truck driving and drinking beer, neither of which do much for the fair sex. "I'm a wheelin' dealin' kid stealin' truck drivin' son-of-a-gun", to quote the great Dave Dudley.


This all dates back to cave man days when men would put on animal heads or face paint to scare off the dirtbags from other tribes. Now, of course, we use either threads from the bargain bin at Wal Mart or, better yet, GOLF CLOTHING. I have a brother-in-law who is a master of the "white man as pimp" scary golf get-up. For this essay he shall remain anonymous. But trust me...nobody is better than BOB when it comes to putting together a hideous golf combination. It's pure genius!

So I say to my brothers everywhere, "Let the word go forth...get in touch with your inner Walter Brennan." "Embrace the Goober or Bluto that is YOU!" "You have nothing to lose but some num nums from your main squeeze!"


Which one of these lids do you think goes with my Bart Simpson tie?

"Whatever you say dear"

Women talk...men listen!



These studies, or scientific findings, seem to come at us in rapid succession lately. Researchers take aim at some deeply held perceptions about the difference between men and women and we all go: "Wow, I never knew that! How interesting!"

A couple of weeks ago the geniuses at the Journal of Science announced that they, after studying a bunch of college students, have determined that women talk a lot more than men. To be more specific, they believe that women talk two or three times as much as men. Women, it was determined, used 16,215 words a day and men 15,669. (Frankly, this seems to me to be padded by about 15,000 on the men's side of the tally...But I digress.)

After the results of the study were announced they were roundly criticised from several corners of the academic research universe. Most of the critical comments seemed to be in the alto and soprano register, but that could be just a coincidence.

No science...Here is what I know: Whenever a guy hears this question: "Honey, do you think this outfit makes me look fat?" He should not e v e n think of answering!

They live longer than we do too.

"YER NOT FROM AROUND HEAH ARE YA?"...said the Killer Grouse!

"Don't worry, we'll head up to the camp after this is over."
It was my longtime pal, the Skipper, urging me to remain calm as we endured the commencement speech at the Dartmouth College graduation in the Summer of '93. My daughter Kelly was grabbing her diploma from that prestigious institution and I was proud to be there. Unfortunately for me and my wife, Linda, and our friends Dave (the Skipper) Erickson and his wife Betty the day would require us to sit through the aural emissions of liberal gasbag Bill Moyers.

(Bill Moyers...Better than Somenex!)






Dave and Betty, who live in Georges Mills, New Hampshire had been Kelly's local parents while she attended Dartmouth. Hanover, the home of Dartmouth, was just a few miles up the road from them and they had been happy to be there for her when she needed support or important things like a fake I.D. The Skipper even loaned her a couple of his beloved lighted beer signs for her dorm room. (I get misty just thinking about this.)




Betty and The Skipper in front of Katz's Deli in NYC



Anyway...about ten minutes into how horrible America is, except when the Dems are in office, I decided that Mr. Moyers could finish his speech without me. The Skipper and I adjourned to a nearby wobble water emporium and left our wives to stare glassy-eyed at the guest speaker. The dive that we found was already filled to the gunwales with other dads who had taken the liberty of hiring a runner to keep tabs on the commencement and report back to what was now Dad Headquarters. It was perfect. Dave and I returned to the ceremony when the runner reported that they were just about finished handing out diplomas to the "B's". I got there just in time to snap a shot of one Ms. Kelly Copper glomming on to her Dartmouth sheepskin. I felt like a real Mr. Touchdown.

The next day Linda flew home to her teaching job in California and my brother Steve and I remained to join the Skipper on a two day sojourn to what he referred to as "THE CAMP". The Camp is owned by Dave and a couple of his buddies. It is located on Lower Jo Mary Lake in Northern Maine. It is only accessible by float-plane and is...ahh...rustic. Everywhere outside of Maine, it is called... a DUMP.


"The Camp" in the early days....

The people in the picture are all now slumbering in the Mahogany Hilton, but the structure remains the same.


As you can see from this more recent photo, the camp has a wonderful beach. (If your idea of a wonderful beach is a bunch of guys sitting around around drinking whiskey wondering where the women are.)


At sometime during our stay as far from civilization as I have ever been, Dave suggested that Steve and I might enjoy hiking the Appalachian Trail. The famous trail actually begins along the shores of this remote lake. It seemed like something interesting to do besides counting the hours until we would once again be within walking distance of a 7-11. Frankly, my brother and I had both begun to worry about how long the whiskey was going to last. So, this was good! Dave would take us by boat to the other side of the lake; drop us at the trail head and we would hike back to the "camp" having tackled the Appalachian Trail. A story for the grand kids!


No sooner had we been deposited on the opposite shore and begun our trek, when we were attacked by a killer grouse! I am not making this up. We had taken about five steps on the trail and out of the weeds came a hissing puffed-up monster who sent us scrambling back to the shore of the lake. We hailed for the Skipper to turn his boat around and come rescue us.
Killer Grouse...WHO KNEW?

Dave called us pansies, but I didn't see him lingering for a better look!

I present this as a warning tale to all of you who may be considering a hike in the New England woods sometime in the future.
DON'T!


New England is a very dangerous place. The people talk funny. And...if Bill Moyers doesn't get you, the Killer Grouse will!

Elvis is dead...and I'm not feeling so hot myself

Dick Nixon and "The King"

(If only Nixon had been a singing sensation and Elvis the Commander and Chief.)


How can thirty years have slipped by since Elvis grabbed the Big Bus to the great Up Yonder?
He changed everything for an entire generation!
Our parents hated him. Mayors of cities and men of the cloth were certain that he was the cause of juvenile delinquency, (Remember that one?), and was the gyrating genome of the country's headlong slide into sexual degradation.
To us, the cat was the essence of cool. He was the reason I bought my first transistor radio. In fact, now that I think of it, he was one of the primary reasons I got into radio. (The 1950's and 60's version of running off to join the circus.)
Damn it! It was all his fault! I just had to be on the air just to bask in the King's reflected glory. The son-of-a-bitch set me up!

I was on the air the when the"Elvis is dead" bulletin from the AP came across the wire. About the only good thing I remember from that day was that the program director came into the studio and said, "We're throwing out the format...it's all Elvis all the time until further notice.
I loved it.

When you think about it, things have been pretty much downhill ever since.

By the way...according to Willie Nelson, the King's last words were: "Corn?"

Embracing the SLOB...

We're all slobs.
Some of us are in denial; others revel in all that is slobby.
I am in the camp that enjoys a really good mess.

Let's explore the various types of slobs that exist in the world...

First of all, there is the house slob. The house slob plops everything on the kitchen counter or the nearest free piece of furniture. The top of the dining room table was last seen at Thanksgiving. Old Christmas cards, magazine "come ons", CD's, expired coupons and empty containers abound. The house slob always thinks there will come a time when these items will come in handy.

The cure for house slobiness: MOVE.

The office slob is well known to all. This person has a desk that is stacked high with crap that looks important. It is not! Avoid having a desk, if at all possible. Desks lead to memos and memos lead to meetings. NOBODY NEEDS MEETINGS. I always try to operate out of a briefcase as this makes it much easier to beat a hasty retreat after telling your boss what you think of him after he has "allowed you to spend more time with your family". If it is absolutely necessary to have a desk, make sure to keep your whiskey in a Christmas package. This will allow you to replace it weekly yet will give snoops the impression that it was a gift you hadn't even bothered to open.

The cure for desk slobiness: AVOID HAVING A REAL JOB.


The bathroom slob thinks that it is okee dokee to be a complete slob in the bathroom as long as they are clean in person.

The bathroom pictured here is the bathroom of singer Whitney Houston. I am not making this up!



The cure for THIS bathroom slobiness: QUIT SMOKING CRACK COCAINE!


The car slob is always a treat. If they offer you a ride, they will say something like this: "Hold on a minute while I throw this junk in the back."
Newspapers, old napkins, petrified food, stinky gym clothes and mail are found throughout the car slob's vehicle. A once a year wash makes the car habitable for a few days, but the rolling pigpen is an automotive nightmare the rest of the time.



(front seat of slobmobile)



The cure for the car slob: DO WHAT I DO...ALWAYS OWN A CONVERTIBLE. On occasion , drop the top and drive real fast. PROBLEM SOLVED!
(but watch out for cops)

NUMBNUTS IN THE NEWS...

(Morgantown, West Virginia...)
Well, you knew it had to happen sooner or later. A young man from Morgantown is suing the McDonald's corporation for trying to kill him with one of their Quarter Pounders.
It seems that Jeromy (It's so hard to spell it the right way.) Jackson ordered a couple those hard to resist Golden Arches gut bombs and the cheese in them nearly killed him. Here is how it apparently transpired: Jeromy ordered two McDee's Quarter Pounders without cheese because he is allergic to the lip smacking good bovine slice of yellow heaven. What he got was the usual Quarter Pounder with cheese. Now, maybe I'm being overly critical, but wouldn't most of us notice a slice or two of cheesy goodness sticking out of the hamburger bun? And, as long as I am breaking Jeromy's man marbles, wouldn't a person lift up the bun to check for cheese if he knew it might...uh...KILL HIM???
His mother, Trela Jackson, and friend Andrew Ellifritz are also suing McDonald's because they "risked their lives" rushing this idiot to the hospital. The lawsuit seeks damages on two counts of negligence, one count of emotional distress, and one count of punitive damages.
Numbnuts news will keep you updated on this story as it develops. I'm sure we're all interested in knowing if the court system in the state of West Virginia is as inbred as we suspect.

Another story we are following is the saga of a Seattle woman who attacked a karaoke singer who was belting out some pap made popular by the group Coldplay. It seems that the woman began screaming "You suck" as the man sang last Thursday night. Later she punched the offending balladeer to get him to stop singing.
"It took three or four of us to hold her down," said bartender Robert Willmette. The woman was eventually booked into King County jail for investigation of assault.

Frankly, I believe this great American deserves to be awarded the Medal of Honor. She has struck a blow to eradicate one of the worst cultural phenomenas ever inflicted on this country by Japan.

NO KARAOKE should have been one of the conditions of surrender when we settled up with Japan after waxing their ass in The Big One.



These guys? I know I speak for all right thinking Americans when I say to them: SHUT UP!!

FOR GODSAKE JUST SHUT UP!!

A+++ For Everybody!!

A small story in the San Diego Union-Tribune caught my eye a couple of days ago.
I have been thinking about it ever since.

It seems that the San Marcos Unified School District, located in northern San Diego county, has decided to do away with letter grades for fourth and fifth graders this coming school year. I'm not sure, but I imagine, that it is all part of this "no child's self esteem left behind" idiocy that has taken hold in this country. No hurt feelings; no losers. Everybody gets a blue ribbon for showing up.

How like the real world this is. NOT!
Just ask your boss for a "do over" the next time you screw-up. Or, how about an award for coming to work?

I spent my grade school years in the small town of Leslie, Michigan. It was, and probably still is, a community of roughly 1800 souls located about 30 miles south of Lansing. I was a typical lad of those days dreaming of playing second base for my beloved Detroit Tigers. In my mind I was Frank Bolling, the Tiger's journeyman second sacker. (Talk about setting the bar low!) But, it took me about two weeks of my first Little League season to notice that I suffered from a severe lack of baseball talent. The coach plopped me in right field where my glove was safe from all but a few challenging hits. Also, after a few games I began to notice that catcher Lou Klinger would commence donning the tools of ignorance every time we were at bat with two outs and I was up.
Maybe I wasn't meant to be a baseball player! No blue ribbon, no "atta boy" and no false hopes to delude me.
Idiot kid that I was, I also thought that I was one hell of a singer. I would hide behind our big Philco radio and sing along with Perry Como, my mom's favorite, and she would tell me that she couldn't tell the difference when Ol' Perry and I were harmonizing. Hot damn! I would be a famous singer.




I began to pay attention to kids like Eddie Hodges, (Does anybody remember Eddie Hodges?), who seemed to have a few hit records and was a big movie star.



Eddie Hodges (Who starred with Frank Sinatra in "A Hole in the Head")




The singing star pipe dream sustained me for about a year. I was absolutely certain that it was only a matter of time until a Hollywood talent scout drove into Leslie; heard me sing and signed me up for the whole "Big Star" deal.
Then, in fifth grade, the school system hired an new music teacher named Mrs. Adams. Mrs. Adams would come into our classroom once a week and lead us in singing those "heavy hits" from the public domain. You know..."Row Row Row Your Boat", "Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal" and other toe-tappers that we all know and love.
Well, one day Mrs. Adams announced that while we were all singing she would walk by each of our desks and, while we sang, would grade us on our singing ability. Like a bolt of lightning I knew that this was it! Mrs. Adams would hear me and be amazed that such a monumental talent was right here in Leslie, Michigan! She would discover me! I was on my way!

Mrs. Adams stood by my desk; listened to me sing and left a piece of paper in front of me.
On the piece of paper was my grade.
C-. C-??? I was crushed. How could it be? The answer was simple. She was a moron.

But, I didn't waste my life dreaming of what might have been. I moved on to other things.

Me, scuba diving





Me, in mud puddle belly flop contest




You won't find me embarrassing myself on that idiotic American Idol because some teacher didn't have the guts to tell me that I stunk up the joint!
Rejection is what made America great. "No grades" gives us idiot kids with great self esteem and dumb ass shows like American Idol.

BOAR TAINT! It ain't just for Iowa anymore

You would think that a product of rural and small town America, such as your correspondent, would be more attentive to the farm desk here at the Out of My Mind blog. It has been months since I checked the futures wire to see how many happy heifers and piggies were marching off to the slaughter houses in Omaha, Chicago and Kansas City. (Is anyone else ready for some bacon?)

Anyway...where was I?

Oh yes...There is a very big story breaking in Pig World.
It seems that Norway's Parliament has decided to ban the castration of piglets starting in 2009. Though farmers have been castrating piglets for thousands of years, studies by a European food safety agency has found that castrated piggies suckle less and spend more time apart from their siblings. They are more docile. In short, they are depressed.


Now, nobody wants to spend time with depressed pigs; so your immediate reaction is probably to agree with the animal rights freaks who want to ban castration. The problem with this is that this could cause farmers to lose millions of dollars because of something called: Boar Taint.
Boar taint is an objectionable taste that is characteristic of the meat from uncastrated male pigs.

DAMN! This is bad news. On one hand I want my pig brothers to remain happily intact, yet I want absolutely NO change in my bacon and other delicious pork products. I really need to think about this...

Go Ahead. SNIP 'EM!! Oscar Meyer bacon for everyone!!

I give this the go ahead knowing that women who read this blog, (all four of you), might be thinking that this whole concept is worth considering for spouses and boyfriends. That whole not depressed and docile thing might be sounding pretty good to all females about now. But, be honest, would you really want to see us start asking for directions? Stop belching? Leaving the lid up?

Don't answer that. I believe I speak for all guys when I say, "Leave our "man brains" in our conveniently attached "man purse" for the foreseeable future please!"

EDITOR'S NOTE: This report is being filed a day later than usual due to the fact that I went to the track yesterday. In fact, I WON!
Perhaps the fact that I bought a Daily Racing Form for the first time may have been important.


"PantsOnFire" bringing it home for your correspondent.




Perhaps I'm on to a new career.


Perhaps it's that old "Boar Taint" talking.

Eats American Style...

I like food. I'm a charter member of the Big Eaters' Club.
I'm not fussy either. Even as a kid I was never one to say, "I want that without Lima beans." I liked it ALL. The weirder the better as far as I'm concerned.
There is a sushi bar I frequent where the chefs hail my arrival because they know they can try anything new on old Ken San and it will probably get a rave. (Monk fish liver anyone?)


mmm...SUSHI!

Keep it coming, and don't spare the wasabi.



There are, however, some foods I can do without. I don't hate them, but I'm not going to tip over the refrigerator to seek them out.

Jell-o, for example, can go straight to hell.

And, I care exactly ass point two percent for anything resembling SOUP. Soup is merely a concoction of salt water and a bunch of other stuff that couldn't work the "big room" on its own. Besides, soup is hot. I hate hot; it slows you down.
No, give me odd sustenance and don't spare the interesting spices!

Rocky Mountain Oysters?? Bring 'em on!!
Lobster guts? Yummy!!
Dazzle me!

Limburger cheese? LOVE IT!


(The oysters that dare not speak their name.)

Something I have noticed lately that I find disturbing is the great disparity in the size of portions proffered in restaurants. Maybe you have picked-up on this too.
It seems as if some eateries bring you enough food to feed a family of four for most of the week while others specialize in that "less is more" philosophy associated with "nouvel cuisine". (You can always spot nouvel cuisine. It boasts an enormous plate featuring food the size of an agent's heart.)


"Nouvel cuisine"



Most of the joints offering Fatso portions are either American, Italian or Mexican while the stingy ones are French.
Once again I blame the cheese eating surrender monkeys of France for screwing up a good thing we had going here in the good old U. S. of A.

That's why I am going back to calling these wonderful little tidbits FREEDOM FRIES.




"SUPER SIZE THESE FOR ME PIERRE!"