"The beaten track does not lead to new pastures."
-Indira Ghandi

This guy is a riot! Check out Twenty Major's ventriloquist dummie story. It's a good one.

More Eli

Since I wrote about the Memphis trip, other Rick and Eli stories have been coming back to mind, and with those two there has never been a dull moment. Eli is one of those people who are naturally inclined to chaos. If there is any possibility of getting hurt in any activity he engages in, then he will get hurt. Sometimes it’s because of sheer stupidity and carelessness, and at other times it’s just plain old bad luck. Like for instance, the night we played with the fireworks we bought in Arkansas. What a night! I never realized until then how much fun fireworks could be because we weren’t allowed any in our household growing up. (The reason for that I ended up discovering that night as well.)

The beginning of the fun started when I was squatting in the middle of their steep driveway about to light some bottle rockets. I hear a quick whistle go past my ear, and I turned around to look up at the porch. Eli had just lit four or five of them, and was aiming straight for me. I immediately scrunched down into the fetal position, and prayed I wasn’t going to get hurt, which luckily, I didn’t because I was able to chase him down and give him a good knock on the back of the head. (This also reminds me- and I can’t help mentioning- of a New Year’s party in which a friend threw a handful of bottle rockets into the bonfire, and we all ran away as fast as we could except for the paraplegic who was stuck down there in his wheelchair about five feet from the fire.)

We came up with many brilliant ideas while fooling around that night. One being to put the majority of the fireworks in a cigarette carton box, put it at the bottom of the driveway, and light the box on fire. It was pretty funny until the next day when his scary biker neighbor came up to us at the local bar and asked if we were trying to burn his house down. The highlight of the night came when Eli decided to light these heavy duty rockets he bought. The first one went off well, it was loud and got the expected reaction. He lights the second one, and in mid-throw, it explodes in his hand. It had a short fuse. His flesh was burnt to a crisp, literally black hard skin with pieces of his pink flesh peeking out here and there. The worst part of it all was that it smelled like roast beef. It was pretty knarley! He didn’t go to the hospital, and took care of it himself. It healed in a few weeks.

This sort of thing was a regular occurrence for Eli. I watched him hang upside down from a ceiling fan and fall on what looked like his neck, but was his shoulder which dislocated. He fell off the front stairs and broke his collar bone. The worst of them all was a serious bad luck case. He was doing a tree job for some rapper who lives somewhere around Lithonia. He got out of the truck and was heading for the house when the owner’s pit bull came running up to him and clamped down on his package- the whole thing. He punched the dog in the head and started running, and the dog chased him and took a chunk out of the back of his leg too. He had a canine-made prince albert piercing right through the head of his peter, plus other wounds in that area. He tried to get me to look at the pictures of it to show me how bad it really was. I was like “No thanks, Eli, I’ll take your word for it……No, really.” It turns out that the rapper’s friend let the dog out, and Eli walked up to the house at that time. He was supposed to get a settlement for it. I don’t know if he ever got it because he moved to Tennessee, and we’ve lost touch with each other. I haven’t seen him in a few years, I hope he’s doing okay. I’m sure he is, because he always bounces back from whatever life throws at him.

Memphis

A few years ago, two friends of mine, Rick and Eli, and I decided on a Friday afternoon that we were going to take off and go to Memphis. So we did a little shopping, packed up my car, and headed out. Eli did the driving once we got to the state line, and Rick and I proceeded to drink some beer. It was around christmas time, and I remember us driving through the night, half-drunk, singing christmas carols. Eli’s mother lived in Memphis so that was one of the objects of our trip, along with seeing Beale Street, Graceland, and the Reverend Al Green.

When we arrived in Memphis it was raining, and Rick was asleep in the back. Eli and I drove in silence, save for the music playing on the radio. I observed what I could of the dark houses through the drizzle. Eli pointed out a cool little bar on the left, and his mom’s house behind it. We drove on a little more and I saw a shining neon light to the right a ways up. My stomach fluttered as I read and recognized the sign, “Sun Studios”, and I knew we were really there, in the birthplace of the blues and rock n roll. We checked ourselves into a run-down motel, and woke up the next morning refreshed and energized, ready to explore the city.

The next morning, we went to Eli’s mother’s house and she wasn’t there; so we went in and ate lunch at the little bar there, then it was off to Graceland. When you drive down the street that Graceland is off of, you first notice a Holiday Inn-looking building with “Heartbreak Hotel” written in neon on the front of it. This was the first clue-in on how our visit to the shrine was going to be. The museum is across the street from the house, and this is where you sign up for tours and can enter into Elvis’ private jets. I don’t know what I expected, but it was screaming with commercialism. As I walked through his house I kept having this feeling like I really shouldn’t be there, like I was trespassing into his private life. It was a really eerie feeling. I do have to say that I did enjoy the museum, the walls lined with gold and platinum records, seeing his costumes, and the t.v. he shot. There was a weird silence among the three of us as we drove away that lasted at least an hour. We then took a grand tour of Memphis by car.

There’s a huge bridge that crosses over the Mississippi River into Arkansas, and since Rick and I had never been to Arkansas, we crossed and bought some fireworks. Later on the trip, Eli took it upon himself to shoot them out my back window (despite my raging protests) at fellow cars while we were on this busy, dark, rain soaked freeway that had poorly marked lanes. I was so nervous already, the repeated smell of sulfur and the following whistle of the firecrackers made me insaine. We also had lots of fun with them when we got home, but that’s a whole other story.

We went to Beale Street Saturday night, and it is just like Marc Cohn describes in his song when he says “I was walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale.” The sheer high of being in such a historical and significant place was unbelievable. There’s this long strip of bars facing each other with a cobbled walkway in between. No cars are allowed through there, and we walked among the crowds listening to the music blast out of every joint we passed. There was different music in each place, and we bar hopped. Eli began to get obnoxious in his particular redneck way- yee hawing and rebel yelling- and we got kicked out of a few places. The last place we went to, Rick and I fell in love with. I cannot remember the name exactly but I think it was called “Silky O’Sullivan’s.” They had two baby grand pianos facing each other, with two talented pianists taking requests from the crowd. Sometimes they played together, sometimes solo, and sometimes they dueled with each other. What heaven! They could play anything you wanted to hear, and I got to hear my favorite Billy Joel song (which is relatively obscure). Eli started his yelling again, I was so mortified, but he ended up disappearing. A little later a bouncer came up to me and asked if I knew an Eli. I went out to see him and told him he was on his own and we’d meet him back at the motel. By the time we got back, it was so late and we were so drunk, that we knew we wouldn’t make it to the Reverend’s service the next morning as planned.

We headed home the next day. The ride was full of pranks, and me yelling at Eli (with whom I learned over the weekend was only fun in small doses). We found ourselves on empty, and stopped in Bucksnort, Tennesse but they had no gas at either of their fueling stations. Eli surmised that it was all Bin Laden's fault. I said "YEAH ELI, Bin Laden came to Bucksnort Tennesse to steal all their gas." I was like "Don't talk to me any more." We made it to the next exit and everything was all right. We spent the rest of the trip listening to music and commenting about the “See Rock City” signs and the ‘Wive’s Welcome’ strip club signs that line the highway back to Georgia.

Blog Spam Sucks

Critics say the information in my blog is “very informative”....... "by the way buy our products at..."

Informative my ass, yeah informative if you want to know where to go to meet a transvestite, see some jello wrestling, or just find out about the state of my eyeballs these days.

How do we stop comment spam? Retards. It pisses me off. Not that many people come to my sight, but I’m not going to advertise for you pussies. I’m using my executive powers to veto this crap from now on.

I didn't know until saturday, but I'm on the schedule thru wednsday. I'm already wiped out physically. Pulled a double on sunday and had 50+ Atlanta Roller Derby girls come in for their monthly meeting. We weren't prepared, I was the only one working. I would have enjoyed myself if I had a couple waitresses. Those are my kind of chicks.

I'm am so happy these days, it's incredible. Not too much stress, steady work, no school. It's also wonderful watching our newest generation grow up. Those kids bring such a joy to us all, we are really blessed.

Well, I have so much more I could talk about, but I'm not fully awake yet. Plus I need to get ready to go. Adios

Oh, man.

"If I ever lose my faith in you....." -The Police

Big, big tears. Here's a link to an article that is very long, but hits most of the major points in our current crisis here in the states.

“There are going to be some missteps”!?! How bout a big fall on your face!!!!!!!!

Is this a wake-up call or what? Who are we?

Hey

We had an excellent night at work last night. Not all that big of a crowd, but it was off the hook come midnight-1am. Everybody was bouncing off the walls, big fred dancing with his shirt off on stage and people chanting him on, everybody cracking jokes. I just love my job sometimes. Have fun and make money....Yeaaah C’mon.

Just like the past few weekends, I probably won’t have time to post until about Tuesday. I’ll be thinking of some stories to tell in the meantime. Happy Weekend!

Changing of the Minds

I like what a commenter left on an earlier post about ‘seeing your mind change.’ I hope my mind changes too. It’s a natural process in life. It’s all a part of understanding the world around us, and getting closer to the human being we want to be. It involves everything form changing your mind about your favorite ice cream, to deciding where you stand politically. From realizing that your mother was right when she said those worn out jeans looked bad on you, to realizing that you really do (or don’t) believe in a higher power.

It is also imperative to realizing when and where you should eat your words, or to stand by them.

EAT: Bringing race into it because all the poor people in the gulf were hurt the worst.

STAND: Our government helps to perpetuate the weakness of it’s citizens.

EAT: Throwing around the question of education levels.

STAND: Self-reliance is a key in human survival.

Call it digging herself a little deeper, call it logic, call it ignorance, call it what you will, but that’s my opinion in the land of opinions.
That being said, a little verbal banter never hurts.

The Things They Didn't Teach Us in School

Found this little passage here. It's from an article called "Foul Facts Gallery: Terrible Tudors, Vile Victorians", By Terry Deary.

"Mary Queen of Scots had a grisly time of it. She paid the executioner a purse of gold to do a good job. She may have wanted her money back! After taking off her black dress to reveal a red petticoat he blindfolded her and knelt her down with her head on the block. The axe swung down - and missed!
Well, it didn't exactly miss. He nicked the side of her neck and Mary cried out. The second chop went through the back of the neck but not all the way through. He returned to use the axe as a saw and finish the job.
But that still wasn't the end of the gruesome story. The executioner had the task of picking up the severed head and showing it to the assembled throng. Sadly, no one had told the executioner that Mary wore a wig. When he grabbed her by the hair, the head fell out of the wig and bounced across the hall. Now that's what I call Horrible History!"

Yeah pretty gross, but I love it, it's history!

No Such Thing as a Golden Chariot

I have overeard many discussions at my bar about Hurricane Katrina, the aftermath, who is at fault for the lack of help and the mass hysteria, and whose fault it is that gas is so high- the whole nine. Not that a bar is the place to find intelligent debate, but I still have been shocked as to the conclusions people have been coming to about the whole ‘Whose fault is it?’ debate.

This one particular angle of the debate I have found myslef jumping into. That of the problems in N.O. is that a large number of their black population stayed behind, and most of these people were from the projects. And, Oh the poor, poor people. The problem is a welfare mentality. These people are not, generally speaking, self-reliable. Whose fault is this? Both the people themselves, and the government who perpetuates the lack of ambition and self-reliance in these people. If you expect the government to feed you, clothe you, and house you then I suppose that you would also expect Big Brother to come in and sweep you off your ass (even though you were told to leave) when a hurricane is on its way. Oh, but they’re poor, they don’t have cars blah blah blah. If you have two feet and a brain than you’re capable of evacuating a known flood area during a hurricane. But hey, does the ignorance run deeper than that? Were these people not educated enough to know they lived in a city that was built under the sea-level?

I’m not trying to be insensitive. I was in tears watching what these people were going through, because bottom line we are all human. We need to get real. We need to start taking better care of each other (on many levels), but could it possibly mean that we also need to see that our citizens are not being coddled and encouraged into a state of total dependancy?

Here’s a link (thanks dad) to a very well-written article about this subject specifically. The reality is not that George Bush didn’t fly in on his golden chariot to save these people, the realtiy is years and years of government mis-management on both a local and national level.

Well the eyeballs are back to normal. It was an unfortunate accident involving Visine and contact lenses.

I skimmed over the headlines today to see if there is any new news about the gulf. I saw one, and didn't want to read it because it sounds like hogwash, but it said that a civil rights leader said there were reports that the black disaster victims are eating corpses. That just sounds bad. Why would a civil rights leader say something that looks bad on an entire race? Maybe to make things seem that much worse for them down in the gulf, to invoke more drama and more sympathy. It doesn't work for me- I don't believe it. It hasn't been that long since they've eaten, people die of thirst much quicker than of hunger. Plus, yesterday I watched some footage that had dead bodies rotting in the sun, I don't think the conditions fare well for eating human corpses. Not that I'm an expert on the subject or anything.

Well, I'll be off to Camp Drunkass today. Probably will not have time to post until monday night or tuesday.

I look like Satan's illegitimate child today. One of my pupils has dilated to the size of a dime, and the other is all tiny and normal. I scare myself when I look in the mirror. Have you ever had that experience when you hear "Excuse me, miss?" and you turn around and that person is so ugly that it startles you? Yeah, that's me today. AND I have to go get my picture taken for my liquor license, my ugliness will be recorded for posterity. HaHa! At least I can scare the task force guys who go around checking the licenses.

On another note, I am in shock over the state of things in the gulf. I hardly know what to say. I could bitch about how bad the rescue effort is going, but why? It's too late isn't it? Dead bodies, fires, riots, starving children. It's really disheartening. So sad.

I've got two words for you.....

root canal

and an OWEE!