Via El Tumore

My roommate, Steph, is housesitting for a friend of ours who lives down the road. I went over there last night to see how Steph was recovering from the stomach flu I gave her and to play with the three golden retrievers who live there. I really love dogs, and since I left mine back in Alabama, I take every chance I get to party with other people's. I was petting them down on the floor and asked Steph,

"What's this one's name?"

"Daisy." she said.

So I went scratch Daisy on her belly and, lo and behold, ran right into Daisy's enormous dog wang.

"Whoa," I said, "looks like Daisy's got some gender identity issues."

Then Steph said, "No, that's a tumor." And it was. It looked like someone had been keeping their cucumber inside a dog, and now it was desperately trying to escape. Then I noticed my hand was wet.

"Ewwwww. Tumor juice."

"No," Steph said "that's from the other dogs licking it all the time."

Now, I don't normally mind a little dog slobber, but somehow, for some reason, I was overcome with intense and unspeakable disgust. This was the grossest thing I had seen since that leper caught fire in that beauty parlor (and also there were snakes). I think it's because it came off a tumor. Just a guess, but being transfered via tumor makes anything, especially anything already marginally gross, about ten thousand times grosser. Imagine this dialogue:

"Here's some mayonnaise for your sandwhich."

"Thanks. Is there a knife I could use to spread it on my sandwhich."

"No. No knives. But here, here's a tumor."

"Jesus Christ! What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"What, you're too good for mayonnaise now?"

"No. I'm not too good for mayonnaise. I would still enjoy mayonnaise on my sandwhich, but I'm not going to apply it with a tumor, you twisted jackass."

"I cleaned it. It's clean. It's a clean tumor."

"No, dammit!"

"Well shit. Cry me tumor why don't you."

So what did we learn? We learned not to read my blog before you eat. And in summary, always wear gloves, no matter where you are or what you're doing. If people ask questions, just hold your palms towards them and say "Gloves." like that's all the explanation you've got, and they should leave you alone.

I think I know you if you are a karate senci

I was interviewed again last night on the Mr. Reeves Show at Musicisthegatewaydrug.com (link to the right). This time it went out over the internet airwaves without a hitch, unless by hitch you mean a rambilng, cursing drunk idiot, in which case, yes, there was one of those.
The Death Flu is gone, and so is winter, which means if I can get a fire permit, we'll have a big 'ol bonfire on Thursday night. No, that isn't a brilliant song lyric I just made up. It's a real live fact, baby. And boy, will there ever be pictures.
So, I was googling an old friend of mine and e-stumbled over this baby-naming page where anyone could suggest names for a young couple's new baby. Sweet God in paradise, I love the internet. Here are some actual quotes, and how they make me feel.

"Janessa" is a good name, but I can warn you that she would accidentally be called "Vanessa" most of her life.

Can you imagine a worse fate than being called Vanessa? Yes. Being called Janessa.

For girl names, I like the name Irissa Sylvana

"Wesly Diane" if it's a girl because it combines both an unusual name "Wesly" and a more usual name "Diane" which flows very well together and seems to represent past, present and future.

Hell, just name her Unlucky Time Machine, and stop screwing around.

2 cool girl names: Naquel (like Raquel but with a N) Storey (a woman I know just named her kid this-- kind of weird but it grows on you!

No, it doesn't.

A boy - Brayden a girl - Braelyn (Both really unique!!!)

For a good reason!!!

Adia (from the Sarah mclachlan song)

Alexxus Kristin

The extra 'X' is for extra Alexxus!

Ricky because it means "powerful god."

Wait. . . Ricky?

and now, my favorite. . .

Alicia because I think I know you if you are a karate senci



The page is enormous. Please, enjoy it as much as I did. Namesplosion!

Martian Death Flu. . .

or food poisoning, or wrath of vengeful Greek deity. Nobody knows. One facet of life without health insurance is the necessity of self-diagnosis. Yes, you lose the accuracy of an actual doctor, but gain the freedom of an energetic layman, with no oversight board or prohibitive laws or ethics. Why limit yourself to known ailmemts? "I don't have the flu. I have Entitilitis. . of the Cockerel. Ohhh, my cockerels." But, whatever it was, it's almost over. Just a lingering feeling of general unease now. My roommate, Steph, thinks it was food poisoning from eating popcorn off the floor of the movie theater when we went o see Sin City, Saturday night. I told Steph that, "It was only one or two pieces, and the Five Second Rule is first-day-of-medical-school material, everybody knows that; now close the door so I can vomit in peace. HOOOORRRKK."
But, regardless of how or why, I've been sicker than Karen Carpenter after Thanksgiving dinner. And on the nicest day of the year so far, too. It was one of those days where you wake up and you know, "I am going to be sick all day." Then you remember all those fatal diseases like meningitis and SARS that start out with "flu-like symptoms", because there's no way to tell if you have the flu or flu-like symptoms. So you start making funeral plans and, well, it's all brown water and loud groaning from there.

Some things I've learned:

1. Pepto-Bismol tastes just as good coming back up.
2. Don't chug the Gatorade no matter how thirsty you are.
3. If you do chug the Gatorade, go ahead and do it in the bathroom, cause that's where your heading anyway.
4. No matter how much better you feel after a nap, stay away from the tater-tots.
5. Sometimes, the nicer toilet paper is worth the extra fifty cents.

Please enjoy these vomiting links. Careful, some are not for the queasy.

Physiology of Vomiting

Sass, the Incredible Vomiting Cat

Your Vomiting Baby

The Puke Club

The Vomitorium

Radio Silence (with Dippin' Dots, baby)

Didn't work. Not even a little bit. The interview I mentioned in the last post didn't go off so hot. We talked about an hour, then I played a few songs, and then Reeves told me that none of it had gone out over the air and the same amount had been recorded. Technical difficulties. So, we'll be trying again this next Monday. So all none of you should listen in and laugh, love, and, yes, maybe even learn.

I will find out who is responsible for the snow/hailstorm outside my window and heads will roll. Heads. Will. Roll. It's April, for Harry Belafonte's sake, and just when I thought I could go outside barefoot, Jesus starts shitting white Dippin' Dots all over the place. Come on, Jesus, even the ice cream of the future has its place. And it's not on my lawn. For those who don't know, I'm currently hiding out in southern Maine, working as a live-in caretaker for a kids summer camp that keeps animals in the winter. Snow, especially an inch of snow over two feet of mud, makes my job a hell of a lot harder. The horse paddock look likes it was filled with those cancerous lungs they show you in sixth grade to make you hate smoking, and the piles of llama shit have thawed and re-frozen into a series shin-snapping sink holes and mottled brown, jagged edges. When I'm too lazy to put my good boots on before going out, walking around becomes a drunken tango of quick dodges and little victories as I almost fall into piles of animal crap every few feet. This morning, one of my bosses, Meg, one half of Peter and Meg, the couple that own the camp, told me to start digging up the layers upon layers of wet, fetid pine shavings that had been building up for months and months in the back of the barn where the donkeys live. So I did half of it, saving the other half for Thursday, the next time I'm due to feed the critters. It smelled like boiled shrimp. So, I didn't mind too much, but then I felt odd, about not minding the shrimp smell, and I stopped breathing through my nose.

I'm not sure how I feel about shrimp now.

Ask me no questions

I'm being interviewed tonight on the Mr. Reeves internet radio show over at Music is the Gateway Drug (link to the right). Music is the Gateway Drug is a perfect example of the potential of democratic broadcasting. They're brand new, so go over and give a listen, let'em know how much they rock you into puddles. I haven't heard the live jams yet, but I will soon. Music is the Gateway Drug: one of the few good things to come out of Alabama since . . .shit, I don't know, Jesus or something.

Batman Hates Your Mom

I found these over at Superdickery
Thought you might like 'em.
I also thought you'd like that awesome contraction I just used.
Who needs a 'th'? You get me, and I can tell these things.
You're flowin' wi' m'groove.

And the winner isn't. . .

Me. I lost fifty borrowed dollars last night playing 1$/3$ open poker. And let me just say that even
though this means I can't buy food until wednesday, and now I owe my roomate 75 dollars, I'm taking it all extremely well. I didn't kill a hitchhiker or leave vulgar phone messages or anything. The worst part was after I lost my last dollar. I had to sit there waiting for my ride to lose all of his stash or get tired call it a night. Three painful, stoic hours later he drove me back to my car and I made the long, cold journey back home. And of course, my roomate was awake.

"How'd we do?"

"I lost everything-"

"Fuck you!"

"-and by 'lost everything' I mean 'I won forty dollars!'-"

"Haha, sweet!"

"-but by 'I won forty dollars' I actually meant that 'yes, I really lost
everything' "

"If I tell you to fuck off, are you going to say that you really meant that you won forty dollars?"

"No."

"Well, fuck off!"

But she was laughing at the end.

I found some rice in my attic this morning, so it won't be starvation that gets me this time. God bless you soy sauce, you are good on rice, and make other foods Jappier. But you can go to hell cheapest-soy-sauce-at-the-grocery-store. You taste like steak-ass.

Fest in Show

More pictures from last year's Odysseyfest down in Bama. I've had these laying around since October 2003, and now, through the magic of the tiny unicorn-mounted leprechauns that run back and forth between my laptop and heaven, I can share them with everyone! Except Jesus, who has seen them already.

The Great Brown Beauty, Chino's travelin' van, patiently waiting on Idlewild Cricle, but ready to go at a moments notice. The cone came down for the trip.

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Then it was on to beautiful, pastoral, lip-sweat-inducingly conservative, South Alabama, were we sat in a field, wishing we had brought beach umbrellas, or much larger hats.

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Back at camp, the fun flowed like slutty wine. Being one of the first entourages to arrive we were able to grab an island of shade giving hammock trees, where we circled our cars and hammocks, and also there were hammocks. The Travelin' Van went into action, or I gues, inaction, like the rest of us. God bless you Travelin' Van. There's a bed inside you.

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Sunni enjoys the air of lethargy that has settled over camp.

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Three, of many, wonderful things that happened:

1. The first night it got cold. But fires weren't allowed. Unless, of course, you had some sort of way to contain the fire, like a giant metal barrel I stole from my school's recycling center. Well, HA! And don't you know everybody doubted me. "Why is it smoking so much?" "I don't want to breathe in the smoke." "The smoke is black and smells funny." Granted I didn't know what had been in the barrel before I stole it, but after awhile it quit smoking, and no one's got cancer yet. Then a cop walked up, we all crapped our pants, he (I still don't believe it) congratulated us on having a safe, legal fire, and boom! I was drunk on vindication for the rest of the festival.

2. Reeves and Sunni had an air gun that shot gusts of air at you.

3. On the last day, a complete stranger walked into our camp, took off his shirt, and passed out on our tarp. He was there for six hours. I don't remember him leaving. He was very popular.

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Maybe he had too much vindication.

Eighteenth hole at sunset

Eighteenth hole at sunset
Originally uploaded by Wereturtle.

First post, so I thought I'd start with something pretty. Who it is I don't know. But I do know this was taken after a round of disc golf at the Odyssey Music Festival in 2004. It was hot. I mean sweaty hot, not sexy hot.