The Years Have Not Been Kind

Amerigo Vespucci was a punk. There. I said it. On the fourth of July.

What would he care? Dude was Italian, after all. He would no more have wanted to hang with James Madison that you would. Now that guy was short. Teeny, really. Shortest United States President ever. Shorter by nearly a foot than his best butt buddy Jefferson. He could barely look over the Official Presidential Podium. They made him stand on a milk crate. In fact, one of the first crises of his presidency was when Charles C. Pinckney stole the milk crate during Madison's first two months. For this, you know, Pinckney was kneecapped by the Secret Service.

Of course, Vespucci was also a notorious firebug, so he probably would've loved to be at the White House when the British burned it down. So maybe he would've enjoyed having a slice of pizza & laughing laughing laughing at shrimp boat Madison while the mansion was in flames. But one shouldn't speculate about such things, not on America's birthday.

Vespucci also was fond of what would later be called "Cartesian Erotica," because Descartes made it popular at the court of Louis the thirteenth. But neither Vespucci nor Descartes really knew that that smut wasn't French nor Italian in origin, but Manichaean, originating in the more perverse writings of the bawdy upper class of the Sassanid Empire. It surpassed the rather tame Catholic porn of the time, which inevitably had to have the Pope involved, or at least an abbott with a strap-on. So while it was a step up, it most certainly wasn't as much fun as Boccaccio. That mofo knew how to throw down.

If you must celebrate the lucky sumbitch who got two continents named after him, not to mention a country sort of, go ahead. No one's stopping you. I know he wrote a few really good songs that emo bands cover regularly (although no one has ever really done a really good cover of his hit single "I Got Them Ain't No Way It's Asia, They'd Rather Believe Henry The Navigator, But Fuck Me If It's Not A Fourth Continent Blues") & I know he invented the shrug, but he was a punk. That's all I'm saying.

Snake Finger Sandwich

Since tomorrow is the Fourth Of July, which is a national holiday because no other month has the number four in it, I figured I'd do an American thing & link to this article/speech by E.L. Doctorow which is an exquisite discussion of how fucked our nation is. It's not nearly as funny as George Carlin, but it'll do.

I should also note that this weekend, which I for one have noted nearly two times before is a three-day weekend because of the Fourth Of July (so have a fifth of something on me) (just don't make yourself sixth), is the birthday of our youngest, Winston, pictured below when we still had green grass in our backyard - come to mention it, when we still had wood he hadn't chewed up in our backyard. He'll be one. He's a dwarf, which means he's had lots of health issues, & we've had a lot of dire predictions about how long he'd live (one vet told us he'd be dead a month from his visit), but he's much, much healthier now & as much a part of our household as the whiskey & the air conditioner. Happy birthday little Winston!



I may have something to say tomorrow, but I'll still busy gathering "Saturday night" songs for this week's show. It does something weird to your mind to spend all week thinking about Saturday night - although I suppose I'm now more like most Americans than I care to admit. So much for Independence Day!

Whither Saturday Night?

That sounds like the title of a song!

Here's something perhaps mildly interesting about having this blog thing which virtually no one reads (except you, of course) & having written in it for a couple of years & there being lots of different titles & stuff: it causes search engines consternation. Or is that possible? Maybe it causes the users of search engines consternation. That sounds more appropriate. I will give you a few examples of search engine terms that have brought unsuspecting folks to this blog. I wish I knew what they made of it!

By far the saddest search phrase that brought a person to here is this: "leave my husband alone." Imagine! I happened to title one of these entries that about a year ago. I wish I could help. But what a weird sentence! Who would say such a thing? & if your husband is being bothered, shouldn't he be man enough to say it himself?

Or maybe this is sadder: "leave me alone husband." Yeah, that's sadder. It also sounds like the title to a song!

I titled an entry "Online Toffee Makers Revolt!" about a year ago, & so it found its way to someone looking for "online toffee makers." I don't personally know how to make toffee online, but I hope the person found it despite my obfuscation.

Someone found this blog by typing in "how to have whiter teeth." THAT is some self help.

Or what about this search phrase: "conjugal visits in austin texas"? Wouldn't you want to hear THAT story?! (The blog title, from last year, was "Early September Conjugal Visit." How I wish I could have really been talking about conjugal visits! Can they happen if your jailer is your own damaged self?)

Sometimes they're just odd. Here are a few:
- insomnia court cases
- quilting in Photoshop
- ferrigno disease
- runners are lame
- suck my fucking cock you prick

Okay, the last one isn't true. I just wanted to be profane.

I get a lot of hits for people looking for someone named "Gary Dickerson." That is, of course, me, but I understand (heck, I've even blogged about it) that there are other Gary Dickersons out there. But why not say hello if you know or don't know me? Maybe you're checking to see whether I've finally grown tired of the rot inside me & done what everyone expected me to do right after high school, which is eat a bullet all the way up my brain. Sorry! It hasn't happened yet! Be patient!

Oh, er, um, Saturday night. It's fun, right? Wanna go out?

Preface To Saturday Night: It's Just Tuesday Afternoon. Calm Down.

For the past few weeks what I believe is a Bewick's Wren has been living in a hole in our garage, near the washer & dryer. This was, it turns out, a very wise thing, as only things with wings (unlike cats, say, or perhaps beagles) could get in or out, & sex was had & eggs were laid & soon enough I noticed whenever I let the dogs out that there was a lot of action going on, including the peeking out of little beaks from the hole & a harried-looking parents stuffing dead things into said beaks. At no point, by the way, did the Bewicks offer to pay any rent nor did they seem ashamed of their sudden, obviously fecund tenancy. Oh no. They acted as though they were entitled.

Time passed. On Sunday, the youngest of the household beaglets, known only as Winston, was seen perhaps chasing a live thing around the yard. It turned out that this was a baby bird with still some of whatever they call the feather fluff that's on them. Winston was dutifully taken away & forced to read the Bible (which he instead ate, so now he has to read Dianetics, which he refuses to eat) & we waited & sure enough, we soon found the happy parents (terrible tenants) leading the two youngsters through the treetops. The miracle of life in our own backyard! Without all that unnecessary voice-over work!

My point is this: you 21st Century Kids think everything revolves around a Saturday night. You think "party, party, party" even though the planet is dying & our frisbee-shaped alien overseers are eating our glaciers in protest! You can't see your hands in front of your trees - forest - whatever that saying is - because you've turned this one night of the week into some kind of holy time. Imagine, making some particular day a holy day! That would be so fucking dumb! Like, say, if I said, "You can't work on Sunday because it's a holy day." You'd be likely to give me a purple nurple & run away laughing. That's how inane it is. & you're doing it with Saturday night! Can't you see?

Listen to this: the miracle of life I described above, not the bird sex which is kind of sick, but the babies leaving the nest & going out to become accountants or file clerks or restaurant owners (like birds do), that happened not on a Saturday night, but on a Sunday afternoon. You heard me! You know what else? I never have magical things happen to me on a Saturday night. So there. You're proven wrong.

We could compromise. Let's make it Thursday midday. After all, you can sleep it off at work & no one will notice because it's Thursday. I'll bring my dark sunglasses, you bring the Riunite on ice. That's nice.

Countdown To Brush Fires!

Last week, I believe on Friday but it could have been earlier, my lovely girlfriend Magda bought me a number of two liter bottles of my (almost literal) poison of choice, which is Diet Dr. Peeper, of which I consume an enormous amount, mainly to let my organs know how much I dislike them. Fuck you gall bladder! This was very sweet of her but because it's been about one hundred & fifty degrees here every day & because she left them in the back seat of our car, some of them burst & others looked like some liquid had evaporated away & some had weird rounded bottoms because of the heat. Imagine if she had left our baby in there! Hell, imagine if we had a baby!

Some of the bottles were ruined, so I ate them. I mean, so I emptied them & put them in a recycling bin. The others seemed fine, so I put them on the shelf & ate them. No, no. I just put them on the shelf.

Because I am terrified of expiration dates (I never seem to finish stuff in time), I always put new stuff in back, & I had a few bottles left. But later in the day I thought, "Perhaps I should taste them. Just in case. While I still have some old bottles left."

So I did. You know that way you feel when you open a seemingly new bottle of wine & have a sip & it's spoiled or been corked or it's just a bottle of urine someone left at your party because they're an asshole? Somehow this was worse. See, Dirt Mr. Pipper doesn't really taste like regular Dr. Ripper. It doesn't really taste like anything soda-y at all. It's not good, but luckily I've acquired a taste for it & I need a regular caffeine delivery system that doesn't involve hot liquids. (It's better than anything else, though. Diet Croke can SUCK IT.)

This taste was like what plastic-eating plastic beings enjoy as a refreshing beverage. This taste was like if you fell asleep in the pool with your mouth against a plastic pool ball & the sun was hot & it slightly melted into your mouth. This taste was like making out with Plastic Man. It was awful.

I tell you all this because I can't seem to get it out of my mouth. I've tried everything, even hot liquids, but no luck. If you'd like to help, one way to start is to visit selfhelpradio.net & listen to last week's show, which was & is about "cut," whatever that means. It may not seem to help, but I promise it will.

& kids, don't leave sodas in the car on hot days. What the fuck were you thinking?