Some fun stuff. My hayseed nieces playing Tractor Driver Girl…

What I failed to capture here is the 400 puppies running around, over and under the tractor. Life on the ranch, kiddos…

Here’s what’s for dinner: pork ribs, two racks worth. My little no-longer-blogging-buddy Ben Wright gave me this idea. Onions and japalenos soaking into the smoky goodness of the Queen. We’ll see.

I can tell you this — three hours into the smoking process, I pulled one of those jalapenos off the ribs and took a bite. CRIKEY! I got really lucky on the japs. They are definitely NOT wussy jalapenos. Man, o, man. Took a quart of milk to get me over the hiccups and the feeling that my head was gonna explode, and the tears. Tears are good…that’s a gorgeously hot jap. God, I love it.

One more hour, and we’re looking at some gorgeous mesquite-smoked pork ribs. I’m kinda mad at myself, because I forgot to strip the membrane off the back of the rack again. Oh, well. Guess I’ll just have to make the sacrifice. Sucks to be me, I tell you.

IllDonk Industries is about to roll over the odometer. That will definitely make it Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

Whoever gets that happy number, make sure you scream “Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!” loud enough for KG* to hear you.

* I know the link doesn’t work, but I miss the Ken Goldstien Project.

So here’s the team I ended up with after the draft and a couple of moves in Herr Doktor Willis‘ Fantasy League of Extraordinary Bloggers:

QB Culpepper, Daunte (QB-Min)
WR Harrison, Marvin (WR-Ind)
WR Driver, Donald (WR-GB)
WR Brown, Troy (WR-NE)
RB Portis, Clinton (RB-Den)
RB Green, William (RB-Cle)
TE Crumpler, Alge (TE-Atl)
—-
Bench McNair, Steve (QB-Ten)
Bench Dunn, Warrick (RB-Atl)
Bench Smith, Onterrio (RB-Min)
Bench Ferguson, Robert (WR-GB)

All this was done via AutoPick by the Master Cylinder at Yahoo World Headquarters. I just ranked the first 20 or 30 at each position, and away he went. I can say that I’m mighty pleased getting my top-ranked RB and my top-ranked WR. Culpepper has always been a fave of mine, too. The rest of them are Eh kind of guys, and maybe a couple of sleepers. One thing’s for sure — with ten teams in a league, it looks like every game’s gonna be a shootout.

I used to rely on my wife to tell me all about the damn stupid MTV crap. But no more! Sorry, baby — you’re superfluous! I’ve got the Ticket to handle that for me now. I simply cannot wait for the next segment where they talk about skanky hos frenching each other. Frenching each other in the name of Art, too.

Jahna D’Lish, she of the only-in-my-dreams name, is worried about a hail of bullets from her Section 8 neighbors. I say she needs to do some bringing of the pain on her own. I just watched some HBO show about a cat who pled out and then spent the next half-year going to Wendy’s and hosting his own memorial services. Yep…sign me up for the Manhattan Exchange Program.

Ken Goldstien is STILL more than ten years younger than me. And he’s never been married. I think at 32 I was on Wife #3.

I had a really good draft in that unrepentent Not-A-Centrist-But-Liberal Democrat Oliver Willis’ Fantasy Football Leauge. Most specifically, I did NOT draft Brad Pennington as my #1 QB. And as far as the league goes, I’ve never seen a more reticent bunch of Gen-Xers. The message board should be singing with entries, but it’s just me and some other cat. I thought they were all wired up endlessly.

I’ve been outed as the hayseed that I am.

So you think running a campground out in the middle of the wilderness might be fun, huh?

I’ve got one reservation for Friday night…stated arrival time 7:00 PM…I have to go to town to restock…so I wait…thru 7:30, when I learn that the damn stRangers are blacked out in Glen Rose…thru 8:00 when I go ahead and run a dishrag over my face and am repulsed by the cruft that adheres…thru 9:00, when I decide that I musnderstood my guest. So I call up my brother, snag him and his W-M discount card, drive off of the jernt at 9:30 pm.

I takes my time — Stevie Ray is on the CD player, it’s Labor Day weekend, meaning 14,000 extra cops out. Go to Wal-Mart, get the marketing done with about 45 extra minutes of chatting with this that and the other cat working the night shift. Waste more minutes looking for an ultralight bait-casting setup. They don’t exist at Wallieworld, if you’re looking. Only spin-casters. Which means a post-offer-letter trip to Bass Pro Shops at some point.

Back to the hacienda by 11 PM. I’ve got a sixer of Shiner, and I’m wanting some nature. Drive down the hill to the campground. Got-damn if my 7:00 arrival didn’t show up between 9:30 and 11. In the pee-emm. Naturally, this young and nubile couple have chosen, quite mistakenly, the humongous family tent that sleeps eight. So I have to be Mean Old Man Chaffin and tell them that they will be moving in the morning…down to the riverside tent that SusieQ specifically asked for.

What have we learned? Nothing, I can tell you. For absolute sure. If you wait three hours for someone to show, they will arrive 90 seconds after you write them off. If I’d called it quits with only an hour on the clock, they still would have arrived 90 seconds after I depart the premises. And they would have chosen the tent that is furthest from the specific request.

So I quit worrying about it. I plugged in some Stevie, drove down to the river, and drank 3 lukewarm Shiner Bocks. Watched the ol’ stars wheel about, with an occasional internationally-bound jetliner mixed in. I guess I saw Mars, since it’s supposed to be so bright, but I honestly don’t know. Best part, though, was that one gorgeous shooting star that cleared 1/4 of the night sky.

Beautiful. Just beautiful.

Well, here I sit at 6:30 pm on a frikkin’ three-day weekend, and there’s not a single camper here. All of my high-dollar Lux campers are coming in tomorrow, both for two nights. Me, I’d rather leave Monday for lazing about in the lizard den.* But, I guess I should take some credit for creating a nice, relaxing atmosphere.

The No-Worries camping bit is quite the hit — I’ve got three of them this weekend. That’s straining my supplies, so I’ll be off to Wal-Mart later to stock up. Regardless, I’m pretty pleased, considering I baked it up on the spur of the moment, and threw it out there a week ago. It sure is wearing, though. I forgot how hard it is to set up those big family-type dome tents. I must have circled that stupid thing 60 times making sure all the pegs were in and the clips were clipped and the guys were wired and the zippers were zipped. My stupid left knee is killing me. I think I’ve got what the guys in the Big Show call “instabilities” in there. I guess I’ll never play center field at the BiA.

I just heard the “Where are They Now?” Moment of the Month: Hootie and Blowfish are playing at Six Flags this weekend. I always think of the pipe-smoking bassist from Spinal Tap and his solo-project jazz-fusion band when I think of Six Flags concerts. Weren’t those Blowfish boys selling out Reunion a few years ago?

Well, the old sad-sack stRangers are on in a few minutes. I’ll drink me a few beers, maybe season some new cast iron skillets in my newly-gassed propane stove. I meant to smoke up some ribs, but I forgot in all the hustle and bustle of getting crap rounded up. That means a double smoke tomorrow — YES!

* That’s what my pal Otis used to call my house, back in the bachelor days — I kept it real dark, and real cold this time of year…the better to survive hangovers. I always felt like more of a bear than a lizard, but his pantomimes were so hilarious, I acquiesced.

Al Franken: Throwing Punches and Punch Lines (washingtonpost.com)

Not surprisingly, Franken has some fierce critics, among them the host of “The O’Reilly Factor,” whose face adorns the book’s cover.

I didn’t know this. What a sack of crap. I mean, ethically, what a load. Put your own mug on there, Stuart.

How very effin’ funny. Crikey, anyone could write a book that sells. Just stick some celebrity guy or girl on the cover, and there you go. Here’s mine: “Boobs - How I Learned to Live Amongst Them”© and I’ll have a picture of Pam Anderson on the cover.

PS That’s really a hilarious article. Heartily recommended to all Tighty Righties and Loony Lefties. If you’re not sure where I stand, well, I have to laugh out loud, long and hard, at this bit of self-aggrandizement:

Ooooooo! Tough guy! Baiting Babs, the granny! What a stare-down that must have been! Where does the line form to kiss Stuart’s ass?

This Ken Layne dealio is the wierdest thing that’s been in my CD player in years. Definitely since I got the current Big Red. In fact, I don’t think I’ve got a CD this wacko in my entire collection, and I’ve got some severely wacky shit — like a Thurston Moore solo project.

I don’t know how to approach this thing. The first audible words (to these old, tired ears, anyway) are “warm vomit on the street”. I’m sure I don’t quite know how to take that. Then there’s things about ministers and their daughters, backed with angsty, echo-y Replacements-ish stuff. And a whole heapin’ helpin’ of Mick Jagger. Or it sounds like Mick. And songs about Budapest. It’s practically Captain Beefheart. More likely, what I like to remember the Captain was like. I guess this means I need to, erm, change up the ol’ CD lineup a tee-tiny bit.

So go get it already…Monkey Cup is probably the oddest bit of song-y thing-y I’ve heard all damn year. Same for you, too, I bet.

It’s amazing what you can get done when you get up off your ass, and get out. I knocked out a wierdly complicated banking transaction that took three dang hours, the purchase of a used range that is propane-capable, found a tail-light lens and a radio for my current Truck Project*, bought two 9 lb. briskets for 49¢ a pound (”Limit Two Per Customer”, dammitt), bought four racks of sweet-looking pork spareribs for 99¢ a pound — and found the HEB White Chocolate with Raspberry ice cream I’ve been looking for for a month. That last item only came in the gallon format: it’ll either last a year, or be gone by daylight.

What else? Spent an hour on the phone trying to talk my way into a new job with a tiny company run by a bunch of reprobates I worked with a million years ago. Is there anything more embarassing than being reminded of all the horiffically stupid things you did 10 years ago? Criminey — I need one of those MIB memory-wand buddies, except more selective. I want them to remember the hard work and successful quota stuff, and forget the lampshade-on-the-head parts.

Now, if I only had some propane in the tank, I could cook some…eggs. Really, the only reason I put the silly thing in is that I constantly get asked about having breakfast delivered. Breakfast, I can do. I’m usually sober at 6am and I don’t drop many ashes off my cigarette into the scrambled eggs, so that makes for some delicioso breakfast tacos. I reckon if I can sell them at $2 a pop, I can pay off this loverly used stove in about 50 breakfast tacos.

* I guess I ought to post a picture of Projecto Troca. It’s really hayseed…

blogoSFERICS: So right, it’s embarrassing!

Somebody DO Something!

Oh sure, stuff is happening and there is news being made, but I want somebody to do something I want to blog about!

Get with it, people!

OK, that’s in the running for the Funniest Post Of The Year.

Mr. Kramer Wetzel, of Xenon fame, down there in that Austin town, has just gone and published a dang book:

Fishing Guide to the Stars: Fishing for love thru the zodiac…

The fastest way to get the book is order direct from publisher. Yeah, it’s self-published, but after being shot down by a couple of publishers, I decided to go ahead and launch it. Besides, the website’s stats showed, as late as last June, that the romance text was one of the highest traffic areas, behind, of course, the scopes themselves. And this web journal.

Neato. Another step in the self-publishing game. Guy’s got a built-in & primed audience, why not?

Of course, you know what this means, don’t you? Keep your eye’s peeled for “Eatin’ with The Fat Guy: Tips on Drinkin’ and Grillin’ and Smokin’”

The Snooze Ed-Board Blog* has an odd-sounding note in the midst of all the pickin’ over the bones of Bolton and Benavides:

I agree with Bill that it is a wonderful gesture for Bill Cosby to offer a concert at Baylor to help raise spirits. My only concern is that Dr. Cosby has been in the habit of lecturing rather than entertaining lately. At a fundraising concert in Dallas, the recipients had to offer to reimburse some unhappy attendees because one of the two performances was turned into a serious evening discussion. Granted Bill Cosby is very qualified to lecture on numerous topics. But if Baylor anticipates a fun filled evening and gets something else, that may not boost morale as hoped.

A) That’s Dallas for you — charity-function-goers demanding refunds because they weren’t sufficiently entertained.**

B) A lecture from Bill Cosby would be better, and likely funnier, than just about anyone else on the face of the earth.

Too bad Hank Tatum doesn’t hip us to the content of Bill’s lecture series.

* There sure is a lot of damn reader mail clogging up that blog. Comments, kids? Please? Maybe permalinks, too?

** GET ME THE EFF OUT OF THIS CITY!

Here’s another nice little Dallas-liberal, J-Schooler-type blog, The ScrollDown, with a couple of St. Mark’s boys on the masthead. More inside-the-Big-D stuff than you can shake a stick at…but at least they’re funny.

Today’s the anniversary of the death of Stevie Ray Vaughn 13 years ago in a helicopter crash in Wisconsin. Stevie is, in this man’s opinion, the greatest blues guitarists ever.* Mike Rhyner, today on the Ticket, made a good point about Stevie, something to the effect that he was probably the last to genuinely channel Jimi Hendrix, and damn if I don’t agree with that. I still get goosebumps when I catch one of his songs on the radio. I hardly ever play any of his CDs, just because it seems like I’ve always got something newer or more pressing to listen to. But they are in the truck for those times I need me some SRV. I’ve never heard anyone like him, not before and not since.

Picture from Celebrity 8×10s

Here’s an excellent fan site, with a page on Stevie’s guitars that I’m eating up right now.

Dean Esmay was good enough to point me to this release, which I’d never heard of: In Session, with Stevie and Albert King jamming live in the studio. So, someday soon, I’ll have me some new Stevie to listen to. YEEHAW!

* That’s an argument that could go on forever. Feel free to start one.