Who 'da Man? You 'da Man!

Dear Professional Athletes,

Please stop doing that annoying thing you do every time you get a score , or a touchdown or something. You know, the thing you do where you point up to the sky, presumably to ME, and are all like, "yeah, you my home-boy God, You 'da Man"! I really HATE that! I mean, I did Invent sport and all, professional and amateur, and I do enjoy a good game of ball now and then. But, I mean, I DO have other things going on. There's this war going on, and a really big Hurricane season, if you haven't heard. There's this Bird Flu thing I'm trying to avert, and that Osama Bin Ladin, Jeepers Creepers, what a handful! I don't have the time to be pointing and high-fiving every time you do what you are payed millions of dollars to do. I am NOT your Dog, Dog!

So just relax. "Gooood Joooob"! There, are you happy? Now I've got a Democracy to help establish in the Middle East. Enjoy your game.

Sincerely,

God Almighty

Take a Ride on the Reading

The Big Head Family just returned from our summer trip to Pennsilvania. Among other activities, we visited family, toured Philadelphia, went to Hershey Park/Chocolate World, toured a Limestone Cave, and toured a guitar factory. We also spent two days in Boston, doing the local museums. A great time was had by all.

By the way, at the Liberty Bell Monument, where I had to empty my pockets, take off my belt, and walk through an X-Ray machine ( for Homeland Security reasons), I found out the Bell actually got its famous crack when it was initially tested in the 1700's. Turns out Ben Franklin lost the receipt, and the founding fathers were stuck with it. God Bless America.

Cranius Giganticus, celebrating diverse cultures at the Philadelphia Zoo.

Taking a ride on the Reading Railroad. Pass go, and collect $200.

Extreme Vertigo at Hershey Park in Hershey Pa. In case you're wondering, I'm not on this Roller-Coaster.

They DO call it the city of brotherly love.

Junior and former mayor of Philly, Frank Rizzo, also of Jerky Boys fame (FRANK Riiiiizzooooo!!!!)

BFC at the Martin guitar factory tour in Nazareth Pa. ,Jesus' home-town, by the way!

Pitch Forked

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/36588/Staff_List_100_Awesome_Music_Videos

Yeh......right! Sure, there are actually some decent ones in here. And they did include my fave of all time "Sugarcube" and my second "Bastards Of Young" BUT......."Hungry Like The Wolf" over "Rio"?, "Wild Boys"?? "GIRLS ON FILM"???? what with the nudity and the GLAVIN!!"Once In A Lifetime" is a great video . . . but no other Talking Heads???Also missing in action . . . ."Buddy Holly" Weezer"Weapons Of Choice" Fatboy Slim"Velouria" or "Here Comes Your Man" Pixies"Big Me" Foo Fighters"Nothing Like The Real Thing" U2I could go on . . . but I shant.

All Things Prophetic, Tis Whiskey Me Boys

Let your quacks and newspapers be cuttin' their capers
And curing the vapors the scratch and the gout
With their medical potions, their pills and their lotions
Upholding their notions, they're mighty put out.

Who can tell the true physic of all things prophetic
And pitch to the divil, your cramps and your pee
You'll know it I think if you take a big drink
With your mouth to the brink of a jug of whiskey

So stick to the cratur' the best thing in nature
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys
Oh what moderation gives hope to a nation
Or brings consolation like whiskey me boys.

No liquid cosmetic to lovers athletic
Or bodies pathetic can give such a bloom
As the sweet by the powers in the garden of flowers
E'er gave their own bowers such a darling perfume

And this liquid so rare if you willingly share
To be taking your hair when it's frizzled and dead
Oh the sod has the merit to yield the true spirit
So strong it will shake all the hairs from your head

Then stick to the cratur' the best thing in nature
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys
Oh since its perfection, no doctor's direction
Can cleanse the complexion like whiskey me boys

As a child in me cradle, me nurse with her ladle
Was filling my mouth with a notion of pap
When a drop from her bottle fell into my throttle
I stumbled and capered clean out of her lap

On the floor I lay crawlin' and screaming and bawling
'Til me mother and father were called to the fore
All sobbing and sighing they feared I was dying
But soon found I only was crying for more.

So stick to the cratur' the best thing in nature
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys
Oh lord how they'd chuckle if babes in their truckle
They only could suckle on whiskey me boys

Through my youthful aggression, through times of depression
My childhood's impression still clung to my mind
And at school or at college the basis of knowledge
I never could gulp 'til with whiskey combined

And as older I'm growing times ever bestowin'
On Erin's potation, a flavor so fine
And how ere they may lecture on jove and his nectar
Itself is the only true liquid divine

So stick to the cratur' the best thing in nature
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys
Oh lord, 'tis the right thing for courting and fighting
There's nowt so exciting as whiskey me boys.

Come guess me this riddle, what beats pipes and fiddle
What's hotter than mustard and milder than cream
What best wets your whistle, what's clearer than crystal
What's sweeter than honey and stronger than steam

What'll make the lame walk, what will make the dumb talk,
The elixir of life and philospher's stone
And what helped Mr. Brunel to build the Thames Tunnel
Wasn't it whiskey from ould Inishowen

So stick to the cratur' the best thing in nature
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys
Oh lord, it's no wonder, if lightning and thunder
Weren't made from the plunder of whiskey me boys.

Little Wooden Head

The trouble began when my friend Marybeth said she had a present for me. What kind of present? “Oh,” she said. “That’ll be the surprise.”

The surprise, I am sorry to say, was a ventriloquist’s dummy. Formerly, it had belonged to one of Marybeths’ children, and now, instead of giving it to Good Will, she’d got the clever idea of handing it over to me, while I was staying at her house in Washington D.C.

The dummy was half of the classic comedy duo of Laurel and Hardy. Unfortunately, it was Hardy, not Laurel: the fat one with the mustache whose catchphrase was, “Well, Stanley. It’s another fine mess you’ve got us in.”

My critical error that night—it seemed harmless enough at the time—was bringing the puppet to dinner at the Old Ebbitt Grill, a classic DC watering hole down by the mall. I thought my friends would think he was funny.

They didn’t. More than anything else they seemed deeply disturbed.

So after a few awkward moments, I propped my little friend on a chair, where for the most part he sat unremarked upon, except for one moment when a waiter came over, and unexpectedly said what for the life of me sounded like Heil Hitler!
But no, I thought. That would be impossible.

After dinner, we walked over to the Lincoln Memorial. I was truly wishing I didn’t have the dummy with me as we walked up the marble steps. People were giving me looks, as if I were trying to make some point.

Lincoln, as always, sat exhausted in his big throne, giving me that look. “I’m not angry,” he always seems to be thinking, as he considers the state of the Union. “I’m just terribly, terribly, disappointed.”

“Excuse me ma’am,” said the park ranger. “You’ll have to take that out of here.”

I didn’t think she was talking to me. “Ma’am?” she said again.

“What?” I said. “Why?” I was pretty sure my First Ammendment rights covered the right to stand in the Lincoln Memorial with a ventriloquist’s dummy.

“Please,” said the ranger. “This is no place for Nazi propaganda.”

I felt as if I’d been struck by lightening. “For—what?”

“Ma’am,” she said. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

Suddenly, it occurred to me. The park ranger. They waiter at dinner. They thought Hardy was Hitler.

You could see people might get it confused. The little schnurrbart mustache. The mop of black hair.

“But it’s Oliver Hardy,” I said. “You know, from Laurel and Hardy? It’s not Hitler! Seriously! Look how fat he is!”

She picked up her walkie-talkie. “I need backup,” she said.

“Oh for god’s sakes,” I said, and walked out. There, sitting on the steps, were my friends.

“Hitler,” I said to my friends. “She thinks he’s Hitler!”

My friend Chris, a NASA physicist, looked concerned. He was one of a group of former Marines who’d spent part of the day protesting the war. We’d had a big discussion about this over dinner, whether it was the right thing for a Marine to do.

“It’s not Hilter?” he said.

“It’s Oliver Hardy!” I said, wondering how many more times in my life I was going to have to explain this. “From Laurel and Hardy! Look at him! Look how much fatter he is than Hitler!”

Chris’ girlfriend, Amy, looked at me in confusion. “Who was Oliver Hardy?” she asked.

On the wall behind us, were the words from the second inaugural:

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

I looked out at the capital, all the marble, at all the bright lights of the country.

“Well,” I said to no one in particular. “It’s another fine mess you’ve got us in.”

Blog on Vacation

The Sufferin' Bastards are taking it on the road to

Pennsilvania for a vacation. So subsequently, the Blog

will be taking a rest until about a week or two.

Don't worry though.

Soon, we'll be back and just as pointless as ever!

Remember, as a famous dude once said, " don't let the

bastards grind you down".

If ya don't know, now ya know.

BFC


(does this picture make anyone else a little uneasy?)

Here is another one to add to your list

I think this one applies to everyone I know....intermittent explosive disorder, or IED

Joke of the Week 6/6/6

Q. Why did Snoop Dogg take his Umbrella outside?

(Waiiiit fooooor it!)

A. Fo' Drizzle!

ain't no shizzle dizzle

Salad Days Vol. #413: Me and Barely Spraggins and James Taylor and Meryl Streep

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I was riding home from a very nice little get-together with friends and family tonight, getting the 'designated drive' from my lovely spouse. She, as per usual, had the old James Taylor on the car stereo, sweetly singing out his good ol' white guy blues. It got me to thinking about the ol' Salad Days again:

It was the best of times, it was the best of times. It was, for the sake of the story, sometime in the mid-80's. I was currently, probably, between engagements, and my old friend, Barely Spraggins, knew this. He also knew that I would be very vulnerable to a little road trip. On this particular day, he called me up from Portland and asked me if I wanted to go see James Taylor down in Tanglewood Music Center, somewhere out in the scenic and trendy Berkshires of Western Mass. It was an outdoor concert, the middle of summer, sounded like a 'not to miss'. Now I'll say right off that I wasn't at the time the biggest James fan. Oh, I had no malice toward Sweet Baby James, but the kind of music I leaned toward at the time usually involved fellows with mohawks or the words 'flaming' or 'dead' or 'fuck' in the name of their band. That realised, I still signed on and away we went. Mid afternoon brought us first through Boston, then Sprinfield, then Stockbridge, then Great Barrington, Barely sSpraggins singing along crudely, but very entusiastically with the James Mix-tape he so thoughtfully had prepared: ' oh the fisrt of December was covered with snow, and so was the Turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston, and the Berkshires seemed dreamlike on account of that frostin' '. Barely was a great guy, but he couldn't hold a tune in a bucket.

Anyhow, we got to the Tanglewood music center, which was a great big open air ampitheater, like the Esplenade in Boston , where Arthur Fiedler and the Pops used to play. Everyone was picnic-ing on the grass and drinking wine and smiling and what-not; it was a very nice scene. But get this: the best part was there was this big line to a beer tent, where of course I found myself ligering, and whom do you suppose I found myself next to--that's right, you guessed it, Academy Award winning actress Meryl Streep. Oh, we had a long conversation about our favorite Directors and movies and what-not, but before long we reached the end of the line and it was time to bid our farewells. We both got a nice big cardboard cup of Tuborg Gold and we were on our way, flushed from our mutual brush with stardom. Now, as with James, I was not the biggest Meryl Streep fan at the time. I mean, what young dude didn't love Sophie's Choice, but otherwise I wasn't that familiar with her work. But still, it was pretty cool waitin' in the beer line with an academy award winner.

As far as the concert went, it was much better than I expected. James' band was top notch, his back-up singers were so sweet, and he played all the crowd's favs. And during the song Fire and Rain, there was actually a brief but tumultuous thunderstorm that was so cool it sounded scripted. I have since that time, become a very big James Taylor fan, even though I wouldn't until recently admit that in print. Ah, to be so painfully eclectic as to have James Taylor and the Dead Kennedy's rubbing elbows in your record collection (yes, Records). As a matter of fact, my lovely wife and I danced together at our wedding to 'You've Got a Friend'. As far as Tuborg Gold goes, I enjoy it on the odd occasion, where I am in a situation where there is beer (what are the odds). As far as Barely Spraggins, we don't see too much of each other these days, what with that incident over his sister. And Meryl Streep: well I'm still not a big fan. As a matter of fact, I think she is to loath. But what the hell; we'll always have Stockbridge.