Little Nuggets Of Lyrics Of varying degrees of quality. These have always stuck with me, for whatever reason.

Screen Kiss, Thomas Dolby:

Suicide in the hills above old Hollywood
is never going to change the world, change the world overnight
any more than the invention of the six-gun, child
any more than the discovery of radium
or California tipping in the ocean

And, of course, Rachel's Song by James McMurtry:

I wrecked the El Camino
woulda been DWI
so I just walked off and left it
laying on its side

Troopers found it in the morning
and they said it's purely luck I wasn't killed
I prob'ly ought to quit my drinkin'
but I don't believe I will

I'm all alone, it's alright
it isn't gonna wound my pride
if anyone can say they're all right
so can I

Insane In the Membrane, Cypress Hill

Fat boy on a diet
don't try it
I'll check your ass
like a looter in a riot

Angel From Montgomery, John Prine

When I was a young girl
I had me a cowboy
wadn't much to look at
just a free ramblin' man
but that was a long time
and no matter how I try
the years just flow by
like a broken-down dam

Feel So Good, Richard Thompson:

Old enough to sin but I'm too young to vote
society draggin' on the tail of my coat
but now I've got a suitcase full of fifty pound notes
and half-naked woman with her tongue down my throat
and I feel so good I'm gonna break somebody's heart tonight

Levelland, James McMurtry:

Granddad grew dry-land wheat
stood on his own two feet
his mind got incomplete
and they put him in the home
daddy's cotton grows so high
sucks the water table dry
his rolling sprinklers circle by
bleedin' it to the bone
and I won't be here when there comes a day
it all dries up and blows away
I'd hang around just to see
but they've never had much use for me
in Levelland

Down Across the Delaware, James McMurtry

We get along in a manner of speaking
we hardly have to speak at all
small talk over take-out pizza
silently passing in the hall
post-it notes
opposite shifts
once in a blue moon we'll wake up in the same room
thankful for these thy many gifts



Now let's hear your favorites.  ¶ 23:53 0 comments

  Great Opening Lines To Songs The two I remember off the top of my head:

"I've got a page one story buried in my yard"-Medicine Show, Dream Syndicate
"No more credit from the liquor store"-Advance Romance, Frank Zappa


Let's hear your favorites while I think of others.  ¶ 23:36 0 comments

  King Of the Hill I think this show is the most underrated comedy on T.V. Here are some examples of its greatness from the episode where buddhist monks come to Arlen and think Bobby might be a Lama:


Hank (to aphorism-spouting buddhist acolyte): That makes no sense. You're talking like a song from The Lion King.

--

Hank: The buddhists think Bobby is a holy man. Now, that's just sad.

Peggy (reading magazine): Look at this Hank! Richard Gere is a buddhist.

Hank: It just keeps getting sadder.

--

Shane: You don't choose to be a Lama, you either are or you're not. And I am.

Connie: Why would a Lama choose to be reincarnated as a third chair oboe player?

Shane: Second chair, Connie.

Connie: Any woodwind.  ¶ 22:51 0 comments

  Meryl Streep & Selective Hearing Last night when Meryl Streep won a Golden Globe, she said something odd. At the end of her acceptance speech, she added, in a somewhat rapid and breathless manner, "I just want to say that I don’t think that our two biggest problems in America are that two people want to commit their lives to one another and steroids in sports.”

What struck me about her comment wasn't its content. I thought the business about steroid use in the State Of the Union speech was odd, as she did, and I would certainly expect her to be very pro-gay marriage, since she is both a Hollywood actress, and an actress who just finished accepting a couple of awards for Angels In America. What struck me was that she seemed to be saying that she thought the President said those were the two most important issues facing the citizenry. I'm no expert on the President, but I'm pretty sure that he said in the SOTU that the biggest problem facing America are those humorless fellows who want to kill us all and such, and are so insistent about it. I think a few other issues rank higher than gay marriage and steroid use. She also seems to have forgotten the Clinton SOTU's, when every little thing was mentioned. One time, I think in 1997, he even singled me out by name in his proposed "Program To Get Gately Off Of the Couch, Dammit" program.

So, does Meryl really think that the President was asserting what she said were his top two priorities, or is she selectively re-ranking issues from the SOTU in order to reinforce her dislike of/disagreement with/hatred of the President? And she probably thinks W. is petty. Maybe she's not as smart as I thought she was.  ¶ 17:49 0 comments

  Antonin Scalia Defends Shemp Johnny F. gives my history teacher too much credit in his latest post. Said teacher does not deserve his thoughtful defense, as he actually claimed to have had and spent said coins, and was not talking about bookkeeping.  ¶ 20:48 0 comments

  The Smoke Of Nostalgia While going with a co-worker to pick up an awesome New York-style pizza (I am squarely in the thin-crust camp), I noticed that there was a cigar shop nearby. It was a nice shop, pretty generic as upscale cigar shops go. The smokes weren't nearly as pricey as another place where I occasionally shop (I originally wrote "occasionally frequent"), and this place is nearer to where I work, so I will be going to this new place almost exclusively in the future. I try to be cheap when buying cigars, so I only go to these stores to buy samples of "premium" cigars for evaluation. If I like any of them, I buy them online at Thompson Cigars, or some other online vendor, at a fraction of the price.

Anyway, I guess I should get to the part about nostalgia. When the shopkeeper responded to my rote question about Royal Jamaica cigars with "I have some Robustos that I'll sell you for 40% off", I was shocked to my senses and very pleased. Royal Jamaica was the brand that introduced me to the Magical Sublime Pleasure Of Smoking Cigars, but they went out of business four or five years ago. I always ask about them whenever I'm in a cigar shop on the off-chance that there will be a box or two that some guy can't unload. This was only nine cigars, but they were nine more than I've had in a long time, so I bought 'em. Even at 40% off, I think they were still too expensive, but I smoked one tonight, and it was as good as I remembered. And even better, it was good, but not so much better and different from other brands that it makes me unhappy that I can't get them anymore. I'll smoke what I have, when they're gone, that's OK. So I guess nostalgia can have a good outcome.  ¶ 21:44 0 comments

  The Penny Still Pulls Its Weight Maybe the penny is not endangered after all:

From http://www.usmint.gov/faqs/index.cfm?action=FAQSearchResult:

"17. Are there any plans to remove the one-cent coin (more popularly known as the "penny”) from circulation?
You may be interested to know that the penny is the most widely used denomination currently in circulation and it remains profitable to make. Significantly, it is Congress that determines the denominations of coins that the Mint must produce and put into circulation. Each penny costs .81 of a cent to make, but the U.S. Mint collects one cent for it. The profit goes to help fund the operation of the Mint and to help pay the public debt. In 2000, this profit added up to about $24 million.

"As the Mint produces the coins that Congress mandates, the U.S. Mint does not have the authority to abolish a unit of currency. If directed to do so by legislation enacted by the Congress and signed by the President, the Treasury Department would again study phasing out the penny. Since the demand exists and the Federal Reserve Banks require inventories to meet the demand, the United States Mint is committed to producing the penny."

[Author's note: this post is here in response to a comment about coinage in my post below. The problem for this little hard-working post, however, is that the sentence it responds to was removed by me from the post below ("Coins & Family Fun"), so it must now seem to the reader not actually using my brain, to be some semi-sequitur about pennies, as opposed to a correction of my contention (since withdrawn and expunged from "Coins & Family Fun") that another reason not to keep excess coinage around is that most of the coins will be pennies, and that the Fed might get rid of the penny. I also made the erroneous claim (also withdrawn and expunged, but also 'repunged' here) that there was such a U.S. coin as the "mill", but apparently that never got beyond the planning stage in the late 18th century, proving that one of my high school history teachers was a dork. Why do I tell you this, o longsuffering reader? Well, because this post is semi-interesting (not this part), and also because perhaps you'll think my extraneous and needless admission of stupidity unbearably charming.]  ¶ 20:44 0 comments

  Coins & Family Fun I took the coinage I'd saved over the last 17 years or so down to the
Coinstar machine at the local grocery store. While I'm not wild about
paying just under 9% in order to convert the coins to cash, I was even
less wild about the prospect of hand-rolling all of that change. It's
too bad that the banks and credit unions around here don't have those
big change sorters like they used to, as then I could've paid a 0% fee,
which would've been sweet. I netted a little over $333.00, only a small
percentage of which was in the quarter denomination, and no higher
denominations, so you can picture how much coinage that was. I'd
estimate that my coin jar (an old glass 5 gallon water bottle) weighed
between 50-75 pounds. It was fun to lug around. It took about 25 minutes
for the Coinstar machine to process all of the coins.

While it's nice to have the cash, the lesson I learned from this is to
try and accrue as few coins as possible. It was good to have over $300
in coins which could be converted to paper money fairly quickly, but I
took a bath on it all the same. There was the 9% fee, and the lack of
interest I made on the money, which would probably have been less than
inflation if the money had been added to a regular savings account over
the last 17 years, but it would have at least lessened the effect.

For dinner we took the girls to McDonald's, because they have one of
those giant Habitrail things, which the girls love. Even our
not-quite-two-year-old climbs around in it. Which brings me to the
Moment Of Cuteness. She came out the entrance of the Habitrail, and ran
over to us with her arms above her head, yelling, "I'm happy, I'm
happy". Unfortunately, the E.P.A., who happened also to be in the
restaurant doing an environmental study, kicked us out because we had
saturated their sensitive equipment with 5000 /times/ the permitted
level of Free Cuteness and Parental Goop molecules. Gummint bastards.  ¶ 18:23 0 comments

  My Commuting Adventure The other night I realized that once again I would be late for the last train which runs near my home. However, the same folks who run the train also run a bus service an hour after their last train, for those who miss it. I decided to gamble and take the bus. Though the bus was available, it did not go to the station near my house, but rather to a Park and Ride lot in a part of my town I'd never been to.

Here, of course, is where the trouble started.

I arrived at the station by light rail, and waited for the bus. It was 20 minutes late. As I got on the bus, I asked the driver, "does this bus stop at the Park and Ride lot in __?" Note the word "stop", as it will become of some importance later. The driver replied, "sure, yeah". I said great, and onto the bus I climbed.

I) Implication Is Not the Same As Statement.

I put my headphones on and listened to Hugh Hewitt do battle with Joshua Micah Marshall on "The Hugh Hewitt Show", which I had recorded the day before and transferred to my iPod. After about 30 minutes, I noticed that the bus was pulling onto a highway, and heading out of town. I asked the driver, "when do we stop in __?", to which he replied, "oh, we passed it ten minutes ago.". To my incredulous, "what?!", he replied, "I said 'anyone need to get off at __?' when we got near it.". Now, admittedly I had headphones on. However, I was not listening to Hewitt at top volume. Also, it was hard enough to hear the driver, even when he raised his voice. And this is all beside the point. I said to him, "I asked you if you STOPPED at __, and you said 'yes'. I've never been there before; I don't even know what it looks like.". He issued something between justification and apology, which was annoying, but the important thing to me was how to adjust the situation to get home at something like a reasonable hour. The next stop was a town 20 minutes away from mine. I exasperatedly asked (told) the driver to drop me off there.

II) Pennywise & Dollar Deluded.

At this point I should state that another part of the reason I took this bus was that I was trying to save a few bucks. Taking the bus was free, as it constituted the home leg of the round-trip ticket I'd bought that morning. I skipped an Amtrak train which arrived an hour before the bus, but which I still could've caught, to save five bucks. Keep that in mind as you read.

As we pulled up to the Park & Ride lot at the next town, I prepared to get off, and spend a fortune on a cab home. Fortunately, I had a couple hundred bucks in my pocket (from cashing in those coins). As we came to the stop, an elderly man sitting across from me said, "why don't you go to the next stop (in the next town, another 20 minutes away), as they have a rail station, and you can catch that back to __.". I thanked him for pointing that out to me, and rode on to the next town. Taking the train wouldn't get me all the way home, but it would be in the same city, and it would be much cheaper to take a cab from there. Great. I'm making progress.

We got to the rail station in the next city. I got off, and though I couldn't look at the driver, I accepted his apology, but made clear to him that next time I would be VERY clear about where I wanted to go. I would've been less irritated with him if he hadn't spent the time since causing the problem justifying his actions to exactly no one in particular. If he had just shut up, I would've gone back to a low-boil, but he just kept prating on to no one about why he had done what he had done.

III) Train In Vain.

I bought my ticket at the bizarre ticket vending machine at the train station, worked out what to do, and headed for the platform. Cool, I'm going to start going back in the right direction, I thought. As I got on the train I discovered that that wasn't the case. You see, where I was was the final stop on a spur off of the main train route. To get where I wanted to go, I had to go back west, and then actually away from my destination so that I could get to a station and catch a train which will then head south, where I wanted to go. OK, I knew I was off of the main route, so that wasn't so bad. it wouldn't cost me too much time.

Off of the train at the correct station, I crossed the platform, and read the sign. Indeed, it listed the city where I live, and no more than 30 seconds after I got off of the train I was just on, a train going to my city came along. Fantastic. I didn't even have to wait. I may get home sooner than expected!

Not exactly.

IV) Dropping A Spur.

As I relaxed on the dirty train, too bored and annoyed even to listen to music (except for a little Garbage), I was at least satisfied that home was only a short cab ride from the next two stops. Sure enough, the train stopped once, and then started again. I was too distracted by nothing at all to pay any attention. Ten minutes passed, and then it stopped again. I hopped up, bolted off of the train, and discovered that I was right back where I started.

In my suburban enclave, the trains are very simple. They travel in two directions, and all stop at more-or-less the same places. However, on this Big City Adjunct Satanic Rail system, there are all kinds of trains going everywhere, all the time, in any direction. I'm sure some of them don't even bother with the tracks, just off-roading it to some random burg no one's ever heard of, just to confuse hicks like me. Goddam it.

V) The Plain Girl Tells You Where You Want To Be, But the Red Whore Tells You Where To Go.

So, I crossed the platform once again, looked up at the sign, which still listed the name of my city as one of the destinations, but this time, I also glared intently at the LED sign near it. Sure enough, when the next train rolled up, it did not list my city as a destination. "You've done messed up now, you Gately-confusing bastards", I mumbled, "for now I know to actually read your giant Red Eye Of Relevant Information, and you'll not fool me again.". I stared at it until it revealed unto me that which I demanded to see: 2 minutes out, six cars, destination __. I was so close.

VI) Escape Will Cost You.

The train arrived, and I got on, feeling tired but relieved that I would now actually make it back to my town, away from all of these foreign people, some of whom lived in different counties. Infidel foreign dogs, I thought, I spit on your exotic ways, your newspapers reporting weather slightly different than that in my city. Curses be upon you. After what seemed an eternity we arrived at my golden city. Though I was forced to abandon the construction of a martyrdom belt I'd begun making from my backpack and the few pounds of C4 I carry around just in case, I was happy, and got off of the train. I would send the foreign devils to Hell another day. I was off to the land of what I was sure was 72 somethings, even they were 31 Flavors twice and 10 Virginia Slims. I'd figure it out.

After standing on the platform and ululating for a few minutes, as a both a warning to the foreign devils to leave my place, and a show of solidarity with my city brethren, I walked down the stairs to leave. As I was gliding down the stairs, I noticed that this station had turnstiles at the exits, so I would need my ticket. And guess what. I didn't have it. That mistake cost me $4.40, but then I was free! Grabbed a cab, and had an interesting conversation with the cabbie, once he ended his conversation in Farsi with someone (who I hoped also spoke Farsi) on his cell phone.

Me: "Was that Farsi you were speaking?"

Cabbie: "Yes."

Me: "Cool. I don't get to hear people speak that up-close much. [which is weird, because I live near a pretty large enclave of middle easterners] Was learning English hard for you?"

Cabbie: "No. English was pretty easy, but I speak six languages."

Me: "Really. That's great."

Cabbie: "Yes. German, Farsi, French, Hindi, English, and Spanish. 20% Spanish."

20% Spanish. Awesome. I guess it would've been rude to point out that he actually spoke 5.2 languages. I would love to speak 5.2 languages. I currently speak .6 of English.

And then I was home. Home is where heart, the Missus, the Kidlets, and, important on this night, where the bourbon is.

So, in trying to save five bucks, I ended up paying:

$3.40 for the train fare to my town.
$4.40 for another ticket after I lost mine.
$15.00 for the cab.
------
$22.80

And timewise:

~ 1 hour for the bus, since it was an hour later than the latest train I could've caught.
~ 1+ hour for my extra-scenic bus trip (in the dark).
~ 1-1/2 hours for the Train Extravaganza.
-----
~ 3-1/2 hours

I am the king of thrifty time-saving. Fear me.  ¶ 21:54 0 comments

  Sex & the City and A Good Hearted Robot WARNING: strong language and sexual content below.


I hate "Sex & the City". However, the Missus likes it, so I sometimes watch an episode with her. The other night, we were simpatico in our annoyance with the writer(s) of the show. Gay man #1, Carrie Bradshaw, is, in voice-over, telling us how weird it is that her Russian-born older sculptor boyfriend likes to read poetry to her. She goes through a litany of stupid possible reasons for this, never once veering into the vicinity of the reason I screamed at the T.V. (with the full support of the Missus) "How about this, Carrie: maybe he's literate and actually likes READING POETRY!". Of course, even in such a delicious moment of smug condescension toward the show, I still know that the reason I dislike it so much is that I've watched enough of it to form an opinion. I hope that someday I can be far enough removed from shows like "Sex & the City" to not know anything about them. To actually be able to give a reply when asked about a show like this, "what city, Cleveland?".

And Samantha thought she needed to have breast implants? For such a vain woman, it didn't seem that she'd ever looked at her own body. I like Kim Catrall, but every time I see a lunch scene where her character peppers the conversation with comments like, "if I'm not gagging on a Haitian longshoreman's cock by the end of this sentence, I'm going to bomb a children's hospital", or, "selecting a competitive college is a lot like fucking" or "I demand to be fucked in all of my orifices at once (including ears) just as if I were the self-hating gay man that the writers have made me, and in so doing, maybe blind myself for a few seconds more to the abyss opening under my feet and widening a bit more every day, someday at last to pull me and my inane and tawdry life into oblivion. Never to be remembered or mourned, having made no difference to anyone, ever, down I go. Please, sweet negation and nothingness, annihilate the remaining scrap of my defiled Soul, such as it is: unmake me and let the time of my meaningless life here be as a meson to the Universe that is Time. By the time I finish this cappucino. I mean it.", all I can think is, "you are breaking Crow's heart, Kim".  ¶ 23:23 0 comments

  Resolutions For the New Year, Thus Far 1) Smoke more cigars.
2) Drink more bourbon.

We'll see if I'm disciplined enough to stick to these.  ¶ 19:22 0 comments

  David Brent Frightens Me Happy new year.

My wife gave me The Office: The Complete First Series for Christmas, and my wife and I watched all of it last night. It is one of those shows that makes me cringe while laughing hard. The faux documentary style makes the behavior of the characters realistic enough that I actually get embarrassed for Brent and his employees. I've noticed that I am in the set of people who get easily embarrassed by T.V. depictions of tricks played on real people. For example, I think Tha Ali G Show is great, but I have to steel myself to watch it, as much of the humor comes from the embarrassing situations Ali G (and Sacha Baron Cohen's other characters) create for unsuspecting people. Cohen makes it easier for me by putting much of the deplorable behavior and stupidity on himself, so that the real people are reacting to his goofiness and idiocy, rather than themselves being lampooned. This makes it easier to watch. But the effect on me is still pronounced, I think because I can identify with getting suckered and embarrassed.

The Office also makes me nervous for another reason, as it invokes in me a comparison of myself with David Brent, the shows loathesome main character. While I don't think I am a back-stabbing, insecure, sexist, incompetent, stupid jerk, there is some of him in me. Like him, I want to be liked, and will sometimes say stupid things to ingratiate myself to others, and, and this is the thing that really hurts, I'm probably not as funny as I think I am. Mind you, I think I'm actually funny, unlike Brent, but wonder if I come across as a dork every second of the day sometimes. Thank God I have this anonymous blog read only by total strangers who somehow came upon it even though it is unpublished, so that they cannot see the way I speak and behave, and thus not then evaluate whether or not my suspicions are true. Whew.  ¶ 10:21 0 comments