F*ck F*rty

Many CheekPeeps have gone not so gently into that good night of over the 40 hill land. Swiftly approaching it myself, I'm finding the horse's ass celebrations intensifying in revelry.

Mid-July found Kimplicated, *the* original concert consort, in horse's ass goodness. We managed to surprise her with a brunch on Ponce, augmented with Maggiano's cheesecake. Yum.

Kimplicated kidnappery then ensued to the Emory Conference Center, replete with Frank Lloyd Wright goodness and massage appointments for all. The massage terrorist hurt so good!

Dinner found us making our mosey to the square in Decatur, with the title shot snapped in the pay parking lot.

Had hoped for a francophilian supper at Cafe Alsace, but they were sold out for the holiday n' stuff. Second fiddle Thai knoshing didn't suck, with dessert next door at Sage. Finished the night with a lesson in darts in the lounge.

Hooray for Kimplicated! Hooray at last! Hooray for Kimplicated, she's a horse's ass!

Scott Adams: Jeanyus

From Scott Adam's Dilbert

It's not just Scott Adam's cartoons that have me going "Yes!". It's his blag too. And I know that just cuz I link to it n' stuff over on the NutRoll, you prolly haven't taken your slackass over there and read much of it.

To quote a song from Sunday night's concert: Shame On You!

Here's my July digest of favorite Dilbert Blog entries:

- How To Be Creative
- Writing Funny
- Career Advice (Read this one if you'll only read one, you slackassbastard!)
- And my favorite for the month: Immigration

Nope. Scott Adams doesn't completely suck.

The Indigo Girls, Shame On You

Today's What Is Sexy BIt (W.I.S.B.):
People who can mindf*ck you.

And I don't mean dirty talk. Rather, another's ability to engage you, turn you on with their words, their language (written or verbal), reflecting the path their pointy head takes in observation, thought, and expression. Adams does it for me frequently.

Truth or Fiction?

From Hugh MacLeod's Gaping Void

Today's What Is Sexy bits (W.I.S.B.s):
whitenoise's Sunday post

Dang. I'm just sayin'.

M.Y.S.K.A.: When Serendipity Strikes. Again.

Chihuly Glassworks @ the Atlanta Botanical Garden

Caught the Indigo Girls last night at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. My second repeat concert offense there - saw Rufus Wainwright with Kimplicated, Boone, and Marin's Mom a couple years back.

Fantabulous venue. Didn't mind getting moist in the light pre-show showers with Pjayamamama, the evening's concert consort. Opening act performance serendipity struck again, as is its wont to do, in the form of Brandi Carlile. Backed by a cellist and identical twins on guitar & acoustic bass, she was effing amazing.

Her tune The Story is garnering vid and airplay from its use in the season closer of Grey's Anatomy. My vid capture in the gardens has decent sound, but zilch stabilizing assistance. Time for a new camera?


The Indigo Girls came out during Brandi's set to harmonize on Cannonball. 3 part chick harmony: shiverlicious.



I'd seen the Indigo Girls last summer with Kimplicated at Chastain. A good show, but not nearly as intimate as the Garden, venue-wise. Don't know their whole catalog, but several lines struck me:

"You should listen to your mama if you have a lick of sense left", Pendulum Swinger
Amen!

"Put your head on my heart and lay down in the crook of my arm", Three County Highway.
Where do I sign up? I'd like to get me somma dat.

"I'm gonna love you good and strong while our love is good and young", Get Out the Map.
Indeed.

They invited Brandi back out on a few tunes. Chick three part harmony shivered again with Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice. Warning: listen only - the vid focus sucks. Big time.


Pjayamamama's sensitive to audaciously loud tunage, but she allowed as how she'd repeat offend at the Garden. Methinks Chastain might be her cup o' tea as well. Her finely bald-headed husband is slated to be my consort for the Dave Matthews Band at Piedmont Park in September, and two of her urchins were my consorts for The Fray, Gomez, and Eisley two weeks back.

Ah. Summer. Music. Peeps. Good times. Good times.

"The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time." - James Taylor

Favorite Places. And sucking.

Visited CarolinaMom last week. She's called Yanceyville home for some 16 years. Each time I'm there, I wonder why it's been so long between visits.

The air is cleaner. The sky is bluer. The night sky yields more stars.

If you're ever driving through Yanceyville on 158, be sure to stop and have a bite at the Redneck Riviera (a.k.a., the diner counter at the Texaco). Their bacon sandwich is the bee's knees. Joined CarolinaMom for breakfast Friday morning with two of her exercise buddies. Mo blew me away - spry as all get out, clear eyed and level headed. You'd never know she was 81, had open heart surgery two years ago, or that after her husband died she decided to fulfill a lifelong dream and restore an old house. Girl's got game *and* gumption. Goin' ON!

We then moseyed on over to Chapel Hill to visit one of our shared guilty pleasures and druther place that does not completely suck: A Southern Season. Lunch in the café is required so as minimize the take home of well gotten booty. Incredible tea and wine selections. My favorite scores this trip were Illume candles, a deep dish pie plate, and Vosges chocolate bars (DancingSpice turned me on to Vosges years back). Bacon in chocolate is a challenge I whole heartedly accept - will report when consumed. Mo's son makes the sauce in the picture.


Friday night found us at the Yancey House for a Texas Hold 'Em event. Not just a local yocals affair, mind you, but an official satellite tourney feeding the world series of poker in Vegas.

As an urchin, my parents thought I had great luck at cards and often joked of staking me for Vegas. Guess it was beginner's luck, cuz dood. I suck. I didn't suck quite well enough to be the first out, missing the $25 loser's gift certificate. I was second out. But it afforded me the chance to take some great snaps of the old tobacco barn on the property, before and after the sun set.



Saturday afternoon found us on the other side of Caswell County for one of CarolinaMom's choir gigs - a 75th surprise birthday bash. All was well and good until we decided to leave before cake cutting. Car key nowhere to be found. AAA's response was 2 hours, so the choir ladies circled their wagons and got Mom back home to get another key. Good news: we stayed for cake. Bad news: the car key is *still* effing missing. High we searched. Low we searched. They asked twice if the birthday boy should sort through the garbage. Now we know the answer to the question, "How many people with ADD does it take to lose car keys?" Dood. I suck again. And not in a good way.

Last bit of suckage came with the realization that my cell phone does, in fact, work in Yanceyville. My Canada Day peeps had pointed out changing my roaming mode from *provider who shall be nameless* to *automagic*, and dayum if coverage wasn't granted. Same thang in Yanceyville. No EVDO, but phone worked. How lame I am not to have figgered it out before. I can show my ma how to become a DVR addict. I can do a wee bit o' tech support on her 'puter to fix a Windows application association snafu. But I can't figger out my own phone.

I don't have to know everything. I just have to know others who know what I don't. Good thing I've got those Canada Day peeps in my bag!

Leo Horrorscope

From Darby Conley's Get Fuzzy

Can't allow as how I know any Leos. If'n you be one and find yourself a horse's ass, good on ya!

Hello, love.

From Hugh MacLeod's Gaping Void

For you, sistah.

Mike Doughty's "Your Misfortune", from Haughty Melodic.

When your faith in life is gone
Come and speak to me
When you’re down and all messed up
Seek my sympathy

When everybody says no, no, no
Well it’s
Your misfortune and none of my own
Wrong, wrong, wrong
Well it’s your misfortune that sweetens my song

I can be the friend you want
I can be your confidante
I can be the right reminder at the right time
Throwing out the lifeline

Stand in the light. Stand in the light. Stand in the light.

When everybody says no, no, no
Well it’s
Your misfortune and none of my own
Wrong, wrong, wrong
Well it’s your misfortune that sweetens my song

When your face is caked with mud
Come and speak to me
When the chill creeps in your blood
Seek my sympathy

When everybody says no, no, no
Well it’s
Your misfortune and none of my own
Wrong, wrong, wrong
Well it’s your misfortune that sweetens my song

I can be the air you drink
Every single thought you think
I can be the right notion in the meantime
Warm you like the sunshine

Stand in the light. Stand in the light. Stand in the light.

Today's What Is Sexy bits (W.I.S.B.s):
Strong women who can be vulnerable. Who also happen to have great t*ts.

Prom. And the next OtterPop generation.

From Hugh MacLeod's Gaping Void

I had the best non-prom ever.

I know. It’s summer. Prom season is SO over. But there’s a method to my ADD delayed madness. Wait for it.

Spring 2006 brought prom back to mind for the first time in years. I worked a prom special event shift at the Georgia Aquarium. Spying the teenage urchins arriving in their finery took me back. The flowers. The bling. A spectacle to watch. More interesting to note the cliques: the popular folk. The stoners. The punks. The dorks. And those that defied classification as anything other than ORIGINAL – my favorite ilk.

Ballroom shifts are pretty lame as a volunteer. "Where's the bathroom?" "Where's the exit?" Most are interested in the event and not the aminals, but these kids were more curious than I’d expected. Seems prom at the aquarium is the shiz in being there, doing that, and many hadn't been yet.

Didn’t work a prom this season, but prom was everywhere. First, with word on Georgia's small town of Ashburn and their first desegregated prom.

Next was Nougat’s prom attendance. She and her peeps did the group grope thing – the limo, hanging together, good times. She was gorgeous, eh?


And then Rick blagged about his son’s prom, with great snaps.

Prom. High school. I was *so* not a cool kid. I wasn’t uncool (or heavy and uncool, as Neil would say). But I was in the flotsam between acknowledgement and derision. Acceptance was conspicuously absent, with one exception: The Otters.

Now, The Otters were some cool ass-kids. “Membership” crossed clique lines, with monikers originally derived from Animal House. Otter and Boone were the appointed and anointed golden boys. Parties on the beach and at Otter Pop’s. Piling in the van to eat at Bennigan’s and Friday’s in Melbourne. Their adventures to the Keys. Much tomfoolery and righouteous revelry. Otter and Boone playing in 12 Hands and Feet at various parties – singing “Walking in L.A.” and “Private Idaho” with them was a HOOT!

Two years older than me, I feel into Otter and Boone’s gravitational pull during the halcyon summer before their college freshman year. Their visits home mapped my social calendar. By my own senior year, admiration of them had segued into the beginnings of lifelong friendships.

Otter’s seasonal college migration homeward coincided with my senior prom. Chatting on the phone that late afternoon about weekend plans, he had a WTF moment. His sister had just departed in her finery for prom, and why wasn’t I going? It was a no one asked, f*ck it policy, for me. Otter went into social cruise director mode and demanded I mosey my ass over for a non-prom experience.

It wasn’t anything special. Underage drinking at Otter Pop’s, watching 120 Minutes, The Young Ones, and Jack Mack & Rad Boy on MTV. A movie.

I left to head home in Das Boat (Grandma’s 1968 Plymouth Fury III), making the U-turn to head back up the street. Was just hitting some speed when I had to screech to a halt – Otter was in the middle of the effing street. He was damn lucky I didn't knock him down.

Seems Otter had to make sure I had at least one traditional prom experience: a kiss goodnight. Not a platonic peck, mind you, but a sweet, romantic kiss. I drove home the most serendipitously pleased non-prom goer. I may carry angst of missing out on ultimato dress up affairs (no prom, and a dress-down wedding to boot), but that kiss is one of my best memories. Of one of my best friends.

Fast forward 21 years, and Otter became an OtterPop on July 2nd, 2007. His chops with chicks are long standing and well formed, and his new baby girl is in the most excellent of hands. His gentle, open, and welcoming heart is already wrapped around hers, for life. Her future prom date has some HUGE shoes to fill, I tell ya.

Oops, I Did It Again

Tony Carillo's F Minus.

For whitenoise. Yeah yeah yeah, I've been a slackassbastard. Sue me. Posts simmering.

Shit Saves, People

From Hugh MacLeod's Gaping Void

Shit saves. At least, in Statesboro, Georgia it does. Fa real. Word!

From the full article available here:

It was a violent, fiery crash, and minutes after it happened, people immediately stopped to see how they could help the men trapped inside. James Burdett, John Hagan Plumbing & electrical: "It was horrible. It was horrible."

It was too late for the driver. Jerry Littleton was killed when his pickup caught fire after overturning and hitting a tree. The passenger, his cousin, 18-year-old Mitchell Hendrix, was still alive, but fire was racing through the vehicle.

James Burdette, and two other workers, were heading in for the day after making a service call. The septic company workers saw the wreck and turned around to help.

Burdett: "We heard the man in there screaming, so we waited for the police to get there, and police showed up. We asked permission to put the fire out, with the pump truck, and they said 'Go ahead, and do that' so we backed the pump truck over there, and put the fire out."

As unconventional as it was, the men doused the fire with 1500 gallons of raw sewage for about ten minutes. It's illegal to release sewage on the ground, but the men say there was no other way to save him.

Let's just hope those shitty heroes don't get sued. That would be, well, a really shitty thing to do to two gents who thought on their feet and saved a life. I'm just sayin'. Bless their dear hearts.

Serendipity

From Hugh MacLeod's Gaping Void

Today's What is sexy? bit (W.I.S.B.):
Spontaneity is sexy. Serendipitously sexy.

Ambivalence and ambiguity, not so much.

Being Present

James, by Mark Tonra

Being present is a tough row to hoe for me. Knowing that giving anyone or anything my singular, focused attention is an unusal feat, I've been trying to accomplish it more often. And have been looking for ways to enable better success.

“Everyday living is too fast, too busy, too complicated. More than at any time in history, it’s important to have good information on just about every aspect of life. And, there is more information available than ever before. Too much in fact. There is simply no time for people to gather and absorb the information they need.”
- Britton Hadden, Time Magazine co-founder, quoted in 1929.

And he thought THEY had it bad!

Hugh MacLeod had a great post a couple weeks back on Gaping Void entitled "Human attention does not obey Moore's Law".

If you aren't like me and gifted with natural ADD, you've received the gift 4400-style thanks to technology. HP did a whitepaper a couple years back on InfoMania detailing results from a study by the London School of Psychiatry. That study found that the attention of a computer-using knowledge worker shifted every 3 minutes.

EVERY 3 MINUTES.

Go ahead. Respond to that IM. Answer that phone. Read that e-mail. View that YouTube vid. This post will be waiting for you to continue reading.

The HP study found that addiction to e-mail and other "always on" mediums can lower a person's IQ by 10 points - more than twice the amount of the effects of smoking pot, and more than going without a night's sleep. Trade pubs wrote about the study under the headline "Stoned On E-mail". (HP's Guide to Avoiding InfoMania seems to be archived from their site, but I can send you a copy if you're curious.)

A fantastic thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I arrived on St. George Island to discover zilch cell phone coverage and wireless internet access for Mac use was inconsistent and piss-poor, at best. Initially vexed at the lack of connection to the wankosphere, each day found me happily unthwarted at being forced to be present in my vacation.

I had three great assistants in my digital dismemberment, in the form of two 3-year olds and one 14-month old. Playing in the sand, sun, surf and pool with them and their mommies found me sharing in their wonder and insouciance. They took me out of my own pointy head and brought me into the moment. Their moments. Their now. Our shared occupations were simple: what will we eat? how will we play? what will we drink? when will we sleep? how will we play some more? where is the sunscreen?

I spend too much time looking backward, looking forward, and not enough time enjoying where I'm at. Where I’m at ain’t bad. I'm going to endeavor to embrace this “present” stuff post-beach bliss. With myself. With others. In life. In work. It won’t be easy or intuitive for me – but I think I’ll be more content. Will be a powerful strong gift from those young urchins and the sea. And it is not unrelated to my new year's resolution.

"The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now."
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gifts from the Sea

The Judybats, "Being Simple"

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Get Fuzzy, By Darby Conley

For whitenoise upon the occasion of his entering a sleep clinic:

I've employed a few things since college that have greatly improved my ability to fall, and stay, asleep.

1. Do not clock watch.
If you must keep a traditional alarm clock, turn it around to the wall and make sure you can't reach it in the middle of the night. Trust that the alarm will work. Setup a backup alarm if you're untrusting. In school I switched to using a kitchen timer, setting it for the number of hours I wanted to sleep. Worked like a freakin' charm.

2. Get a sound machine and use it at home AND away.
Its consistent noise cancelling will mask the odd sounds of strange and familiar places and be your personal serenity device. The clock I use now has 6 different sounds, and I use the one that sounds oddly enough like riding on an airplane at 30,000 feet. My Mom has the same clock and uses the waterfall sound, and when I sleep at her place I have to get up to pee in the middle of the night. Suggestable, am I.

3. Play Solitaire on a PDA.
Numbers 1 and 2 helped me stay asleep, but it used to take me an hour plus to fall sleep. A few years back I started playing solitaire on my PDA as I lay in bed, and in a few weeks something good happened. Playing it required enough brain power to concentrate on the game that my pointy head began to let go of the thoughts that would keep me going as I tried to fall asleep. And the brightness of the screen had the same mind numbing, soporific effect as a TV does in a dark room. I could then play just 5 to 10 minutes and I'd find my eyes getting droopy - sleep would come within minutes of turning off the PDA. Somehow in the past year or so, I stopped even needing the PDA, as I seem to have trained my pointy head to simply relax, listen to the airplane noise, and fall asleep.

I've recommended each of these to several friends with best results from the sound machine action. People have a hard time giving up clock watching - but trust me, it REALLY works. And sleeping leads to dreaming. Yum.

Gaping Void by Hugh MacLeod.

Belated Beach Food

Beach food does not suck. At all. Belated pics posted below.

Fried scallops and onion rings - both recent firsts in the past year, for me. Quaffed with equal parts pink lemonade and Yuengling lager.


The food not taken . . . Boone's freshwater aquarium, keeping urchin Ethan bespelled.


Pippen's guilty Guinness pleasure:


Cheek's first Cuban pulled pork, courtesy of Food Glorious Food in Tallahassee.


Trout caught by burly, manly men. Battered in panko, Target brand Archer Farms tater chips of the black pepper and sea salt variety with sesame seed added, lightly fried in olive oil and topped with olive tapenade, served with green beans, pasta, and a summer salad of fresh greens, green apples, feta, and walnuts. Best meal of the week.


Beach nachos: sharp cheddar, olives, black beans, sliced grape tomatoes, cracked black pepper, grated Italian spices, more cheddar added on top. Spread over blue corn chips and baked at 375 for 10 minutes. Served over chopped romaine with salsa of choice and sour cream.


Summed up beach goodness - need to get me more of dis.

More Guilty Pleasures

This song just came on my digital cable muzak station. Again. And e'y time I hear it, I'm struck by it. The sound is sexy. Her voice is sexy. And she's hot in this video.

I cannot explain why this is sexy. It just is.


Amy Winehouse, "You Know That I'm No Good"

Happy Ass-Birthday, Sheena

Rumour (Canadian spelling) has it that Sheena had a birthday recently. What a fine piece of horse's ass! Hope it was a hoot and a holler.

Alphabet Alliteration on the Occasion of Sheena's Horse's Ass Day:

Sheena

Adroit (ly adaptive)
Beguiling (ly brave)
Catalytic (ly convincing)
Devilish (ly druthered)
Erudite (ly expressive)
Foodilicious (ly fated)
Gracious (ly gifted)
Hellacious (ly honorable)
Inexorable (ly incisive)
Judicious (ly joyful)
Keen (ly kind)
Luminous (ly languid)
Musing (ly mysterious)
Naughty (ly nuanced)
Original (ly opinionated)
Pithy (ly plucky)
Querulous (ly querying)
Righteous (ly realistic)
Surprising (ly Sheena!)
Tenacious (ly talented)
Unsettling (ly understanding)
Vigorous (ly vervy)
Wholehearted (ly witty)
XOXO (ly XXX)
Yearning (ly youthful)
Zealous (ly zestful)

Today's What Is Sexy bits (W.I.S.B.s):
Sheena is sexy. Natch!