NORTS!!! OH, WONDERFUL NORTS!!!

It's Memorial Day Weekend in 'sconsin and that can only mean ONE thing:  BRAT FEST!!!  Yes, Brat Fest.  But not just any old Brat Fest.  No, that would not be enough.  Madison is home to the "WORLDS LARGEST BRAT FEST"!!!  Ever!!!  BTW, for those of you off-worlders out there, it is pronounced "braht".  Sort of rhymes with "snot".  It is NOT a "brat".  As in a small child that needs to be quickly Valiumed.  It is "braht".  Trust me.  If you say it wrong up here we just go key your car out of principle.

'sconsin is home to a Holy Grail of sorts.  The "3 B's" as we like to call them.  That would be beer, brats and brandy.  But not necessarily in that order.  Such is 'sconsin...  The single most impressive thing about this state is our ability to drink ourselves into oblivion and eat ourselves into a stupor.  Simultaneously.  And more often than not at some sort of waterfront festival.  While on a green and gold collapsible chair with an array of Packer stuff hanging off of us.  Or at the very least, some sort of obligatory "Cheese Head" accessory to embarrass us even more than we are aware of.  All you need to add into the mixing bowl is a couple of unleashed dogs with a hula-hoop or two and you got a party going on in 'sconsin!!!

A brat is something akin to first communion in 'sconsin.  Only better, because you get to do it on demand.  Any time you want.  Brats.  OMg.  We boil those puppies, we broil them, we grill them, we saute them.  Hell, I've even been known to stir fry them.   Trust me, in 'sconsin about the only thing you don't do to brats is to microwave them.  That is not only a serious felony here in 'sconsin, it is against the State Constitution.  As is gay marriage, but don't get me started on that cluster f...

For a long holiday weekend 'sconsin is up to its badgers in brats.  Thousands of square miles are grilling the little naturally cased delicacy's as I type.  We here in 'sconsin are now awash in things that are longer than they are wide.  Hot, toasty things that are screaming to decorate your buns.  With a special sauce of your own concoction.  Now, doesn't that sound like a good time in the North Woods???

So, please join me as I grab my nort and raise it high.  In salute.  To  'sconsin.  Where else can you wave your sausage and ask someone to pass the sour kraut???   And as I've always said, I always seem to sleep a little better at night once I've had a bit of sausage in me...

Aah, 'tis good to be a 'sconsin boy...

IT JUST NEVER AMAZES TO FAIL ME!!!

Oh my stars...   I have discovered a kindred spirit.  Someone hungry for the banquet.  A fellow sojourner.  Yes, someone as loony as me.  I am in heaven.

All that I'm going to say is that you HAVE to go to www.gypsyrosepirateship.com.

Yes, there is a smile on my gun powder sooted face, a song in my scabbard and some pride in my plank.

Cap'n, I'll go all 'ell fire an' thundah for yeh, I will!!!

'tis good to be a pirate...

WHENEVER POSSIBLE, SING AND DANCE IN THE RAIN!!!

Oh, my.  The Fates give us a handful of decades if we are lucky.  Sometimes more.  Sometimes less.  Sometimes way less...   Way too less.

For whatever reasons, this thing called life can lift us up and can easily smash us to the ground with the force of a tsunami.  It makes no sense.  But what does?  As you have all probably figured out by now, I am not a faith based sort of entity.  Now, that doesn't mean that I don't believe in something bigger than me.  It just means that I don't necessarily believe that it is greater than me.  Hell, Jupiter is bigger than me but I certainly don't accept the fact that it is in need of being worshiped.

As humans (and as all things) we are given a "time" and a "space" to fill.  What we do with it and how we use it is up to us.  Aah, yes, free will.  That's a double edged sword if I've ever seen one.  You can win with a pair of deuces and you can lose with a royal flush.  It all depends on what kind of a "poker face" you have.  I've folded on more winning hands than I can count.  I've also bluffed my way into more jackpots than you want to know about.  There's just no rhyme or reason sometimes.  I've been up, I've been down, I've been duped, I've been top of the heap and I've been so lost that it hurt.  But through it all I have either thought thank god THAT nightmare is over or, OK, what's gonna happen next.  What can I say, it's life.  Even if you win you still manage to lose in the end.  You just gotta learn how to get over it and go on.  As Michelle Obama says, "Don't sweat the small stuff.".

I've been fender-bendered a number of times by life.  And I've been broad-sided by it too.  The fender-benders I tend to pretty much blow off because I'm used to them by now.  The broad-sides can be a different matter though but even still I strive to not give them more than 15 to 20 minutes worth of attention if at all possible.  I just don't have the time for that crap.  My clock is ticking, I can hear it.  Hell, all of our clocks are ticking!!!  Those clocks start ticking the second that we're born and none of us have a tinkers damn of a clue when the alarm is going to go off.  And I think that's a good thing.  If you don't know how much time is left then you'd better have the good sense not to waste any of it!!!  I have turned down very few opportunities in my life, except for the ones that I suspected were only going to end up in the emergency room with stitches and perhaps a body cast.  Hey, I'm a thrill seeking but I'm not stupid...

Grab your umbrella and your Mr. Microphone, put on your tap shoes and get your butt into the mix.  Get wet.  There's puddles out there with your name written all over them. Scare some strangers!!!  They need it.

C,mon, its a banquet out there!!!  You're hungry aren't you???

I ONCE TAUGHT A TODDLER HOW TO SAY, "HI, I'M BABY JESUS"

Aah, yes...   Little Michael.   I'm sure I did that little dude some damage.

It was 1986 and I was living in Minneapolis managing one of the restaurants in a downtown convention center hotel.  My roommate was one of the bartenders in the lounge.  He was obnoxious but at least he paid his rent on time.  Anyway.

He had a girlfriend, a total knockout BTW, who had a young son named Michael from a previous relationship.  When I first met Michael he was just beginning to learn how to walk.  I thought to myself, cool, a clean slate to mess with.  He was a charmer.  Out going as hell and  a drooler with a face that resembled Dr. Benson Honeydew.  I would occasionally pass him off as mine but only when he was asleep.

Once he finally got mobile I taught him that diapers were actually hats that were very fun to wear.  Whether they were clean or not.  He was overjoyed.  His mother was not as pleased.  Especially if he decided to do this in public.  I also taught him about pizza bones.  Pizza bones???  Yes, pizza bones.  That's the last little arc of pizza crust that you have left after you have eaten all of the good stuff.  I usually just tossed them to the dog because he thought pizza bones rocked.  So did Michael.  Watching the dog and Michael fight over a pizza bone on the floor was like my own in-house version of the WWF.  Again, his mother was less than approving.  Nor was the dog.  Because he got bit more times than Michael did.  Michael was teething by then.

My big break came when Michael started talking.  Wonderful, I thought to myself!!!  Mobile AND vocal!!!  Perfect!!!  By then he was all smiles and cheeks and everyone who saw him wanted know who he was.  His mother was constantly being stopped and asked about him.  Everyone wanted to know his name and his mother tried desperately to teach it to him so he could respond.  All to no avail.  So I decided to take the little imp under my wing.  Give him an "act" so to speak.  In four days he had it down.  He was ready for center stage in the cereal aisle.

So, I'm sitting at home one day and Michael and his mother come bursting through the front door and I hear my name mixed with some shouting and a lot of obscenities.  Hmmmm, I thought to myself, has someone just had his first opening night???   Apparently so, by the look on his mothers face as she launched into the living room making her way for me.  Yeah, she knew it was me.  C'mon, who else could it have been???  It seems that they had been out grocery shopping and, of course, someone comes up and says "What an adorable little boy!  What's his name?".   Michael turns to this woman and smiling wide says "Hi!  I'm baby Jesus.".  His mother curdled.  So did the elderly Lutheran woman who had been stupid enough to ask the question.   As I break into peals of laughter his mother launches into me like a bunch of Enron stock holders.  Up one side and down the other.  She went at me so intensely that she actually started frothing at the mouth.  It would seem that hell hath no fury like the mother of Baby Jesus.  She didn't just threaten to kill me, she PROMISED to kill me.  I promised to NEVER do anything like that again.  A month later his mother and I were finally beginning to become civil to one another.  Of course, by then I had taught Micheal how to eat out of the dog dish.

Yeah, I know, I should go to hell.  But they don't want me.  It's true.  I had prepaid reservations down there in a lovely junior suite with a full mini-bar and a wonderful view of the lava pits but they cancelled on me.  It seems that "management" thought I might be a bit too disruptive.

As for little Michael?   Well, the last I heard he was on Death Row.  Something about a suicide bombing at a lefse refinery that involved several copies of "Catcher In The Rye" and a small valise of gerbils.  Who knew that his mother would mess him up this badly???

WHAT THE FOTHERMUCKING BLOODY MUCK IS PAT ROBERSTSON THINKING???

uhh...  hmmmm....  wtf???  really...  REALLY???

Have you heard what this 5-Star Ass Wipe has said???   On camera!!!   OMF"G"!!!  And yes, that was a capital "G".  I seldom use that case in this circumstance.  But for Pat Robertson I will gladly give an upper case "G".  Why?   Let me vent here...

YOU FOTHERMUCKING SHITHEAD!!!   YOU CRUMB!!!   YOU HYPOCRITE!!!   YOU SCUMBAG!!!   WTHMFFF!!!

Pat Robertson.  (Sorry, I'm gagging at the moment just typing his name.)   Those of us in the US have had to put up with this shithead for around 4 decades.  He is a holier than thou kind of televangelist that has made a fortune preying on the stupid and wealthy.  He has ran for president of this country twice.  He has preached family values at us until our ears bled from the hypocrisy.   What a wonderfully rose colored glasses world you made your followers thought you lived in.

Yesterday, on his cable show, a follower (demented believer,  clueless loser, mindless minion???)  calls him up and asks what to do because her husband is cheating on her.  She is obviously devastated and looking for some serious advice.   What does this First Class, back-tracking shit head tell her???   Sit back.  Fasten your seat belts.  This is the kind of flight into fantasy and melt-down that makes me wet...

Just to warn you, I expect stupidity to come out of the mouth of Pat Robertson.  Trust me, I've got decades of this idiot under my hoop skirts.  But this was just fucking INCREDIBLE!!!

First, he tells her that, of course he has strayed.  He's a man.

Hmmmm????

Second, he tells her that if she had provided a better home for her husband then he would not have strayed.

Hmmmmm?  Apparently this is YOUR fault.  BAD WIFE!!!

Third, he tells her to (and I quote) "just get over this and look to the better days ahead."

Hmmmmmmmmmm???????????   Yep, bitch, you just a brood mare.

IN THE NAME OF FUTHER MUCKING JU-JU B'S!!!

Yes, this is the same cannibal that came down on Jim and Tammy and their PTL Club and Jimmy Swaggart when their televangelist empires crumbled and hit them like a Great White off of the coast of Cape Town.   With a smile on his fangs and an all too encompassing saintliness.  Yes, he just endorsed  adultery.

So, Pat...  Isn't that like sort of REALLY against one of your Commandments???   Oh, wait...  I forgot, that doesn't matter to you.  You're Pat Robertson.  I'm sure that your wife must feel very safe and secure right about now.   "Free will" be damned, doesn't breaking a Commandment just sort of automatically toss you into the fire, immediately, no matter how hard you try to justify it???  Simply because you just can't seem to keep your brain zipped up???   In my opinion that pretty much reduces you to something with the relationship skills of a reptile.

Yes, I have been the whore of Babylon in my time.  Yes, I have been celibate.  For long periods of time.  (Sorry, but masturbating doesn't count.  That's really not "sex" when you crunch the numbers...).   I am, at heart, a serial monogamist.   When I am in a relationship, well...  I am in a RELATIONSHIP.   For however long it last.  And then the whore of Babylon may, or MAY NOT, return.  But I digress...

You, Pat, are a hypocrite.  Of the worst kind.  The one's with a "following".

Unlike yourself, I can indeed hold my head high, shoulders back and say " I have been true to myself".   I can sleep at night.  Can you???

DATELINE: MADISON, WI...

WTBF???   OK, as you have probably figured out by now I live in one of the strangest cities on the face of our blue marble.  Yes, Madison is a bit odd.  ROTFLMAO!!!!   Trust me, it's a lot stranger here than you can possibly imagine.  We're the state capitol.  We're home to the University of Wisconsin.  That alone should explain a lot of things.   We have that hardy, pioneer spirit that for some reason compels us to saw a hole in the ice on one of our many lakes in the middle of fucking winter and just hop into the water damned near buck naked.  Why?  I don't have an answer for that one...   I'm sure it has something to do with Darwinism.  You know what I mean.  If you can find the hole to get out of the lake once you jump in you are one of the fittest.  That means you get to breed.   If you cannot find the hole after you jump in, hmmm...   well, looks like your frozen dead ass is not going to continue fucking up the shallow end of the gene pool.  I like that.

Anywho...  An "altercation" took place in Madison last night.   Oh, altercation my ass, it was a full blown bat shit crazy meltdown!!!   It seems that some of our less intelligent citizens decided to shake it up a bit.   Lord, I just love the lowest common denominator.  Police were called to respond to a less than desirable neighborhood up on the North Side to investigate a disturbance.  Disturbance???   By the time they got there this thing was out of control.  It involved front lawns, parking lots, the street and a couple of trees.  ???   Oh, yeah, and some weaponry.   Lengths of metal pipe,  pieces of gutter and downspouts, more pit bulls than you can fend off and some hair weaves.  Yes, I said hair weaves.  Don't ask...  Only in Madison could a hair weave be considered a weapon.  We're a strange crew.

This apparently took hours to get quieted down.  I certainly hope that our "Crew In Blue" got some overtime for this little clusterfuck.  When the majority of the combatants had been successfully rhino-darted and tazered into submission and peace had been somewhat restored the truth finally came out.  Some idiot white guy decided to run out into his front yard and start accusing everyone within earshot of stealing his bus pass.  Dude, you were the only white guy within a six mile radius.  WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING???    Oh, wait, that's right...  you weren't, were you???   OK, being white is one thing.  Being in your early twenties is another thing.  Being stupid just sort of comes with the territory.  But being all of those things on the North Side is just ridiculously insane to put into the same mixing bowl...

From all reports this idiot did not go down without a fight.   But he did go down.  Hard.  And I am glad for that.  Dude, it's a bus pass.  A FUCKING  bus pass!!!   One:  You live on the North Side.  Two:  You have a bus pass.  Three:  You are white.  THREE STRIKES AND YOU'RE OUT MOTHERFUCKER!!!   But, no, you decide that three strikes are not enough.  You want four.  And from the sounds of things they struck you a helluva lot more times than four.  You deserved every one of them too.  What, did you forget to pick up your frontal lobes at the dry cleaners on your way back home from working the drive up window???   How much Red Bull were you on???  Or are you just genuinely that fucking stupid???   At the very least, I hope you like International Orange jumpsuits and used flip-flops...

We are truly a strange little breed of apes here in Madison.  I wouldn't give anyone in this town a centavos worth of nickles to save my life.  Much as I love them, an ape will turn on you in a nano-second., tear your face off and then go feed it to a hyena.

We are, indeed, 72.5 square miles surrounded by "reality"...

But at least the lake perch is good on a Friday night.

DON'T POKE THE FUCKING BEAR!!!

OK, as you all know by now, I just love me a challenge.  Especially if someone tells me not to do something.  There just ain't a faster way to get me to do it!!!   Twice.  But if someone challenges me TO do something, well, that's a whore of a different color.  Those are the times I force myself to sit back and ask one serious question:  "ARE YOU TRYING TO GET MY ASS KILLED???"   Today I got that kind of a challenge.  And I giggled at the possibilities of the repercussions.  This, I thought to myself, could be one hell of a good time!!!

Today I received an email from a reader, a dear, dear friend in Mexico about my post of May 3.  It seems she liked it.  In fact, it seemed she loved it.  As have all of her friends that she has had link into my blog.  I seem to have struck a chord with her with that blog.  She is the sweetest woman in the Tropics, would give you the t-shirt off of her back yet at the same time would hose you down just to get you to shut up.  She's my own personal Maxine Faulk.  Lord, I love me a strong woman!!!   She's a bit up there in years (yeah, and like I'm a spring lamb...)  but that just hasn't seemed to slow her down a bit.  I LOVE this woman!!!  She makes me smile.  She makes me drink tequila.  She makes me laugh.  To you, my dear!

Anywho, she tells me that (and I quote) "if you don't send a link to your blog to the GOP and the NRA then you just don't have the balls that I thought you did".  Yeah, she talks like that.  To her friends.  And that's what friends are really for.  It's especially entertaining when you hear her say "fuck" three times in one sentence, all the while smoking a cigarette and sipping some tequila on her veranda down in Mexico.  She is SO something that I aspire to.

I sat back for a couple of hours, thinking about the challenge.  Hmmmm...   Hell, this could get interesting.   Will the GOP and the NRA view this invitation with scorn and disdain or a bit of (a lot of) humor from the other side of the fence.  Or am I just going to be immediately added to the "No Fly List"?  Now, you have to understand, I have never been afraid of the GOP.  BTW, for you off-worlders out there, that's the Republican Party here in the US.  (I am a Democrat.  Always have been, always will be.  We're the good guys!)  Nor am I intimidated by the NRA  (again, for you off-worlders, that's the National Rifle Association.  I'll say no more...), however their firepower does put me a bit on edge.  What did make me light another cigarette, sit back and ponder was their good friend, HOMELAND SECURITY.    And let's not forget Homeland Security's personal minion, the TSA?  I have been scanned, swiped, swabbed (YES!!!), disinfected and degraded by that shit in way too many airports.  Haven't we all???

So, I start thinking, just how deep in shit could I find myself if I really did this?   So, half a nono-second later I'm on Google to find the websites of the GOP and the NRA to see if they have a contact link.  Of course, they both do.  I start shaking like a coke-head looking at a line 3 feet long and quarter of an inch wide.  Let's just say that the line won out.  Yep, I did it.  I just launched a carcass across the fence with my trebuchet.  I hope it lands on that Palin woman!!!

I know that I am being monitored as I type.  I'm counting the hours until my land line gets hinky.   Sea Squirt is rapidly filling empty milk bottles with water and stashing them in the storage locker along with some pillows and blankets.  They'll never think of looking there.  Oh, god, I'm gonna end up at GIT-MO!!!  I'm gonna get water boarded!!!

Bring it on guys!  You want some of THIS?!?

THEATER OF THE ABSURD.

What the bloody fuck is our species doing???   Not just to ourselves but to every freaking thing around us as well.  We have literally taken our "blue marble" hostage.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love humanity.  Up to a point.  We have been Einstein.  We have been Copernicus.  Galileo.  We have played golf on the moon.  Holy shit, we've been motherfucking MOZART for christ's sake!!!  MOZART!!!  It just doesn't get any better than Mozart.  And yet, we have managed to sink into some of the deepest darkest pits you can possibly imagine.

We have laid waste to uncountable cultures.  Destroyed civilizations.  Societies.  Languages.  Empires.  You name it and we have screwed it up.  Yeah, give any one monkey enough rope and he'll fuck it up.  And lord knows, we have perfected that ability to an unimaginable degree.

I have done a bit a research.  And it sickened me.  I was born on July 23, 1953.  Just a handful of days after the "end" of the Korean "conflict".  (Yeah, that one is still not quite over yet.)  Since the day I was born the world has been at war.  Somewhere.  For what ever reason.  We have been throwing bombs, launching missiles, blowing shit up and killing ourselves for 60 fucking years.  Nonstop.  And with  great abandon.  War, apparently is indeed "good for business".  WTF???

We have willingly put some of the worst monsters in human history in power and watched them wreak havoc on us.  The resulting death counts have been staggering.  And we just keep doing it.  Yeah, we just don't learn from our mistakes.  So we just keep repeating them.  We don't just have it down to a science, we've got it down to a scenario.  It all comes down to collateral damage... Yeah, apparently this kind of chaos gives humans a massive boner, especially if you hit the launch button first...

Why do we feel empowered to "control" the population of every species on this planet except our own???  Seven BILLION humans and we don't see a bit of a problem with that???  SEVEN MOTHERFUCKING BILLION!?!  And still growing.  What the hell are we thinking???  Oh, wait, that's right... we're not thinking.  Did you know that if we divided all of the food that the world produces equally among the worlds population that we would all be undernourished?  Yeah, we're screwed...

Yet, we happily go on.  Blindfolded and brain dead we crash forward with wild abandon.  We make a bull in a china shop look warm and fuzzy.  Why?  Because god will protect us.  Really?  Do you actually think that your god is happily clapping her hands as you launch a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the innocent???  It's called slaughter.  In my life I have seen too many images of bodies stacked like cord wood.  Mass graves.  Auschwitz.  Cambodia.  Rwanda.  Bosnia.  The list goes on...

We genuinely are "The Three Penney Opera" on the brown acid.  Several tabs of it.  And we smile as we slash and burn.  Leaving a trail of destruction in our wake because we know that we are "right".  We're just never gonna learn...

But at least we've got great lighting...