TO BORROW A PHRASE FROM A 1960'S MOTOWN HIT, "I BEEN DOWN ONE TIME, I BEEN DOWN TWO TIMES"...

OK, my last rant was about that shit head president of Barilla Pasta.  I still hold fast and true to what I said.

I wrote them a rather scathing little email about my feelings and today I got a response.  I am now angrier than ever.  They sent me the most meticulously crafted form letter imaginable.  I have never seen this generic a form of  "damage control" in my life!!!

To paraphrase my email:  The president of your company is a jerk.  I have liberated my pantry of all of your products.  I will never buy them again.  You have lost a very loyal customer.  I am considering knocking your products off of the shelves the next time I go grocery shopping and start clog dancing on them.  Security cameras be damned!!!  I did not swear (very surprising) and I did not promise bodily harm or the threat to hunt someone done like the dog that he is (again, VERY surprising!).  Just your general complaint letter of anger.

Wanna hear the response that I got today?

"Dear Donn,

At Barilla, we consider it our mission to treat our customers and partners as our neighbors-with love and respect- and to deliver the very best products possible.  We take this responsibility  seriously and consider it a core part of who we are as a family-owned company.

We are working hard to learn from this experience and appreciate you taking the time to share your comments and valuable feed back.

Sincerely,

Barilla

(And now, the best part...)

Case # 264,837"

I just don't know which I love more, a company backtracking like an elephant in a landslide or that they had gotten over a quarter of a million complaints in less than 24 hours.  Yeah, I used to be a corporate drone myself and I know all too well how they handle this kind of thing.  Get generic as hell, admit to nothing and try to keep the bottom from falling out from underneath you.  I didn't like it 20 years ago and I like it even less now.  In the name of meat loaf, when you fuck up royal own up to it!!!  Do a little groveling!!!  Hell, do a lot of groveling!!!  You just got slammed with complaints.  You just lost a large customer base.  Are you deaf, dumb AND blind???

I am going to the grocery store tomorrow.  Not to go shopping.  I'm going to go all "River Dance" in the pasta aisle.  I will more than likely be arrested.  Yes, I am pissed off over pasta.  Very, very pissed off...

OK, FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS, I'M GONNA GET ANGRY!!!

I am a pasta eating kind of guy.  If you put some pasta in a pot of boiling water, I am THERE.  How can you not love pasta.???  Especially with my homemade sauce???  Meatballs.  Home grown oregano.  Sauteed onions.  Garlic on homemade bread.  This is the stuff of life.  It just doesn't get any better than this...

And then yesterday happened.  The president of Barillo Pasta, the largest producer of pasta in the world (and btw, my favorite pasta of choice) came out REALLY anti-gay.  According to his recent statement not only are us gay folks not acceptable to his companies "ideals", women are just a bunch of kitchen help that make him dinner.  OK, that is paraphrasing it a bit but it comes down to pissing me off and reducing his mother, his wife and his daughters to crap.  Bottom line, I shouldn't be using it because as he says, they just don't "accept or agree" with us and women should just be cooking it.  For him and all of his other male counter parts.

You have got to be kidding me!!!  You sexist, homophobic bastard!!!  Are you out of your mind???

Today I raided my pantry.  About 5 pounds of dry pasta and several jars of your pasta and sauce got tossed out.  Yes, you were my pasta of choice.  No longer is that true.  I boycotted orange juice because of Anita Bryant.  I will toss your products off of store shelves and crush them in public and on security cameras.  As god is my witness I will buy Creamettes (sorry, can't find a spell check for that one) pasta from this day forward.  Hell, I'll even buy the generic shit that taste like crap just to stop your sales.  I will do everything in my power to help your numbers drop!!!

YOU FUCKING BASTARD!!!  I don't care how  much you apologized for that fuck up today it just ain't gonna work for me.  Damage control be damned, I just ain't gonna shop on your shelves any more.  You have lost a loyal customer and I hope that you have lost millions of more.  What part of being a prick were you missing???

I will boycott you tooth and nail.  Trust me, I am not a pretty predator...

WE THE PEOPLE...

I just don't know where to go with this one...

I am an old fart.  60.  Yeah, that old.

I am an American.  That alone gives me the right to scream against things that I feel are unjust and wrong.  And lord knows, I do.  Repeatedly.  I love that.  This county's founding father's gave me that right and I am thankful for that.  It has served me well and I have used it to my advantage numerous times.  I can protest, I can raise hell but most importantly I can vote.  Yes, I can vote!!!  If I don't like you then your ass is SO out of here.  Yeah, we the people...

Damned near 240 years ago we stood up to the most powerful empire in history and we kicked their ass.  A rag-tag group of  "revolutionary's" took a stand and said "NO!".  And we succeeded.  And then we founded a new country and wrote some of the most brilliant things imaginable.  Our Declaration of Independence, our Preamble and our Constitution are fucking amazing.  What is in those things are the most amazing things imaginable.  "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."  THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS???".  That is the most freakish break from reality that I have ever heard.  Yes, we are the only Constitution on the face of the planet that claims the pursuit of happiness as an unalienable right.  Yes, not only do I get the right to bitch, I get the right to be happy.  Really, really happy.  Mostly from being able to vote your sorry ass out of office.  Yes, whoosh away you Republican turd...

I came of age in the middle of Camelot, the Civil Rights Movement, the Sexual Revolution and
Gay Rights.  I remember the Freedom Riders and integration.  George Wallace.  Stonewall.  And way too many assassinations.  And let's not forget about Viet Nam.  I grew up with my heels dug in and standing my ground.  And got smacked down to that same ground just as many times but I managed to pick myself back up, bail myself out of jail, dust myself off and go back out there.  And go back out there again, even angrier than I was in the first place.  Why?  Because my Constitution not only told me that I could, it told me that I had to.  It wasn't so much a right as it was a duty.  It gave all of us the right to change things if we didn't like it.  Shake things up, as it were.

I have been given the delicious opportunity to live freely, bitch, vote and speak my mind openly without fear of retribution, imprisonment or torture..  For that I am unbelievably thankful.  Is this country perfect?  HELL NO!!!  The lessor of all evils?  Probably.  But at least we get to bitch about it openly.

We, the people...

CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL. 2.0

Today, the Cosmos aligned.  And I was at the center of it.  There is a smile on my face, a lilt in my step (and I just LOVE that!!!),  a crock-pot the size of a bathtub and knives and cutting boards of immense proportion. And I gutted my available legumes and root vegetables with abandon.  Let's just say, come hell or high water, I was gonna make some SERIOUSLY ASS good chicken soup today. 

Yeah, trust me, nothing is better than chicken soup.  And my chicken soup rocks!!!  What can I say, Jews just know how to do this...  I went at this thing with a vengeance, as I always do.  Let's just say the crock pot was totally overpowered in about 4 minutes.  Then the Nesco turkey roaster got yanked out to take up the slack.  Holy shit, I was up to my tits in this stuff.  Thank you, Nesco.!!!  Let's just say 8 hours later I was up to my motherfucking tits in chicken soup.  Which, if you think about it is NOT a bad thing.  Lord, I do truly understand chicken soup for the soul.  It's not just a phrase, it's a way of life...  How can you not love home made chicken soup.  Especially, mine...  OK, that may sound a bit pissy, but hey, I give really good soup.  Among other things...

Several gallons of home made chicken and vegetable soup were spread around this apartment complex this evening.  Along with an appropriate amount of fresh bolillos and some spoons.  And life is good.

Yes, I am an crusty old fart.  Angry by some definitions.  But friendly enough to reach a hand down a dark well and help you back up.  Trust me, I've been there and done it.  I love the hand up.  It's called paying it forward.  Or, at least, from a wizened  woman in Mexico, known as just changing a street corner.

Just leave it better than what you came into.

I have the utmost respect for that.

It does indeed leave it better...

To her, I bow.  Who knew soup could be this good???

AYY, MATEY, IT'S TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY!!!

Yes, only in America can you find a holiday this silly.  Yep, it's "Talk Like A Pirate Day"!!!

ARRGH!!!  Yes, today we got to talk like pirates.  To whoever would listen.  And even to those that would not.  I got to scamper around the grocery store in an eye patch and a crusty bandana of mysterious origin.  I was scabardless and without other means of destruction, unless of course you count the shopping cart.  Which by the way, serves as a damned good battering ram, especially the way I was heaving her into the wind.  The paper aisle was mine in a second or two, the ethnic aisle fell before me with little resistance and the coffee and tea aisle was mine with just a few short volleys below the water line.  I blew the balls off of frozen foods in seconds and just left the wreckage of the organic aisle in my wake.  ARRGH!!!   Leave them to the sharks!!!

Booty was mine today.  Take no prisoners as I like to say...  They only want some of my booty and I do NOT give my booty up freely.  OK, that may not be completely true but then I would have to answer to a dead mans chest which kind of freaks the shit out of me in more ways than one.  And just what the hell does he have in that locker, anyway???

Today, I pillaged, I plundered and cannons thundered.  Aah, life is good!

AARGH!!!!

IN THE DEFENSE OF CLOWNS.

OK, have you heard about this yet?  A small village in England is apparently being terrorized by a clown.  Yes, "terrorized".  By a clown.  In the name of meat loaf, how under medicated is this village?  Or, perhaps, how OVER medicated is this village???  And it's not like the clown is doing anything weird.  He's just walking around town, holding a bunch of balloons and greeting visitors.  It's not like he's wielding chainsaws or publicly masturbating.  Which by the way is now legal to do in Sweden.  Masturbating that is, not the chain saw thing.  What is Sweden smoking???

He, she or it (we're not sure yet) is just a clown.  A clown, for christ's sake.  It greets visitors.  It welcomes tourists.  That is not a threat, it's a fucking clown!  Nothing is more fun than a silly costume, a strange wig of  a color not found in nature, some polka dots, shoes the size of water skis and a seltzer bottle.  Hell, throw in a bunch of balloons and you've got a party in my opinion.  Yes, I may be a bit biased.  If you've read this blog long enough then you know that I almost became a clown myself.  I was nano-seconds away from a full scholarship at Ringling Brothers Clown College  Aah, yes, that seltzer bottle could have been mine.  Along with three midgets dressed up as pigs in a baby stroller.  To this day I still have red foam clown nose sitting on the dresser in the bed room.  Some dreams just don't die easily...  And the sex can be truly fun.

Did you know that there is actually a medically recognized phobia of a fear of clowns???  Yes!!!  It's called  coulrophopia.  I'm not shitting you.  This amazes me.  How the bloody hell can you be afraid of clowns?  Let alone have a diagnosable disorder about them???  What, until we have a cure all we have is hope???  Fuck that shit, it's a clown!!!  Deliciously enough, I actually know someone who has that disorder.  (Oh, lord, I love that word...."disorder".)  He's about the size of a grizzly bear and as big as a house.  And just scared shitless of clowns.  Well, of course I use this to my advantage.  Hell, who wouldn't?  I have brought him to his knees on numerous occasion with just the threat of a bucket full of confetti.  Ahh, yes, such is the power of confetti...

I am bemused, bedazzled and bewildered that anyone can be afraid of clowns.  We are a kind and gentle people.  Unless we bite you on the neck, suck all of your blood out and bring you over to the dark side...

Heh, heh, heh....

I WANT TO BITCH SLAP KENTUCKY SO BAD IT HURTS!!!

Yes, there I've said it.  Hell, let me say it again (refer to title above).  As a Southerner myself (born in Arkansas) I can get away with this.  Grab a map.  Arkansas is located more southern than Kentucky which would make Kentucky sort of "northern" in my opinion.  And, yes, I can hear them rankling in their single wides as I type this.  Yeah, well, screw you!!!  You don't like that???  Well, then get that car "parked" in front of your trailer off of the cinder blocks that it's been setting on for the better part of a decade, try to get it started and do your damnedest to try to catch me.  Good luck, my car actually has tires on it.  And is currently licensed and road worthy.

Why am I pissed?  Several school districts in Kentucky (lord, I use that term loosely) have decided to come out not only vocally but viciously against the First Lady of The United States.  Why?  Nutrition.  Yes, nutrition.  Apparently in Kentucky that translates as something akin to "grub" which I am getting the impression doesn't have a whole hell of a lot to do with nutrition.  Or food.  Unless you count scavenged road kill.  Or squirrels.

Anyway...  Mrs. Obama has taken it upon herself to make healthy eating, good nutrition and exercise her calling.  I admire her for that.  Hell, do you realize that the average weight of the typical American is over 200 lbs???  Yeah, we're pretty much boat anchors that thrive on drive up windows, deep fryers and chips.  We are so bloated that we have actually down-sized sizes in clothing just to make ourselves feel better about the size of shadows that we cast on the rare occasions that we actually stand up and manage to get out side.

For the first time in lord knows how long there is actually a vegetable garden at the White House.  Yes, a vegetable garden.  That actually grows food, as in edible stuff that is good for you.  Things that you can eat raw.  Or steam.  As opposed to beer batter and deep fry into oblivion, which Kentucky appears to happily do to their now WAY gone waist lines!!!

Kentucky:  leave this woman alone!!!  And eat a real vegetable every couple of months or so...

THIS SUMMER I WENT BACK TO A MUCH SIMPLER TIME...

Ahhh, yes, watermelons.  Well, melons of any sort.  But watermelons.  Holy shit, they're like a narcotic to me  Can you say Oxycontin???

As you all know by now, I am a Southern boy by birth and nothing says the South like the annual family reunion at grandma and grandpa's house.  Aunts and uncles, cousins and way too many people with way too little teeth or way too little ability to walk upright.  The garden would be raided, chickens would have their heads rung off, oil would be heated up to temps that rivaled the sun and a banquet would be presented.  But the best part was always dessert.  Watermelons that grandma would let the youngest of us go drag up from the garden that my uncles would ice down in the shade for the entire day.  Those things were heavenly.

For those of you born after the early 1970's you really don't know what a watermelon truly is.  They were huge!!!  You didn't even think about picking them until they were at least 3 feet long.  They barely fit under your arm and they were damned near too big to carry without a wheel barrow.  Grandma taught me well.  "Thumping" a watermelon was just stupid, you had to turn it over.  If it was yellow on the bottom it was ripe.  I was 4 years old.  Trust me, I learned really early how to find the ripe ones.  If you stuck a knife in that thing and it cracked completely open then that sucker was ready to go.  Hey, who's got the salt shaker?  Yeah, the salt shaker...  Grandma, I thank you for your lessons.

By the end of the 1970's I had given up on watermelons.  They had gotten a bit weird for me.  They had gotten seedless.  What the hell is up with that???  That takes all the fun out of it.  C'mon, half the fun of a watermelon was the seed spitting contest from grandma's front porch glider.  Then there was yellow ones.  Huh?  What???  Then there was those totally strange Japanese square ones.  WTF???  Then today we have those "personal" watermelons.  I just don't get it, like I'm going to cut a hole in it and "stchuup" it???  Trust me, I'm gay but I'm not THAT gay!!!  god gave me opposable thumbs for a reason!!!  Just give me damned watermelon the size of my uncle's Pontiac and let me go face down in it!!!  Hey, my needs are simple...

This year for some reason I developed a craving for watermelon again.  Big time.  WAY big time.  I have eaten more watermelons in the last two months than I have eaten in the last 4 decades.  I have been drawn to them like a crack-whore in heat.  Yep, Sea Squirt has found me in the kitchen at the sink just devouring half a watermelon with seeds in my ears and rinds in my hands and a smile on my face.  I have made watermelon margarita's, watermelon salsa, watermelon salads, you name it and I have been making it.  Yes, watermelon has once again made me its bitch.

Life is SO good!!!  If I only still had grandma's recipe for pickled watermelon rind it would be even better!