PARADE

New Orleans: the stuff of ghost and voodoo, head skulls on sticks

Painted Red, Painted Yellow, Painted Blue

Carry all cups in crowds

Slapped in the head by second floor chucked beads

Goat's Head Soup in the shop window

Hanging root of John the Conqueror

Shrunken head with eyes skwoze shut

Can't look at the devil

While grinning at his gun

Push past, push passed

Wave them on from the iron rails

Dr. Seuss hats are drunk

Hustlers, pickpockets

Alley urinals

Fade to black

The dream of the Mad Drunk.

DREAMS

They're always disconcerting, uncomfortable, weird. Not a nice one in the bunch.

Last night was home invasion of the cockroaches, quivering from the effects of pesticides but not dead. A lot of them were stuck to the walls. One was a hybrid of a praying mantis/small snake/cockroach. My sister was cowering in a corner at the sight of it. Why I wasn't I have no idea.

Then there was the impending thunderstorm in the distance, and when it struck, everything in its path turned to ice. Complete with tornado and everything!

I once kept a dream diary but couldn't figure out a use for it. Sell it to Hollywood?

Signed,

Unsigned.

IMAGINE: JOHN AND YOKO

Today's is Yoko's hatch day... I mean 78th birthday.

I just heard a short audio clip recorded at Abbey Road studios during the making of "The White Album". In it, Paul is in the background playing "Martha My Dear", and John is in the foreground discussing something with an unidentified party when all of a sudden we hear Yoko screaming"JOHN! JOHN! JOHN!" It gets louder and louder. The pitch gets higher and higher. John plays along with her. "YOKO! YOKO! YOKO!" They go back and forth. Meanwhile, Paul being the trooper that he is, keeps playing "Martha My Dear". How come he wasn't storing a pistol in the piano?

I would love to see the reaction on George, Paul, and Ringo's faces. I kept waiting to hear the studio door slamming as everyone walked out.

I'm really not a fan of performance art.

Turn down the mics, and turn up the bug zapper.

Signed,

Unsigned.

CALL THE LAWYER AGAIN

How about these:

A 19 year old was awarded $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor accidently ran over his hand with his car. He was unaware that someone was behind the wheel when he was in the process of stealing the hubcaps.

A woman in Texas was awarded $80,000 after she broke her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running about inside the furniture store she was shopping in. The store owners were surprised by the verdict, seeing as the child was the woman's son.

Get this one: homeowners goes on a week long vacation. A guy burglarizes the house, then leaves through the side door that exits into the attached garage. The door locks behind him, and seeing there's no exit door on the garage, he's trapped inside for a week, forced to survive on soda and dog food. He successfully sued the homeowners ( and I bet they lost their house because of it )

I wished I had taken school more seriously and studied harder. Being a lawyer sounds fun, if for nothing else than just breaking the balls of large companies with these idiotic lawsuits. My firm's TV commercial slogan would be "IT'S ALWAYS SOMEONE ELSE'S FAULT!"

CALL THE LAWYER

How about this one:

April 1995: Chesapeake, Virginia prison inmate Robert Lee Brock was upset at himself for getting arrested for breaking and entering and grand larceny, so he decided to make himself pay -- by suing himself for $5 million. Stating that he violated his own religious beliefs by committing the crime, he sought payment for a civil rights offense. Of course, since he didn't have $5 million to pay himself, he asked that the state pay on his behalf. His suit was thrown out.

ANIMAL COPS

I have to ask myself "why do I watch this show if it makes me feel so bad, angry, sad" etc. One reason could be - and probably is - is that I like feeling that way, but I think the other is seeing that these strozone owners get their pets taken away from them, and that the animals are given a second chance.

It seems that the brunt of neglect and abuse falls on dogs and horses, and one has to think "wait a minute. Don't people realize how much money and attention need to be paid to horses?" C'mon! Who doesn't get this? They somehow get their hands on a horse, toss it in the backyard and feed it whenever they feel like it - which results in malnutrition and a host of other illnesses caused by said condition. They have to be exercised, they have to have their hooves and shoes taken care of! They must be visited by a veteran every so often! Jesus!

And the poor dogs! Holy crap! Pit bull after pit bull after pit bull. I worked with someone who had one, got pissed that the dog wasn't an aggressive fighter, and promptly got rid of it. He didn't say how he did this, though. I didn't ask.

And cats! Always left behind by someone. Or, the victims of hoarders. Disgusting! I watched an episode where hundreds of cats were removed from someone's house, and not all of them were alive. Mummified remains under the goddamned TV! Week old kittens whose mother is malnourished and can't feed them. And mountains of cat shit! Then there was the woman who kept four kittens outside - in a fucking birdcage!

I don't know how the ASPCA officers handle their job. I just don't.

Best for last: this guy had literally 1000's of domestic pet rats in his house. 1000's! They freakin' destroyed his house. In the walls, a nest under the bathtub, in the cabinets, in the cupboards holy shit!

I wonder if there are people who consciously hoard cockroaches. I've cleaned a few apartments in my day, and the fact that the little fuckers came over on the Mayflower - couch that is - leads me to believe this may be a fact. Some people don't mind "living" with them.

I always liked the credit at the end of the movie "Creepshow", where it reads "cockroach wrangler". YEE-HAHH!

Signed,

Unsigned.

SHIRLEY TEMPLE AND J EDGAR HOOVER

Interesting history fact discovered today: Today's date in 1949, J. Edgar Hoover gives Shirley Temple a tear gas pen. Now here's the question: why? Was it gift? Isn't that like giving a five year old kid firecrackers? Or maybe he was planning to kill her. Wasn't this same thing considered by the CIA to get rid of Castro during the 60's?

Imagine: she's rehearsing for a movie in which the scene calls for her to pick up a pen and write a letter, all the while singing to herself.

"On the Good Ship, Lollypop AKKKKKKKKK!!!!" pssssssssssssssss!!!

I've been on numerous trivia sites, plus even her own, and can't find the reason. Considering what a fucking tyrant/dictator/cross dresser Hoover was, I'm going with the theory that he was trying to eliminate her for being what he suspected a commie subversive (most likely this came from Joe McCarthy).

It's been a Weird World since time began, never boring, but always Weird.

GLOBAL WARMING - OR NOT

An interesting alternate theory to global warming: all of those - and these - years of nuclear testing. Why not? Too many to count, for Christ's sake. Then again, I never actually counted because I'd probably get weirded out by it and then lobby against nuke testing but it doesn't matter because I can't afford the lobby, let alone the hotel.

Anyway, rambling aside, there's a passage in the Stephen King story "The Mist", where he makes reference to nuclear testing throwing the planet's atmosphere into turmoil; however, it's spoken of as a conspiracy theory of sorts. Eh! Just another one for the books.

Here's the new slogan:

Going Green costs too much green.

SUPER LOTTO

"It keeps the poor man poor" - unknown.

What would you do? Just what would you do? You're numbers are picked! You hit the big time! What's the next course of action? Most people do this: blow it all, no matter how big the amount; right through it, in a matter of years. I think it's because players don't really expect to win that this happens. I can't picture it. Millions of dollars right out the window. The numbers are staggering. Is it some kind of contest to see who can lose it the quickest?

Just what the fuck would you do? People always say "put it in the bank and live off of the interest" but then what's the sense of having won the money in the first place? You let it sit in the bank? Besides, I think the temptation to get at it would be too much for one to resist.

14 Cadillacs, 10 mansions, gold tiled swimming pool. Who the hell needs all them things? Simplify: instead of Cadillacs, buy a limo and hire a driver full time. You got all that money! Why should you drive yourself - anywhere? A big house is okay; maybe two. I'd get three: a nice condo in Manhattan, a place in the Hamptons, and one in Europe. Or better still, luxury cruise ships sell condos. You can travel all over the world and never leave home.

But key here is get a lawyer - or a law firm, and then hire a private investigator or someone who can sporadically audit your books for any misappropriations, and pay them more than the law firm!

Then invest. Safe stocks here, CD's there, high risk over here, maybe even engineer a hostile takeover. Real estate. Put the money to work for you so you don't ever have to go to work again.

And if you get married, get that pre-nup or don't get married at all. If you're already married, don't get divorced! Remember your spouse gets half. Of everything!

Then you got your personal stuff: take care of your family, pay for their college, etc. Me, I'd buy a compound like the Corleone family had in "The Godfather" so all can be together. (Then again, that type of thing might be something that will drive the family apart).

Christ! $225 million! Jesus that's a lotta dough! Another idea: get it all in cash and stuff it away in an underground chamber just like Scrooge McDuck.

BEERS OF THE PAST

From olfactory memory, here are (or were, as it were, as it were) my nonfavorite ales, lagers, pils', etc.

Right off the bat? Moosehead from Canada. Skunk ale. Tasted like Pepe Le'Pew farted right inside of the bottle. I bet actual moose piss tastes better than this. Gives moosesess everywhere a bad name.

Molson Golden (see above).

Tuborg. This is probably what witch potion tastes like. Just too much stuff that can't be identified. No presence of hops or malt.

Meisterbrau: water has more hops and malt to it than this shit.

Matt's Premium. Premium what? Gasoline?!

Budweiser. There's just something to it that just doesn't taste like beer is supposed to. Sour ginger ale, with more carbonation than ginger ale. Michelob tastes the same but with more skunk to it.

Stroh's is pretty nasty. Skunk odor, skunk taste, and skunk aftertaste that lingers for three weeks afterwards.

What, no imports you ask? Grolsch from Holland; watered down witch piss, again with too many unidentifiable ingredients. No presence of hops or malt. Never drink beer whose name sounds like the noise you make before the vomit hits the floor - or the toilet.

Finally, there was this stuff from Norway called Hansa Fjord. It embraced all of the elements from above: skunk smell, skunk taste, skunk aftertaste, gasoline pallet, strange witch brew, and sour ginger ale. Passed through gas the tank of a 65 Fjord Fairlane.

To this day, I can't understand the widespread appeal of Budweiser. I just don't get it!

DOIN' HIS PART

DAYS OF BEER AND ROSES

For some reason - maybe out of curiosity - I was on the web last night checking to see what beer was deemed 'worst in the world'. Now, I'm not planning on going back to drinking; no way, but since the industry has changed so much since I stopped, I wanted to see what was what.

Top of the list - according to ratebeer.com - is Natural Light. This site supposedly consists of expert tasters, but there are a few wise asses who post their so called 'opinions', but their ratings aren't taken into consideration. But I digress.

Funny that I don't remember drinking Natural Light. It either didn't make much of an impression or, I was already shitfaced when I tried it. Most of the big industry light beers got lame ratings; guess it really is the alcohol content that counts. Then again, if that were true, the malt liquors would be high on the lists (which of course they aren't).

A lot of the Big Breweries have been doing something weird for the past ten or so years: they're flavoring the beer with bizarro shit. Budweiser makes one called Chelada, which is mixed with Clamato. Fucking Clamato? What the fuck is that all about? Just the thought of it is nauseating, let alone the picture of it: red tomato colored thing with a foamy beer head on top. Plus clams in the mix? Blecchh! Is this an attempt to shove all the food elements of a picnic or party into one can? What's next? Bud with lobster tail juice? Miller with oyster bits floating about in the solution? Phew!

Then I did a flip about and checked which beers were deemed the best in the world. As I expected, a lot of them were micro brews. Funny names too, and the top rated beer in the world is called Three Floyds Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout made in Munster, Indiana (how about that image: Grandpa Munster standing over this bubbling cauldron stirring it with a row boat paddle and when he takes it out, it's burned). Russian Imperial Stout. The Dark Lord title also gives off an image of the devil or Rasputin standing over the cauldron, tossing body parts and bats into the mix.

In any event, it's supposed to be an excellent beer but I ain't gonna try it. I've addressed this ad nauseum, but my drinking days are over. Besides, that shit is supposed to be very expensive.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this poor grammar bad sentence structure blog called "Beers of The Past".