Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention

Drunkenness is the mother fucker of invention.

What to do when you want a Black & Tan, but don't have any Harp (or Bass, if you don't know what you're doing)? Well, instead of pouring an Irish stout over an Irish ale, you pour your can of Guinness over a redneck original.

I give you ... The Black & White Trash:


Now, to properly float the Guinness atop the PBR (or whatever other sub-par, NASCAR "beer" you happen to have on hand), you'll need a pouring spoon. Ordinarily, I'd recommend using a cigarette lighter and a plastic spork to fashion an implement suitable for the "white trash" half of the drink, but since it will be the Guinness and not the piss-water beer that will be poured over the spoon, decorum permits using a non-plastic utensil.

Here is a great example:

Now, the great thing about this particular spoon is the way that it could still be used to eat a medium-sized bowl of bachelor gruel without any additional major modifications. Hell, I wouldn't even need to rinse it off before I tucked into a bowl of chili.

..............................................

In my infinite drunken genius, I have come up with the perfect slogan for Pabst Blue Ribbon:

"Must be the Pabst".

It could be used in almost any incarnation of media advertisement, but I think this slogan MUST be whispered if it makes it to radio or television (obviously whispering wouldn't work in print). I feel that it has more impact that way.

"Why am I having such a great time tonight?" ... "Must be the Pabst."

"Why are all these beautiful ladies looking at me?" ... "Must be the Pabst."

"How did I manage to take a shit on the sheets while I was sleeping?" ... "Must be the Pabst."

"Why did I get a tattoo of John Wayne on my inner thigh?" ... "Must be the Pabst."

"How could I have forgotten to pay my rent?" ... "Must be the Pabst."



Why am I writing ignorant blog posts?
...

...
You guessed it.

So, I'm reading the NYT online because I am curious about the current financial meltdown and various government bailouts both proposed and implemented. And while I'm reading, it is pissing me off that the government is coming to the rescue of people who made horrible investment decisions. I pay my f-ing mortgage like clockwork, and what's more, I made damn sure that I would be able to afford my mortgage payment before I ever signed any paperwork. Now I read that my government is planning to use a vast chunk of of the bread they get from taxing everyone to help out the morons who couldn't do simple math and rudimentary risk assessment. Reward the idiots and show them it is perfectly acceptable to take huge gambles in risky markets. And I'm reading. And my ire is swelling. And I keep scrolling down to read more.

And I see this:



Now, normally when I see this image is looks a bit more like this:



For a moment there, my eyes automatically added in the shitty pixelation problem and gaudy flashing text that accompany most 'quality' porn ads. Then I blinked and realized that it was a decent photograph, and touted as a new film in a major newspaper. So obviously, I'm slightly confused, and naturally I forget all about the proposed sub-prime mortgage bailout. Because, hey, there appears to be a new movie out featuring two Asian lesbians. So, while I'm REALLY hoping this oriental lesbian throw-down movie isn't the "Dakota Fanning Rape Movie" mentioned just below the photo, I cautiously click the link.

It turns out that NO, thankfully this is not the Dakota Fanning Rape Movie. It also turns out that the movie sounds incredibly dull, and I have probably already enjoyed the greatest part of the film by looking at that still image.

But I have to hand it to the ad guys at the Times; I'd wager that their review of Wayne Wang's two new and equally unintriguing movies is one of the most viewed pages online today ... simply because of men's reflexive reactions when seeing that picture.

Putting the "Fun" in Funeral

Questions I frequently ponder during funerals: Is there an afterlife, or do we just wink out like a blown 60 watt bulb? If there is an afterlife, what exactly is the deal there? Does everybody look the age they do when they die, or is the afterlife like a giant bottle of Oil of Olay that makes everyone look 25 again? If you only lived to be 47, but your kids lived to be 85, do they get to boss you around in heaven because they are "older"? Is there some heavenly equivalent of needing to take the occasional shit, or are the burritos of eternity completely digested by your soul, leaving nothing for your transcended colon to process? Heaven better have Wet Burrito Wednesday, or I'm having some stern words with the angels in H.R.

...

A few days ago I went to a funeral in Stillwater, and was reminded of a few sentiments. The first was that I don't like funerals, because they call into sharp focus all of the "unanswerable" questions about death. During the service for my friend's mother, the preacher rattled off the traditional funeral outline; this human lived life well, brought joy to others, fought as hard as possible against inevitable death, and is now in a place where pain and suffering cannot follow. I sat there thinking that while the first three assertions were most likely accurate, the fourth was mere supposition. How can one be sure that pain and suffering don't follow a person in death? Or what if there is something awaiting us on the other side that makes pain and suffering look like milk and cookies? And can joy and happiness also not follow us in death, or is it just the abhorrent parts of life that get turned away by some ethereal bouncer? How can two people with two separate concepts of heaven both share the same afterlife? The more I thought, the more my head hurt.

[CUTSCENE TO SAINT PETER GREETING AT THE PEARLY GATES]
"Hey! You must be Krëg! Welcome to the afterlife. What's that? No, there's no cancer or AIDS here. Pretty sweet, huh? But we DO all have contagious parasitic cranial worms that are made of rusty barbed wire, sea-salt and Tabasco sauce. Oh, and also you no longer have genitals and Friday is mandatory bingo night. Huh? What's 'beer'? I've never heard of that. Weird. Well hey, I've got a lot of other people to meet and greet. Stop screaming and enjoy eternity, fuckface!"
[CUT BACK TO REALITY]

Anyway.

The other sentiment caused me to give thanks for once that allergy season is upon us, as it offered alternate justification for my red and misty eyes. I have known my coworker Greg for over nine years now, and while we never hang out outside of work (lunch-breaks notwithstanding), we share enough about our personal lives to technically qualify us as friends. Plus, we've figured that we have saved each other thousands of dollars in therapy bills by just venting our frustrations to each other. "Fuck, you won't believe THIS shit...", is the header of choice for most of our dialog. One side-effect of this rapport is knowing about each other's immediate and extended families.

In 1999, shortly after I started working my current job, Greg's father had a massive heart attack. In fact, the heart attack could technically be classified as fatal, since Gibb had absolutely no heartbeat for over eight minutes. Contrary to all the hard science of human biology I learned from watching the movie Flatliners as a teenager, having no oxygenated blood pumped into your brain for extended periods of time is counter-productive to things like short-term-memory retention, appropriate behavior in social situations (like NOT grabbing random tits), and dressing yourself. Greg's dad proved no exception, and Greg's recently deceased mother ran herself ragged looking after her husband. Four months ago, the decision was made to move Gibb to an assisted living facility, as the strain was beginning to show on his wife. Physically, Gibb is the picture of health for his age; mentally, his headlights have dimmed.

I have never met anyone outside of Greg's immediate family (wife, two kids), but when the funeral service was briefly interrupted early on to allow an elderly gentleman to be escorted to the center aisle seat of the front row, I had no doubt who the man was. The service swung through the usual rigmarole of hymns, scripture readings, and family recollections of the deceased. Pretty standard fare. The man in robes invited everyone to quietly nibble cookies and shake some family hands in the meeting hall immediately following the service. Then the ushers began to "ush" the family out of the sanctuary.

Gibb was one of the first to leave, and I don't think it would have been possible to mistake him for anyone other than the spouse of the deceased. I have never seen so much grief packed onto one singular face, and it temporarily fried my brain. I wondered if he remembered when he woke up that morning that his wife had passed away just a few days prior. I wondered if he knew why the nice people at the facility were helping him dress up in his suit, or knew where they were headed during the ride from the facility to the church. If he hadn't known that morning, it was obvious he was fully up to speed by the
conclusion of the service and the events had brought his mind fully to bear.

As he filed past me and into the meeting hall, I mentally fumbled around, searching for a prayer for Gibb. Fuck. Do I pray that he gets over the loss soon, knowing full well that the end of his grief is probably the result of a decaying mental condition that is slowly erasing the memories of his wife? Or do I pray that he remembers and feels the pain of losing her for the rest of his days, letting the bare flame of her memory slowly burn away at him? Dammit. I think I'd rather think about those death questions some more. I finally just closed my allergy-stung eyes and prayed that he would endure as best he could.

Fucking funerals.

Oh, and happy birthday Greg. I'm sorry it came a mere day after you mother's passing.

My Den Is Alive...

...With the sound of music.

With the help of some dear friends, I set up my music room Saturday evening.
Inventory:
Four guitars.
Three guitar amps.
Two banjos.
Two bass guitars.
One bass amp.
One piano.
One organ.
One digital drum kit.
One PA system.
Assorted microphones, egg-shakers, harmonicas, bongos, and tambourines (for the musical-instrument-impaired).

Now just as soon as I find some musicians, I can begin the long awaited process of "rocking out".

Gustav won't stop pissing on me: