Corky's log

Captain Corky's NFL Playoff Spectacular

2012-01-05T06:26:00.000-05:00

Manning Hugging Wife

I'll have a blue Wild Card Weekend without you.
I'll be so blue watching the Divisional round without you.
Decorations of Terrible Towels on my Shitty TV Stand...
I'll have a blue, blue, blue Super Bowl.

Now onto the picks:

The Bungholes vs. The Texans. I don't like this game and wouldn't bet a nickle on it. I do like The Bungholes New QB and Wide Receiver though so I'll go with them.

Pittsburgh will destroy the Broncos.

Saints will beat the Lions. Every time I've sat down to watch a big game with the Lions they didn't show up. They clearly need some courage from the Wizard.

Falcons and Giants is another tough game to pick, but I like the Giants. The Falcons under Matt Ryan have never impressed in the playoffs. Eli Manning has won a Super Bowl so that's got to count for something. Plus, the Giants defense is playing better, or at least that's what they've been saying on sports radio and I just love to regurgitate that shit.

Breast is Best: Put Your Chest to the Test

2012-01-01T12:11:00.000-05:00

My husband had never, ever heard of Katy Perry before TMZ posted these bikini pictures. Ever since that fateful moment in time, this .gif has been bouncing on his computer's monitor. Yes, for one entire week, the video card has been working double (D) time making sure that the up-down-right-left-up-down-right-left motions remain as smooth as Corky's best dance floor moves.

Not being an outraged feminist, I can't get that offended by this, in spite of the fact that I just heard this declaration: "Every woman's breasts should look like that." Well, if we all drove the same cherry red Lamborghini, we'd get bored, right?

Right?

*crickets*

Variety is definitely the spice of life. Just ask this woman's customers.

On Moonlighting and Christmas, sort of

2011-12-21T18:54:00.008-05:00

For the past week I have been working the graveyard shift at a plastic sheet manufacturing plant. The job I perform there is simple: I work at the end of the line either stacking sheets on pallets or cutting up unacceptable pieces to get them ready for the grinder. I am doing the work that a million-dollar robot would be doing otherwise.

When all is going well, the job is easy: stacking and counting sheets and sweeping and dumping shavings from the mill heads. When anything is out of whack, the job is painful: the mill cuts bad parts out in sixteen-inch lengths; I have to peel protective wrap from both sides, carry the piece to the band saw, cut it into four pieces and stack them in a box. The ones we dealt with last night were five feet wide and five-eighths of an inch thick--kind of heavy--and they came off the line practically non-stop for nearly seven hours of my eight-hour shift.

There are two other men working the same shift. Alton is the de facto foreman; he has worked at the plant for several years, so he knows most of the arcana concerning the front of the line. Julian was hired two or three weeks before I started, so he's allowed to operate the fork lift. For a group of guys who didn't know each other a month ago, we work really well together, like a team with several seasons behind it; it's impressive.

I took the job because in this crappy economy the demand for my painting services has practically disappeared; at this time of year it is non-existent. The training wage I'm earning now is half what I make painting; it's not quite enough to make ends meet. It should slow the hemorrhaging to a trickle, though, and hopefully I'll pick up some painting jobs soon. At least I'm doing something to try to make it.

Christmas is on credit (and not very much of it); I think we've managed to keep it under two hundred dollars. I have no fancy watch to hawk to get money to buy Carrie a set of combs for her hair, which means she won't have to sell her hair in order to get me a fancy fob chain. Sharing Brendan and Cullen's delight will have to be gift enough for both of us; can't you just feel the love?

That's My Boy!

2011-12-14T12:27:00.004-05:00

My son is growing up. In this picture he is receiving his first stripe in Shotokan karate. He learned all his stances to earn that stripe; I am very proud of him for the diligence and discipline it took to get over that first hurdle. He would have gotten his stripes for blocks and punches as well, but they ran out of time.

Brendan is kind of smart. He can count to twenty or more in Spanish and Chinese; he can count in English until he's bored silly. At four years and nearly a season, he reads at a second-grade level or better. He either impresses or amazes everyone who speaks with him.

We can't afford to send him to a private school, so we are hoping he does well on the exam he has scheduled for February, which will determine if he qualifies to attend one of the better local magnet schools. Now he attends preschool at a church in Sulphur four hours a day four days a week. He is so advanced in some areas that it seems like the place is holding him back, but he is learning to socialize better and to follow teachers' instructions. He is also learning a lot of cool songs, and he has the Pledge of Allegiance down pat. Carrie and I work on the other things with him at home.

When I see the faces of his classmates when I bring him to school, two things occur to me. First, they all seem really happy to see him; second, they all seem less mature or developed next to him. It isn't that they are or even appear dull, it's more that Brendan is truly bright and sharp; the contrast is stark. It prompts me to want to make sure that he isn't lumped into regular classes with average kids when he begins his education in earnest. The lowest common denominator to which teachers must cater in regular classes is simply too low for him. There'd be no real challenge or excitement for him; he could skate through semi-consciously.

I don't push him at all; the pace at which he likes to learn is fast enough for me. In some cases it feels a bit too fast, but I refuse to hold him back. He also has shown that the Murphy didactic streak runs through him; I believe he has already taught Cullen way more than I have. He even has a great sense of humor; his favorite knock-knock joke is: Knock knock! Who's there? Who! Who who? Did you hear that owl? He likes the one about yodeling, too. Gotta love him...

All I Want for Christmas is a Fucking Rambo Knife!

2011-12-12T14:13:00.000-05:00

Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas is a fucking Rambo knife. I'll use it to hunt wild boar in the Jefferson Memorial Forest. I'll keep it under my pillow when I sleep and my family will be protected from intruders. I will store fish hooks, waterproof matches, and my old lottery tickets in the handle. That is all I'll need to survive in the wilderness of Kentucky.

After I kill a wild boar with my fucking Rambo knife by jumping out of a tree onto it's back, I will feast on the wild boar with my two sons and wife. Then we will make coats out of the boar's thick hide.

The fish hooks and matches are self explanatory.

After 20 years of hiding out in the Jefferson Memorial Forest my family and I will reenter society, change our names, and redeem the old lottery tickets. With the money from the lottery tickets we will buy a mansion and live happily ever after.

Since my fRk is made out of stainless steel it will be in the same shape as it was the day I purchased it. If you give me the knife for Christmas I promise to keep it razor sharp and clean the blood off of it every time I kill something or someone with it.

Merry Christmas, Santa.

Love,
Captain Corky.

On The Good Fight

2011-12-10T14:06:00.012-05:00

The man in the picture above is my father. At the time of this photo, he was cooling his heels at the DC Jail, having just been arrested at an anti-war demonstration, sometime in the very early 1970s. My purpose in showing this is two-fold: it shows that my father was pretty much a hippie at the time; it serves as a starting point for this post.

If anyone has read earlier posts of mine, he or she may recall that I have disparaged hippie wannabes (such as many of the Occupy Wall Street folks) with impunity. My disdain for them stems from my belief of what protests should be about and what a truly righteous cause is.

My father and his father were very active in the civil rights movement in the 1950s and '60s. Both had a keen sense of justice and fairness; both were fearless and relentless in their pursuit of these ideals and in their efforts to make them realities for everyone in our country. Neither made a name for himself as a famous champion of humanity, but what they did at the basic level to help bring about the changes we've seen in the past fifty-plus years was as important to the cause as the major protests, marches and speeches that have garnered all the attention. They worked face-to-face with people, convincing them intellectually and spiritually of the merit of the cause. They changed many minds and hearts, helping to swell the tide that ultimately prevailed. They never expected recognition, accolades or even gratitude for it; they fought the good fight per the dictates of their consciences and convictions.

Grandpa Murphy was extremely liberal. He was active in the Church and was probably a thorn in the side of many of its leaders. He was very vocal and wrote a lot about the ordination of women and married men. He tried to help drag the Church into modernity; I think he was even pro-choice. My dad was far more conservative than Grandpa, the hippie anti-war thing notwithstanding. He was more traditionalist in his faith; he was all about Latin Masses (which is not some pro-illegal immigration group); he observed Lent; he held onto the prohibition against eating meat on Fridays year-round; he was staunchly anti-abortion. They were both pacifists who were active in the anti-[Vietnam] war movement.

My father started teaching at The American University in the fall of 1968. I was one year old at the time, so some of what follows is what I can remember of other people's accounts of what happened then. The war in Vietnam was on; the draft was in place. There were deferrals for college students; some of them went to Camp AU. Some professors were very reluctant to fail students at the time; flunking a kid out of college could practically be issuing him a death sentence. My father gave lots of students Cs in those days.

I remember some of the parties my parents threw in the early to mid 1970s; I remember pretzels, beer, reefer and many young, long-haired male and female partiers. I remember clowning around at one party: I got on the back of the couch, distorted my face a bit and raised both hands above my head with peace signs, mocking the larger-than-life-sized poster of Nixon on the wall behind me.

I remember the students who rented the house three or four doors up from us. I drank my first beer in their front yard at one of the many parties they threw; it was a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. One of the young ladies there used to take me on errands with her; I remember the big lollipops she'd buy me whenever we went out. I think her name was Cindy; she is the one who took this picture:

Somewhere in the annals of Corky's Log, one can find a reference wherein I claimed that I was grunge before grunge was grunge; I submit this photo as evidence to back that claim.

Anyhow, I hear that Time magazine has made the (generic) protester its person of the year. It puts the OWS whiners on a par with people worldwide who have fought or are fighting for freedom from oppressive governments. What a load of crap! These OWS fools are more or less advocating socialism and communism which, if implemented, would result in the installation of an extremely oppressive government here. That government would end up depriving good innocent people of life, liberty and property in the name of an equality that will never happen. One need only look at what happened in Russia, China and Cuba in the last century to see what a bad thing a crossover to communism would be. It would bring a terrible, bloody end to our wonderfully successful republic. I say no thank you!

The fight for equal rights and the fight to end the draft and the war in Vietnam were just causes for which it was worth risking one's reputation, safety, freedom and even life. Seeking to kill our republic for the pipe dream of a socialist utopia is a foolhardy, deplorable and despicable endeavor; it by no means merits the recognition Time has conferred on OWS protesters for advocating it.

BTW: We will have communism in the United States over my dead body.

On Yet Another Sorry Scofflaw

2011-12-07T16:23:00.006-05:00

So Alec Baldwin got thrown off a plane for much the same offense that nearly cost a fellow passenger his teeth on a recent flight I took; what an asshole! Why do these arrogant, godless, hedonistic anarchist turds think the rules do not apply to them? Typical of hypocrites, these bitches are the first ones to whine, "Foul!" at the instant of a perceived slight [witness AB's Twitter activity in the immediate aftermath of this incident]. They embrace the rules when the rules benefit them, yet break them whenever they can and look down their noses at those of us who appreciate order and behave accordingly. Fuck all of them!

If the jackass who was on my flight last week had pulled the same crap that Alec Baldwin did, I promise you he would have regretted it the rest of his life: every time he looked in the mirror; every time he desired to eat solid food. Had I been on that flight with Alec Baldwin, I'd have treated him precisely the same. I don't swoon over celebrities; I would have cut him no slack. His acting career would have been over, save for appearances on crime dramas as a corpse, a vegetable or some guy who just got the living shit beat out of him. I reiterate: FUCK HIM AND EVERYONE LIKE HIM!

All these anarchist punks need to go find an island, move there and get that whole Animal Farm thing going on with each other; there is no place here in polite society for any of them.

Peter's Travels: Thanksgiving 2011

2011-12-05T12:51:00.002-05:00

I flew the family out to Maryland for Thanksgiving. The flight to Houston was bumpy but not scary; the flight to Baltimore was fine. We got to the BWI car rental complex, then things started to suck. First, Mrs. Peter noticed that one of the bags I had grabbed from the carousel was the wrong one, as we were getting off the shuttle from the airport. I had to take the shuttle back to the airport, wait for some attendant to show up, be embarrassed for being such a dumbass, then take the shuttle back. (In my defense, Mrs. Peter had the brilliant idea to tie bandanas to our two suitcases--a red one on the red case, a lilac/purple one on the dark blue case. The bags I grabbed had the red and purple bandanas on them, but the dark blue bag was the wrong one. The bandanas were identical; the bags were not. Yes, I should have checked the numbers, but the bags were right next to each other. The attendant promised me she'd extend my apology to the other unfortunate soul who thought a purple bandana was a good idea..) We got past the counter alright, having reserved and paid for the car on-line, but when we got to the car, there were no child safety seats in or near it. Back inside.

The lady at the counter got on her radio and tried to talk to William or somebody who was supposed to have dealt with the seats. She got no response, so she got on the PA to get his attention. He must've been high or sleeping or both; there was no sign of or word from good old Mysterious Disappearing William. One of the counter ladies took it upon herself to get the seats for us. She brought us one that was missing some parts, then another that was soaking wet. After twenty minutes of a fruitless, futile search, she came back and said she had to go borrow one from Avis. That one was okay, if somewhat ghetto compared to the ones we have at home, so Mrs. Peter installed it, then we put the boys in and rolled out.

We were on the BW Parkway when I noticed an alert on the dashboard telling me tire pressure was low. WTF? I thought they were supposed to check stuff like that. I got off the parkway and spent 75 cents for air at a gas station. All four tires were at least 10 psi low; one was down 25! Crap! My family's safety is of paramount importance to me, so I didn't mind too much making sure all was right. Spoiler alert: That last sentence is foreshadowing...

Our stay in MD was great; everybody got along, and we ate and drank very well for eight days. On our way back, on the flight from BWI to Houston, we found ourselves across the aisle from one of those scraggly OWS types. He sniffled and sneezed a couple of times; he didn't even acknowledge my blessing, which I conferred on him despite the fact that he didn't do very much to contain his expulsions. The flight attendant (or a recording) announced that it was time to turn off all electronic devices. Stinky, scruffy, snot-nosed scofflaw decided that it did not apply to him. As the flight attendant made her way down the aisle, I made a point of pointing him out to her. She reminded him to turn his Nano and Crackberry off; he grunted his assent and went right back to texting!

I thought for a minute about what this could mean. I've heard there's no proven danger in using these devices on a plane, but I had put mine away in accordance with the rules. Was this guy a terrorist? I did not want to take the slightest chance with my family's well-being, so after about another minute I leaned over and remarked, "You gonna turn that shit off?" I must have said it pretty loud and forcefully, because people several rows up turned around to see what the fuss was about, and I'm sure I heard at least one old lady gasp in astonishment. He grunted assent again and tapped some more on his device.

I started to get really upset; I thought to myself, "What would Corky do?" I was planning to roll all Walker Texas Sky Ranger on his sorry ass: punch to the nose, knee to his jaw... I was wondering how many of his teeth that second blow would knock out, and if the authorities would throw him or me off the plane, when he shut all his shit off and defused my powder keg. He has no idea how close he came to having a very bad day--two hundred pounds of pissed off Irishman looking to protect his family is not something anyone should trifle with. The rest of that flight went off without incident.

The flight from Houston home was delayed for over half an hour due to some unspecified staffing issue. The flight attendant apparently couldn't make it (on time?), so we had to wait for the airline to get it straight. I imagined that the flight attendant was trying to take advantage of her fifty-something-year-old pilot lover's Cialis-induced priapism; who knows? [The TV spot advises men to see their doctor if that should happen (an erection lasting over four hours). I don't know; I think first I would go see Alice and Beth and Cindy and Delilah and Elaine and....]

I was not sure whether to view our flight attendant as a villain or a hero--was she the one running late for no apparent good reason, or was she the unselfish stand-in for the other? I figured I had had my day's fill of assuming the worst of people; she got the benefit of the doubt and the most polite treatment from me that I could muster.

Thanksgiving Itinerary

2011-11-23T06:06:00.000-05:00

5:10 AM: Finished Work

7:00 AM: Take Nap

10: 30 AM: Go to Bait Shop and Get Minnows

11:30 AM: Stone Soup Lunch with the Family

12:30 PM: Go Fishing

5:30ish PM: Make Dinner

8:00ish PM: Watch Prison Break

12:00 AM: Sleep

8:30 AM: Wake up with Kids

10:00 AM: Watch Parade, Eat Cinnamon Rolls, and Drink Coffee

1:00 PM: Watch Football, Play with Kids, Peel Potatoes, Make Bread Possibly

4:00 PM: Eat Turkey

6:00 PM: Digest Turkey

8:00 PM: Eat Turkey Again

8:30 PM: Watch Holiday Movie

10:00 PM Watch Another Holiday Movie

12:00 PM: Sleep

Note: Throughout the next couple of days I will be thinking about how grateful I am for my family and friends.

Redistribute This!

2011-11-12T14:24:00.002-05:00

I'm emerging from my hiatus to weigh in on the Occupy [whatever] movement. I used to think like many of the younger people there; I thought the world owed me a living whereby I could do as I please and still have whatever I want. Then I came down and grew up. The truth is one cannot expect the world to give one anything; there are winners and losers. Industrious, hard-working people usually end up as winners; whiny, snotty, spaced-out slackers usually end up as losers.

It would have been great to get paid to get high and play video games and watch porn and jack off all day every day. I couldn't get anyone to foot the bill, so I had to work to earn a living and to be able to afford to do the other stuff when I had the time. Many of the Occupy hippie wannabes don't understand this and think that socialism would provide the answer to all that vexes them. The problem with socialism is that there are too many people who don't really want to do anything productive. If the state provides for these people at the expense of industrious people through wealth redistribution, the state becomes a de facto slave owner, and productive people become slaves of the state and of the slackers. Fuck all that dumb shit!

These Occupy people would do well to go home and try to do something productive, rather than stay where they are befouling their surroundings and tarnishing the legacy of real hippies.

God bless capitalist America! Down with sniveling, invidious, slacker bitches!

Eat More Fish

2011-11-02T23:07:00.000-04:00

Im the good looking guy in the center.

If I could go back and tell my twenty-year old self one thing it would definitely be to eat more fish. Chances are anything else I would tell myself wouldn't mean shit to me.

I mean really, what could my 80 year-old self possibly have to say to me now that I don't already know? I'm fairly certain that I'll be partially senile when I'm 80 so nothing that I would tell my 41 year-old self would make any sense expect that I should eat more fish.

Dear Lou,
Please eat more fish and I'm glad that you've moved on from wearing jean jackets.

Love,
Corky

Dear Matt,
Please eat more fish and not the kind that comes from McDonalds.

Love,
Corky

The S Says Superman

2011-09-30T05:51:00.000-04:00

I know this is gonna sound crazy, but for many years I based my wardrobe on superhero costumes. I was gonna take the secret to the grave, but Allyson discovered my uncanny sense of fashion one day when I tried to send my son Max to school in a red shirt, green pants, and a purple cape.

I'm very proud to tell you that my younger son, Ben knows all his letters, letter sounds, and superheros.

Lately all of Ben's teachers have been telling Allyson how smart he is because he can count, and identify obscure letters, like Q and B, but fuck that shit.

If Ben's teachers only knew how many figures he could identify! I'm talking about characters from the 1940's, like Dr. Fate and the Vigilante. I'm talking about Captain Kirk, and Mr. Spock from Star Trek. I'm talking about Superman, and Batman. That's what really impresses me.

Some kids bring their stuffed animals to bed. Some kids have a blanket, but Benjamin Clark Anapolsky brings the Joker and Psycho-Pirate to bed with him. That's my son. Yep.

The other day Ben was sorting through a bag of Mattel Justice League figures and in the bag there were some Playmates Star Trek figures, and a couple of Marvel figures from another toy company. Ben didn't like those figures mixing with the Mattel figures so he started throwing them out of the bag. He wasn't angry about it and I've never told him that the Trek and Marvel figures were made by two other toy companies. He just inherently knew the proper course of action to take.

The first time I saw Ben walk: B.F.D. But when I watched him sort the bag like a seasoned pro a tear came to me eye. I sense big things for that kid.

Check Out The Tent Under The Tree

2011-08-31T06:06:00.000-04:00

Am I as delusional as I was last year? No. I still live in a fantasy world only my hours have been cut and now it's like a part time life.

Last weekend some of the members of the family and two of my friends went camping in Shelbyville, KY. Nice town. Pretty country.

It was a great trip. We caught fish and had an awesome dinner that consisted of fish, baked potatoes, and baked beans with a touch of brown sugar. The meal was fantastic, but the highlight of the camping trip for me was pitching our tent under the tree.

Obviously, part of the reason I chose to put the tent under the tree was for shade during the day, but more importantly I thought the tent would look good and I was right. And no, I didn't put the tent under the tree so that other campers would be envious of my perfect spot. I did it cause the tree told me to do it. It spoke to my soul and said put it here, Keith.

Listen, when a tree tells my soul to do something I fucking do it. Did I worry about the wind breaking a branch large enough to crush us while we slept? Only for a second or two.

Every time I go camping I learn something new. Last time I forgot to bring pillows and a sheet for the queen sized air mattress. I didn't forget that shit this time. This time I forgot paper plates, plastic, and styrofoam cups. I plan on doing a lot more camping as my younger son gets a little older and I will continue to learn along the way.

Someday I plan on pitching my tent on the top of a very high mountain with a billie goat. Just kidding. I'm not wasting my time walking up one of those things and I would never camp where there isn't a place to fish.

I Want To Verb Your Noun Adverb

2011-08-23T21:06:00.002-04:00

because I'm seventyfifteenthree!

Thursday is my birthday. I will be (number) years old. I will get out of bed at (number) o'clock. I will eat (noun) for breakfast and drink (number) cups of (liquid). Then I will try to (verb) (number) miles without falling on my (noun). After I get back, I will eat lunch at (nonsense word) Café with my friend (female name). After (male name)'s first day of school, we will play outside. We like to play catch with a (adjective) (color) (noun). Then I will go inside and (verb). I will skip dinner and drink a bottle of (liquid) instead. After all, that's what people who are (number) years old do best.

A Matter of Conscience?

2011-08-16T15:27:00.006-04:00

I had an eerily realistic dream this morning that has put me in a bit of a quandary. I dreamt that I was out working in my yard when a neighbor passed by on foot and shouted, "Did you hear? They just shot Obama in Atlanta!" I ran inside and turned on the TV, and sure enough someone had busted some ATL cap in our honorable, venerable, cherished leader's dome. I woke up immediately and realized that it was only a dream, but it was on a par with other dreams I've had that have come true, so I am left here believing I've had some sort of premonition. I am not sure what (if anything) to do about it, so I'm putting it here in the hope that one or more of you will advise me or at least inspire me to figure out what the right thing to do may be.

First things first: I do not want to see this President assassinated; no good can come from that, even if the country plunges into racial civil war and we cull the flock by several million. It might therefore behoove me to sound some sort of alarm, but the first thing that'd happen then would be Feds all up in my business (and my family's). On the computer they would find some correspondence between Corky and me where I am not too kind about the President. One note questioned Barack Obama's qualifications to be President; it also cast doubt on his "street cred" by likening his time rabble-rousing on the south side of Chicago to Jane Goodall's stint at the Gombe Stream Reserve--at the end of the day Ms. Goodall was still a woman, and Mr. Obama was still an over-educated white-talking half-cracker who was raised by a "typical white person." It was clearly his skin color, not his street cred, that prompted so many inner-city black folks to vote for him at least once. [One could argue that promises of redistribution of wealth helped many make up their minds; the recent increase in urban flash mobs attacking and robbing people and stores convinces me that this redistribution of wealth apparently isn't happening fast enough for some of us.]

That all smacks of ignorant racist bigotry on my part; perhaps it is racial bigotry to an extent, but it certainly is not born of ignorance. Two experiences my wife had recently should illustrate clearly where my head is right now with respect to a certain element of our society. She was in line at a drive-thru; a group of ten or so young black men were hanging out nearby. One of them approached the driver's side window and aksed her, "Whatcha doin' tonight, Boo?" She rolled up her window and had to wait for him to walk away before she could complete her transaction. I was disappointed that she didn't point to our son in the back seat and tell him, "I'm going home to make another one of those!" The audacity and presumptuousness of the act appalled me; who would dare walk up to a complete stranger at a drive-thru window and try to hit her up for a date? It takes an arrogant fool with absolutely no sense of respect or propriety or decorum to pull a stunt like that!

The second incident was similar to the first. She was parked in a gas station parking lot, breastfeeding our baby; she was on her way to pick me up from our former housekeeper's new apartment, where I had just finished moving furniture, etc. A black man approached the driver's side and aksed, "Whatcha doin'?" She replied, "Breastfeeding..." He remarked, "So that's how you do it! Why don't you lift your shirt up so I can see your titties? Come on! I don't know you; you don't know me..." She rolled the window up and finished her business. It was just another WTF? moment--these guys actually expected to get some action with their approaches!

One of the problems racial purists have with America specifically and with our increasingly global society generally is the interbreeding happening in our time; it is unprecedented in its scope and scale. It used to be the purview of invading armies to spread seed in that fashion; now it's just another hook-up option. I benefitted from the mixing of Irish with Spanish, French, German, Polish and Italian in the US; I cannot decry Asians and Africans getting into the mix. My problem is with anyone of any stripe, especially punk-ass racist thugs, fucking with anybody else because of their color. Whatever. Back to Barack.

I have decided not to do anything about this; I doubt anything horrible will befall our beloved President in Atlanta or anywhere else any time soon. I still haven't heard back from his people or the people at Glee about that cameo, but the bug is in their ears and desperate times call for desperate measures...

Remember KISS?

2011-07-15T09:08:00.002-04:00

Why not start your day off just right with a good old KISS song. For some reason this album looks very natural here. Maybe it's because if you went into my bedroom sometime in 1978 you would see KISS albums sprawled out all over my room. Don't worry about walking in on me if you time travel, I didn't start beating off till I was 14 or so.

Remember when the 1970s didn't seem that far away. Now they might as well have been the 1800s. I wonder if the 80s will feel like that in 10 years... probably not, because I spent that decade memorizing movies starring Michael J. Fox and Andrew McCarthy. I also spent a lot of time kicking a leather target.

Remember when 1990 wasn't 21 years ago? I was severely depressed during the 90s because Andrew McCarthy wasn't appearing in movies anymore and I didn't understand why. I got over it when I moved to Washington DC though. That was a fun town to live in.

Remember when I moved to Louisville in 2000 and the first person I met asked me if I wanted to go over to his house and get stoned? I told him no because I was gunning to become a supervisor at work and stoner boy treated me like I was a NARC for the remaining six months that we worked together. Can't remember the kid's name but he liked Metallica and smoking pot.

Remember last week when I went fishing with my kid. That was fun. We caught 5. One fish had a really fat head. I posted the pic on facebook and a kid named Neil asked me if I was going to eat it. Remember the two cups of coffee I had at work last night? Not bad.

Remember when my boss told me that she had a dream about work this morning?

That’s really all I remember. Sorry I couldn’t come up with more. If I remember anything else about my life I’ll be sure to write another post.

Beating the Heat

2011-07-12T15:28:00.001-04:00

The last two days have been really hot. How hot? Put it this way, last night at work I was sticking to my desk. That's pretty gross. The air conditioner wasn't doing squat and as a result the Check Serenity Light came on in my head. If it doesn't cool off soon I'm going to ask the doctor to increase the Zoloft I take from 50 milligrams to 150 milligrams. If I start taking a dose that high I could probably sit inside the sun and not feel a thing.

One of my favorite pastimes is to make fun of Louisville, but lately I'm having trouble doing that. The city built an amazing water park. It's clean, everything works, and the water is so cold and so refreshing. I literally could stand under one of the flowers in the pic above from now until late September.

One of the amazing by-products of being a parent is that I do shit that I wouldn't do if I didn't have kids like going to a water park or getting wet at a water park. But since I am a father I took both of my kids and did the unthinkable... I got wet and made the kids get wet. And amazingly enough we all love to get soaked at the water park now. I don't mind standing under the freezing water one bit. Maybe it's all the damn Zoloft I take or maybe its because its so hot outside. I really hope the city takes care of this park and if they have to raise my taxes to pay for the water bill so be it.

The scenery surrounding the water park ain't bad either. It was built right next to the Ohio and there are hills, woods, multiple playgrounds, and snakes. It's a really nice park. Thumbs up to all the good citizens of Louisville who made it happen.

The Audacity of Ignorance

2011-07-08T08:27:00.010-04:00

Joran van der Sloot needs to nix the insanity plea and hire Jose Baez. The man is obviously a genius and may be the only person in the world who can get him acquitted of murder. With his inconceivably awesome ability to sucker a jury into believing reasonable doubt exists where clearly it does not, Mr. Baez is perfectly equipped to shred the case against poor put-upon Joran.

When prosecutors show the security camera footage of him and the alleged victim entering the room together, he can point out how happy they look together and how there's no way their relationship could go from such a love-me-tender scene to one in which he brutally kills her--there's no way it could happen. Obviously someone else did the killing, and hotel security doctored the video in order to implicate dear innocent Joran.

When the medical examiners maintain that her injuries are consistent with her having had the living daylights beaten out of her by someone Joran's size, he can point out that there are millions of men in the world who are the same size, and obviously it was one of them who killed the girl, not hunka hunka burning love teddy bear Joran.

He can concoct cool catchphrases that exude reasonable doubt, like his own "fantasy forensics" or the late Johnny Cochran's "..if the glove don't fit, you must acquit..." Simple-minded people glom onto that crap as if it were key evidence that indisputably exculpates the wrongly accused.

He can exhort them to walk a mile in Joran's shoes and don't be cruel and release him. He can excoriate the prosecution for their suspicious minds, and beseech the jury not to allow them to make Joran dance another day to the jailhouse rock. He can tell them he's counting on them to let him be free to reach out to Jesus in the ghetto or anyplace that is paradise. It sounds like nonsense, but ignorant, gullible people always fall for that kind of thing, because when they've been baffled by bullshit, they always want others to believe they were dazzled with brilliance. It truly is a crying shame.

He can admonish the jury not to let the behavior that has absolutely nothing to do with this case influence their verdict. There is no evidence that he had anything to do with Natalee Holloway's disappearance/death; there is no evidence that he had anything to do with the death of Stephany Flores. The prosecutors can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was in the room when she died; they can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he laid a hand on her if he was in the room when she died. With so much left unproven, the case against him unravels. Let's not forget all the other men in the area built like railroaded scapegoat Joran; one of them has gotten away with murder by getting his crime pinned on this pillar of unjustly vilified innocence. The police didn't report that they found him crying in the chapel, where he was waiting so patiently for her to come and marry him, until the real killer so deviously and callously returned her to her sender. And what about the rash of alien abductions at that time? Oh, the humanity!

Shit probably won't play out like that, but I find it sickly pleasurable to imagine a scenario wherein Mr. Baez takes the case and introduces Casey Anthony to Joran in prison, where they have an alcohol-fueled conjugal visit that ends like too many others of his have. Where's the fucking duct tape when you need it??

How about my choice of picture, Lt. Ilia?

OG OT EHT YRARBIL DNA DAER, ELOHSSA!

2011-06-29T05:41:00.005-04:00

Yesterday my family went to the local library. My wife had to drag me kicking and screaming because I don't like to go to places that have books but no coffee. That shit doesn't work for me. The Library at the University of Louisville has a coffee shop inside it so why doesn't our local library have one? I don't get it. All libraries should have coffee shops inside them. Or even better, free fucking coffee. I'd be willing to pay an extra penny a week so that all libraries in Kentucky have coffee. Then maybe I would go more than once every 5 years to skim through dusty old books.

I was wrong to kick and scream though, and it turns out that the local library has something better than a coffee shop. It has a comic book section. I should have known that the comic book section would completely pacify my younger son, Ben.

When we first arrived Ben was very excited and wanted to run and jump on everything. Look, I don't know how to behave in a library so how can I be expected to show my 2 year old how to behave in one. For the first 15 minutes or so I wound up dragging the screaming kid up and down the isles. I tried to sit down in two different places to read Curious George Goes to the Firehouse, but Ben wasn't interested. I felt like a complete and utter failure as a parent and I was ready to split town and leave the burden of raising both kids to my wife.

But then Ben and I just started walking like we were under a hypnotic spell from Zatana and arrived at a wall with comic books. We dropped to the floor and started pulling books off the shelf. I forgot Ben was there and Ben forgot that he was 2. Eventually my wife and older son found where we were and dragged us out of the coffeeless library, because it was time for the kids to get ready for bed. We wound up renting two graphic novels (The Justice Society and The Justice League) under Max's new library card. I'm not giving the books back. Shit, they aint under my name.

So on the way to work last night I had an epiphany... I should take Ben to the comic book store! I know we're gonna have fun there. I wonder how come they don't have coffee at the comic book shop... I guess they know that I'll never boycott so what's the point.

God's Flashlight.

2011-06-27T14:58:00.002-04:00

I haven't seen Green Lantern yet. A few reviews on the Internet said it wasn't that good, but its making money so it can't be that bad, right?

Instead of going to the movies at night I fish. Fishing at night is fun. Fishing at night is really fun. Fishing at night is really, really, fun.

First of all there's no sun beating down on you. The Moon is there, but the Moon isn't there to punish you for being outside. All the Moon really cares about is letting perverts and criminals know that they are being watched. The Moon is really just God's flashlight. It serves no other purpose despite what scientists pretend to understand about the Moon. Why else would there be a big glow in the dark rock out in the middle of Space?

Since I try not to be a pervert or a criminal all of the time, the Moon helps me see at night when I'm fishing so I don't put a hook through my hand while I'm trying to dislodge a hook from the cat's mouth. A lot of times these catfish swallow the hook and I have to cut the line and put a new hook on. The Moon helps with that too.

Sometimes I take my older son night fishing with me and he seems to have a pretty good relationship with the Moon. Generally around 10:00 PM my son will crawl into my lap and dose off while we fish. It really sucked the other night when I had throw him off of me to respond to a bite. But after I landed the big one and he was done crying, I wiped the dirt and gravel off of Max that got embedded into his skin and let him return to my lap to fall asleep under the serene peaceful glow of the moon. Then I moved him to the car, which we were fishing next to, and let him sleep reclined in the passenger seat. I leave the window open so his skin and body can receive all the benefits the Lord's lamp has to offer. Many people don't know this, but the Moon sings. You just have shut up and stop thinking about how important and busy your life is to hear it.

I'm sure glad that catfish eat at night. It's a sign that some people other than perverts and criminals should be awake and thriving during the nocturnal hours. I love night fishing. Night fishing is cool. If you don't believe me just ask a fucking owl.

What's Next

2011-06-23T20:35:00.005-04:00

I predict that President Obama will make a cameo appearance on Glee next season. The time is right, and he has little recourse otherwise. Obama has let the "gay community" down a lot since taking office; the members of said community know how he has failed them and do not need me to elaborate. To solidify his gay base, Obama must do something drastic or dramatic; drastic ain't happening, so dramatic it'll have to be.

I can't pretend to know how it will go down (so to speak), but I can assure you that there will be an episode of Glee featuring the president, and it will win back the hearts of all Republican-hating queer folk nationwide. I imagine the plot of this episode will be about Corky's favorite character on the show ;it will also include another character's coming out.

I'm stuck in this font, so I'll sign off now. Mark my words, you'll see it this fall.

Gifted Insight

2011-06-23T15:31:00.001-04:00

The beauty of this blog is that it's here for a multitude of reasons. People from all over the world come to Corky's log to learn about Bingo, Bongo, Bango, and Irving. Miscreants also come, almost daily, to learn how to get high from Benadryl.

Yes, sometimes I use the log to reflect on my life. Other times I use it to flush out the poison in my head so I can be somewhat of a productive human being. Rarely do I use the content here to spank my bird. There are far better places to go on the Internet for that sort of thing. I've thought about adding that component to the log once or twice though...

There are times when I think the World would benefit from my gifted insight. Did you know that there are persons other than me who think about Gilligan's Island almost every day? That's pretty fucking wild.

Lately Ive been stroking my bird and thinking about how different folks cope with life. Life aint always easy obviously. Some people find it necessary to join a religion in order to deal. Some think that money is the end all be all. Some drink, drug or kill. Some blow their heads off and some just fuck.

For me it always comes back to Star Trek. It's got just enough religion, philosophy, martial arts, superb acting, and good storytelling to inspire me to go forward. One day the world will get it right. Until then I will sit patiently and continue to watch the original 79.

From time to time I'll also get on here and give you a much needed push in the right direction. After all, It's the very least I can do.

"Let me help." A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He'll recommend those three words over "I love you."
-James Tiberius Kirk

Peter's Last Word On Congressman Weiner's Package

2011-06-21T20:11:00.004-04:00

When I first joined the superheroes on this blog, I was given to understand that it was a family-oriented establishment. Numerous posts from Lt. Ilia, myself, and even the good captain himself have put the lie to that rubbish. Corky's latest posts stand as a refreshing return to his all-American family values roots. As much as I hate to do it, however, I must wallow in the mire once again, in an attempt to make sense of the Weiner Twitter fiasco.

Ilia did us all the favor of including one of the questionable pictures in her latest post; I was not at all bothered by it. [I accepted an invitation from a guy several years ago to hang out and drink beer after work. It turned out that he thought it was a date. When I inquired as to why he thought I might be interested in him in that respect, he had no good answer for me. He remarked, "I don't know. I mean--that slab of meat in your pants..." I politely declined his offer to view the footage from his most recent orgy, finished my beer and walked home. I never saw him again. A coworker to whom I told my story proceeded to make me a SLAB name tag, which remains a precious keepsake stored in some box somewhere. Several years before that, I had a one-time prostitute spontaneously grab the (soft) package in my blue jeans and remark, "I can't believe you don't have a girlfriend!"] Congressman Weiner has nothing for me to be jealous of.

I think Mr. Weiner mishandled the entire matter. I imagine a scenario in which he could defend himself by saying he mistakenly sent the pictures to the wrong place; he had simply been talking about civics with the young ladies. The intended recipient was President Obama himself. Since Rahm Emmanuel is no longer part of his administration, the president needs someone else who can go into the congressional gym's showers and menace wayward congressmen with his penis like Mayor Emmanuel was rumored to have done. Mr. Weiner's pictures were meant to be a display of his credentials for that job. The threat of a disciplinary fudge-packing from the one-eyed viper in those pictures would certainly put dread fear in most every congressman's heart.

I suspect that the good congressman had a little help from one or more male-enhancement products and/or a well-placed beehive. If he finds himself without a job when he resigns, he can always become the poster boy for Pos-T-Vac, or he can make an infomercial for Extenze, or he can go on the lecture circuit warning college kids about the dangers of penile bee stings in the post-modern digital world.

We now return to our (non-dysfunctional) family-oriented programming.

Social Dragonfly

2011-06-21T15:10:00.001-04:00

For the first time in many years I remember why people like Summer. I've avoided the sticky months like the plague for the past 15 years or so. This year's different though. I have the most remarkable tan on my face and arms from spending so much time outside. I look amazing. Do I have a couple bug bites? Yes. Is it the end of the world? No.

I've spent countless hours fishing with my older son this year, and we've met a lot of really nice people. One older guy at the lake likes to give me shit because my tackle box is slightly messy. Instead of saying fuck you to him, I try to clean it and then Max dumps it out 5 minutes after we get to the lake.

Max is a real character at this one lake that we fish at. It seems that everyone knows him by name. They just call me Max's Dad. The kid is a real social dragonfly. He likes to rummage through OPT (other people's tackle boxes). Usually the good people of the lake are pretty understanding and amused by him. He's even used other people's poles before and sometimes there are kids his age that he winds up playing with. It's really cool.

I'm sure glad that not everyone at the park is there to snatch Max. I'm still careful, but it seems like a lot more people go to the park to fish or walk their dogs rather than to open up their raincoats, if you know what I mean.

I'm not real crazy about the heat or the bugs, but Captain Corky's back, Summer!

The History of Bleach

2011-06-16T15:55:00.000-04:00

In 1913, Archie, Eddie, Charlie, Bill and Rufus invested a 100 bucks a piece and opened up the first bleach factory in the United States. I'm sure they're all dead now from inhaling bleach fumes, but I'll be eternally grateful to them for creating a cleaning product that has stood the test of time and is still being used to scrub grime and waste off of toilets all over the world.

On June 16th, 2011 I used Clorox Bleach to clean the kitchen and the bathroom. There was grime, grease, and dirt everywhere, but now there's not and I'm still alive to tell the tale.

The cool thing about using bleach to clean is that no matter what substance my hands comes across the rest of the day my fingers will still smell like sweet bleach. I'm sure if my cat, Fonzie had his way he'd be licking my fingers until I was bleeding, but I put his ass in the bedroom

when I started cleaning cause he's a real freak for the shit. It's

like crack to him or something.

Next room on my agenda will be the master bedroom. Obviously I'll

be using Pledge, and Windex in there (two other cleaning products I've become

rather fond of over the years).

After I get a good base cleaning done in the bedroom it will be time to tackle the basement

and I'll have to bring out the big artillery. I'm not sure what the big artillery is, but I'll meditate on that over the weekend.

Until then,

Happy Cleaning.

P.S. My wife came home from work and started to orgasm. Not from bleach, but from the cleanliness of the house.

Peter's Travels 2011: RIP, Grandma; Be Still, My Heart

2011-06-12T11:09:00.012-04:00

Collapse This, Corky! (This cross stands somewhere near Effingham, IL, along I-57)

When I received word that my mother's mother had just died at age 88 this past week, I knew I'd have to attend her funeral, even though it was taking place in Antioch, IL, about 1100 miles from home. Flying there was out of the question--way too expensive--so I rented a car for five days for just under 200 bucks. The Kia Soul pictured here was the only economy car available from Budget at Lake Charles Regional Airport. It is not a particularly macho vehicle, so I had to endure scornful looks from bikers and guffaws from buses full of Mexicans the entire trip. After burning about another 200 bucks in gas, 100 for two nights at two different budget motels, altogether the total was still cheaper than flying. A bonus was not having to deal with TSA workers, who profile me every time I fly, so they can look like they're not profiling ethnicities with far more likely terrorist candidates among them. Bastards. [I truly believe it is a racist thing--every time it's some black guy whose facial expression betrays his delight at having the opportunity to stick it to my ofay ass.]

My siblings were either unable or unwilling to go; I took it upon myself to represent all of them. One (or more) of them said she (they) didn't really know her all that well, which baffled me because it's not true, and even if it were true, so what? She's (they've) attended funerals of people she (they) didn't know nearly so well. In 1976, before we flew to England, we stayed with Grandma and Aunt Lucy for several months. That was two adults and six kids ranging in age from 11 to 2 years old. When my father was recovering from his stroke in 1983, Grandma stayed with us in Maryland for several months, despite the fact that there were seven of us ranging in age from 18 to 4 years old. We were a bunch of unruly, mischievous, ingrate Murphy kids, yet she sacrificed a season of her life for us. The problem my sisters had with her, I think, was that Grandma ruled them with an iron fist and let my brother and me roam free. It is a pity that their resentment should have lingered so long. [There's another dark, deeply-held secret behind the resentment that I dare not go into here. I'll say only that people sometimes screw up royally, and my mother had long ago forgiven Grandma for her most royal screw-up.]

I stayed with one of my father's brothers and his wife for two nights while in IL. The only way that could have been more pleasant would have been if I had had Mrs. Peter and the boys with me; it truly felt like I was at home. My uncle drove my cousin and me to the funeral, which was a very small gathering to pray for a few minutes at a funeral home. The priest was someone Grandma had known years ago, before she and Lucy moved to Kenosha, WI. I believe he headed the prayer group of which she had been a part for many years. He looked like he was ready for retirement, but his handling of the "service" was spot-on, ie short and sweet and far from trite or cliche. We had a four-vehicle procession from there to the cemetery.

Hillside Cemetery is aptly named; it's a hill with graves on it. Grandma's parents are buried there; there are graves dating back to the early 19th century, maybe earlier, but I didn't care to take the grand tour. The priest led us once again in prayer, we all chatted for a few minutes, then we parted ways.

Rather than trying to race back home, I decided to leave Friday after lunch. I had let Lieutenant Ilia know I'd be in (near) town; we arranged to meet for lunch before I rolled out. I arrived half an hour early; she was about five minutes late. She was an otherworldly different person than I had imagined. She's taller than she appears in pictures I've seen; she's way prettier than the cameras seem to be able to show; she's an engaging conversationalist, not nerdy or goofy in the least. I had been totally stoked to have the chance to meet her face to face--I really enjoy being her colleague here--I was thrown off by how far from reality my imagined perception of her had been.

She has lived in the Chicago area for over a decade, and it shows. She has much the same affect as any other midwestern girl: maybe it was her hairstyle or the pale yet radiant complexion; maybe it was her clothes or the intrusion of the midwest accent into her speech; maybe it was merely some sort of Deltan hypnotic head trip; I would not have guessed she was who she is.

She started our conversation before we sat down, with a statement that disarmed me completely, something along the line of I'm shorter than I appear in pictures. SMACK!!! From there I knew and kept my place, which is well on the right side of controlling the heterosexual male human's innate drive to make it with every woman of childbearing age (not that I'd have been on the wrong side otherwise...). Just as it should have, it felt more like a business meeting between friendly acquaintances than a blind date (which, of course, it was not). [Fortunately no one noticed how I was hanging on her every word: waitresses down here wouldn't have hesitated to remark how sweet it is for someone my age to be so in love.] I will not say I was smitten--that's a word reserved forever for Mrs. Peter--but I was enchanted in a very good and innocent way. Ilia is awesome, in case you didn't know.

Anyway, I was thrilled to meet the good Lieutenant, but I am even happier to be back home where I belong. The spell has just about completely worn off; I'm feeling much better now. Time to catch a ration of crap from Mrs. Peter...

It's Not My Fault The Kids Have Impeccable Taste!

2011-06-08T15:06:00.001-04:00

The other day Ben was trying to gouge Max's eyes out over an action figure and the only thing that could temper his fury was Teenage Dream.

Katy Perry has some kind of mystical power over my two sons. Whenever they hear a song from the California bombshell they automatically stop what they are doing and start dancing, EVEN IF THEY'VE NEVER HEARD THE SONG BEFORE!

It makes me proud to see both of them expressing their creativity through dance. Ben also sings along with Ms. Katy and can hit just about every note. I think he might be musically inclined. Or it could just be pure inspiration. Only time will tell.

In the meantime check out the video I posted. At first you might not like it, but play it a few times for your kids and you’ll be amazed at how much control Katy Perry has over them and quite possibly other members of your family as well.

Whip It Good

2011-06-06T17:34:00.003-04:00

Swinging in the breeze

[WARNING: Below links are unsafe for work and unsafe for men who are not confident with their masculinity.]

Wow. Another day, another wayward phallus.

Baby's Arm

I guess if you are that proud of your package, you have the unrelenting urge to either stand on a street corner in a trench coat or hold your phone just... so in order to get the best angle of your dangle.

Elephant Trunk

In these hectic, nanosecond-attention-span times, one must use electronic media to call attention to their attributes - big, small, or OH MY GOD.
Magic Wand

Just peruse any city's Craiglist personals postings and you'll find your pick of a peck of pickled peckers.

What A Bored Guy Does In His Cubicle

I am very tempted to compose a Craigslist ad requesting dick pics, minimum of 8 inches, with a ruler for proof.

What A Bored Guy Does With Photoshop

You know what, I think I will. I will then post the "results" elsewhere as to not sully Corky's collection of clown porn and Peter's collection of slutty nuns.

Forgive me Father Peter, for I have sinned.

Absolve me too, Captain Corky!

The Ultimate Midlife Career Change For Captain Corky

2011-05-28T17:36:00.007-04:00

Corky, this could be you:

Pictured above is Captain Buddy; he did the later in life career change. He is that happy every day.

I spent 55 hours this past week painting at Hackberry Rod and Gun; I was thinking about you the entire time. All you have to do is bring a boat and a good attitude, fish the lake a few times, then you, too, can become a guide at HRG. The saying goes, "A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work." If fishing is your work, every day is a good one. You need to drop your studies and head to Hackberry. The only way it could be any better would be if you could go deep-sea fishing there. Sorry about that last link; it's been in my head all week, and I had to get it out.

Corky, this could be you, too:
BTW: Any time y'all wanna vote me off this cursed island...

Captain Corky's Collapsible Cross Emporium

2011-05-26T14:33:00.002-04:00

Used to be you would have to go to the streets of New York to get a really good "End of the World" prediction, but now every crackpot with Internet access can predict the Rapture any time he or she wants. With that in mind, one of these FREAKS might be right one of these days, and that's where I come in. For 59.99 you can have your very own collapsible cross.

I first encountered one of these crosses being held by a crackpot at the Pegasus Parade a few days before the KY Derby. The crackpot's shirt read: Fear God! At first I was offended that he was blocking the cotton candy guy from making his rounds, but then I got an idea... What if I shrink the three sectional cross a little so that it will fit nicely into an exclusively hand sown back pack for $39.99. Then if demons start popping out of gopher holes all you have to do is pull out your Captain Corky collapsible cross, that you take everywhere, and you're as good as gold.

Fear not Jewish friend, Corky Lab Corp is currently working on a collapsible Star of David. Please note that because the Star of David has six points it will cost a little more than the cross or the hand sown backpack. But is $69.99 really too much to pay for eternal protection? I think not.

Remember folks, not only does Jesus and God love you, but so do I! Sometimes I think you forget that.

Better Start Reading Your Koran

2011-05-19T17:17:00.002-04:00

I must be getting paranoid. I believe that President Obama is either remarkably ignorant of history and warfare and the Arab-Israeli conflict, or he is against Israel. I suspect his "love" for America compels him to desire its Islamization--why else would he set up our staunchest ally for destruction? In his speech today, he said the US wants Israel to go back to pre-1967 borders to accommodate a Palestinian state. That would be a suicidal, monumentally stupid strategic blunder; it would practically put an end to Israel, unless the Israelis use nuclear weapons on their "neighbors." If they don't, the street Arabs will destroy them and then come full force after us.

Be ye not fooled by Obama's having made a martyr of Bin-Laden--it was a sacrifice necessary to rile even further those who desire Israel's and America's doom--he is not at all supportive of the America I know and love. Maybe he thinks he'll receive a special position in the Caliphate--governor of the Western Province or something similar--that way he can stay in power forever, and he can remain in the White House in the renamed capital city of Mohammed, DC.

The Arab street has not backed away a bit from its "death to Israel" rhetoric; the street Arabs have ramped it up in recent weeks with all this nonsense about the "Arab spring." All you fools out there who intend to vote (again) for Obama must be straining for oxygen; your heads are so far up your asses it's a wonder you can even draw a breath. Have you not heard a word these people are saying? They desire our destruction. They are vehemently opposed to your lifestyles, no matter how much you kiss their asses. Homosexuals who voted for Obama: If the street Arabs win, you will die soon thereafter. Christians who voted for Obama: You will either become Muslim or die. The rest of you will meet the same fate. Adulterers: What has become a rite of passage for many (most?) married people here is a crime punishable by death in Sharia law. Thieves: Say goodbye to your hands. Hoochie mamas: Get fitted for a burka or prepare for a stoning. Drunks: Get used to sobriety or prepare for your punishment. You will no longer be free; you will be subject to the religious leaders; you will be miserable.

I can hear your sighs and groans and tut-tuts; I can sense your desire to silence me or to have me committed or both. Sigh all you want; the reality of the situation changes not one whit. We are at war; either join the fight or be prepared to surrender your rights when we lose. You don't think it can happen here? It is already happening here; wake up and drink the coffee!

Hopefully I'm overreacting, and our republic will stand strong and will not succumb to these backward barbarians. Even so, I will not take the chance of enduring four more years of this president's anti-Israel beliefs and stances; I am committing myself, for the first time in my life, to doing all I can to ensure his defeat. He is busy kissing street Arab ass, when he should be telling them something like, "I will not sacrifice Israel. We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats. You invade our space, and we fall back. You assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again. The line in the sand must be drawn here! This far and no further! And I will make you pay for what you've done!" He should be taking it to the lot of them, not sacrificing one pathetic maniac and acting like he's accomplished something.

Instead he instructs our closest ally to appease them; Israel cannot capitulate like that and compromise its very existence! Remember what happened when well-meaning people appeased this asshole:

Never again!

Death to all anti-America jihadis! Death to all anti-Israel jihadis! Bastards!

[And people say Glenn Beck's off his rocker...]

Buzz Off

2011-05-18T14:03:00.000-04:00

June 1998: The lease was signed and all the utilities were turned on. The fuck buddy was left 750 miles behind. What was my next priority? Finding a replacement. However, I just didn't have it in me to go to the nearest bar to post a signup sheet next to the men's restroom. Craigslist existed, but only to sell used Futons, person on Futon optional. So, I decided to settle for something that didn't talk back. Unfortunately, the local Yellow Pages didn't have a separate section for "Vibrators" or even "Sex". Finally, under the "Marital Aids" heading, I hit the jackpot: Lover's Lane! I immediately got into my car and sped east to this supposed onanist mecca. I was expecting Pink Pussycat West. I was greatly disappointed to find that it was a rather tame chain of stores containing ho-hum lingerie and vibrators that wouldn't even generate a 1.0 on the Richter Scale. Since I was desperate, I quickly selected a "massager" with "attachments". It got the job done, albeit not very well. Two months later, this story actually turned out to be a "marital aid", as I recounted it when I first met my now-husband.

Fast forward to present day... [Insert musical montage of vibrators here]

Lots of relatively stressful events have transpired or are about to transpire, and I am in need of a quick and easy way to relax. (Draining a wine bottle would work but I can't spare either the 8 Weight Watchers points or the ensuing DUI.) Plus, I have a live-in fuck buddy now that needs to be rewarded for occasionally taking out the garbage. What device could possibly unite those two initiatives?

The We-Vibe ii (now with nine distinct speeds!) is designed to hold the clitoris and g-spot paper-clip style while still allowing for penetration. This looks like the greatest thing in the world, next to Dilaudid and this blog, of course. I'd run out and get it right now, but... $99.00? Really? Is there a used market somewhere? Oh, wait... eBay to the rescue!

Uh oh, my company-issued PC is starting to make funny noises...

Hey, stop it with the Remote Desktop! Get your own damn toy!

A Mote On The Screen Is Worth Two Planks In The Eye

2011-05-17T08:19:00.004-04:00

This was supposed to be my first post from my new computer. I had to get a new computer because the old computer became unreliable after my three-year-old developed an obsession for unplugging it without first shutting it down. Mrs. Peter had shipped it off to Hewlett-Packard to get it fixed because it was still under warranty, but the good folks at HP messed it up. They replaced the motherboard and shipped it back to us. Mrs. Peter got on it and either it got a hard-drive killing virus, or the hard-drive had already been compromised. It went on the blink again. HP had uninstalled whatever anti-virus protection we had through the Geek Squad, and there was no way to reinstall it because of the messed-up hard-drive. GS was able to salvage most of our stuff and put it on an external hard-drive. HP said "no can do" on replacing the original hard drive, because the computer was no longer under warranty (by two days!) and the guarantee for the work they had done covered only the work they had done. Our seven hundred dollar PC has been rendered practically worthless. (But apparently we can buy a new hard-drive, buy some software or something from HP, install it ourselves and have an as good as new PC...) In our disgust with the situation, we opted to buy an iMac.

Specifications
3.1GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB
1TB Serial ATA Drive
AMD Radeon HD 6970M 1GB GDDR5
Apple Magic Mouse
Apple Wireless Keyboard (English) & User's Guide

So the iMac arrived yesterday afternoon. Mrs. Peter was in the process of setting it up when she noticed a speck or mark on the inside of the display screen. It was about this size: '. She got on the horn with Apple, who told her they would start the process of sending us a new one when we bring the other one to FedEx with the labels they'll be sending us. I am trying to make sense of it--a two-thousand dollar + computer should be flawless--how on earth did the fleck or speck or whatever the hell it is get there? Where's quality control when you need it? Now we wait another week; it had better be worth it. Until then I'll be singing the Murphy's Law blues...

www.doctoredpicturesofubl.com

2011-05-16T07:27:00.004-04:00

"I have had anal intercourse with this many German Shepherds; praise Allah!"

Although I have no morbid desire to see the "death pictures" of Osama Bin-Laden, I still think the Obama administration should make them public. I don't buy the explanations or excuses the folks there have given us for not releasing them. They say releasing them will make it more difficult and dangerous for our soldiers in Afghanistan; the rationale, I think, is that tribal leaders there will be less likely to cooperate with us because of the disrespect releasing those photos would represent. I think we pretty much paid him the ultimate disrespect by putting a bullet (or two or three) in his head. Will anyone's "cooperation" really hinge on the (non-) release of pictures of the aftermath? Really???

Then they say that people will doctor the photos in bad ways that will piss the Muslims off and make them hate us and make them wage "Mega-Jihad" (patent pending) against us. So fucking what??? Those who are with us are with us; those who are not with us are against us. I want to poke all of the sorry-ass bastards who are against us in the eye at every turn, as hard as I can, just like they intend to do to us. Their hatred for us is provocation enough for me; we need to kill all of them before they kill or maim another one of us. There is no call or justification for treating them with kid gloves, soothing their egos or sucking the wind out of their asses while we toss their salads. Fuck them!

In the spirit of poking them in their eyes, I am going to start a web page for doctored Bin-Laden photos, much like the one with people's drawings of the "prophet." I will start it once I learn how to use my new computer, which should arrive today. In the meantime, take heart; they don't call us "the great Satan" for nothing; they know we ultimately will be their doom.

Allah bless America!

Correction

2011-05-13T14:11:00.002-04:00

My sources inform me that my other sources misinformed me when they told me that Arnold Schwarzenegger will be starring in the next He-Man movie. They tell me that apparently he has decided to try the Lawrence Taylor diet/exercise/retirement plan, which involves smoking a lot of crack and getting randy with underage hookers. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

What's Forever For, Anyway?

2011-05-11T13:26:00.002-04:00

The pictures above represent thoughts I've been having about the (impending) demise of the marriage between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver. I've heard that Arnold soon will be starring in He-Man--The Later Years, and he wants to spare his wife from the Skeletor jokes. What a great guy!

Another Buzzkilling Blogpost From Peter

2011-05-11T13:01:00.004-04:00

I have been haunted recently by a song I can't get out of my head; the overload is Gilbert O'Sullivan's Alone Again, Naturally. The second and third verses are almost frightening to me; they too closely parallel my own experience with respect to my parents' illnesses and deaths. Please bear with me; I have just under a season to go before the first anniversary of my mother's death, and I have a long way to go before I can "get over it..."

In a little while from now
If I'm not feeling any less sour
I promise myself to treat myself
And visit a nearby tower
And climbing to the top will throw myself off
In an effort to make it clear to whoever
What it's like when you're shattered
Left standing in the lurch at a church
Where people saying: "My God, that's tough"
"She stood him up"
"No point in us remaining"
"We may as well go home"
As I did on my own
Alone again, naturally

To think that only yesterday
I was cheerful, bright and gay
Looking forward to who wouldn't do
The role I was about to play?
But as if to knock me down
Reality came around
And without so much as a mere touch
Cut me into little pieces
Leaving me to doubt
Talk about God in His mercy
Who if He really does exist
Why did He desert me?
In my hour of need
I truly am indeed
Alone again, naturally

It seems to me that there are more hearts
Broken in the world that can't be mended
Left unattended
What do we do? What do we do?

Alone again, naturally

Looking back over the years
And whatever else that appears
I remember I cried when my father died
Never wishing to hide the tears
And at sixty-five years old
My mother, God rest her soul
Couldn't understand why the only man
She had ever loved had been taken
Leaving her to start with a heart so badly broken
Despite encouragement from me
No words were ever spoken
And when she passed away
I cried and cried all day
Alone again, naturally
Alone again, naturally

The tower on the left in this photo is the main building of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. From late 1988 through the spring of 1990, I worked there with the maintenance contractor, first as an attendant in the parking garage, then as supervisor of the other two attendants. The job included other duties as assigned; I had access to much of the building, including the roof. In early 1990, my fiancée returned to her mother after a long, mutually abusive relationship with me. It messed up my mind; I fell into a deep depression that nearly cost me my life.

Every day for two weeks or so I would go to the roof and stand at the edge (right in the middle where the dark "stripe" is in the picture). I would think about jumping every time, but every time something held me back. Some days it was the wind; some days it was my concern for how some people in my life might be hurt. The last day I went to the roof's edge, I was resolute. It was on; the wind was at my back; I didn't care about anything but dying. I was standing at the edge; I took a deep breath that I believed would be my last. I looked down to make sure I wouldn't land on anyone coming out or going in the front door; that was a big mistake.

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a man with a video camera on his shoulder, standing just outside the entrance to the White Flint Metro Station; he was recording me! As public as my venue was, the act was supposed to be between me and the concrete. Visions flashed through my mind of my morbid sister watching Faces of Death VI, or whatever number, and her seeing me splat. I couldn't let that happen: EPIPHANY! I still cared! I flipped the cameraman the bird, turned around and went back inside. I have never been close to the edge since.

I prayed a lot when my father fell ill; I was hoping the doctors would figure out what the problem was and cure him. When it became clear that there was little chance of that happening, I prayed for a miracle. When the doctors determined that my father probably had ALS--with few treatment options and the most grim prognosis--my prayers shifted toward wishes that my father would not suffer too much emotionally as he lay dying. My prayers for my mother were always the same; I wanted her to know she was not alone, and I wanted her to be strong enough to cope. That remained the case after Daddy died.

When Mommy got the diagnosis of cancer, I didn't know what to think or pray or believe. (When we were en route to Houston for my father's last appointment with the specialist, I had almost prayed that my brother would wreck the minivan, killing my mother and father together.) When she went into the hospital several days after my second son was born, I didn't want a miracle. (On the Fourth of July we had gotten together for a cookout and fireworks; my brother-in-law was telling my mom that she was too strong--there was "no way" she wouldn't beat the cancer. I had to bite my tongue; I suspect Mommy was doing the same.) She was suffering on all levels; living was prolonging the agony and misery she did not deserve.

I still get lonesome whenever I think about my parents, but I have too much going on to be lonely, and I have too many people around to be alone ever again. Naturally. Thanks for your time...

Corky's Next Fishing Trip

2011-05-08T19:27:00.000-04:00

Subtitle: Lieutenant Ilia's Worst Nightmare

Back in the Fugawe Period of the Precambrian Era, I dared to go fishing with Corky, willSIX, and various other action figures. I actually sort of enjoyed myself. That can almost definitely be attributed to willSIX's making fun of me for joyfully freaking out over catching a turtle. (Even the Double Rainbow Guy would have been embarrassed for me.)

The fun was short-lived. At the tender age of seven, a box of Gorton's Fish Sticks (fish dicks?) caused me unspeakable gastrointestinal distress. As a result of that digestive Hiroshima, I have not been able to endure even the faintest whiff of fish. (Insert joke here.) My husband enjoys fish (thank goodness) but is not permitted to cook it while we still share a household.

Osama is sleeping with the fishes now. Personally, I couldn't think of a better resting place for him.

I Want My Mommy

2011-05-08T08:56:00.005-04:00

Today marks another milestone in my life since my parents died--this is the first Mother's Day my siblings and I will experience without our mother. It feels strange. I have the twits from Fox and Friends on the TV; it isn't necessarily a tribute to my mom, but if I were able to visit her this morning that's what would have been on her TV at this hour. They have soldiers who are serving abroad coming on one at a time around the commercial breaks. Each has his or her message for his or her mother; they all sound very much the same. However trite these expressions of their sentiments may seem to me, it is clear that they are sincerely heartfelt, and I can't help but wish I could say the same things to my mother today.

I was pretty much always a Mommy's boy; she was the one who was always around; she was the one to whom I would always run when I needed any kind of help or support or guidance or love. She never turned me away; she never let me down. I tried to show my appreciation any way I could, especially once it was clear that she and my dad were getting on in years, and I could no longer act as if they'd be here for me forever. I could have waited on my folks hand and foot for decades, but I would never have come close to repaying them for everything they did for me throughout my life. I know they greatly appreciated my efforts, drops in the bucket that they were.

My mother was usually a peaceful sort, unless she was up in arms about something that had stuck in her craw. She tried to raise us to be the same way: Christian hippie pacifists with as little ill will as possible. I remember when I delivered newspapers at age eleven; there was a kid my age (two weeks older, I later learned) who decided it would be amusing to him to bully me. I endured his ridicule--taunts and verbal barbs--for a couple weeks; I tried to figure out how to go down his street when he would be somewhere else. That plan failed, and one day he pushed me to the ground, daring me to retaliate. He told me he'd get me every day; something had to give.

I went home and told my mother about the situation, because she had made it clear that she did not want me fighting. She told me she was proud of me for not behaving like the lowbred churlish redneck my nemesis was; she decided to go have a word with his mother. She drove me over to his house and walked up to the front gate. There was a dog in the yard making a fuss--Heidi the Daschund--my mom leaned on the gate waiting for someone to come out of the house; Heidi seized the opportunity to attack her. She jumped up and bit into my mother's right forearm; she would not let go! I started towards her, but before I could get there, the kid's mother came out and called the bitch off.

Much of the rest of the scene is a blur: my mother cursing the dog and the kid and his mother; my mother threatening to kill all three of them "...if this crap doesn't stop right now...;" the kid's mother shooting back, telling my mom to "let boys be boys;" the kid grinding his fist into his hand with that "I'll see you later!" look in his eyes; the blood dripping from several canine holes in my mother's arm. It was traumatic and humiliating; I think it damaged my delicate psyche seriously and permanently.

Several months later, I ran into the kid and a friend of his in the field behind our school, just after class had let out for the day. The friend, who was bigger than either of us, grabbed my arms and pinned them behind my back while the kid punched away at my midsection. I remember their taunts, "Hey Mommy's boy!" "Why don't you run home and tell your Mommy?" [Making crybaby faces at me,] "I want my Mommy! I want my Mommy! I want my Mommy!"

I didn't speak about what had happened that day until it came up in conversation with the kid, who several years later had become one of my best hoodlum friends.

My plan for today is to make it a good one for Mrs. Peter, who is, after all, the most important mother in my life now. We're going over to my sister's house to hang out, grill steaks, drink beer and wine and generally pass a good time, which is what we would have been doing over at Mommy's house today.

Happy Mother's Day!

Summer Action Plan

2011-05-02T14:40:00.000-04:00

As some of you know, I've been enrolled in university for almost a year now and my second semester is over. It's amazing how simple college is when you do all your work, show up to class, and kiss the professor's ass a little. I'm glad it's summer though. I need a break. I needs to clean my house and fish a lot more. With the next few months off I should have plenty of time to do both. I should also have a little time for my wife, kids, and work between fishing and cleaning.

I should be cleaning now and I did do a load of dishes, but I thought to myself it would be more fun to write about cleaning. Plus, I love looking at pictures of the fish Max and I catch so what better place to post pictures of them then on my homepage, http://www.corkyslog.blogspot.com/.

Fuck setting your homepage to facebook, google, or Aol. Make Corky's log your homepage and you wont miss anything! I never miss anything and it's obviously do to the fact that Corky's log is my homepage.

My plan is to dedicate a couple of hours in the afternoon to cleaning one specific room Tuesdays through Thursdays. Today I started with the kitchen, but tomorrow the plan really goes into affect. I hope by the end of the summer, and before the fall semester starts, to have the house clean and a freezer full of fish. I know both are lofty goals, but I'm sure if I put the same dedication and effort that I have put into school the house will look smart, and my IQ will be higher thanks to all the fish.

Holy Holy Week, Captain Corky!

2011-04-21T08:58:00.004-04:00

Dear Corky and Ilia,

As a recovering Catholic, I could not let Holy Week pass without sharing some thoughts about everything it has meant to me historically and the significant place it continues to hold in my heart. This post may end up slightly on the offensive side; that is an intended consequence, but it is hardly my real aim here.

This past Sunday was Palm Sunday--no, Corky, it is not the one day of the year on which all Catholic males can masturbate or indulge in onanism without fear of hellfire (or, in a salute to your proclivities, it is not National Catholic Face-Shot Day)--it used to be my favorite church day of the entire year. I liked Palm Sunday for three reasons: first, in church they hand out palm leaves tied in such a way as to form a cross (I used to make macrame nooses out of mine in honor of Judas Iscariot); second, it meant that I could start counting down the days or even the hours until it was time to resume whatever activity I had given up for Lent; third, it is the day on which Catholic anti-Semites can come out of the closet and start raging on the Jews for failing to continue to honor Jesus like they did that day he rode that ass into Jerusalem all those years ago--it is a tradition that culminates on Good Friday, when Jew-bashing is mandatory.

In the Bible, Judas Iscariot's name was no accident; "Who betrayed Jesus?" "JEWdas betrayed Jesus!" It never occurred to me when I would "hang" Judas that in actuality I was symbolically hanging Judaism, Israel and all Jewish people; it's a shameful part of my past and no longer a tradition of mine.

This year for Lent I gave up drinking alcoholic beverages generally, and beer specifically. This has led to several bad things: a Celexa-induced psychotic break; a textual "relationship" with a stripper from Houston I "met" playing Words with Friends, which included a phone call from the police saying that something I wrote her could be "misconstrued as a threat;" the realization that I will never admit to being an alcoholic--I am a chronic alcohol abuser.

The psychotic break involved my telling Mrs. Peter that I regretted marrying her and having kids with her. That is so far from the truth that it would be laughable were it not so sad; I do not remember that, but I will forever regret saying it. I have successfully weaned myself off the Celexa--I hope the lightheadedness goes away soon. Another aspect of the psychotic break was carrying on the aforementioned "affair."

I got sober for the first time in twelve years; I needed someone to talk to who wasn't Mrs. Peter or a sibling or a shrink. Stupid adolescent flirtatious texts led to a huge load of trouble. I didn't hide things initially--I made "friends" with her on FaceBook, which is the Devil--she was my age and was facing divorce after 19 years of "marriage;" I imagined I could glean some insight into how to preserve and even enhance my marriage by avoiding her and her husband's mistakes. I got distracted from my mission and now shamefully wear the label "cheater," even though I never met the stripper in person. Three thousand texts from me to her was my wife's estimate; I don't remember most of them.

My abstinence from alcohol was something I came up with to honor my recently deceased parents, get my wife off my back, test my resilience and truly sacrifice by giving up something I enjoy immensely. The negative results aside, it has been a good thing. It has proven to Mrs. Peter that she should have more faith (in me); it has helped me lose nearly 15 pounds of my beer belly, which translates into nearly three inches of waistline; it has proven to me that I can live (almost) happily without beer; it has stopped the daily delirium tremens I had been experiencing (actually it was more like a mild case of the shakes, but coupled with strong coffee in the morning, it looked as if I was doing a particularly ugly Michael J. Fox impersonation). I will enjoy beer again some time after Easter; I am fairly certain it won't be like before, if only because Mrs. Peter has shown a healthy interest in my buff(er) "new" bod, and I intend to keep that up.

[Please don't be alarmed by this "confession;" I believe that one day we will all know everything, so this is just a little spoiler in the grand scheme of things...And like any one of you has no real need for salvation!]

So now it's Good Friday Eve, time for all good Catholics to gear up for some serious Jew-bashing tomorrow. I think many of them will be observing a recent addition to the tradition (kind of how this has become part of the Christmas tradition for many--thank you, TV!). It involves watching Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" and getting all fired up about the treacherous infidels who sealed our savior's fate. I have not seen, nor will I ever watch, that film. There are several reasons for this: first and foremost, I think Mel Gibson is a fucking low-life turd of a human being and I don't want to give him anything resembling respect or credence; second, I know full well what Jesus went through--the nuns who educated me made damn sure of that!--I don't need a reminder or a refresher course (Remedial Savior 101?); last but not least, I am the only full-fledged goy working on this blog--I am here to serve as a thorn in the minds of my colleagues--I need no further motivation or prompting or stoking of my fiery passion.

What is the true meaning of Easter? What would (did) Jesus say?

Happy Easter Captain Corky and Lieutenant Ilia!

Love always,

Private Peter

Enjoying the Unbridled Spirit!

2011-04-20T15:18:00.005-04:00

Kentucky does have many flaws which I will not get into here, but for all the feldercarb associated with KY, one thing this state does have is outside recreational fun at a premium.

I'm surrounded by woods and fish and once you remove alcohol, drugs, and television I'd be perfectly happy spending the rest of my life in the woods. Not cause I cant stand people and want to blow up mass quantities of them, it's because at 40 years old I still like to look under rocks and sit in front of water ways with multiple fishing poles for ridiculous hours at a time.

God, May you never remove my compulsion and desire to fish.
Amen.I took Max on a 23 hour camping trip a couple of weeks ago and it was really fun. The price to camp in the Jefferson Memorial Forest for a night is 15 bucks. Not bad. Pretty good. We set up our tent and then cooked dinner. Allyson and Ben came up to join us for dinner. They loved the food, and then 45 minutes later my wife drove off with Ben like a bat out of hell.

I guess 2011 will be known as the year Captain Corky rediscovered fresh air and the great outdoors. I also want to expose more of the outside world to my son mainly because when it got dark outside he told me that the campsite needed a light bulb and a television set. I would have been perfectly happy with an outlet so I could have charged my cellphone.

I wonder which Jefferson the forest is memorializing...

Peter's Travels 2010--My First Tattoo

2011-04-10T19:48:00.005-04:00

A year or so before I left DC for Louisiana, one of my young friends, who had been one of Captain Corky's cronies (or followers or admirers), told me about his plan to get his family crest tattooed on his arm on his next birthday. I asked him how much it would cost--he told me $150--I told him that I'd pay for half as my birthday present to him. When the time arrived, I accompanied him and several other people to some tattoo parlor in the city. I ponied up my half, he had the rest covered, and about three hours later he had his tattoo. I was so impressed with it that I vowed one day to get my family coat-of-arms tattooed on my left arm.

When I was a kid, I really wanted to get a motorcycle. My mother was of a different mind on the matter. She told me about how my Uncle John had been hit by a car on his bike and had been knocked into the Chicago River with two broken legs and had almost died. That meant, "No! Hell no! Over my dead body, no!" The same sentiment applied to tattoos. Because I was a Mommy's boy par excellence, I could not get a tattoo or a motorcycle as long as she was alive.

Many of you reading this know that my mother died last August third, after a very brief "battle" with cancer, almost nine months after my father succumbed to ALS. In the immediate aftermath of her death, a friend from the Village contacted me on Facebook. This friend had moved to Philly years before and had turned her considerable talents into a career as a tattoo artist. The timing was no less than providential.

I asked her if she could do the tattoo for me; when she saw the picture I sent her of the Murphy coat-of-arms, she said she could do it but that it would have to be kind of big if I wanted to keep a good bit of detail. I had no problem with that; we agreed on a "nominal fee," then we arranged to meet at her workplace the week of Thanksgiving.

I sat through two three-and-a-half-hour sessions--one for the outlines and lettering, the other to fill it in. The picture above was taken on the sidewalk in front of Ill Skill Tattoo in Philly, minutes after the work was completed, a year to the day after my father died.

I can't afford a decent motorcycle at this time, so my dreams of joining a biker gang and manufacturing methamphetamine in abandoned trailers will have to remain on hold...

Home Alone on a Sunday Morning

2011-04-10T10:53:00.003-04:00

Mrs. Peter has gone out church shopping with our sons and her friend and her son. Today they are checking out Trinity Baptist Church; personally I'm holding out for the grand opening of Neo Baptist Church, because I'm an old-school chauvinist who is still uncomfortable with the idea of women running (some) things.

It's not so much that I care to engage in prolonging the war between the sexes; it's more that I think since men came up with so much of this crap, we should be the ones to have to carry it through to the end. This goes for religion, politics and video games. I am very ill at ease over modern women's usurpation of leading roles in traditionally male endeavors; so many have sought to "outmale" men, they have succeeded in diluting and diminishing what it means for a man to be a man. This leaves the more thoughtful and considerate men flailing and grabbing for something--other than our stuff--to hold onto to help maintain our very identities.

I can hear the howls of protest from all quarters now; "Man up!" "Men have fucked things up long enough, now it's our turn!" "Why can't a man be more like a woman?" [That last one is simply standing one of the tunes from My Fair Lady on its head...] "I like men!" "I hate men!" "It's raining men!" [If you check out this link, all you need is the 30-second preview...]

There are exceptions to my rule: for instance, I am disappointed that a certain somebody

has not seen fit to have the several men bumped off who stand in the way of her assuming her rightful place as leader of this Godforsaken country. I don't care much for her or her politics, but were she to usurp the "throne," the rest of the world leaders would be on notice that the biggest ball buster of them all is running shit now! Do you think Hill would stand for these little-dick, piss-ant, punk-ass bitches trying to get over on her? I believe Hillary could single-handedly [No need to enlist this man's help...]

establish a new world order in less time than it would take to answer the question, "Why are Hill and Bill still married?"

I might try to sound as if I would not be happy in such a world, but if it served to reestablish our supremacy as a nation, if it put all pretenders back down where they belong, if it finally gave power-hungry women everywhere their chance to shut up and start fucking things up themselves, I think I could grow to like the idea.

PS: Do you think going to church might help me clean up my language a little bit?

On Spaghetti Sauce and a Very Cool Cat

2011-04-09T16:34:00.009-04:00

I am in the middle of stewing a pot of spaghetti sauce. My recipe is top secret, and although it is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process, the effort is always worth it. Lately, whenever I make my sauce, it reminds me of two important events that occurred in my life in recent years: the time I took second place in a Super Bowl cook-off at my then-favorite pool hall/bar; and the first time I met my favorite cat of all time.

It was 2003 or 2004; I was still drinking heavily regularly at the time, so it's a bit hazy. Replays, the sports bar connected with Wagin' Cajun truck-stop casino, held its first ever Super Bowl

cook-off. The rules were simple: make a dish, bring it in. I opted to make a big pan of lasagna. The recipe on the box of noodles called for some brand-name marinara--I balked at the notion, figuring I might as well just heat up a pan of Stouffer's--I decided to use my spaghetti sauce instead; it was a very good idea.

I ended up with two pans; I brought one to the bar and the other to work the next day. I also made some garlic cheese bread that totally rocked--again a secret recipe with lots of time and effort in it--to serve alongside the lasagna. Everyone who tried it loved it; several people hurt themselves on it. I was up against maybe eight other dishes; I thought I had a good chance of winning until I tasted a dish whose creator called it simply, "Sauce..."

He was an older black man I'd never seen at Replays; I assumed he played a different shift than my ten p.m. to whenever. He had a huge cauldron of his concoction--complete with a propane burner to keep it simmering--and a large electric rice cooker full of his secret recipe rice. He said there were gizzards and necks and myriad other eclectic, exotic "cuts" of meat products up in that there sauce; it was delicious!

I have always been honest to a fault; when it came time to cast my vote for best dish, I had to vote for that man's sauce. When they tallied the three or four dozen votes, he had won first prize. My lasagna came in a respectable second; I got a red ribbon and fifty dollars cash, which covered all of my expenses and bought me six beers to boot!

Two or three years later, my parents asked if I would make spaghetti at their house for one of our regular get-togethers. My baby sister and her husband and two girls were there, as was then soon-to-be Mrs. Peter. We were sitting down to eat when a female calico tabby came limping through the open carport door into the dining room. One of my nieces remarked, "It's a cat! And its leg is hurt!" My other niece added, "It doesn't have a leg! It's missing!" Sure enough, the cat's right front leg was gone!

The first thing she did was jump up on the table and start eating! I was touched deeply by her appreciation for my cooking; I decided right then to adopt her. The problem arose of what we should name her.

Several months earlier, I had been at Replays and had asked the manager how he was doing. His response was unusual and funny in an almost cryptic way; he replied, "Man, I'm busier than a three-legged cat in a litter box!" Upon seeing this particular cat for the first time, I began to understand where he had been coming from. This point was driven the rest of the way home that evening, when I actually saw her in a litter box; she seemed completely unable to fathom why all of her efforts to bury her business with her phantom right leg were going for naught! I named her Busy Kitty that night.

Two summers ago, Mrs. Peter heard some commotion at the back (sliding glass) door. She went to see what the problem was; Busy Kitty was standing at the door with a bird in her mouth. Mrs. Peter opened the door, stepped out onto the deck, and sternly commanded Busy Kitty to release the bird. She released her grip on the bird right away; it flew off without even touching the deck!

We were astonished to say the least! She had managed to sneak up on the bird, pounce on it, catch it and bring it home unharmed! She is truly amazing and is by far my favorite cat ever.

My spaghetti sauce turned out excellent as usual; at the behest of Mrs. Peter, I added roasted sweet Italian sausage links to it. Just when I thought life could not get any better! Busy Kitty's been scratching at the back door for a while now; I guess I should let her in to lick my plate...

On Education

2011-04-09T11:42:00.006-04:00

I started this a month ago and lost interest; I therefore do not expect it to hold yours. My apologies in advance...

11 March 2011: I had a nightmare last night; it was the result of the perfect combination of circumstances: I was tired; FOX News was on the TV; I had Mexican food (enchiladas) for supper; my son was playing Zombie Farm on my phone; I was in a 102.4 degree fever-induced delirium. I remember nodding off to some story about the Wisconsin state legislature--then it happened.

I heard the commentator speaking in a somewhat urgent tone about how "they" were climbing through windows and invading the building. I heard chants of "brains!" coming from parts unknown; then I heard louder chants of "BRAINS!" coming from the TV. I squinted at the TV, and sure enough there were "people" who looked like they'd been buried for a while in their clothes, climbing all over each other through windows, filling the building with their rotting corpses and chants of "BRAINS! BRAINS! BRAINS!"

The commentator added something about the fact that we will probably see this kind of thing spread to other states--I totally lost it! In a move that would have eased the embarrassment many a New Englander felt on the morning of Monday, October 31, 1938, I sprung out of my chair and ran to the bedroom screaming, "Mrs. Peter! Mrs. Peter! Get up! We have to go! We have to go! They're gonna eat our brains!"

Mrs. Peter does not scare easily; a brief anecdote will illustrate this clearly. Several years before we got together, Mrs. Peter lived on her own in a little house on a small patch of land on a local hay farm. One morning while she was gathering eggs, she was attacked by one of these: !

Her reaction? After "OUCH!" she caught the son of a bitch, ran it two doors down to her mother's house, then helped kill it so they could bring it with them to the hospital. She's fearless and tough as nails!

She was not about to get spooked by my absurd hysterical alarm. She grabbed my arm and dragged me back to the living room, assuring me all the while that nobody was going to eat our brains. I looked at the TV and saw that the zombies were simply filthy hippies and such, overrunning the building as if they were real zombies. Then I woke up.

Some would argue that it would be a stretch for me to argue that I have a dog in this particular fight. Others would argue the opposite: how do I not have something at stake here? It hurts my head. I see on one side people who (essentially) are saying, "We want the money and the power, fuck you!" I see on the other side people who (essentially) are saying, "We want the power, and there is no money, fuck you!" It's almost easier for me to mix metaphors and make grammatical errors than to choose which one of those puppies to hitch my wagon to.

9 April 2011: My gut instinct is to rail against the parasitic worthless fucks; id est: the teachers' unions. I have reached the point where I am almost against the teachers themselves--they are complicit in the parasitism by virtue of funding the unions; even some of those who don't contribute financially are complacent about the corruption and indirectly benefit from it. It is nearly enough to make me want to join the Tea Party or something.

My experience with public education was abysmal; I went from being an outstanding student in parochial schools to a no-show straight-E student in two miserable years. The curriculum was not challenging in the least--it bored me to tears--even when I was stoned it seemed like little more than a rehash of what I had studied years before. The problem was--and I imagine continues to be--that public schools tend to cater to the lowest common denominator. The bar was set so low when I was in school, I tripped over the son of a bitch! I knew too many people who got diplomas who were functionally illiterate; I knew too many people who were brilliant who ended up dropping out in disgust--totally dismayed, disheartened and disillusioned--it's a crying shame!

The powers that be want to throw even more money down into that abyss! The performance of US students, compared to their counterparts worldwide, has gone down in recent decades, just as the total amount of money we have "invested" in it has increased exponentially. When are we going to say, "ENOUGH!"?

Tertiary education is not much better: I remember my father dealing with the parents of one student in particular who clearly had not read the material upon which she was supposed to have based her paper. In this academic masterpiece, she had likened the gae bolga to a nuclear bomb! When my father called her out on it, she went ballistic. She had her parents complain to the chairman of the history department about my father's heavy-handed approach to teaching; they also expressed concern about how a bad grade in my father's class would have a noticeably negative impact on her GPA! Rather than backing my father, the bastard sided with the cheater and let her drop the class past the deadline!

The mission of too many schools is to make money and get degrees in their customers' hands--integrity be damned!

I still can't figure out how to end this post!

The end.

Enhance This!

2011-04-03T22:13:00.003-04:00

While in an insomniac daze one night months ago, I made the mistake of channel surfing. We have the cable that is one step above basic--I think I need to upgrade or cancel it. The pickings were slim at two a.m., and I wound up tuning into an infomercial for some male enhancement product or other. There were several plain--yet somehow oversexed--young ladies talking about the importance of the size of a certain member of their partners' anatomy.

They talked about how disappointed they have been with this, that or the other boyfriend's wee willy winky; "I went out with him for three years, but I didn't like having sex with him!" I came away from it thinking that, despite all the feedback to the contrary, I was woefully inadequately equipped to pleasure any woman ever. I was devastated.

I don't like feeling down, so right away I worked on turning this thing around. I thought long and hard about it, and I came up with a radically different approach to the matter. I reasoned that everyone is looking at the "problem" from the wrong perspective. The real problem lies with the hole, not the pole.

To prove my point, I went to China and interviewed several thousand women ranging in age from eighteen to ninety-six. Through my trusty interpreter, I asked each of them several pointed questions about their sex lives. The final questions were: Numerous studies have shown that Chinese penises, on average, are smaller than most others on Earth; how can there be so many of you? How can you derive pleasure from such a small penis? The answer will astound you.

They all told me about an herbal tea they drink daily that restores their vaginas to near-virgin tightness and appearance. The recipes varied from region to region, but I was able to isolate three key ingredients common to all of them. I have combined those and several other herbal ingredients in a proprietary blend and have rendered them into pill form. I am proud to introduce here, under the grand auspices of Corky's log, this miracle product I have dubbed STOPGAP (patent pending).

Remember that embarrassing trip to the beach last summer--the teenage boys pointing at your crotch snickering? When that one bold smart aleck came up to you and said, "Joe Camel called; he wants his toe back!" You can say goodbye to those days forever, now that there's STOPGAP! That monster dildo you've been wearing out dreaming of a well-hung lover? Forget about it! With STOPGAP even the smallest penises will satisfy you. Every time will feel like the first time! Guaranteed!

We tested STOPGAP on several washed-up adult movie actresses. These ladies could not even get back-door scenes any more, their labia flapped so low. But with the rejuvenating power of STOPGAP, they were able to land starring roles again! Look for them in the upcoming blockbuster, Forty-Year-Old Virgins, to be released straight-to-DVD this summer! [I had a hand in producing and directing it.] The proof is right there before your eyes!

Ladies! You know how it is! You give birth to a baby or two or more, the doctor stops one or two stitches short, next thing you know the old snatch isn't nearly what it used to be. STOPGAP can fix that!

Guys! If your woman has been hinting that you might want to try one of those unsafe male enhancement products, you have to buy her some STOPGAP! Clinically proven safe and effective, STOPGAP will revitalize anyone's love life! I personally guarantee it!

Anyone interested in purchasing this revolutionary, life-enhancing miracle product should call 1-888-STOPGAP today! A three-month supply is only $39.95! Mention Corky's log and get a free three-month supply with your purchase! That number again is 1-888-STOPGAP--call now! Tell them Peter sent you! Operators are standing by...

Omega-3

2011-03-29T22:13:00.001-04:00

I ate this fish tonight. It tasted so good. I cooked it in a frying pan with butter, salt, and pepper. It went really well with the four other fish that I cooked it with. I also cooked 4 potatoes in the microwave for 15 minutes and 1 can of green beans in a pot for 5 minutes or so. It was a good meal.

I like eating fish. It takes a little more preparation than the two cans of Spaghettios I'm accustom to cooking four nights a week, but it's absolutely worth the extra effort. The good news is that trout has a lot of Omega-3. I'm not sure what Omega-3 is, but I read somewhere that it's good for combating the negative side affects of MSG that can be found in the 8 cans of Spagettios I eat every week.

In other news, I've gotten really good at cleaning fish and it's very rare that I drop a bloody fillet on the kitchen floor. This is due to all the Omega-3 that I've been consuming over the past 3 weeks. Omega-3 can be found in cold water fish such as the trout that I carved up 4 hours ago. According to Gabe Mirkin, M.D. wild fish are not richer in Omega-3 than farm raised fish. This is an important fact for me since the place that I fish at is stocked.

My oldest son wont touch red meat, but he loves fish and this makes me proud as a fisherman.

Soon the weather will change and it will get unbearably hot in Kentucky. When that happens I will change my focus to fishing for catfish. Catfish is low in Omega-3, but high in Vitamin D. Jewish people who keep Kosher do not eat catfish because catfish do not have scales. The End.

You Must Be At Least 7 Inches Tall to Go On This Ride

2011-03-16T10:11:00.000-04:00

Scene: 7 AM Monday morning, taking up space in the waiting room of a fertility clinic. At least three other women sit by themselves, ostensibly waiting for a needle to be shoved in their arm and/or a magic dildo to be shoved up their vagina. After 20 minutes of molding butt grooves into the chair, a heavyset, out-of-breath potential grandmother arrives with her skinny daughter and her Rod Blagojevich-haired son-in-law.

(tangible thud as Heavy Mom sits on a couch): If there's a heartbeat, I wanna see (gasp) it. If all you're gonna do is lie in the stirrups, I don't wanna (gasp) see that.

(Skinny Daughter picks lint off of her sweater as Rod B. stares at the ceiling)

Heavy Mom: Oh (gasp) look! 'How He Wants To See You Naked'! Let's read (gasp) this together!
Skinny Daughter: Ha, ha... OK.
Ultrasound tech (to me): Come on in.
(Rod B. watches my ass as I follow the nurse down the hall.)

Next up: Riding the gynie table horse, feet in stirrups. Some people get off on this. Ick.

(Nurse covers the 7 inch ultrasound wand with a condom and lube)
Me: Can I have the ribbed one this time?
(Nurse ignores me.)
Me: I meant to ask you the last time, is the camera lens on the tip?
Nurse: Pardon me while I stab you. (No, really.)
Me: That's not something anyone wants to hear.
Nurse: Well, you do want to hear this: Your lining is thick enough for transfer but embryology won't be ready for you until the end of the month. So keep taking your estrogen pills.
Me: But my cancer was practically made of estrogen. Who do I need to bribe to get moved up on the schedule?
Nurse: I don't know. Not me, though. (Withdraws wand, leaves the room)
Me (calls after her): You never told me where the flash button is!

2011-02-25T15:08:00.000-05:00

Dear God,

Thank you for Katy Perry.

Love,
Corky.

Springtime For The Tenth Little Indian

2011-02-25T10:35:00.004-05:00

Back in the early 1980s, I would sometimes go to the home of one of my mother's colleagues to do various odd jobs inside and outside her house. I'd do everything from washing windows to trimming shrubs to scrubbing baseboards and dusting up high. She always paid me fairly, and the perks were unforgettable. Marjorie would usually thaw something out and sit me down to a great dinner. Her cooking was awesome; the flavor of the food never suffered from the freezing. My favorites were her moussaka and dolmades; they were so good my mother got the recipes from her and would treat our family to those dishes and her own phenomenal Greek salad.

Marjorie was in her early sixties when I first met her; she had an air of elegance about her--she was glamorous and regal. She had a portrait on an end table taken in her late twenties; she looked like a softer, prettier Bette Davis. Whenever she would leave the house, she would be dressed up, with her hair done and makeup on; this was true even when her mission was simply to go get cigarettes.

She had been divorced a long time, but she would sometimes still get lonesome for the abusive son-of-a-bitch. Whenever my work was done and dinner was either cooking or heating up, we would sit and work crossword puzzles together and talk about her soap operas. Sometimes she'd tell me stories about her younger days; it was clear even to my simple teenage mind that those days had ended far too soon.

I worked several years for Marjorie, until I had to focus on getting an education and a "real" job. She called me up sometime in the mid-1990s; she needed me to drive her to Prince George's County in Maryland, so she could attend the funeral of a close childhood friend. She had me drive her car, which was a 1968 Chrysler Town and Country Station Wagon that looked something like this.

During our drive to the church, Marjorie got to reminiscing about her friend. She talked about how they both had been part of a group of ten girls, all friends or cousins, who were practically inseparable when they were kids. Marjorie was one of the youngest of the gang, which someone had jokingly dubbed "the ten little Indians;" it suited them so they adopted it. This particular lady was the ninth one to fall, leaving Marjorie more alone than ever.

She didn't cry during the service, though her eyes did betray her heartache. On the way home, she talked about how she didn't want anyone to cry at her funeral. She wanted people to be happy that she had completed her life, and she was (perhaps) beginning her next one. She wanted to die in the spring, when everything is warm and fresh and bright, and birth and rebirth are all around. She really wanted joy and celebration of life to mark her death.

Marjorie died two or three years later, in the middle of January. Her daughter found her after she had been out of touch for a week; she had been dead for days. On the day of her funeral, the high temperature was in the seventies, so despite the season and the overcast sky, Marjorie got part of her dying wish. Her daughter never stopped crying throughout the service; I remember biting my tongue to avoid an indecorous incident. I did not understand her pain until I lost both my parents less than nine months apart. I imagined then that Marjorie's daughter would have choked to death trying to hold back her tears.

Mom of the Year

2011-02-12T22:44:00.000-05:00

Scene: Last week, driving 5 year old son home from preschool.
Kid: Mom, I'm sad.
Me: Why?
Kid: I don't have anything to give you for Valentine's Day.
Me: That's OK, I don't want anything for Valentine's Day. You love me, I love you, and that's enough.
Kid: But I need to get you something.
Me: No, you don't. You see, Valentine's Day is a Hallmark Holiday. A company called Hallmark made it up so people would feel obligated to buy things like cards and candy and roses.
Kid: [pause] That sucks.

Now What? What Then?

2011-01-29T14:00:00.006-05:00

Recently the news has gotten into my mind in a really bad way. The shootings in Tucson were horrifying to think about; the news coverage of it continues to hurt my head. Various people in the media have described the shooter as deranged and other words along those lines; I wish people would not be so quick to chalk up that asshole's actions to mental illness (even with the caveat that an insanity defense might not work too well given the law in Arizona). Yes, he's fucked-up; look at what he did! But he knew full well what the hell he was doing. He is just another punk-ass, evil, piece-of-shit product of the good old US of A, nothing more, nothing less.

The coverage has been too much for me to stand. From the congresswoman's husband's news conferences, wherein we hear about how we may "never know the why and how" (does anyone else not know?), to the heartwarming story of how the smart, civic-minded little nine-year-old's body parts are helping this, that or the other sick person, it has driven me mad (I know, short ride...). I've had nightmares about it; I hesitate to share because my nightmares tend to be bizarre, vivid and politically incorrect. I will continue anyway, acknowledging that it is probably too soon and that some of you might believe I'm simply using the nightmare thing as a cover for my ugly waking thoughts (and that maybe I watch too much TV and other similarly blasphemous drivel...).

The first part of the dream that I remember has me in a scene from Family Guy. I'm watching TV with my family; it's New Year's Eve at Times Square. There is a particularly painful-to-watch exchange between the co-hosts, Dick Clark and Gabby Giffords. I turn to my family and say, "This reminds me of the time we had a birthday party in the special-ed class I used to tutor." Flash to Belt Junior High School, circa 1982, special-ed class. We all sing, "Happy Birthday!" or something as close to that as possible. So many exuberant, bright smiling faces--fade to black.

Next thing I know, I'm myself, watching one of the C-SPANs. It's Congresswoman Giffords' triumphant return! There's a problem. She's not all there. She was not a cartoon, but the best way I can translate it from my thoughts to yours comes from a South Park episode. "Oh, Gabby! You look great!" The open wound and gurgling were disgusting beyond description. I screamed, then I woke up.

Please let me explain myself. I find nothing about (seemingly senseless) violence humorous or amusing. I believe what's gnawing at my conscience is the widespread lack of respect for others that is running rampant in our society. The ever opportunistic political assholes have called for civility in our discourse. In other words, let's talk nice while we try to stab each other in the back. Fraudulent dipshits and wankers, all of them! The ugly blight on their hollow hearts will quickly dissolve any sugar-glazed veneer they put up front. But I digress...

I think about all the inner-city children who've been hit and killed by stray bullets shot by their local punk-ass, evil pieces of shit. They aren't important enough to merit the same kind of coverage; seldom does the whole community come out and erect obscenely large impromptu shrines for them. Their deaths make no less sense than the deaths of more important people, and their lives were no less invaluable, still it becomes a matter of record that they were not so important.

All of this serves to amplify the faint residual echoes of my Catholic upbringing: the love God the Father has for all of us that we all should have for all of our sisters and brothers; the true equality we have in His eyes; how we should aspire to see one another as God sees us. I think of all the ugly ideas spouted by such enlightened fools as avowed atheists. I think of how they look down on or even hold in contempt anyone so naive, gullible, stupid, ignorant and backward as to have, let alone to profess to have, a belief in such wondrous things. What is wrong with hoping that life is a divine comedy and acting accordingly? The world would be a far better place if we were all kind and true to one another; deny it! There are so many good things about faith for which to recommend it; how can we dismiss it and ignore it?

I don't really begrudge prominent people their importance; most of them have earned it and whatever additional respect society confers on them. I hasten to add that no one should ever feel so important as to believe that he is inherently better than any of the rest of us. Be ye warned: our appointment with the ultimate equalizer draws ever closer--ineluctably, quietly and more quickly than we know.

Have a nice day.

What The Hell Are They Thinking?

2011-01-02T16:30:00.006-05:00

I thought my eyes were deceiving me when I saw Fox 11's scheduled three o'clock NFL game. Instead of the Bears-Packers match-up with playoff implications, they're showing the all but utterly meaningless Eagles-Cowboys game! What a flipping outrage! The only explanation I can imagine is that someone at channel 11 is a die-hard Dallas fan who stays on the jock even when the Cowpies suck ass. Damn, that pisses me off!

I'm stuck having to watch one of the two CBS AFC offerings; to wit: Jaguars-Texans on 6 or Titans-Colts on 10. Either of those and a lap dance might interest me (for the duration of the dance). Mrs. Peter is out and would not approve of my having someone else over for a lap dance, so I think I'll take a nap. Thanks Fox 11, you Cowboys loving bitches.

Happy Holidays

2010-12-24T04:47:00.001-05:00

I always have a hard time deciding which Christmas clips to post to the log on Christmas Eve because I've spent quite a few hours of my life making merry in front of the television set and there are so many great shows and songs to choose from. But when all else fails I go with The Monkees version of Riu Riu Chiu. It's a pretty song and the only place it really gets overplayed is in my head.

The next song I would like for you to consider listening to is from Studio 60. Easily the most beautiful version of O Holy Night I've ever heard.

If you truly love television as much I do then you know the best place to warm up on Christmas Day is in front of the WPIX Yule Log.

Happy Holidays!

It's FOOTBALL, You Overpaid Pampered Pussies!

2010-12-20T14:31:00.004-05:00

I've been reading about several NFL players who are complaining that the field they'll have to play on tonight will be "unplayable" because it will be "hard as concrete." Some twit went so far as to tweet that the NFL is hypocritical for making them play under those conditions, while at the same time touting the importance of safety in its enforcement of rules against dangerous hits. What a bunch of pansy wuss girls!!! Can you imagine the players of yesteryear whining like these sissies? It's unbelievable.

From 1982 through 1997, my friends in Maryland and I participated in the Stoner Football League (SFL). Every football season during that 16-year stretch, we'd get as many people together as possible and play a game every week. Sometimes it was four on four; sometimes we had eleven on eleven with substitutes. More often than not we had to use SFL rules, because we didn't have enough players: that meant no rushes; you got first downs by completing two passes beyond the line of scrimmage. It more closely resembled passing drills in practice than an actual football game, but we did keep score, and there was hitting and tackling and attempts to avoid such.

We never wore helmets or pads or cups; we played in every kind of weather; we played no matter what condition the field was in. I remember games in 90 degree heat; I remember games with below 0 wind chill factors where the ground was rock solid; I remember games we played under blizzard conditions. Half-time festivities included a smoke break; it's not like we were athletic in any true sense of the word. We played for the fun and the thrill of it; fortunately nobody was ever "seriously" injured in this foolhardy endeavor. (The closest I can remember was when Roger Hunter and Creed combined on a punishing tackle on some hot dog named BB, who was perhaps the only SFL player ever who could pass for an athlete. He showed up several days later in a neck brace claiming, "I wrecked my truck...")

I guess if I have a point here it's that these athletes should be in such condition and shape that they can handle a game on a hard field. I suggest that all players whining about it should join a tiddlywinks league, where they can sit in a warm room in their Snuggies on La-Z-Boy recliners and eat quiche while sipping Chardonnay chilled just so--the soft, insouciant bitches...

Radio Silence

2010-11-22T17:28:00.003-05:00

Corky, Peter, and I have been lulled into a non-blogging fugue. I can't speak for them, but I was yanked out of a state of un-writing by a private Facebook group consisting of members of General Ilia's high school Class of '90 and me, random Jersey girl. This has got to be the filthiest message board ever, on par with the old Penthouse Forums. From feminine squirting to breast-only lesbians, this group (un)covers it all.

One of today's topics was scrotum tightness from the female's point of view. Within that thread, this Line of the Year was typed:

"...nothing is hotter than a solid set of nads smacking you just right to bring you to the big O!"

(Mind you, I barely know the woman who wrote this. All I know of her is that she is 38 years old, has four kids with three husbands, and was a top gymnast in high school. Apparently that last characteristic got her a LOT of action. According to her, Husband #2 had the nicest nads, but it couldn't make up for an abusive personality.)

A nurse-in-training replied, "You think breasts sag with age... you should see some of the sacs I've had to look at."

My response: "Would those patients require a 'bro'? Perhaps a 'mansierre'? Or how about implants?"

Of course this led directly to me googling "scrotum tightening". I'm surprised that my laptop didn't implode from the level of shame. On a Nevada surgeon's web site, I found out that there's a word for this: scrotoplasty.

WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT GOOGLE THAT WORD.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

SERIOUSLY.

STOP IT.

On The Garden State, Et Cetera

2010-10-15T07:28:00.005-04:00

I hate politics and politicians. As the next election draws near, every day provides some little political annoyance that brings me ever closer to the brink of a one-man bloody revolution. From the deceitful, duplicitous, lying sack of shit, faghag douchebag Speaker of the House, to the deceitful, duplicitous, lying sack of shit, quasi-Christian crackers supposedly diametrically opposed to her (who dislike Obama not because of but despite their bigotry), not one of them seems worth the time it takes to listen. It is a sad state of affairs.

One noteworthy exception is the governor of New Jersey, who has shown himself to be forthright in the execution of the difficult duties his job requires him to perform.

He has made many enemies in the process, but I suspect he has made many more friends. He seems to be sincere in his love for his state and his belief that he can help improve New Jersey and the quality of life of its citizens. That he has taken (and shrugged off) so much flak from such parasitic worthless fucks as teachers unions is proof that he's onto something (and is man enough to see it through). Mrs. Peter has family members who live in New Jersey; my love for them compels me to pray for Governor Christie's success.

New Jersey has been in my thoughts a lot lately. The latest episode of South Park (which was spot-on if somewhat over the top) brought it to the forefront of my mind. I've been to the state twice for Thanksgiving, in 2006 and 2007; I'll be heading there again in a few weeks. Maybe I've not been to the right neighborhoods or towns, but I've never seen anything there like the garbage featured on the reality show. Not that I'm complaining, but it's kind of like attending a NASCAR race and not witnessing even one wreck; it's almost unnatural.

Flashback sidetrack: When my family was in England in '76-'77, my parents bought me a book of jokes; anyone familiar with raw provincial British humor will know where I'm coming from here. One of the stupid jokes in the book that I vaguely recall had Count Dracula throwing his victims from the roof of a tall building in an Italian neighborhood. Someone on the sidewalk below was singing, "Drained wops keep falling on my head..." Another gem was: Why did King Arthur not allow the chinaman to join the Knights of the Round Table? He didn't want a chink in his armor... I recall my parents using the book as an illustration of how not to speak (and think).

I have been fortunate enough during my stays there and in my dealings with people elsewhere who were from Jersey, that I can honestly say I've only met one I didn't like. Mrs. Peter and I were en route to NJ in '06. Some brilliant asshole in the Delaware DOT had a stretch of highway under construction in the thick of holiday travel; the road went from six lanes just past the toll booths to one(!) lane in about one mile. We were caught in that jam for over four hours. We were in the through lane, just about where the left lane ended. Some lowlife piece of shit with Jersey tags came in at the last second and more or less forced Mrs. Peter to let him in. I almost took him up on his invitation to step out of the car; Mrs. Peter wouldn't let me ruin our honeymoon ...

A Manwhore? Me? A Manwhore?

2010-10-06T12:12:00.010-04:00

What follows is a response to Lt. Ilia's latest posts. I do not have many memorable lines to share, but I will share the story of my love life. I write this at the risk of confirming Ilia's suspicions and boring all of you to tears. I am taking her bait and daring to go into vague detail about my lengthy sexual history. It is lengthy because it now spans three full decades; this does not mean that I am very experienced. The events below are in chronological order, to the best of my recollection. I've omitted names; trust me when I tell you I remember them all.

Close call: At a swimmer's house, shampooing her hair in the downstairs bathroom with her parents nearby, she showed me her breasts and let me touch them. Her parents were of the mind that we'd been in there too long and called us out; I never got that chance again. [This might have been for the better; even at thirteen her little black book was quite full, and it had many names with stars beside them...]

First time: I was fourteen; she was sixteen. She said, "I'm horny." I had never even heard that word before then; I added it to my vocabulary immediately afterward. She turned up pregnant (by me) weeks later. Her foster father compelled her to get an abortion, then he informed me that I would be free to see her again, just as soon as I got castrated. I took a pass on that one.

Another close call: After becoming the boy who batted .1000, with such a mortifying result, my "sex life" went through a mortification of its own. As a freshman in high school, things got hot and heavy between me and a young lady. There was a lot of necking and grinding with our clothes on; she wanted more and found it elsewhere. [Given her reputation before we dated, this might also have been a very good thing...]

Second lover: A cheerleader in Mr. Seay's science class took pity on me in the aftermath of my previous close call. She thought I was cute and was impressed that I was not at all intimidated by her--"Hey little cheerleader!" was my everyday greeting for her. I rode the bus home with her one day; her parents were both working and we had at least a couple of hours. We were necking and so forth when she asked me, "Where's the cat at?" Naif and literalist that I was, I looked around the room for the Felis cattus. I soon learned a good bit about double entendre and figures of speech. The strong feelings I subsequently developed for her cursed me for the following fifteen years. [I was in love without her most of that time...] She left me after taking an interest in an older guy; he sometime later physically abused her. What an asshole!

Third lover: One of my younger sisters' friends decided that she wanted me for a day. She was cute enough and horny enough, so I went along. We hit four or five different spots; the first one found me thoroughly embarrassed when her sister walked right in. At the end of each session she said, "Thank you!" which struck me as bizarre because I thought we had been in the deal together. The next day she made it clear that she had no further use for me, and I did not really miss her after that.

Fourth lover: This one could have gotten me arrested. Her older stepsister had taken a shine to me, so she had to have me. I was nineteen; she was thirteen. Her mother had no problem with that. We'd routinely stop at one of the picnic tables or one of the benches behind the backstop at the aptly-named Bushey Park, then I'd walk her the rest of the way home. One day she told me she was pregnant and broke up with me. I talked to her mother to try to prevent a second abortion for which I'd have to take the blame. She informed me that her daughter was and had been on the pill; no pregnancy; no problem.

Fifth lover: The older stepsister mentioned above decided that she wanted me despite my having fallen for her little sister's seduction; she also didn't let the fact that she was engaged to a friend of mine stop her. We went to his family's campground one weekend. It came time to take a shower; we walked to the public facilities there. We had to share the shampoo, so I went into the women's side with her and took an adjacent stall. There was a two-by-two cinder block hole at floor level in the wall between the stalls. I remarked to her that the water on the floor made a good mirror; she replied, "The mirror works both ways!" That was another close call; I never even kissed her until the night before she moved in with me.

The evening my fifth lover moved in with me, we were consummating our relationship when my second lover showed up. Her sudden appearance was in response to a letter I had written her two months earlier, which I was under the impression she should have received seven weeks prior. I had (evidently) given up hope for her or lost faith in her; when she told me that she had just read the letter that day and that it had hit home, I was totally screwed. I couldn't kick #5 out, and I couldn't level with her that I cared more for this other girl than I did for her. #2 decided to give me the necessary space and time to deal with the issue; by the time I did (a year and a half later, when #5 moved back in with her mother after her abusive stepfather left), #2 was otherwise occupied pretending to be either a JAP or a member of some dude's harem (of one).

Sixth lover: In college I became slightly attracted to a French woman who, like me, was several years older than our classmates (23). We were in her dorm room sort of getting down to business when she mentioned some recent lover who was an Algerian football (soccer) player or something. The timing was terrible and the thought a complete turn-off. She persisted and proceeded to lick practically every inch of my body, which eventually got me going. I turned in a rather weak performance, but what really upset her was when she came back from the bakery the next morning and found me gone. [We remained friendly despite that; I even accompanied her on a mission to Philadelphia, about which I may one day write.]

Seventh lover: Right around my twenty-sixth birthday, after my academic failure was complete, I was living with my brother and his fiancee and another guy. I had just started painting in Tenleytown. My soon to be sister-in-law had a friend who liked me at first sight. After some flirting and cooing and such, I decided I could like her back. I went to Lake Needwood one afternoon and carved our initials in a tree. That Saturday, before I went to do some paralegal work (I worked part-time, on and off, for my father's two-time attorney), I took her to the tree and asked her to go steady with me. She assented, we kissed passionately, then I took her home and headed to work.

When I got to the client's house, he asked if we could go up the road and get cigarettes. I agreed, and we drove to a nearby gas station. He pulled up to one of the pumps, right behind a familiar-looking car. It was #2's white 442; I almost had a heart attack. I was thinking, "Here we go again..." but I still got out and said, "Hello!" She was obviously amazed at the way I was dressed; she had grown accustomed to seeing me with disheveled hair, in a t-shirt and torn blue jeans (I was grunge before grunge was grunge). Once I established why I was dressed up (and when she got her bearings), I asked her what she'd been up to. She pointed to the front passenger seat of her car; in the child safety seat was a pretty tow-haired two-year-old. She smiled at me, and I remember thinking that she (or someone quite similar) should have been my daughter.

I took that remarkable, coincidental encounter as a sign; I was free of my promise to love #2 forever. I figured that meant #7 just might be the one (yeah, I know...). Within two weeks she gave me her virginity; we spent the next four years determining that we were not meant to be together forever. When she left me after I aborted an attempted return to college, I wrote one of my bad poems:

I remember how it was when, no matter the time of day; my lovely A*****l would fall fast asleep in my arms, when we were through making love;

I remember how it burned when she learned I was unworthy, of the respect one should have for one's mate or a fellow human being;

I remember how she left me without sleeping even a wink, the last time we made love;

Business as usual; maybe she'll see me around; she hoped not...

So began and ended my Jewish dating experience.

Eighth lover: Maybe a week later, I was with the Tenleytown crew, riding in Ike's van that had an exhaust leak somewhere on the inside. Corky got it in his head that we should stop for a beer or two or three. We ended up at a little bar and grill somewhere between Olney and Glenmont, MD. The waitress was a gal I knew from high school; rumor had it back then that we had been lovers, but we had never gone past first base together. It was nice to see her and vice versa; she gave me her phone number and told me, "Call me soon." I recall Corky being sort of impressed at how that went down; I had gone from near despair to "Let's get it on!" in practically no time at all.

On our first "date," she paid for a flying lesson for me at one of the smaller regional airports. It was an unforgettable experience that sparked my creativity and spurred me to produce another bad poem. I won't inflict it on you here, but I'll say it was cliché and involved happy landings.

We made love that night, after she was done with work. Her mother had her (three!) kids for the weekend. The situation could not work; she was hung up on the kids' father and I couldn't see me dealing with that and his children. I bowed out gracelessly...

Almost exactly a year later, #2 tracked me down again. She said she hadn't stopped thinking about me since that day at the gas station. She said how she had fully expected me to interrupt her wedding; I pointed out that I hadn't received an invitation (or seen any notice). She talked about how her marriage was as good as over; she wanted to see me. I gave her directions to the place I was staying near Georgetown University; she left work early one day and came by. She liked what she saw: t-shirt; blue jeans with no holes; not bad looking balding head. She had to have me. I got caught up in the moment: I had let her go completely; she had finally come back to me (yeah, I know again...).

We were in the throes of passion when an overwhelming sense of guilt and shame and horror hit me--coitus interruptus--"I can't do this!" I had sunk to the lowest depths in my pursuit of what I thought would be the highest heights. I told her that she had to go be married. I told her that she had to go down every road possible to work things out with her (two) kids' father. I told her if that didn't work, she had to knock down trees, make new roads and go down them. If that failed, then she was to go down all those roads again. I started to drink heavily regularly after that; I wanted nothing more to do with Love.

Ninth lover: A customer at the truck stop I found myself working at in 2003 decided she wanted me. I obliged, to my dismay and regret. She hadn't much of a come-on, and I couldn't get into it without one. Worst sex ever...

Tenth lover: I let an older woman seduce me; she was no great shakes, but she knew just how to treat a man (tip of the hat to Ronnie McDowell). She got possessive; I ran. [She kept a monster dildo on her nightstand; it made me feel very small...]

Eleventh lover: A meddlesome coworker asked me what I thought about a customer who was wearing pajamas. I made the mistake of saying, "She's cute," which is a line that works more often than not when delivered properly (who doesn't want to look "cute?"). She was another older woman; there ensued a bit of a competition between her and #10; they both lost.

Twelfth lover: Another customer, whose older sister was a coworker, was unhappily married to some guy who wanted to play video games all the time. She asked me if I wanted to go shoot some pool after work. After shooting pool and drinking beer, etc, we went to my place. She wanted me; I told her she was too married for my tastes. She threw him out the next day, and we started seeing each other. She screamed, "Oh, Peter!" a lot in the following months, in a very good way. I was going to start getting serious with her (I had the nerve to call #2's work phone after hours and leave a message, "The wedding's in June; maybe I'll send you an invitation."). I planned to bring her with me on vacation to meet my siblings. Then fate intervened.

Ultimate lover: Another coworker sort of caught my eye. I had known of her for a couple of years, but she had been otherwise occupied and I didn't bother. She had worked at the store several years before I started there; she had just finished her second BA and had come back to the store to ease her transition from student to worker. We were working a shift together behind the counter, and I was attempting to solve a quote-acrostic to kill time. She came over to my side just as I was struggling with a clue: Greyhound-like dog; 7 letters. She looked at the puzzle for a second and said, "Whippet!" It fit and facilitated completion of the rest of the puzzle. I knew right then that there was trouble afoot; we complemented one another perfectly.

One day the following week, she drove me to a nearby town to pick up a gift I'd gotten #12 for Mother's Day; riding beside her felt so right, like nothing in my life had ever been right before. We took the gift to my parents' house to keep in the garage. She and my father spoke and smoked together. A day or so later, my father told me he had been really impressed with my friend; I told him, "So am I." I wrote her a letter suggesting that I might have feelings for her and that it might be a big mistake for me to marry #12. She wrote back that she agreed, then she mentioned a vivid dream she had about (our) tow-headed kids playing in the yard. This had come on the heels of her waking up completely sober--after having passed out shit-faced drunk--bolting upright and shouting, "Oh my God! He's the One!" [Imagine that!]

The day of her graduation arrived; I had to work during the ceremony, but another meddlesome coworker suggested that I go to one of the local honky-tonks with them that night to help them celebrate. I met her at her house beforehand, we partied a little bit, then we went to celebrate with our coworker. Afterward I spent the night at her house, in the guest bedroom; we have been together ever since. [Sorry, no more details...]

All's well that ends well, right???

Finding one's footing

2010-10-06T00:30:00.000-04:00

Although I never made it to double digits, I did go through my fair share of, um, relating to the opposite sex. From that, some lines must be immortalized for their 1) audacity, 2) creep factor, and 3) quality blog post material. Coincidentally, these all happened within two years' time.

On the offensive scale, these comments range from "mildly annoying" to "someone making a Hitler joke at a Jewish family's Thanksgiving dinner".

From about age 19 though 21, I was a little chubby from lack of exercise and an un-lack of beer. Call it the sophomore fifteen. Apparently, this invited the first two comments.

One:
"You have a great body, but your hips are too big."
Oh yeah?
Well, I can floss with your penis.
Seriously.
With your microdick, you should be worshipping the air I just farted in.

Two:
(Then-fuck-buddy smacks said big hipped ass): "You need to go run another six miles."
Eventually I ran 750 miles away from that one.

Three:
Late in my sophomore year, a friend set me up with a long haired violin player. I have to admit it was very strange making out with someone who had longer hair than I did. He also had a mark on his neck from the violin playing. It looked like he'd given himself a massive hickey with a vaccuum cleaner. Who knows, maybe he actually did that. The relationship was going well enough until one spring evening in my dorm room:

Violinist: You know when your feet smell after you take your shoes off?
Me: Yes...
Violinist: I find that to be an aphrodisiac. Do you think that's weird?
Me: YES.
The next day...
Violinist, to mutual friend: (Lieutenant Ilia) doesn't appreciate my odd sensualities.
Me (upon learning about that comment): Odd? That's not odd. That's fucked up!

Four:
Summer between sophomore and junior years of college.
Getting off the PATH train in Harrison:
"You look just like my girlfriend did. She died six months ago."
Like the true soft-hearted, romantic, sentimental schmoop that I am, I ignored him.

Five:
"You have no personality."
Thus ended my Jewish dating career.

I am now challenging Corky and Peter to come up with their own lists, which will inevitably be funnier than mine, because I am almost certainly a nun compared to those two manwhores.

Peter's Travels: 2010: What I Brought Back From My Trip To Alabama

2010-10-02T08:02:00.021-04:00

For consumption during my morning commute to work a while back (9/14/2010), I made the ultimate breakfast sandwich. Those of you who are either squeamish, excessively health-conscious or snobbish may need to skip the next few paragraphs to avoid the unpleasantness they will contain. [Those of you who readily tire of my long-winded attention to detail definitely should pass over them...or the whole thing... or just go to hell; you go to hell and you die!]

Mrs. Peter and I hadn't been grocery shopping recently, so when I went to make breakfast that day the pickings were slim. I found part of a red onion, pepper jack cheese slices and Farm House cage-free brown eggs in the refrigerator; in the freezer I found Steak-ums; on the counter were two end slices of a loaf of hearty whole wheat bread. I took a bottle of EVOO and the pepper grinder out of the cabinet above the stove, then I got two frying pans from the little storage area beneath the stove.

First I caramelized an eighth of a cup of red onion in olive oil in the big frying pan and set them aside. Then I scrambled the eggs and put them in the small frying pan on medium-low heat. I put the bread in the toaster on 9. I put two Steak-ums in the big frying pan, ground some pepper on them, then cooked them on medium-high for a minute or so. I dumped the onions into the eggs, then transferred them to the big frying pan to finish cooking. When the toast popped up, I put two slices of pepper jack on one of the pieces, then I stacked the eggs and Steak-ums and the other piece of toast. What made it the ultimate breakfast sandwich was two teaspoons of special ingredient.

The special ingredient comprises several secret ingredients. I can guess what some of them are, but I prefer that they remain a mystery to me. The special ingredient was Doogie Pigford's World's Best Barbecue Sauce (patent pending). My wife and I found the sauce through Divine Providence (or sheer dumb luck, if you must see it that way). We were on our way home from a long weekend in Alabama, where we had gone to visit friends in mourning. We were southwest-bound on I-20, just outside Mississippi, when the baby woke up hungry and crying. The first exit we came to was highway 80, just inside Mississippi. There was a small truck stop , the only gas station at that exit; we were more or less at the mercy of the proprietor.

The sign (pictured above) read, "Thanking y'all for 20 years of business;" the pumps were definitely original equipment. Because there was no way to pay at the pump, I had to go inside and give the cashier (who was smoking a cigarette behind the counter) a forty-dollar deposit. I went out, pumped twenty-some dollars worth of gas, parked the car, then went back in to get my change.

The smell of the food sizzling on the grill overwhelmed the stench of tobacco smoke; I was hooked. I went back to the car and asked Mrs. Peter if she'd like to get a bite to eat. Fortunately she assented. She finished feeding the baby, I got our older son out of his seat, and we all went inside. We were taken aback by the decor and ambiance: trophy bucks on the wall; ashtrays on the tables; gambling machines (For entertainment purposes only...) on the floor; FOX News on the flat screen; truckers on task wolfing down their half-pound hamburgers. Clearly this was the place for us...

We ordered our food and soaked in our surroundings. Mrs. Peter took the pictures I've included here. Her pulled pork sandwich came with the barbecue sauce on the side; I could tell right away that we had stumbled onto something special. While her reaction was not quite on the order of the diner (Katz Deli) scene from "When Harry Met Sally," she was obviously in a state of culinary ecstasy. She gave me a bite to make me jealous; I almost regretted getting the burger (another sign had claimed, rightly, that you couldn't get a better homemade burger..). There were no signs bragging about the sweet tea, but it was as good as any I've ever had.

After we ate and went out to the car, Mrs. Peter went back in to take another picture and to smoke with the cashier. That's when she met the owner. She asked him if he sold the barbecue sauce separately; he replied that a lot of people ask him that. She asked him if he'd sell her some; they agreed on a price and he filled a thirty-two ounce styrofoam cup with the sauce. He told her that he had killed all the bucks and the boar and the antelope; they exchanged other pleasantries, then she came out with the loot.

While eating that breakfast sandwich en route to work the other morning, I thought about how glad I was that we had taken the trip. It was good to see and console our friends; it really helped me put things in perspective. Our friend had just lost her husband; her daughter had lost her father; she's only twenty years old. I am mourning the deaths of my parents, but I had the good fortune of having them both around for over forty-two years. I remembered how we almost lost my dad to an aneurysm when I was about fifteen, how my mother had forgiven him outright for the wrong he'd done her, and how she had helped him recover from his stroke and stood with him for the next twenty-seven years.

I had witnessed and experienced true love at its finest, purest and noblest.

Westley: I told you I would always come for you. Why didn't you wait for me?
Buttercup: Well... you were dead.
Westley: Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.

My mama has set the bar pretty high.

Dirty Dozen

2010-09-28T18:23:00.003-04:00

My fellow foulmouthed friend and boobtastic blogger Sarah posted about this article: "According to the fine folks at TheFrisky.com, there are '12 Kinds of Sex Every Woman Has to Have Before She Settles Down'. Seeing my fucking didn't hit double digits, I highly doubt I reached any sort of pinnacle with the 'kind' of screwing I have done."

Yeah, mine didn't hit double digits either. Thank goodness there's someone else out there who is as much of a schmuck as I am. Since she commented item by item, I'm going to ~~blatantly rip her off~~ emulate her and then give or deny myself points:

1---Sexy Foreigner Sex. I give myself a half point for this one because of the half Vietnamese factor. After we broke up, I never had any desire to find the other half. +0.5

2---"The One" Sex. Being that my legs didn't flop open for just any guy, I had a cringe-worthy tendency to think every guy was "The One". Per Sarah: "The point being made is women shouldn't get hung up on the idea that sex equates everlasting love." Superfantastic bigfail! A pity +1.

3---A Big D. These Cosmo rejects couldn't just say "dick", they had to say "dragon". Because apparently a dick is just a dick, but a dragon has a long neck. +1

4---Bad Sex. I can't say this has ever happened. Low mediocre bordering on lame, but never absolutely terrible. I might be in denial, but: 0

5---Angry Sex/Hate Sex/Breakup Sex. The article says, "It's a wrestling match where everybody wins!" Only if the "wrestling match" involves biting, hair pulling, and spanking should the first 2/3 count for anything. As for the last 1/3, note to self: Completely break up with person B and do not give them pity sex before screwing person A. On the same day. Something I conveniently forgot to do once. +1

6---Rock Star/Movie Star/Athlete Sex. I've never actually met anyone famous, unless you count a glimpse of Alec Baldwin yakking on his cell phone while I was killing time in Bryant Park before a date I should never have agreed to. So, yet another fail. 0

7---Booty Hole Sex. And I quote, "You should know if anal is your thing before you settle down. Test it out with someone you trust, preferably a mild-mannered sweetheart who is super gentle in the sack and who’s also dispensable in case you don’t like it and never want to do it again." Did this person ever exist? If so, I'm thinking they died out with the tyrannosaurs. As for admitting or not admitting to the point for this one: I've been married for ten years. People can only go through so much before the Final Frontier has to be acknowledged. Drunk +1

8---Two Girls are Better Than One Sex. Can someone tell me exactly when this became cool? Because it never was when I was in school - high school or college. Not even Lesbian Until Graduation was respected. Wow, girls today have it so easy - you can be a lesbian whenever you want, lickety split, and no one judges: 0

9---Jump the Age Gap Sex. Definition: Sleep with someone ten years older or ten years younger. The biggest age gap of mine is the current one of 2 years 5 months with me being the younger one. When I was 18, I Did Everything But with a 25 year old, but now that I think about it, most 25 year olds don't have foreheads that wrinkled. So I'm guessing he was actually around 35. Since there was never any penetration: 0

10---Dominating Sex. Per the article: "Three words: woman on top. You totally dominate this sexual experience. It’s you, in control, doing and getting what you want. Bonus points if it involves leather!" YAWN. Call me back when it involves restraints and ice cubes. +1

11---Incomplete Pass. Why does a softie count on this list? WTF? That's like you can't masturbate because the batteries in your vibrator died. +1

12---Flying Solo. Per Sarah again: "I would like to think lots of ladies fly solo but something tells me there is a lot of talk and not much action." Who the hell has any time to fly solo anymore? I have to create a calendar reminder on my phone. +1

Total: 7 1/2 for 12. Oddly, I don't feel like I missed out on anything. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go check out the W4W section on Craigslist.

Another One Of Peter's Perverse Anti-Stuff Rants

2010-09-26T10:20:00.010-04:00

Warning: This post includes harsh expletives and other unthoughtful and offensive words and concepts. It's kind of wrong and irreverent and blasphemous, too. Sorry.

I don't like politics or diplomacy because I'm not very good at either. I refuse to lie because I believe that life is difficult enough to live on the up and up; complicating it even further with any distortion or denial or debasing of reality is contemptible in my eyes. I cannot do diplomacy because I will not suck anyone's ass, and I'm not comfortable with the notion of someone sucking mine. Plus, I'm just too straightforward; politicians and diplomats as a rule must mince words to make bad things easier to swallow for those who are unable to chew.

I saw an interview the other day with the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose name, when pronounced properly, is reminiscent of one of my cats hacking up hairballs. I don't mean it personally; that's just how it sounds to me. This man has delusions of grandeur of himself, his country and Islam; his anti-Israel rants demonstrate this clearly. I am pretty much fed up with this asshole and his piss-ant country. We should have nuked the fuckers decades ago, rather than having to scratch at them now like the fleas that they are. Time for some Frontline.

Now that I've made my feelings known about that, I'd like to comment on the interview. The translator said that the Iranian president was saying some [dumb shit] thing about how he wasn't down on all Americans, just the bad ones who wish Iran harm. He said he wishes the good Americans to have a "happy time," which sounded fishy to me, so I came up with my own translation, which occurred to me when reading between Hackhackdidjihad's eyes (a narrow field, to be sure, and yes, that was personal).

What he really said was, "Stupid American Satan, have your perverted hedonistic gluttonous food and sex orgies. Enjoy and gorge yourselves! For when you devils are bloated and in the throes of devilish passion, we will then swiftly conquer your sorry fat evil asses. Fuck you, Americans!" Granted, that is a somewhat loose translation, but I am certain it captures his sentiments perfectly. We are a sorry lot that seems to be ripe for the picking and practically begging for it. To think that we could fall to a bunch of dadgum Persians (and street Arabs, et alia); it's fucking scandalous!

I once jokingly came up with a catch-all solution to several major problems we face as a country. I proposed that we nuke the Middle East, then send all the illegal immigrants we catch in our country to that region to retrieve our oil. Talk about filling some jobs most Americans wouldn't want! It could include a path to citizenship (over there...). It would be a win, win, win situation, except for the Islamic terrorists and those countrymen of theirs whose complacency is complicity in their evil deeds, and who therefore likewise deserve to die. Or would you rather they win and we either die or become Muslims???

I could not in good faith subscribe to a religion conceived by some plagiarist hack who found a roundabout way to include a bunch of bastards in the "God thing;" it just doesn't make it for me. You may well know that none of the other religions I've known has worked for me either. So maybe I'll burn among the damned. My conscience will be clean and clear, whether or not I am pious and pure. If God there be, God knows what's in our hearts, and we'll all account for it one day.

Sidetrack: I recently had a vision of hell in a dream. Mohammed Atta and the other 9/11 murderers were all there. There were many (some multiple of 72?) hags clamoring for Atta and the others to "Rub our bunions!" Atta cried out, "I call shenanigans on the Prophet!" The prophet was too busy with hags of his own to reply. Hey, don't blame me; it was a dream, and I was there with them.

Psalm 14 (King James Version)

Psalm 14

¹The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

²The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.

³They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

⁴Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.

⁵There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous.

⁶Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the LORD is his refuge.

⁷Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! when the LORD bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad

To my simple mind, this is virtually impenetrable poetry, but what strikes me about it is the part about the heart of a fool. I can understand a rational desire that there be no religion; how can any one wish with all his heart that there be no God? No eternal love, no ultimate justice, no life everlasting? Can any of this occur without God? Has it? Damn it! How the hell do I get out of this font, anyway?

Tune in next time, when I will try to offend the rest of us.

Now it's time to start my Christmas shopping.

Peace and love to all...

Um, Youthful Indiscretion Or Something

2010-09-25T10:41:00.014-04:00

When I was an impressionable teenager back in the early 1980's, I fell victim to pro-marijuana propaganda. Given the upheaval in my life at the time, coupled with my psychiatrists' inability to speak to me on my level, the relaxing escape that the (hard h) "herbs" offered proved irresistible. What followed was a twenty-something-year-long haze that found me more or less wasting my life. This included my educational failure, which began almost immediately. I still debate whether that was a result of the drug abuse or a symptom of the same malaise that impelled me to take up drugs in the first place.

The summer after sixth grade was pivotal in laying the groundwork for the woes to come soon after. Part of it was great; my brother and I went to Camp Barrett for a week, courtesy of the BPOE. It was there that I first heard Cheap Trick's most popular song; it was there that I first noticed that my body was developing. Upon our return home, my parents informed us that we would all be attending public schools that fall, because they could no longer afford the tuition at the parochial schools we had been attending.

That upset me greatly; I had been on the honor roll every quarter in sixth grade, including twice with straight A's (once with two A+'s). My siblings were all good students; it made no sense to me that the Church would not do all it could to help us stay in its school system. It struck me as a betrayal of the lowest sort; the Church expected my charity, but it was nowhere to be found when my family desperately needed it. So I made a clean break from the Church.

Soon after that I had an experience that finished ripping the structure of my life from its foundations. I was cleaning out the hall closet when I came across a letter my father had sent to some lady, that had been returned to him. The envelope had been opened; I took the letter out and read it. The opening sentence said something about "...visitation of our daughter..." I recognized her name; she was a girl my mother had "babysat" seven years earlier. I could have died right there.

Visions flashed through my mind. One was of this girl being under foot while my mother was trying to make lunch one day. I remembered my mother screaming at the poor little girl, "Why are you following me?!?" Another was of that girl's mother babysitting me and a sibling or two or three, driving the VW bug barefooted and generally not being very nice. Because I was more or less terrified of my father, I put the letter back and never told anyone about it.

The fact that my father had done that to my mother put the lie to the reasons they had given me for why I was born. The love, the vows and God's instruction to "be fruitful and multiply" lost all import and any meaning they otherwise might have had. [Star Trek aside: The Vulcan (Jew's?) rip on that phrase was "Live long and prosper," in case you didn't know.] I made up my mind that I may as well be a bastard. I took the illegitimacy thing to its extreme; my parents had lost all legitimate authority in my eyes. My heart was broken for the first time; I did not know what to do nor how to deal with it; maybe I overreacted.

Seventh grade found me cutting class routinely, running with a crowd that wasn't the worst element at Randolph Junior High but was trouble nonetheless, and trying marijuana for the first time. A friend who was in all seven classes with me had much the same notion that I did; he wanted to get high. We had tried banana peels, but the buzz from that was either a myth or not nearly enough for our complicated minds. We each put in $2.50 on a nickel bag, which I scored from one of the Village potheads I looked up to at the time. I borrowed a pipe from my older sister's friend, then went to my friend's house.

We went to the tool shed in his back yard, cleaned seeds and stems from some of the weed, packed it in the bowl and fired it up. I remember (if you can believe it) the screen being almost totally clogged, we had to strain just to get a taste of smoke. On my way home I decided that I never wanted to be without weed again.

The buzz from the marijuana was perfect; it helped me hold together the pieces of my mind that had so recently snapped. The propaganda I mentioned (vilified?) above came some months (a year or so?) later; it served both to validate (in my mind) the benefits the herb provided and to let me know that I was not alone...

Premier Week

2010-09-23T21:27:00.006-04:00

I'm pretty excited for Smallville tomorrow night. I watch Glee and shows like the Big Bang Theory, but sometimes I wish it were 1964 again.

Even though I wasn't born yet the foundation was being laid for my formative years by great men like Sherwood Schwartz and his son Lloyd, creators of Gilligan's Island.

Remember when Kurt Russel guest starred as Jungle Boy?

Or what about the crate of radioactive vegetable seeds that Gilligan caught while he was fishing? Mary Ann developed telescopic vision from eating carrots that were in the crate and saw an ocean liner that was at least a hundred miles away from the lagoon.

Remember when the great Phil Silvers special guest starred to play Harold Hecuba, a producer down on his luck.

And who could forget quite possibly the greatest episode of the entire series, Don't Bug the Mosquitos. Folks have been coming to Corky's log for years from Google by using such search-terms as Bingo, Bango, Bango, and Irving.

I know Peter said in his last post that not everything has to have meaning, but I continue to find meaning in all 99 episodes of the series. I'm a little embarrassed for the folks who reviewed and panned Gilligan's Island back in the 1960's. It's a good thing that generation is on its way out.

Do Not Read This If You Will Be Looking For My Point!

2010-09-23T06:12:00.009-04:00

Preemptive Apology: I am sorry for the waste of time and words that follows; I've now warned you twice, so please don't gripe if you don't have sense enough to heed my warnings.

I recently made the mistake of sharing one of my posts here with all of my friends on Facebook. I had intended to send it to one person in particular who appreciates the debacle that my quest for the answer to the question, "What's the meaning of life?" has historically been. I envision many scratched heads; one of the head-scratchers commented that he could not understand why I had sent that for his eyes to see. He did not see any point in it.

Must every post on a blog or casual conversation have a point? Does any one of you really expect a point in everything you read from the likes of Captain Corky (or me)? My recollection of the conversations I've had with the good Captain is that ultimately they were all pointless. However thoughtful or profound, meaningful or enlightening they could be, in the end they boiled down to useless gelatinous blobs.

I've "known" since I made my break from the Church at age twelve that the only meaning life really has is that which one assigns it. We're here; we're aware that we're here; we either work within the structure into which we were born, or we break out and seek such structure elsewhere. Or we create our own structure, when we finally admit that it has become impossible to deal in good faith with all the other structures we've ever known. That is where I stand now; but why do I still search for life's meaning beyond me?

Must every life have a meaning? Is life really merely an accident that just happened to happen to happen under unlikely perfect conditions? Wonderful. Back to square one.

I feel sorry for my Facebook friend; how can anyone be so obtuse that he can't fathom even the murky shallows of the mind of Peter? After all, it is simplicity itself...

"...and your point would be..."

Sad, But True

2010-09-20T04:38:00.007-04:00

There's a country song that begins: "Our houses are protected by the good Lord and a gun; you might meet 'em both if you come around here not welcome, son..." I can't make sense of it. If the good Lord is doing the protection thing properly, it quite obviates the need for a gun, right? Maybe the good Lord's protection is metaphorical, with the gun providing protection literally. Or maybe he means both the good Lord and gun literally. Christ o Christmas!

This is on my mind because of a religious experience I had yesterday. I made the mistake of going to church on the day the music director announced his resignation. I still haven't figured out why he resigned, but I think I may resign as well. Here's how it all went down.

It was an ordinary service in every respect; there was singing and praying and a sermon. When the pastor dismissed the congregation, the music director picked up a microphone and made his announcement. He said something about thirty years of service to the church and fifteen pages of a damning document about the pastor. There was some other cryptic rambling, then goodbye. His brother (or brother-in-law, I'm not sure) who was also on stage, had his own outburst which was equally mysterious and eerily tense.

I immediately prayed that I was not going to witness a murder or two or more; I regretted going there at all, let alone unarmed. I cannot kick myself enough for not grabbing Mrs. Peter and my sons and running out the door right away. Mercifully there was no physical violence, but the damage to my psyche may be irreparable. At least my sons' attention was directed elsewhere. Where is the love, people???

It is long past time for me to establish my own church; I'm sure I can do it better than any I've ever seen. That includes this one. Science bless you all!

"O" No

2010-09-18T13:57:00.000-04:00

"I don't know if this is too much, but I can actually mentally give myself an orgasm. You know, sense memory is quite powerful." -- Lady Gaga

Yes, it is too much. Too much BULLSHIT. I thought about an orgasm for ten minutes and all that happened was a craving for nachos.

"What most people know about tantric sex is that Sting does it and it lasts eight hours. But he's not having sex continually. You can take a bath, massage your partner, listen to music. The idea is that you let the whole thing build very slowly until finally you merge with your partner. It works for me." -- Heather Graham

Oh yeah, Heather? Then I've been having sex for TWELVE YEARS STRAIGHT. Changing diapers at 2 AM is so partner merging.

"I mean, I have unbelievable orgasms alone. They’re always the best. They always end the way I want them to end."

"Rather than meet somebody new, I would rather go home and replay the amazing experiences I’ve already had."

-- John Mayer

Of course I masturbate to my exes on a daily basis. Because it's healthier than a cocaine habit. But just barely.

"I think you like [sex] when you're, like, in your thirties. That's what someone told me. We'll see." -- Paris Hilton

No wonder she looked so bored in her porno. She was just waiting to turn thirty.

Goodbye, My Sweetheart

2010-09-15T17:33:00.000-04:00

Not Ilia's I-cups

Technically, my tumor was staged as IIA, but upon its departure from my body, it was found to have been 2 millimeters away from attaching to my skin. So, while that was considered a "clean margin" by my surgeon, it was considered as Stage 3B by my oncologist, aka "put it up to 11". The end result was 50% more chemo than the standard course.

Thirteen days after my first dance with chemo, I was sitting in front of my computer trying to deal with various English-challenged citizens of Bangalore when I felt something tickle my face. No, it wasn't General Ilia with a feather. Strands of my hair had just bailed on me en masse. I put up with it for maybe two hours before I decided that I didn't want to look like the "before" in a Rogaine ad. I couldn't bear to shave my head right away so I cut my long hair to Requisite Butch Length. However, my RBL hair failed at being Sapphic and kept on falling out. Four days later, I surrendered to reality. My husband sang this song as he shaved my head.

At this point I had told only a few people outside of my family that I had been diagnosed with breast cancer. I had decided to be open about it after I was "all done". (In reality, one is never actually "all done" with cancer until they're dead.) I'm not sure why I did this, but I sent a few friends pictures of me wearing a bandanna, wearing my wig, and bald. Luke commented that my bandanna picture made me look like a white Aunt Jemima. Everyone else said stuff like "You look great!" and "That suits you!". To this day I don't know if Luke was just trying to extend our eternal pissing contest or if he was being honest and everyone else was full of shit. The wig looked OK, but it felt like my head was wearing a hairy condom. Thus, Lieutenant Ilia the Bald was born. I would wear the hair condom in public only because I didn't want to have people look at me with that "she's gonna die" look.

Throughout the six rounds of chemo (one every 3 weeks = 18 weeks of hell), I still could not believe that this was now me. The evil steroid Decadron which prevented me from copious Exorcist-style barfing had made me gain 20 pounds in one week. (Suck it, Supersize Me Guy!) Also, I had to take a leave of absence from my job. I had just enough left to acknowledge my family's existence, and anything past that was unpossible.

After the fourth round of chemo, my saline implant started to leak. I'm sure that was my fault, but damned if I know how I did it. My short term memory was totally shot. (Who are you again?) My plastic surgeon refused to operate on me until at least six weeks after my last round of chemo. So now my husband had a deflated-boobed fat bald lady to sleep with. Surely there's a "tube" out there for that look?

After it was all done, I wanted to go back to "normal" as quickly as possible. However, there is no normal anymore. It's a twisted form of existence, but being on the green side of the grass is all that counts.

And now, back to the funny.

Good Sportsmanship

2010-09-14T06:06:00.005-04:00

A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook an obscenity-laced tirade against a particular Dallas Cowboys fan. Said fan had told my friend to go fuck himself, after he had offered him his hand to shake and told him, "Good game," following the Redskins' victory Sunday night. The harsh words reminded me of a completely different scenario I experienced in 1999.

It was Sunday, September 12, 1999. I went to Babes Billiards (RIP) on the banks of the mighty Wisconsin (Avenue) in NW DC to watch the Redskins' season opener against the Cowboys. I was eating and drinking and hootin' and hollerin' and otherwise carrying on. The Skins were getting it like a big dog; they led 35-14 after three quarters. I had been yucking it up with a Cowboys fan at a nearby table; I wasn't ugly about it, and he took it all in stride.

Some friends of mine wanted to leave and do something else; they were saying that the game was all but over. I told them it wasn't over; there was another quarter to play, and I intended to watch it. What followed was perhaps the worst meltdown in Redskins history. I don't recall precisely how the game went, but I do remember that the Cowboys scored three unanswered TD's in the fourth quarter, then went on to win it in OT, 41-35.

The Cowboys fan enjoyed the fourth quarter immensely; he got the same kick out of it that I had earlier. When the Cowboys scored their OT TD, he walked over to my table, offered me his hand to shake, and told me, "What a game!" I agreed, shook his hand, and told my friends that I told them the damn game wasn't over. The Cowboys fan asked me what I was drinking. I had been surfing the taps, so I told him I thought I might be on Killian's. He went to the bar, bought me a pitcher, then bid me good day and left Babes. I never saw him again.

On my Hate-Love-Hate-Love Relationship With Technology

2010-09-08T22:34:00.001-04:00

Geek Squad rates: $20.00/hour to start

A new Netbook: $270

Having to tell your parents-in-law that the reason why Internet Explorer stopped working on their computer is because one of them was looking at porn:
Priceless.

On My Love/Hate Relationship With Technology

2010-09-05T10:58:00.005-04:00

I'm glad I grew up in the years before ubiquitous hi-tech devices. Even though I can appreciate the utility of such cell phone apps (I don't care to learn their names) as those that allow one to learn everything about anything wherever one is (provided, of course, that one has a signal), I appreciate even more my ability to learn all I need to know without electricity. My heart goes out to all people who lack low-tech survival skills. They would be among the first to perish in a prolonged power outage. If ever the "shit goes down," many would probably end up as Survivalist Brand dog food (patent pending), having very little worth otherwise.

The "computer lab" at my high school had maybe ten early 1980's model dinosaurs; they looked sort of like the one pictured above, but they might have been Apples. I recall there being two or three students per machine. I don't remember being able to do very much on them; the hard drive and floppy disks had next to no capacity (I think my stove has more memory). We couldn't even play games on them, so basically they were useless.

I was fortunate enough to have taken Mr. Mudd's typing class. I was one of maybe four guys in a class of over twenty; it was my favorite class. I would memorize the piece we were going to type, then when I typed it I would check out all the pretty young women in my class. To me, there was (is) something inherently sexy about a woman concentrating (on anything, generally, but on typing or on me specifically). It might merely be a case of arrested development, or it could be that for a male heterosexual homo sapiens, seeing a woman so focused is one of the finer aspects of existence.

I took the typing class at my mother's behest; she was a typist by trade, but she had no interest in typing her kids' school papers. She had started out typing term papers, Master's theses and Doctoral dissertations, along with my father's lecture notes. She became a notereader for a court reporter shortly after our return from England in 1977. She ended up becoming a scopist, when she and her boss agreed to end their resistance to computers in the early 1990's. Between them, they created a dictionary of over 50,000 words in less than a year. Thanks to faxes, Fedex, and the internet, she continued working for the same reporter for about ten years after she moved over a thousand miles from Maryland. She retired when her boss finally wrapped up his career, a couple of months before she died.

As is evident in my activity here, I am at long last coming to terms with (if not actually embracing) some modern technology; however, I will remain here behind the curve where I'm comfortable.

When my wife acquired our (her) computer on Mother's Day, we went out and bought several educational programs for our son. He had already spent some time on my mother-in-law's computer, so he took to the one at home right away. It serves as a good supplemental teaching tool; it reinforces many of the lessons we're giving him off-line. He will very soon surpass me in terms of general computer skills; a brief anecdote illustrates this clearly.

One Saturday morning in the middle of June, my wife decided that we should go down to Holly Beach. When she told Brendan where we were going, he asked, "How do we get there?" My wife told him that we drive to Highway 27 and turn south, then keep going until we reach the beach. He replied, "I'll map it." I was cooking breakfast, and Mrs. Peter was drinking coffee and watching TV in the recliner. After a couple of minutes she leaned over to see what he was doing on the computer. On the screen was a map showing maybe a fifty-mile radius from our house, which included Holly Beach. We were impressed.

He had awakened the computer, gotten onto Google Maps, typed in be and scrolled down to Bed, Bath & Beyond. The result was the aforementioned map which, had we needed one, would have suited our needs perfectly. The boy's not three years old yet!

My focus for my son now will be to teach him all the old-school skills I can. He asked me just this morning, "When are you going to take me fishing, Daddy?" "As soon as I'm done on the computer." "I'm done." "Let's go..."

One Reason I Hate Nepotism

2010-09-03T05:57:00.004-04:00

I know it is at my peril that I write this, but I need to vent; what better venue than this exists?

I once heard it said of a carpenter friend of mine that he could "numbfuck a job to death." The idea was that he was particularly good at wasting time. If that was true, then the son of the man for whom I've been working commits necrophilia with jobs' corpses. When he isn't on the phone or at his father's heels, he's stopping to talk to whoever will listen, for however long they'll lend an ear.

He acts as if he's a general contractor; he practically micromanages any other contractors at our job sites. He turns an eight-hour workday into a ten-hour one with all the extracurricular chitchat. It's kind of painful to behold (or hear--my focus is on my work). He goes into intimate and intricate detail on every subject, down to the most trivial aspects one can imagine.

"Nice shoes!" "Yeah. They were made in a factory in the Philippines. Then they were put on a ship that burned about five thousand gallons of diesel on the trip to Baltimore harbor, where they were loaded onto a green truck whose driver was trained in Rhode Island in 1987. He graduated from the academy in June; his diploma was written on paper made at the mill just north of here..."

Yesterday at lunch, he got a call from his wife. I couldn't help overhearing both ends of the conversation; I was comfortable where I was sitting and was not about to move. She was pissing and moaning about being pestered by a coworker who was interrupting an important work-related chat she was having with another coworker. Something about wanting her to go to lunch. When the phone call was over, I pretended that I had not clearly heard her end of the conversation; I remarked that she must have had a lot on her mind.

He told me what the situation was, then he proceeded to hang lip on the coworker who sparked his wife's fit. She apparently spends too much of her day socializing instead of working. She goes into the office seven days a week, because she doesn't get her work done in the usual five and she doesn't have a life. I think I remember him saying that he doesn't understand people like that. Go figure...

Afterward, we were talking about the latest oil rig explosion (he had found out about it on Facebook). When talk turned to the various emergency responders, I had to have just a little bit of fun at his expense. In a very thinly veiled sarcastic tone I said, "I wonder what they were wearing." He replied, "Probably orange jumpsuits." I gave the third member of our three-man crew a quick glance and eye-roll, then concentrated all my self-control on not falling out of my chair.

Shortly after lunch, I told my friend that I couldn't believe the other guy so mindlessly took the bait. He replied, "You know, they wear orange because it makes it easier for other people to see you..." Indeed.

Twelve Angry Freshmans

2010-09-01T07:49:00.001-04:00

I joined school. My job pays for it so why not take advantage of the benefit. I look forward to watching the tax woman at H&R Block apply the Hope Credit to my 2010 Tax Return. Just thinking about it really excites me and I have to be careful not to wear sweatpants when I'm out in public, especially when I'm walking past an H&R Block Tax Den.

School and I have not always gotten along and I wasn't a very successful freshmans the last time I joined school, but this time feels right. Not only does it feel right, but I'm conferencing and following suggestions from folks that have had success at being a freshmans in the past, like my wife for example. Don't tell anyone, but I'm really enjoying school.

I'm taking one class this semester to ease myself into being a freshmans. It's called Intro to Writing. It blows my fucking mind how much I've learned since class started on August two Mondays ago. Did you know that there are more writers than just Peter, Ilia, and myself out there in the world? I didn't know that. Amazing shit.

I call the English class Twelve Angry Freshmans even though none of us really seem that angry about anything. One kid grew up in Germany and when I draw him in my mind he looks exactly like Fred Flintstone. Two of the kids are a little older than Flintstone and both served over in Iraq and Afghanistan. One is in school to be an officer in the military and the other veteran wants to be a used car sales man. There are also a few girls in the class: A chick who buries her emotions in sports, a chick who just graduated from catholic school, a chick who writes Twilight fan fiction, and a chick who looks sort of like Rory Gilmore. I make eight of the Twelve Angry Freshmans and the other four freshmans in the class can be found under various trees at 8:16 PM playing various guitars.

Twelve Angry Freshmans meets two days a week. The classes are on Mondays and Wednesdays from 7:00 PM to 8:15 PM. The class time works really well with my schedule and I'll make sure to book home on Mondays after class so I don't miss a second of Jon Gruden's Monday Night Football analysis. Thank God I only live about seven miles from the University.

This is a conversation I'll probably have with one of the freshmans on September 27th: "Sorry freshmans hippie playing guitar under the tree, BUT I GOT TO GET HOME TO WATCH THE PACKERS SLAUGTER THE BEARS." As I'm running away from the hippie to get to my car he'll probably think to himself or maybe even sing a song about me having some kind of hard-on for the Packers so I'll make sure to wear my Colts hat on Wednesday September 29th to eliminate any confusion the hippie might have as to which team Captain Corky routes for.

During the next few semesters I'll be taking gen ed classes and I'm pretty sure I know what degree I want to pursue. Ultimately though, I hope that my experience at school strengthens me as an American and as a citizen of the World. The best part about joining school is that I can start watching football on Saturdays now. Do they have college fantasy football?

Wipeout

2010-08-31T17:20:00.001-04:00

Objects in mirror are blonder than they appear.

I found out yesterday that I got a significant raise. This is monumental because:

1. I can now afford weekly Patron purchases.

2. I did it all without the help of this essential item. Wow, I must have smelled something fierce.

3. But I did eat a healthy breakfast.

Great Escapades

2010-08-29T06:27:00.006-04:00

Mrs. Peter has very graciously rescinded my self-imposed ban on writing here. It took countless thousands of field-tending mouse clicks (and uncharacteristic patience on my part) before she realized the untenability of her stance against it. Plus, she has a heart; she saw how anxious I got when I started itching to post more crap here.

Writing has historically been my most-neglected passion. I enjoy the crunching and contorting of my thoughts, and I take pride in producing something even marginally readable. It has always come down to a matter of time; nowadays especially I have so little to spare. I woke up this morning with an overload of sorts ("overload" is my favorite term for songs that get stuck in my head); it is a lovely poem by John Keats that I committed to memory when I was the same age he was when he wrote it. Considering what he subsequently managed to do in the very little bit of time he had left, I am a disgraceful slacker by comparison (and my "poetry" reeks).

When I was trying to make the case for continuing my "work" here, I asserted that this is a warm-up or practice for other, better, more important writing to come. Ever the realist (and my sharpest and most pointed critic), my wife let me know just how badly I will need an editor, should I ever follow through on that. She said something about problems with my style in my posts here; I did not mean to downplay the importance I attach to it, but I countered,"It's Corky's fucking log, who really gives a shit about style there?" Point made and taken. So here we go.

When my brother was about the same age my son is now, he and a friend (Danny Something?) disappeared one day while my mother was feeding my then baby sister. They wandered off in diapers and bare feet; they had gone unsupervised for all of five minutes. Mommy called the police immediately; luckily somebody good had already found them. When the police car rolled up to our house, the boys were sitting on the back seat, ice cream cones in hand and smiles from ear to ear. I vaguely recall the smiles not lasting very long.

When we named our son after our brothers, my wife and I were simply honoring their places in our hearts; we had no idea that we would be condemning him to a life parallelling theirs. Like her brother before him, my son had a taste for dog food when he was just starting to crawl; it took a good bit of effort to break him of that habit. My son's temper tantrums have been remarkably similar to my brother's. I've gone so far as to tell him that he's acting like a mad Cambodian, just as my father had told my brother in response to his loud, red-faced fits. [Please forgive me my inability to find a suitable video of Pol Pot (ie. one showing the outburst that inspired my father's saying).]

This past Friday was my birthday; I celebrated it by going to work, because I am very poor and broke. When I headed out of the house at quarter to seven in the morning, my son was awake. I left him in front of the TV in our living room, with an "Elmo bar" and a sippy-cup of Ovaltine. My nephew was asleep on the sofa; my wife and baby were asleep in the bedroom. I thought nothing about leaving my son there like that.

About a quarter to nine my wife called me and asked me to guess what my son had done. I drew a blank. He had opened the sliding glass door, played out in the yard for a while, then had climbed our five-foot-tall chain-link fence and wandered away! He had even managed to close the door behind him, which was a feat he could not accomplish three days earlier. He had decided that he wanted to go to his Bobbie's (his maternal grandmother's) house. He got over the fence, walked to the road, then took a left and another left, crossing one lightly-traveled road and another, busier street in the process. He made a right at the divided four-lane highway, and he was somewhere on the way to the next highway when some good lady stopped him and called the sheriff's office.

The officer learned from my son what his name and phone number were, then called my house. Nobody answered, so the officer left a message,"We have a Brendan ****** here. He was travelling westbound on Highway ###, on foot. If he's your son, please call me at ###-####." The phone's ringing had awakened my nephew. He let one of the dogs out, then followed her out when she started menacing the kitten. When the police car approached the house slowly, my nephew waved, as is customary around here when one isn't running from the law. The officer pulled into the driveway, called my nephew over and showed him his passenger.

My nephew woke up my wife, who ran outside to talk to the officer. After checking to be sure that my wife had no history of arrests for drug or child abuse, or any outstanding warrants, he released my son to her without so much as a lecture or stern warning. She proceeded to dress him down properly, then asked him what he was thinking.

He just wanted to go see Bobbie; he had gone so far as to ask the officer to take him the rest of the way there! The officer had told him," NO! I'm bringing you to your mother!" The officer had not asked him for his address; Brendan knows it. Instead, he guided the officer right to our house.

I am perplexed; I do not know how to feel about this. On the one hand, I am disappointed in myself for underestimating my son's ability and cunning and wanderlust; my failure to look out for his welfare appalls me. I am disappointed in him; he knows not to go outside alone, and he didn't even bring a dog. On the other hand, I am totally proud of my son. Just like me, he is fiercely independent. He was sharp enough to get out, over and away; then he was sharp enough to find his way back. He remembered his name and number, his manners (he had replied, "Yes, sir!" to a couple of the officer's questions) and his way home. May that always remain so...

Brendan will not soon repeat this incident; we have the place thoroughly secured (until he gets big and strong enough to open windows). We have repeatedly gone over the rules with him; we have painstakingly explained the dangers of wandering off like he did. We knew early on that my son might be difficult to raise; we had no idea we were in for a ride like this. Heaven help us.

The Birthday Girl

2010-08-25T05:59:00.000-04:00

Today is Ilia's Birthday. I can't believe how fast she's grown up! It seems like just thirty years ago we were kids hanging out in the woods together.

I wonder what the Lieutenant has planned for today...

You might want to celebrate outside for a couple of minutes today, Ilia. The weather Channel is calling for 79 degrees in your neck of the woods. That's not bad considering HOW FUCKING HOT IT'S BEEN THIS SUMMER.

1. Will you drink?
2. Are you going to stay home from work?
3.What kind of cake will you be having?
4. What kind of dinner plans do you have?
5.Are you having people over?
6.Will you use plastic or paper plates?
7.What do you think you're gonna get?
8.What do you want for your birthday?
9. Do you ever get the things that you want or will this year be just another dissapointing birthday?
10. How do you feel about your life so far?
11. What part does God play in your birthday?

Between a Chris Rock and a hard place

2010-08-22T12:43:00.003-04:00

“A man is only as faithful as his options.” --Chris Rock

You're a typical guy, toodling along through midlife, married with a kid or two. Your hairline has seen better days, not to mention your midsection. One morning at work, your decent-looking female colleague mentions that she has to leave work early to attend her son's band concert, and then all of a sudden she's telling you about her husband who is singlehandedly killing the marriage by refusing to take antidepressants. Do you:

A) Nod and smile at the appropriate points and offer the name of your wife's psychotherapist friend

B) Assure her that all marriages go through rough spots and that eventually things will work out one way or another.

C) Ask her to go out to lunch to talk about it more, but instead drive to the nearest Super 8 Motel to screw her brains out.

Translated:

A) I really don't want to run with this because I love my wife and children more than anything. Plus, my wife totally digs it when I go down on her while jamming a vibrator up her ass. I'm getting hard just thinking about it.

B) This looks tempting but I can't afford the trouble. And maybe I can sweetly talk my wife into anal play if she drinks enough wine.

C) Carpe diem!

To paraphrase another article on the topic: Faithful men are made before the relationship. Relationship conditions notwithstanding, the choice ultimately lies with the male's character. Excluding women, and excluding circumstances. Oddly enough, just because a man is faithful, it doesn't make the marriage easier. Why? Faithful men are the ones that attract the most females anyway. Life is just so fucked up that way.

Egonaut

2010-08-19T14:29:00.002-04:00

Luke Skywalker and I dated on and off for seven years. However, when "on" and "off" was seems to be open to interpretation. We remember it differently. I hope I wasn't on when he was off, because that would be rather humiliating.

Holy crap, I'd better make up for not seeing other people when he was!

Wanna date?
...?
...?

Oh, maybe that's not such a good idea, as I'm married with a child.

Over the course of those seven years I watched Skywalker go through some highly amusing phases. The first and most ongoing phase was Skywalker Van Zeppelin. After our requisite makeout session I would lie back on the couch as Skywalker would pick up his Holy Grail Guitar and try to play each Led Zeppelin track in chronological album order. Unfortunately, he would stop midway through "Good Times Bad Times" because he kept playing the wrong notes. (Just kidding, he made it all the way through Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin II before I had to get home, otherwise my parents were going to call the police.)

The next phase was hip-hop. Nineteen-naughty-three, y'all. This one was by and far the most mortifyingly ridiculous. Thanks to a combination of French and Italian genetics, Skywalker is whiter than a proverbial sheet, and listening to him try to sing along to Naughty By Nature was nothing short of aural rape. Thankfully, that phase was short lived as Skywalker eventually admitted defeat against the reigning Sith Lord, I mean Positive K.

At the midpoint of these seven years, we both found other people to have sex with for a while. (This is probably the only time we can agree things were definitely "off".) This was the beginning and end of Skywalker's Skinny Blonde phase. Being an athletic brunette, I fell off Skywalker's radar with a resounding thud.

Despite the fact that we were 750 miles away from each other, and that Skinny Blonde had her considerable inseam wrapped around him, my then-bed-partner The English Mental Patient kept asking me about my relationship with Skywalker. Always at very inopportune moments. It gave a whole new meaning to coitus interruptus. This makes me think The English Mental Patient was far more interested in Skywalker than in me. (The EMP is still single and I'm afraid to ask if he's still holding out for Skywalker.)

Skinny Blonde and The English Mental Patient both became history after about a year. Enter Skywalker's Whatever I Can Get phase. If it had tits and a pussy and wasn't grossly overweight, he was totally interested. Although absolutely nothing was stopping me from living the Chelsea Handler Horizontal Life, I was far too reserved to stop, drop, and spread. I couldn't even get it together to participate in a drunken "sure thing" threesome with Skywalker and my friend, The Magnette. Skywalker didn't have the same problem. In fact, he and The Magnette had a rather lovely, very special six hour relationship. Despite having my ego clubbed like a baby seal, I continued to sleep with him due to a lethal mixture of inertia and extreme cynicism. Working a dead-end job and living with my parents, seemingly no way out, I'm a friggin Journey song... Looking back, the least I could have done was indulge in night after night of meaningless sex with strangers.

Hey, let's make up for lost time!

Oh, yeah, I'm married with a kid. That would be somewhat expensive.

After about two years of living at home post college I had to get the fuck out in the worst way. After five months of being the token tits in my network engineering class at the Chubb Institute, I took the first job that was offered to me... in Joliet, Illinois. New job, new life, new bed, new schlong. The Ilia Phase, if it ever existed, was over.

"A Succubus is After My Baby..."

2010-08-18T06:40:00.006-04:00

If one lives long enough, chances are that somewhere along life's voyage one will encounter someone who has the power not just to take the wind out of one's sails, but also to suck the very last bit of joy from one's life. I discovered my own personal killjoy last night; I should have figured her out long ago.

It was past my bedtime, but as I was about to turn in, my wife decides that it's time to change the sheets. I wondered aloud, "Who changes sheets at quarter to twelve at night?" She said, "Oh, I forgot. I had meant to earlier..." I was dead tired and very cranky; I picked a fight, "Yeah, you had a lot of important farming to do," referring to her however many hours-long stint tending to business on Farmville. She shot back, "I'm glad you hate that as much as I hate your blogging." I retorted, "At least my blogging is productive."

I wish I could duplicate in writing the tone of her voice as she ridiculed that notion, "How is writing something that one or two people might read productive?" I replied, "It wouldn't matter if nobody read it." I added something about if she can't see the intrinsic merit of the activity (that's a paraphrase) then she must be stupid; she immediately translated that as I called her stupid. Wonderful.

I went to bed irate; while trying to fall asleep I figured out a way to bury this bone of contention. After this posting, I am pulling the plug on Peter. The time I spend writing is too precious to squander; it's no matter how much thought and reflection and reminiscence and recollection might go into some of it. My wife feels that it is on a par with monkey-dicking around on fucking Farmville; while I disagree with that assessment, I can no longer justify wasting my time or any one or two else's.

To anyone who gives a rat's ass: please forgive me for wasting so much of your time. I also apologize if I've left any loose ends here. Viva Corky's log! Over and out.

Eli's Blood

2010-08-17T06:28:00.001-04:00

Thank God it finally cooled down yesterday.

If I wanted to live in place that's a hundred degrees everyday I'd live in the fucking desert and look under fucking rocks for scorpions and lizards.

The cold front that came in yesterday seems to have calmed down the fucking mosquitoes. These fucking mosquitoes have been out of control this Summer.

Again, If I wanted to live in a place that was infested with mosquitoes I'd live next to a swamp in North Carolina or Florida.

My son Ben has been brutalized by mosquitoes this Summer. He has three bites on his face and a few on his head, the poor thing.

I hate fucking Summer from July 7th on. It's depressing, muggy, buggy, and really fucking hot. For the most part TV sucks in the Summer and so do Summer sports.

But tonight... Tonight there was blood in the air and I could smell it thanks to the cold front that came in from the North yesterday.

Eli Manning got hammered on Monday night football. Best fucking Preseason game I've ever seen.

The clip is good, but might make you a little queasy if blood's not your thing.

I'm ready for September 9th. Yep.

Close Call

2010-08-16T20:30:00.009-04:00

When I was five years old, back in 1972, I lived on Chestnut Street in Bethesda, Maryland, in a house my parents were renting from the owner of O'Donnell's Seafood Restaurant. Behind the restaurant, next door to us on the west side, the parking lot was packed with new Porsches, the inventory of a dealership whose office must have been located somewhere else. The cars were all bright and shiny, in colors one might expect from that era.

One day, a man pulled over and parked the orange Porsche he was driving away from the lot, on Chestnut Street between our house and the Lees', who lived next door to us on the other side. I was playing alone in the front yard; I noticed an inordinate (a word I did not yet know) amount of smoke blowing from the car's exhaust pipes (a term with which I was familiar at the time). Because of my experience watching my parents dealing with their Volkswagens, I took it upon myself to inform him of the problem (it might have been a blown gasket or some other oil leak).

The man was reading a map; he abruptly dismissed me and my observation ("Oh, that's alright; it's normal...), then went back to studying his map. I was not satisfied; something was not right. I walked back behind the car and assessed the situation. The tailpipes (another familiar term) weren't smoking as much as they had just been, but now there was some liquid dripping from them.

I returned to the driver's window, got his attention, and informed him of the latest development. He dismissed me again, saying something like, "Don't worry about it, kid." I was still concerned; I had never seen a car do what this one was doing. I went back to the rear of the car; there was fire coming out of the exhaust pipes!

I went and informed the man about the fire; he was not amused, but he decided to humor me ("Oh, come on, kid..."). He got out, walked to the back of the car and gasped when he saw the flames shooting out of the tailpipes. Within a few seconds, the car was completely engulfed in flames.

I remember watching that Porsche burn; the paint bubbled on the body of the car, and the tires melted onto the road. The Bethesda-Chevy Chase fire department arrived minutes later, hooked up to the fire hydrant in front of our house and extinguished the blaze. I remember the man picking me up and pretending to throw me onto the fire; I cannot remember if he thanked me for saving his life.

Afterward, there was a black spot on the road where the car had burned; it stood for years (it was still there when we moved away four years later) as a reminder to me of the difference I could make by persistently not minding my own business.

Peter's Travels: 1992

2010-08-15T03:10:00.008-04:00

One evening in December, 1991, my paternal grandfather was hit by a car while crossing a street in a snowstorm, on his way home from doing some volunteer work at Evanston Hospital. He very nearly died that night. One of my aunts had to speak up when the doctors were debating whether or not to repair his shattered leg; one of them had made a remark along the lines of, "He's like 80..." to which she countered rather emphatically, "He's 77!"

He spent the next several months in the hospital; in March the doctors let him know he'd be released the first week of April. Nobody in the family was available to take care of him then, but I saw it as a perfect opportunity to suspend my studies and get away for a while. I took an incomplete in each of my five courses; I didn't rightly care if I'd ever return to finish them.

I took an Amtrak train out of Union Station in DC. The ride started out all right; I got to sightsee for several hours until nightfall. After dark, I tried to no avail to get some sleep. When some employee or other announced that the dining car was open for breakfast, I was overjoyed. I practically ran to it.

When I reached the dining car, I noticed one other person had beaten me there. She was a black woman who appeared to be in her late fifties; she was dressed in what I imagined was her Sunday finest, complete with a fancy hat of some design I do not know. Being ever the sociable and considerate sort, I asked her if she minded if I joined her for breakfast. She graciously offered me a seat at her table; apparently she was traveling alone, too.

I engaged her in conversation about herself; I figured she might have a lot on her mind to unload. She was talking about the reason for her trip when, in mid-sentence, she fell asleep! I sat there staring at her, with absolutely no clue what I should do. It may have been five minutes or so before she woke up; it felt like an eternity. She picked up the conversation precisely where she had left off, in mid-sentence, like the awkward hiatus had not occurred. I found my thoughts drifting a bit; should I say something about it? What would I say? I decided it would be best not to embarrass her; certainly she was aware of her condition ...

Throughout the conversation, she fell asleep several more times. Every time it was in mid-thought, if not mid-sentence; it became a little less awkward each time it happened. While I don't recall many specific details of our discussion, it still stands as one of the more memorable conversations I've had the pleasure to be a part of.

Grandpa came home on the second or third of April in a wheelchair. He had an Ilizarov fixator device on his right leg; he could not walk; he could barely stand up. This was a man who used to push my grandmother in her wheelchair from Seward Street (yes, Ilia, that Seward Street) to Wrigley Field, watch Cubs' games with her, then wheel her back home. He was always so strong and vigorous; it broke my heart to see him laid so low.

For the next four months, I wore many hats in service to Grandpa. I was his cook, housekeeper, gardener, landscaper, handyman, driver, nurse and physical therapist. I even took over his babysitting "duties," watching my seven-year-old cousin and driving her to and from summer day camp. When I wasn't teaching her basic geometry--the Pythagorean Theorem, scratched into the dirt with a stick, in a strange synthesis of ancient schools of mathematical thought--I was teaching her how to hit a baseball (albeit with a plastic bat and whiffle ball).

One beautiful day in May, I was tossing cupcake pitches to my cousin when I noticed a squirrel on the steps of the back porch, sniffing around my half-pound bar of Hershey's Special Dark chocolate. When it seemed to be maintaining an unhealthy interest in my candy, I went over to shoo it away. It grabbed the whole thing (we had eaten two rows of blocks from it) and ran toward the stand of trees at the east side of the yard. I ran to the first tree, wrapped my arms around it, shouted and grunted to try to spook the thief, then darted over to the next tree to do the same thing there. After three or four failed attempts to get away, the squirrel ran back across the yard with the candy bar still secure in its mouth.

It found the tree behind the back porch and climbed it amazingly quickly for a small critter carrying a load nearly its own size. I was getting kind of ticked off at this point; I grabbed whatever I could find to throw at the varmint, including tennis balls, a golf ball, sticks, the plastic baseball bat, the whiffle ball and a pebble or two. It jumped from the tree to the roof to another tree, then to the roof next door. I kept missing it (maybe somewhat on purpose so as not to hurt it and upset my cousin); it jumped from the roof onto a branch of the weeping willow behind the house next door.

I was throwing things at it the whole way; I almost hit it with the golf ball, but it was not at all fazed as it made its way to the nest near the top of the tree. When it arrived, I could tell by all the chattering that it was party time for the squirrels. Rather than climb up and fight the whole gang, I admitted defeat and bid them bon appetit.

It was around that time that my uncle fell ill; he had been battling a diabetes-related condition most of his adult life. We had a grueling stint one Saturday night in the emergency room of St. Francis Hospital (where I had been born nearly twenty-five years before). The doctor who "treated" him there was curt and discourteous, almost to the point of being abusive. We finally got him into a room at around two o'clock in the morning. I visited him the next evening and the following afternoon.

Monday's visit included a pleasant chat and an episode of Jeopardy!, which was my uncle's favorite TV show. Between us we answered practically every question (or is that questioned every answer?); I picked up his slack when it came to current (pop cultural) events (an area where I have since lost my edge). When it came time for me to return to Grandpa's to prepare supper, my uncle told me as I was leaving, "It is always good to see you."

The next day, as I was getting ready to go back to visit my uncle, Grandpa informed me that he had just received a phone call informing him of my uncle's death. I went to the back yard to reflect on the matter; after much thought I decided to use my uncle's last words to me as my standard or guideline for future interaction with people. My ideal became that anyone with whom I spoke should walk away from our conversation believing that it had been a good experience.

When it came time to leave my grandfather's side in August, he was back on his feet regularly. The fixator had come off a couple of months earlier, and my rigorous rehabilitation regimen had worked to great effect (Grandpa called me his drill sergeant). He was even able to walk around some without his cane. Someone or other then came up with a good and cheap way for me to return home.

There was a company whose business was pairing drivers with vehicles to get them from one part of the country to another. All I had to do was pay for gas. They had a Honda Civic that was to be returned to its owner in Norfolk, VA; I figured that was close enough (just a six-hour Greyhound bus ride home). To get to the office I rode the bus along Lakeshore Drive into the city; on the way, I witnessed something that caused me to purge my speech of an old saying. There were two blind men waiting at one of the stops. One of them helped the other onto the bus and into his seat. Never again can or will I say, "That's the blind leading the blind..."

Three days later I drove from Evanston to Kensington, MD, stopping only once (in the middle of Ohio) to relieve myself, eat lunch and refuel the car; I couldn't get back home soon enough.