I would like my Sausage McGuffin with Egg and a Large Orange Juice in less than 10 minutes, preferrably in 3-5 minutes. I want the Sunshine Smoothie not the Regular Smoothie; that’s why I asked for the Sunshine Smoothie. When I ask if the Fruit Smoothie actually has Fruit in it, that’s what I want to know. Not that it comes in Orange-Mango and Cappuchino. Cappuchino isn’t a fruit by the way. And would it kill anyone to have a sugar-free caffeine-free soda on tap? Would it?

While we’re on the subject, I’m perfectly capable of adjusting the length of my own sideburns^*, and though the middle of the top of my head is not technically the crown, when I’m plucking at it and asking for it to be shorter, instead of reprimanding me, please just shorten it. And don’t say things about my supposed cow-lick. I would not like to purchase any over-priced “salon” gel for it, either.

Another thing: When in the middle of a on-line RPG room named “Free Junk” explicitly created to give away unique and hard-to-find items, and asked to choose one item when other players are waiting in line for the remainder, do not say to me, “Give me all. I need.” You will get none.

Do not make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.

In other news, a recent study reported chronic video game playing lowers brain function, causing shorter tempers and attention spans.

Idiotic scientists.

Where was I?

* No, I would not like to debate the merits of shorter sideburns.

Anyway, back to reality. This acid pouring was my second attempt as the first attempt failed miserably and did not remove the clog. So I waited the recommended 15 minutes, flushed it down with water and the drain was still very clogged. So I did a load of laundry with my Ultra Era protein based stain remover and Downey’s light blue softening fluid, slopping some of each on my hands. I waited an hour, noticed the still clogged drain, poured the granulated Cheer and liquid Clorox bleach into my next load of laundry (whites). I grabbed the stinky trashcan that held stinky remnants of my attempts to fix the drain by replacing the ancient P-Trap (the little goose-neck thing at the bottom of the drain) and washed out the contents in my backyard. This is a yard that has faced an onslaught of granulated ant/larvae killer, MSMA crabgrass killer, 2-4D clover/dandelion killer, and Round-up everything killer in the last three weeks, so in a way I’ve faced that onslaught as well. And I can tell you that I have no crabgrass, ants, larva, clover, dandelions, or any other bugs and plants growing on me right now. Science works, friends.

I finish scrubbing out the trash can in the bath tub with Soft Scrub and despite the acid fumes around me, or perhaps because of the fumes, I get an unholy desire to Tilex the crap out of the mildew in the tile grout and sliding doors tracks. So I do, all the while with the clogged drain still mocking me. I thought for a little while that my vision was going bad in the Tilex/acid haze in the bathroom, but I soon realized I was trying to stare through the ripple glass of my shower doors.

When it was late and I had no more chemicals left to use, I made my way to my bed, hopeful of the unclogged drain I might face in the morning.

And when I awoke my pipes were clean.

So I cleaned up the rest of the bathroom with more Soft Scrub and 409.

Now you might say this is intense, but everything now and then you go hard-core. Like the time I spent 2 weeks yanking hardware in and out of my computers until there was only one computer and a mound of parts. It is now a god of computers (but a small god of computers that other gods of computers look down upon and make fun of for not being truly elite. (Like Om was before Brutha came along.)) Then there was the time that I read 15-20 Conan books in the space of two weeks and went around yelling “Crom”² at everyone. Or the time I made a hard-core pornography movie to pay the rent (but it got edited for Cinemax so it was soft-core there). Or the time I did a triple Olly on my deck while listening Rap and Speed-Metal. Or the time I busted a cap in that punk Willie McFiggin.

Anyway, back to reality. Damn chemicals.

1. If you haven’t already, go out and listen to The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips. Then get three friends and four CD players and listen to their album entitled Zaireeka. Then become an obsessive Lips fan and read stuff on their official website. Then go see them play a summer festival line-up with Cake, Modest Mouse, and some others. (The title of this Opinion is part of a line in a Flaming Lips song.)

2. What is best? Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, hear the lamentations of their women.

Now I think I’m sufficiently informed to state what I think if not believe about the fallout of the attacks. I reserve the right to change my mind on some of these matters. Earlier in the year when my Dad and I were watching the news and how the Bush II administration was handling foreign policy with regards to China and the Middle East, I commented that he was trying to start a war. Around that time the Bush Administration dismissed the findings of a three year commission that was created after the embassy bombings. These findings had recommendations for increased security measures against terrorism that were shelved in favor Bush’s to be appointed commission simply because the commission was started when Clinton was in the White House. I read the article about it on Reuters a day or two after the attacks. Not to say it would have stopped anything, or that the war hadn’t already been declared and ignored. Three years ago when my friend Matt went as Osama bin Laden for Halloween no one knew who he was supposed to be.

The rapid shattering of the Palestinian peace accords can be handed to the conversative’s Isreali allies under Ariel Sharon making land-grabs or as they like to call them “settlements” at the end of last year because they knew they’d have a pal in the election-thief. The scary thing is that some fundamentalist Christians believe that because of boundary descriptions in the Bible that the Isreal-Palestine conflict is OK because of God’s promises to the ancient Isrealites. I wonder if they are willing to give up the land God gave the Native Americans or the Irish or a multitude of other invasions. Oh wait, that wasn’t written in the right book if written at all. Sorry. Here’s my belief: Someone wrote down where their land was and said we can defend it better if we say God said it. Now I’m going to hell, but I’ve said what I believe. You wanna know what else I believe? I believe that Christian fundamentalism over prophecy leads to determinism and an unstated belief that the prophecied Armageddon in the Middle East will bring Jesus back sooner. And more glorious than Heaven to some modern Christians is the chance that they’ll see Jesus come back and all those rubes in the intervening millenia will have missed it. And they’re gonna help do that no matter what. And the military industrial complex will gladly take our money to do it, too.

Now G.W. has created a new agency. He has named it the “Department of Homeland Defense” or some such and no I’m not going to go look up if it’s the “Agency” or “Bureau” instead, that part doesn’t matter. It’s the “Homeland” part of the name. How did this get by his handlers or are they all that arrogant as well? The word evokes the “Evil Imperialism” that the haters of America ascribe to more than anything. Empires have “Homelands”. Germany declared it’s love for the “Homeland” under Hitler. We are a melting pot. We are the gathering of people. The propaganda we spew is that we only export democracy, capitalism, and love. Why didn’t they just name it the “Interior Defense” or some such? Why is the Bush Administration so dumb, dumb, dumb? We even renamed the Department of War the Department of Defense at some point. While the popular loud-mouth conversatives like to nay-say the value of political correctness, why don’t they pay attention to the “Walk Softly” part of Teddy Roosevelt’s famous saying? I won’t even start on G.W. malapropisms and unfortunate gaffes because that’s what we inherited when the Supreme Court and Jeb Bush hijacked November’s election. (Just think: former presidents used to worry about what inappropriate things their brothers and children might say, now the president’s brother and father get to worry about what G.W. might say.)

Even as we bomb the shit out of Afghanistan to avenge our deaths, cut of the roots of the Al Qaeda, and repair our wounded national ego as well, I realize that Cheney and Bush and his cronies have already thought of ways to help this fund their new pet projects. All those Tomahawk cruise missiles will need to be replaced and newer better weapons will get to be built and that’s great. I’ve got friends who work for Defense contractors, I used to work for one myself, the money’s good. And don’t you worry: Bush has sworn that this war will go on as long as it takes. Luckily, there is a five year sunset on the wire-tapping extraganza that is our new Anti-Terrorism law and its targetting all the evil high tech revolution that our aging Senators don’t have a clue how to operate. Thank god that somehow the younger Republican House is more moderate and informed than the Democratic Senate or there wouldn’t be any sunset on the laws at all. Don’t you worry about Uncle Sam listening to your phone calls, they’re just trying to stop the evil-doers.

And don’t worry about Anthrax in your mail either. All you need to do is iron it. That’s right. Iron it. Preferably with a lot of steam. Do you know what the horrible thing about the Anthrax mailing is? It’s probably originating from some American as far as anyone can tell so far. What’s almost as bad is number of white powder mail scares being perpetuated by idiots. Idiots who can get up to 15 years like the kid in Florida who wanted out of class early or life if it’s a big enough hoax under federal law.

What might be just as bad is the USA Today style infographic I found on a Reuters new stories outlining the steps to make a good batch of Anthrax. Or the other infographics showing schematics of our warships and warplanes. What’s not that bad but definitely sensationalistic is the media blaming Hollywood for showing everyone how to attack us. Scientists, thinktanks, and the government are constantly releasing Doomsday and attack scenarios. How are we not supposed to incorporate that angst into our culture? How else are we to be able to steel ourselves against these kind of attacks? As another side point, the media has dubbed this conflict in Afghanistan “America Strikes Back”. It’s sort of like “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back”. I’ve got two problems: 1) There’s the empire word again. 2) The Empire lost.

I’m poorly informed about the whole Airlines layoff whitewash so I’ll lay off that today, but as an American I think we need to elect politicians that can get back to what keeps us out of wars and on the world’s good list: Walking Softly.

P.S. I realized after I wrote this that today is exactly four years after I posted the first Opinion by James. I stated there that I would write about serious stuff someday. I suppose today’s the day. Happy Opiniversary.

Maybe not. I think the summer saps any clarity that I might sometimes possess. The total amount of clarity that I’ve ever possessed is up for debate as well. The point I’m trying to make is that I’ve been out of inspiration or focus or whatever for sometime and that sometime has ended.

There are, of course, a myriad of explanations for my condition ranging from financial worries to a broken arm to long commutes. One of little things I always took for granted though was my caffeine intake.

I’ve never been a regular coffee drinker, but I guzzled probably a half gallon to a gallon of soda a day, every day since I went to college in 1991. Around that time I also began to think that I wasn’t really a morning person, even though I used to wake up on time despite the previous night’s late hours.

On New Year’s of 2000 I quit smoking cold turkey and gained another 10 pounds as a result. I fought in a Judo tournament at 262 pounds that February, and I resolved to make it down to the 220 weight class. So I switched from soda to diet soda, started eating smaller portions, and started running more and I made it by late November and the big fatties don’t get to push me around anymore.

So I’m buying Diet Coke and Diet Dr. Pepper by the boatloads (small boats that only carry 12 or 24 cans, but boats nonetheless) and I keep noticing the warning about Phenylketonurics needing to avoid drinking Diet drinks because of Phenylalanine. Finally after reading this warning a few hundred times I decided to look up what these things were.

It turns out that phenylalanine and aspartic acid are what makes up aspartame or its common brand name: NutraSweet. This in large doses caused holes in the brain of lab rats and caused NutraSweet to not get approved by the FDA for many years. Its alternative saccharin causes cancer so it was OK if saccharin was OK. I read on.

Some types of phenylalanine are used to treat depression, like such drugs as Paxil, while other doctors cite it as a cause of depression when ingested in large quantities. The staggering difference of opinion on the value of this substance made me think that maybe, just maybe, I should just avoid it until a doctor tells me I absolutely must have it. Even then I’ll get a second opinion.

The downside of quitting diet soda, to my mind, was the fact that I’d have to give up caffeine which gave me the energy I lacked from cutting back on sugary drinks. I contemplated drinking coffee regularly but decided against it. So I suffered caffeine withdrawal for a weekend. I started going to bed when I was sleepy.

About a week later I noticed some things. I wake up when my alarm went off. I’m less distracted at work. I feel better. I have the same amount of energy as before and I can keep late hours without needing caffeine.

I also put on ten pounds from my withdrawal coping mechanism. Back to the treadmill.

Afterword: I’ve noticed something else as well. The less I eat or drink sugary stuff, the less I crave it. When I drink a Coke, I want a candy bar or something to go with it. When I’m drinking water, I generally don’t have the craving for something sweet. Maybe America isn’t getting fat because of sugary soda, maybe it’s getting fat because of diet soda. You have the illusion that you can eat more because you are drinking diet soda and you do it. You get depressed because of the phenylalanine and eat more. You’re too distracted to notice because of the caffeine. It’s like a sweet diet soda cardiac death trap slowly destroying America. For that reason you need to buy Dasani or Aquafina. That way your money is still going to the same place. (In other words buy a water filter instead.)

But I was watching last night as the redheaded Nikka Costa strutted her stuff on the stage and I wondered to myself, “Who dyes her hair?” and “When will that scarf flop to the side and give me a peek at her boobs?” Shortly after that I wondered what chimpanzee programmed the synthesizer behind her vocals and why do the flavor of the hour bands get more airplay than my favorite bands when they work their asses off. Why does the canned beat that I’ve heard for years with a new shiny girl singer/guy singer/girl group/guy group garner so much money? Basically, why does my favorite band kick ass and no one cares?³

The reason is simple: teenagers control the airplay on MTV and your favorite Clear Channel Communications radio station. Don’t think that they don’t. As an adult I have a CD player in every place I go to listen to the music I was marketed to as a teenager and in college. As I get more attached to my collection of albums and music tastes, the music industry keeps trying to find something new to hook the younger generation who will inevitably complain about their music not getting any airplay and start to keep a set of about 20-30 albums in rotation in the CD changer. It’s easier to keep liking something than to find something new to like. Just like it’s easy to hook teenagers on bubble gum pop.

My appreciation of music doesn’t change every two months and demand that I absolutely must have this new album. As you get older to start building sets of stuff you like so can pontificate about which album is better than the other and say things like “Keep It Like a Secret was good, but Perfect From Now On is a classic.” Or “All That You Can’t Leave Behind is the best U2 album since Achtung Baby but neither lives up to their earlier stuff.” These are good arguing points when you are drinking with the people that introduced you to the stuff, the people that made you fanatical about the stuff.⁴

So you’re stuck, your tastes have evolved beyond what popular, and even alternative, radio and TV have to offer, but you still want to find kick-ass new music like what you already like, what do you do? Besides waiting for the next album from your favorite band that may have peaked on their last album never to return to their earlier greatness, that is.

I have a few answers in that regard. The first one is to cancel your subsriptions to Rolling Stone and SPIN and start subscribing to CMJ New Music Monthly. They won’t tell you explicitly who to listen to, but they’ll send you one CD a month of 20 songs from 20 different albums. Usually the better songs. Even with that they review even more albums and have genre mappings to go with them and their R.I.Y.L. feature: Recommended if you like.

I like to check for album release dates at this site. I betya didn’t know Wilco has a new album slated for July, didya? Or Built to Spill either? Well most of the dates are optimistic, so be prepared for disappointment when the Built to Spill album isn’t released on time.⁵

There are also a few things called file sharing programs that I’ll sound like an ass for pitching as my own special discovery. But if you’re among the disillusioned that don’t know what to do since Napster got whacked, try out the variety of Gnutella clients that exist to crush the RIAA and make them whimper.

Lastly, convert your friends. Make them see it your way, or as Built to Spill put it: “Share our perfect opinion, it’s the ideal ideal.”

[1] In German alt is old, alter is older, Mann is man, and in English alt. is short for alternative and pop is short for popular.⁶ The motive behind the title resides in some people’s constant need to be on the cutting edge of music and how it keeps getting harder as you get too old for that sort of crap even though you want to keep with the times.

[2] Usually Sci-Fi, Comedy Central, or the Discovery Channel.

[3] By the way, my favorite band can kick your favorite band’s ass.

[4] My favorite obscure music argument is about who is the better songwriter or artist: Jeff Tweedy or Jay Farrar?

[5] Guess what? Pitchfork says the BTS album was slated for June 19, it’s June 22 and Amazon says it’ll be out in July.

[6] Also alter in English is to change or modify something, but I figured you knew that already.

Further Reading/Delving:
The Official Flaming Lips site
Alt. Country Tabs this site is great but it was moving this week and I’m not sure if it is ever coming back.

It made me think of the squallor that I proudly maintain in my home and car. Of how someday in the future I might be able to find my shaving kit or the missing CDs that are certainly hidden underneath piles of discarded hangers, junkmail, bill stubs, CDs, used books, VHS tapes, and laundry strewn disproportionately throughout my living spaces.

My Christmas tree lies disassembled like the aftermath of pruning, half-heartedly torn asunder on my foyer floor. File boxes intended for a grand organizational purpose are stacked empty six feet high in the office. Scattered files litter the floor around. A pile of VHS tapes surround the video equipment like Yertle’s stack of Turtles, waiting for the bottom tape to sneeze, if it only could.

The lumps of worn laundry in my bedroom cover the floor completely protecting the orange shag carpet from dirt and wear. While other laundry of the clean unfolded sort sneer down at their floor dwelling brethren with contempt from the mesa of the dresser and tables.

Assorted receipts and junkmail cover the foyer couches and the ledges going down into the den and the kitchen table and every other table like surface in the house. A tangle of hangers intermeshes with a bright orange extension cord on yet another couch while stacks of dishes and discarded beverage cans fill the kitchen.

My truck features a microcosm of disarray all to itself, mostly consisting of empty cans, bottles, and fast food cups. Receipts nest here as well, sneaking into the crevices between the seats to raise receipt families and hide the ear piece for my cell phone that must be rooted out if there is a need for it, the bolt stubs tear the skin on my hands leaving nicks on the knuckles.

One might say that I’m posing a health risk to myself by living in such a way, but that seems a little far-fetched. I’ve only slipped on folders twice and tripping over the Christmas tree in the night was an honest mistake. I managed to swerve back onto the road all three times my hand got stuck trying to dislodge that ear piece and the cardboard boxes in my majestic tower are all empty so what does it matter how many times they collapse on me?

Yes indeed, we should never underestimate our abilities to mess things up.

[1]He would probably prefer to be called Matt, but when you introduce a new character it is important to give them a context. Too bad he doesn’t appear in the rest of this piece or I would have mentioned his name without resorting to a footnote.

Nothing could prepare me for the humiliation of year that Howard Schnellenberger took the field. He insulted our fans by telling us that schools like Texas A&M had better traditions. He insulted our team by marching them on a death march prior to every home game. He insulted the head coaching job by his reported drunkeness on the job. He led the Sooners to the first loss against the OSU Cowboys in seventeen years. Oh, the humanity of it all.

Schnellenberger was ousted to be replaced with John Blake, an assistant coach of Barry Switzer’s down Dallas way, a good former Sooner. All was to be well with the world.

During the Blake years I lived in humiliation in Texas, losing season after losing season. I finally emerged from the Lone Star State in time to see the worst Victory ever won by the Sooners at TCU in ’98. A little quarterback named Patrick Fletcher restored my faith in Sooner Magic just before John Blake was mercifully canned. Enter Bob Stoops.

Last year he gave us a winning season and introduced a guy named Josh Heupel as our new QB. Every loss last year was a squeaker, every win was a vision of new hope. This hope was realized as I stood through the OU/Texas game this year on the front row of the Cotton Bowl taunting Chris Simms during our 63-14 rout of the Longhorns. (Chris Simms, it seems, isn’t a very good loser. Major Applewhite should have been starting all season long. Not that it would’ve helped.)

Hail Bob Stoops, savior of Sooner football! You have crushed our foes. While some are expectant about this season with the hopes it has given the Sooner faithful, I will not comment on it except for to say: Only three foes remain for you to crush before you ascend to Sooner godhood. Colorado must be reminded that they are a bunch of hippies when we play again in three years, Notre Dame needs the gilt knocked off their helmets when we face them in Norman in two years, and lastly Miami will be crushed into the Orange Bowl for the championship after New Year’s Day.

If the last comes true, the black hat of mourning will be retired. Then shall come the black hat of victory.

The other one is getting stinky anyway.

Yeah, right.

Geeks have arisen to replace the cliques they thought abhorred them with the disdain for other social groups that pissed them off to begin with. I was once proud to be a geek, a computer nerd, a bookworm, and a quirky creative type. I’m not sure where I stand anymore.

I’ve been reading again. It gets me into trouble, I know, but I’ll continue until after I’ve switched mediums to Braille and my hands fall off. Anyway, I’ve been reading Slashdot, News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters on a regular basis and I’ve begun to feel a disconnect from the geeks that are and the geeks that were.

It seems that today’s geeks have loud voices regarding issues of high school rejection, intellectual property, and so on. Good for them. These are important issues, issues that need to be defended or at least argued by smart folk until we get them right. This isn’t what bothers me.

One thing that gets me is the profound grouping of the jocks, the preps, the geeks[1], the rednecks, the dopers, the choir-girls, the band fags, etc, that seem to emanate from this bastion of geekdom. Slashdot seems to be at the forefront of pigeonholing everyone. I hardly know anyone was just one of these. The seeming lack of cross-pollenation that permeates this Brave New Geek World horrifies me.

Another thing that disconcerts me is a repetitive wave of articles with the tone that “they’re going to get theirs someday”. Who’s going to get theirs? The preps? The jocks? My high school football team’s senior squad featured a National Merit Finalist, a Semi-Finalist, and a Commended scholar. Definitely not typical, but a fair share of book-types play sports too. (It’s good for you.)

I think the key problem resides in the fact that geeks have found their voice but they haven’t realized the truth yet: Everyone is a geek.

I meet people on a regular basis (which I suppose is odd for a self-proclaimed geek), and, in the course of casual conversation, the topic of who they felt they were in high school usually comes up. Eight of ten say, “Oh, I was a total geek in high school.”[2]

I’m not saying that the past tense of “I was” isn’t some rejection of high school geek-dom, but it is more a growing out of teenage awkwardness. The deal is that everyone felt that alienated adolescent dorkiness[3], and that geeks of today should deal with it like the geeks of yesteryear.

They should cower in the corner and try to avoid getting beat up.

Toughen up, you little bastards.

[1] I will note that in high school in geek-only quarters there was definitely a geek caste system going on. I was truly disappointed not to be the head of it.
[2] The other two declare how stoned or drunk they were throughout.
[3] Except the jocks, the preps, the potheads, the goat-ropers, the Bible-thumpers, and the Hootahs.[4]
[4] The Hootahs were an ultra-refined[5] group of Pryor High girls circa 1989-90.
[5] Where ultra is synonymous with not.

Well friends, disclosed here in the Opinions is the affirmation you’ve been looking for: Yes, I’m still on the market. Let me put it this way:

High Tech Cowboy
SWM 27 ISO SWF 20-30. Non-smoker, binge drinker, know-it-all with a rapidly disappearing spare tire looking for that special girl to party the night away with. Hiking sucks. Must have eclectic taste in music that mirrors my own and enjoy listening to dull  conversations about computers and sci-fi. Unruly friends must be accepted as is. Box #29010224

I haven’t posted this to the on-line love-lines yet, but it’s about to go up. Now most people would gloss over their character flaws like an airbrush artist touches up a picture of Joan Collins for the cover of Good Housekeeping, but then I’m not most people.

For instance, just the other day I had a friend ask me, “James, would you shut up for the love of God?” and predictably enough I went on boring her to tears. This is because I like listening to myself speak more than I like doing what other people tell me to.

Now this sort of boorish behavior might drive off your common suitor of James, but out there somewhere is the über girl that I’ve been seeking for a long time: That one special broad who when she asks my advice, actually considers taking it. The chick who upon looking at my major character flaws has a sort of myopia Mr. Magoo would envy.

Yes, somewhere that lucky lady, is laying golden eggs while her chauffeur drives her around in her Rolls Royce limosine, ready to make me hers. And then all I’ll ever have to do is rub oil on her supple super-model body and watch the Sci-Fi channel. And binge drink.

Well then, that was pleasant daydream. Maybe I ought to lie about myself instead. I suppose if the old techniques aren’t broke, I don’t need to fix them. Here we go:

Prince Charming
SWM 27 ISO SWF 20-30. Non-smoker, social drinker, athletic IT professional looking for that special girl to dance the night away with. Must enjoy star-gazing and horseback riding. Enjoys classical and contempory music and long conversations about midgets and monkeys. Box #29010224

Part 2
As with most single non-divorced straight men, I’ve been looking for that perfect girl since I was six. Most men will tell you that they want to find nice wife that will dote on them and straighten their jackets and tie as they head out the door to work. Most men seem to want a girl who’ll adore them and call them pet names. But then I found myself in a quandary last month. I only seem to be attracted to women who detest me.

Now you may think that the reasons for this are very psychological interesting but they’re not. They are very simple. After actively or inactively pursuing women who were alternatively in relationships or not attracted me for well on fifteen years, I’ve gotten into a rut. My bad internal logic goes something like this, “Any woman that might throw herself at me, let alone date me, must have some inherent flaw. Only a girl who plays hard to get (read is actually not interested) can be the girl for me. That girl just sneered at me and spat in my face. I must have her.”

With this in mind, I shall get to the anecdote that inspired this Opinion. Adam, Brady, and I were sitting at the Slow Duck Saloon in early June when we saw this really amazing girl sitting by  herself. No, wait, let me back up a bit.

Adam and I were driving down 15th (or Cherry Street) in Tulsa after a good Judo workout and there in the middle of the street on the median sits a some bum. I say to Adam, “Hey Adam, honk at that stupid bum.” And so he does, and then we turn to each other and say in unison, “Was that Brady?”

Sure enough, there Brady sits in the median, videotaping a flowery weed that has grown up out the concrete median.¹ We turn around, insult him, and tell him to meet us at the Hideaway for pizza. He does and then we head to the Slow Duck for one beer.²

So I convince Brady to invite this really amazing chick over to our table and it turns out that she has it all: Looks, intelligence, sass, and looks. And then the war began. Oh, it wouldn’t have seemed like a war to an outside party, but this woman was devastating vicious. She verbally attacked each one of us in turn like a school of polite piranhas waiting as three missionaries entered the Amazon one after another not noticing that the missionary before him was devoured by piranhas.³ In short, she was perfect.

But it was war, so we had to attempt some sort of counter-attack. And we all failed.

Brady was destroyed by Adam’s and mine idle comments on his profession and his propensity to sit in the middle of busy streets filming flowers. I lost my composure after she baited me with joking computer related question and I bit into the hook. (Of course, my bad after-Judo hair could have knocked me out of contention way before that. Damn you lavatory mirror, why can’t I be the pretty one?!) And in the end, even Adam had no chance. Because he already had a girlfriend. Poor bastard.

Strangely enough this event marked the end of year of undercutting Brady due to the earlier roly-poly-little-bat-faced-girl and Wiccan necrophiliac incidents. I have now resolved to be kinder to my wingmen, and to not stumble in conversation when a girl is good-looking and vicious. And to have good hair.

1. For Brady’s explanation for this, email him at email address redacted. If you feel a strange kinship with Brady, consult the labels on your prescription medicines or your family doctor.

2. Email Adam or our sensei Frank at email address redacted for an explanation of this phenomenon. They own the copyright.

3. Okay, that wasn’t quite clear, I understand that missionaries are generally not this stupid may be I should have said, “like three blind missionaries each following each other into the Amazon full of piranhas that were also deaf since they couldn’t hear the blood curdling screams of the missionary before him being devoured by piranhas.”⁴

4. Incidentally, I was watching the Discovery Channel and piranhas are generally well fed and don’t attack passing missionaries even if they are stupid, deaf, and blind. It is only during the dry seasons along the Amazon that pools of piranha get cut off from the main river and the food supply dwindles that the piranha will skeletize a cow in less than however many seconds everyone says the piranha can skeletize a cow in.⁵

5. If you want to find the number of seconds go to Yahoo or another search engine and found out the facts about piranha-cow skeletization. Email me what you find out.

I opted for option number one. (For those of you with a short attention spans option number one was the crab grass suppressant.) I put down two different layers. I put down a layer of bermuda grass seed to overtake the first layer. I mowed regularly.

The crab grass did not die. It’s still out there, mocking me. Whitman asked what the grass was. He put it in melodramatic terms since he was a poet. I can’t remember what he said exactly but it boils down to one thing. He was wrong.

Here’s what the grass is: The grass is my enemy.

This philosophy is not a new one to me. I mowed lawns for summer cash when I was younger. I used this as my litany to get me through mowing old ladies lawns that had sat for three weeks before they thought it was wise to mow again. It was a fight for pizza and video game cash, a fight for economic freedom. (Conversely those lawns sometimes sat through an extra week at my lazy-ass’s expense.)

Now it is a fight for my dignity. You could say I’ve been watching to much King of the Hill. You could say the Scott’s lawn care commercials have got to me. Something terrible inside me has broken free and will not rest until the crab grass is dead.

I got to go now, my shipment of Agent Orange has just arrived. (It’s nice to know black-marketeers.)