The Sedated Ape

I was at the library reading about old Indian lore today and I learned of  an old Indian curse. This is in English, so it loses some of it’s beauty  in the  translation,  but it goes something like this: Go Fuck yourself, you Goddamn old Indians!

At first my interest in Native American studies came about by accident, springing from my desire to find a new route to Asia so I can get rich off of the spice trade. And I also thought maybe they could teach me how to grow corn.  Both turned out to be a waste of time

Nowadays most large supermarkets have a section of their store devoted  to all the different kinds of spices.   So, it’s quicker and easier to just get them there. The chances of running into pirates is a lot lower in the Piggly Wiggly than it is on the open seas, so that’s a plus too.  After sampling some of the different spices, I learned that I prefer plain old Mrs. Dash anyway.

The only spice I had any interest in, even briefly, was nutmeg.  And that’s only because I heard you can get high off it. You can’t. I don’t care what you’ve heard or what some friend told you – it just doesn’t work. Eat or smoke a pound of nutmeg and all you’ll feel is foolish and nauseous. Not “drug trip”  nauseous either – it’s more of a “I just ate a pound of nutmeg I found setting behind a dumpster” nauseous.

Then I noticed that  they tell you right on the back of the seed packet how you should plant corn.  They suggested that I would get better results if I planted them outside, which I think was probably what I was doing wrong the whole time.

So, on that level my interest in Indians was a waste of time, but  I have picked up quite a bit of incidental wisdom from studying the ways of the  Native American cultures.  Mostly they are about binge drinking and how it is never a good idea to double down if the dealer up card is 10, or a face card.

But that’s not all. I also learned that If put my ear to the ground and stay very still I can tell if there are any ants crawling inside my ear trying to get to my brain to lay their eggs.

I learned that it was a mistake to trade CC Sabathia, the man had a 1.65 ERA after the trade! And the Indians traded him to the Brewers of all teams  - have they learned nothing from their history of one sided deals made with the white men for fire water?

I’ve learned to read and understand some of the more basic smoke signals like, “house on fire” and “dinner ruined”.

I’ve also learned of a legend prophesied by the great Indian Shaman Paul Revere & the Raiders that one day the “Cherokee nation will return.”  But I suspect that if they do it will be like those Beach Boys or Lynyrd Skynyrd concerts where most of the original guys are dead already,  so the whole thing  will probably just seem kinda sad.

I’ve learned the importance of using every part of the buffalo wing.

Of all the Indians I’ve read about Geronimo is my favourite.  If I could go back in time the first place I’d go would be back to the 1880’s and talk to Geronimo. I’d tell him “About 20 years from now two bicycle makers from North Carolina will create a machine that will be able to fly through the air under it’s own power. These machines will improve over the decades to the point where people will be able to fly anywhere in the world. Then some people will train and practice jumping out of these machines while they are flying through the air. Sometimes they jump out because the flying machine has became unsafe. Other times they will jump out to attack their enemies on the ground by surprise. Most of the time, however, they’ll jump out of the machines miles in the air just for the sport of it. They think it’s fun. And here’s the best part, Geronimo – just before they jump out they call out your name!” I bet he’d find that interesting.

ps – I already posted the Geronimo paragraph here almost two years ago, but it fits here too. And if you actually remembered it from back then you’re probably paying too close attention to stuff like this.

• woke up at around 6.
• Went to McDonalds.
• Noticed on the way that it was getting darker earlier than normal.
• Got into an argument with the drive thru guy because he was trying to be funny  saying he can’t give me a mcrib because they’re still serving  breakfast.
• While he went to find the manager I noticed that the sun was starting to rise.
• I just drove off, didn’t want to try to explain that I thought it was 6:30 pm
• Went to hardees instead – got sausage egg biscuits instead, without incident
• drove home – went back to bed,  slept till 4:30pm

I’ve never been 12 hours off before.

How is it possible to be unknown and a suspect at the same time?

In  the past few months there have been countless get out the vote drives… trying to get everyone registered. And now everybody talks about how important it is for everyone to get to the polls.

But  have you ever stopped to consider the intelligence of the people you’re trying to get to pitch in to help choose the leader of the free world?

I have,  and it scares me badly.

I seek out little pop culture things on web pages like TMZ or You-Tube and read the comments people leave to see where the lowest common denominator is at  these days.  If you do this very much you’ll see that the problem with a  government of the people, by the people and  for the people is that the people are crazy as a barn owl.

Michael Jackson went to the store and my AOL homepage thought it was an important enough of an event to put a link up to about fifty pictures of it.  What follows are real comments about the photographs left  by the “public”.   The SAME public that society wants out there voting on election day. 

After reading this I’m sure you’ll all agree that it’s time we just admitted that our experiment in American democracy has been a failure and we should just go and ask England to please take us back. 

We should just give up – The Indians can have all of their land back, plus they can keep whatever we can’t fit into the British Airways overhead bin.  Maybe that will stop their whining for awhile.  At least until the fire-water runs out.

The quotes:

Nobody is perfect , but Michael Joseph Jackson is for sure better and much beautifull than everyone from here !

 One day u’re (all the haters) gonna feel sorry for what this man is living in these moments , and for these false accusations and commentaries about his life and aspect ! Shame on you to speak in this way , u’re not perfect neither … Just Remember that you’re gonna be in a “judge room” too at the end of life ! Is human nature …

!! Guess what ? all the subjects are done , the molestation case is expired mannn ,damn did u ever see him with a boy in his bed ? i am sure not cause nobody does …

 In fact, since I’m a Mother of two boys myself, a 9 and 5 year old, I would trust him around my boys. Because I know how the system works.

He sure touches his nose a lot, probably adjusting it so it won’t fall off.

 why are his kids totally white? isn’t his sperm still black? i don’t understand!!

 Gezzz , we are in 20th century, In a few years the robots will walk on the street and u think is weird cause he is wearing pijamas

 The NUT JOB happens to reappear just days before the presidential election

(This guy made a little play out of his comment…)  [ Some One ] hey hey look at my childern.. look at your childern… do you want them to be molested] [Me] Of course Not. [ Some One] then say MJ is child molestor] [Me] THAT’S DUMB. Get Life. That cancered SOB has gotten 12m$ and still has not died because of cancer. LEAVE MJ ALONE and don’t be jaleous of him.

 He really looks like a young Jackie O! The hair, the sunglasses, the jacket, the heels.

 do you know what illiterate means? Look it up.  (This one is, by far,  my favorite)

 Why to go Michael, you need to be here in America and set things right. The song man in the mirror is what we need to hear from you during our time of need

 I would love to see the end of his nose fall off into his soup…he would eat it and think it was a mushroom. What a waste of talent

 HE DID WHAT HE DID TO LOOK BETTER FOR HIS FANS, UNFORTUNATE FOR HIM IT WENT WRONG

 Shut a #$?!@ up you sick minds !!! MJJ is the best you piss spots !

 Media treats Michael J. with such dis-respect and why they purposely depict him as a Criminal and a Clown?,… because MJ wrote a song about the Fraudulent United Nation.

 The man is just shopping!! What’s so GAY about that?? How does shopping make him a CHILD MOLESTER??

Some of ya’ll never been down south too much,  I’m gonna tell you a little bit about this,
So that you’ll understand what I’m talking about….

Most of the year i don’t get out very much.  I go to a lot of baseball games, but if the Royals haven’t made the playoffs I don’t have much to do from October to Spring Training.  Which is the same thing as saying I never have anything to do from October to Spring Training.

So I go on long and pointless road trips by myself.

I checked into it an it’s true – over 60% of the homes in Butler  Missouri do in fact have electricity. 

Butler is actually only about thirty miles or so from my house. Robert Heinlein, the sci-fi writer, was born in Butler. He wrote  Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.  I never read either of those. They also made his book Starship Troopers into a movie with the same name. I didn’t read the book or see the movie.  I think they may have assigned a Heinlein short story in ninth grade , but I can’t remember for sure. If they did, I almost certainly didn’t read that either. 

 One night, however, me and another guy rode to his birthplace in the middle of the night and stole a limb from the shrubs  in front of his house to keep as a  souvenir. Eccentric loners with no real social skills need to do SOMETHING to keep busy on the weekends too, you know? And this was the best Idea we had came up with for that night.  This was a few years before  the Internet got popular.

Another  time I had the cops called on me for giving away Popsicles in front of a convenience store, but that’s  a whole other story. And not a very good one either, so onward…

That’s not a sentiment you see everyday.

 This was either in Arkansas or Mississippi, I forget which. And since Arkansas and Mississippi are pretty much the same thing I don’t guess it matters much.

This is a sign on Highway 61 just before Memphis. 

I didn’t get a picture of it, but I also saw a sign that advertised “Chitterlings 24/7″. I wonder how many people wake up at 5 am on a Thursday morning with a craving for hog’s assholes? If you don’t know, that’s what chitterlings are – pork intestines and rectums.  It’s not pronounced like it’s spelled – “Chitterlings” rhymes with  “Shit-lins”

We lived in the south when I was little,  and when we were driving around in a mostly black neighborhood and wanted my dad to stop at McDonald’s, and he didn’t want to, he would tell us that we couldn’t because they put chitterlings on their hamburgers there . If we wanted to stop to use the bathroom he told us that we’d catch black plague from the toilet seats.

 I know that’s a pretty racist thing for him to have said, but it probably did save him a lot of time and money.  Life is full of trade-offs like that.

There is a place in Arkansas that’s actually called “Toad Suck”.  I didn’t take this next picture – I just saw the sign on the highway that said “Toad Suck-  Next Exit”.  I had been driving for about 36 hours at that point and was about just about falling asleep at the wheel (You’d think that I’d find the prospect of my rapidly impending death on the freeway exciting enough to keep me awake, but I guess not.) After I got home I looked up “Toad Suck” on line to see if it was real, or just something I dreamed.  It was real.

Is being the prettiest girls at a toad sucking festival really  something to be proud of? I’m guessing this photo didn’t make it into either girl’s scrapbook.

I went to the  Civil War battlefield site in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The battle was over long before I got there, now it’s just a big park and graveyard.  Mostly the other people I saw there were just using it as a place to jog or walk their dogs. But it did have a lot of cannons, monuments and plaques all over the place.

It must have been an horrible battle.  Brothers would fight against brother.  In the 1860′s it was much safer to be an only child.

They even had a gift shop on the battlefield, but seem like a poor business decision to me. How many solders would’ve wanted to take the time to shop for nick-knacks during one of the major battles of the civil war?   Besides that,  it seems foolish for them to have been selling bumper stickers  decades before the bumper was even invented.  

I do admit, however,  that it would be pretty cool thing to have a t-shirt that said “I Went To The Battle Of Vicksburg And All I Got Was This Lousy Amputated Leg!”. 

They had this exhibit about civil war era battlefield medicine. It was pretty rough back then.  Sometimes  they would saw a guys leg off,  and all they had to give him was a shot of whiskey. You’d have to be a pretty hard core alcoholic to even consider agreeing to a deal like that.

 This is a monument honoring the Union soldiers from Ohio.  Many Civil War Historians feel the battle could have ended hours sooner if they just would have aimed their cannons in a more conventional manner.

And here’s a monument in remembrance of all the sex toys that were lost or destroyed in the battle of Vicksburg.

About 8/10 roadside motels advertise that they are under new management. I don’t stay in any of those motels. I’d just stay awake all night  wondering  what had  happened  there before that was so horrible that they felt they needed to make it very clear that the old guys weren’t around anymore.

The motel I did stay at had a card listing all the fancy amenities that they offered that, apparently, the other motels didn’t. These are real:

-Toll free 911 calls.

- Parking lot.

-It’s possible to have pizza delivered to your room.

-Vending machines.

- A phone

-Towels.

-An office

 …. pretty fancy.

Motel tip – Water cost money.  So whenever you check in be sure to ask the clerk if you can have a discounted rate it you promise you won’t take a shower.  If that works, then try to get them to take another couple of dollars off the rate if you agree not to to flush the toilet during your stay.

 I went to Graceland. We lived in Memphis back when Elvis died. One of the first memories I have that I can pin down a date to is Elvis’ funeral. i remember watching all the cars drive by. According to my mother I told my dad that they “all ready took Elvis to the junk yard”,  but I don’t remember saying that.

These are the clothes Elvis and Priscilla wore when they got married.

 And if you look closely you can see that she was very cold that day.

This is the back yard of the main house where Elvis and the Memphis Mafia beat Tom Jones to death and buried his corpse in the flower garden.

This is where Elvis kept his horses…

 And here is the kitchen where they were prepared.

This is Elvis’ grandmother’s tombstone.  It’s interesting for two reasons.

1- she was still alive in 1980 – that sure doesn’t sound right. 

2- I zoomed in on the bottom part of the grave marker to show that they actually had the stuff on the tombstone copyrighted. I guess they were afraid that it they didn’t there would be a bunch of bootleggers making cheap, fake knock-off replicas  of Elvis’ granny’s grave.

 Elvis’ anti-drug message.

 This is what it looks like when you put a laser pointer up your nose…

…and here is where you go after you put a laser pointer up your nose.

I remember back in ninth grade they had us do experiments for the science fair. My experiment asked the question: Why do dogs eat their own vomit?

My hypothesis was that dog vomit really tastes great and that people just assume the dog’s are doing something nasty because they never tried it before.

My experiments proved my hypothesis false but I learned something from it. That’s what important.

I also learned that Listerine is cheaper when you buy it by the case, so that was a bonus.