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Miss McGilicutty, please don't read this

April 30, 2009

My big boss thinks I have a potty mouth.
Correction: My big boss knows I have a potty mouth.
That by itself doesn't bother him because he, too, has one.
It's those daily phone calls from Miss McGilicutty that wear him out.
You see, every time I say "pissing" in one of my blogs, it pisses her off.
Miss M. then picks up the phone and calls my boss.
She has already condemned little Nicky to spend eternity in hell, bunking with Hitler and Saddam. Now she demands that I also get fired.
I have a better idea.
Why doesn't she read somebody else?
Like Joe Brown.
Or Lynn Walker.
No way a couple of sweet guys like them are going to piss her off.
I have been a potty mouth for long, long time -- it's hard to change me.
I want to say "do do," but it comes out s - - -.
I want to say "fornicate" but it comes out f - - -.
What can I say?
Little Nicky was brought up white trash and then raised in a pool hall.
It all started when I was in the second grade at Austin Elementary School.
There it was written on the walls in the boys bathroom -- as Raphie in "A Christmas Story" called it -- "the mother of all swear words: F dash dash dash."
I went home and asked my aunt -- who took care of me while my divorced parents were out getting drunk -- what it meant.
She almost had a heart attack.
"F dash dash dash" was not something she ever heard down at the Tenth and Broad Church of Christ.
"Don't you ever -- ever -- ever -- ever-- ever -- ever say that word again," she told me.
Wrong answer to a boy who had just learned that woody wasn't just a woodpecker.
I finally went to a real authority figure -- a kid in the fourth grade -- to find out what the word meant.
And once I found out that it meant a guy sticking his thing-a-ma-jig into a girl's thing-a-ma-jig -- well, that occupied about 90 percent of my mental capacity for the next 50-something years.
So, Miss McGilicutty -- if you haven't dropped dead yet -- please, please don't call my boss.
There are other sweeter writers on this site who I guarantee won't piss you off.

Posted by at 8:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

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It's a 'Hallmark holiday,' but way too early to celebrate

April 29, 2009

In Washington, they call rating the president's first 100 days in office "a Hallmark holiday."
"They don't mean anything, but you have to observe them."
It is much more important to measure a president at the end of his White House stay than at the start.
But ever since FDR, it has been a custom to pass judgment on the first 100 days.
And America is giving the 44th president of the USA some pretty high marks.
The polls have Obama's approval ratings somewhere between 63 and 68.
Part of that is because his predecessor was about as bad as it gets.
Once you've been married to a real bitch, that first date after your divorce doesn't have to look good, smell good or shave under her arms to rate as a major improvement.
And face it, Bush sucked.
His final approval rating was something like 22.
Take away the Fox and Friends vote and Bush's numbers would resemble the Texas Rangers' earned run average -- 5.89.
So Obama's current approval ratings probably don't mean squat.
There are some people out there who think he is the savior of the world -- a guy who will lead us out of this wilderness and into the promised land.
Others still think he's Stalin reincarnated.
Some think he will fulfill the dream of Martin Luther King.
Others think he's a Muslim terrorist.
That's what happens when you have 400 TV channels to choose from and the most popular 24-hour news networks become a left-right sparring match that won't end until Jesus comes.
So what do I think?
Unlike most of the people who live here in Hooterville Falls and the great state of Texas, I voted for Obama.
Nothing against John McCain. I liked the guy. He just happened to be the unfortuante Republican who followed Bush.
But I grade the first 100 days of Obama no better than a "C."
I don't like billion dollar bailouts and trillion dollar budget deficits.
And I don't give a rat's ass if we torture a bunch of terrorists who would slit our throats if they had the chance.
I still believe, however, that I voted for the right man.
I'll just sit here on the fence for 1,361more days and wait and watch before really passing judgment.

Posted by at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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Giving your boss the finger

April 28, 2009

The front page of the TRN today tells how our district attorney got in a pissing match with a county commissioner over the pay of investigators.
With many people losing jobs and others taking salary cuts, it is not a good time to be asking taxpayers to fork over 23 percent pay raises.
But if the DA really wants to get the commissioners' attention, he should toss out the stupid charts and graphs and follow the example of Zoran Bulatovic.
In a protest over unpaid wages, this Serbian union official gave a whole new meaning to "giving the boss the finger."
He pulled out a hacksaw and chopped off the pinky finger on his left hand.
Then he ate it
"We, the workers, have nothing to eat. We had to seek some sort of alternative food, and I gave them an example. It hurt like hell," 9 Fingers told Reuters news service.
The textile factory reportedly once had a workforce of 4,000. Today there are only 100 employees, which should come as no surprise since nobody has been paid for years.
A couple of dozen of the workers went on a 19-day hunger strike last year, and that didn't work.
Cutting off fingers probably won't either.
Doesn't that make you glad to be an American and live in a country where stuff like that can't happen?
Over here the government would just print some more play money and bail out a company like this.
People would still lose their jobs (see General Motors) while fat cat CEOs sit behind a glass window counting their bail-out bonuses.
But over here, 9 Fingers' protest would not go unrewarded.
"Would you like barbecue sauce, sweet n sour or honey mustard with that finger?"

Posted by at 8:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Hey, "buttbreath," I'm baaaaack

April 27, 2009

"As I was saying before I was interrupted. . ."

OK, I borrowed that line from Jack Paar, which he used on his return to the Tonight Show about a month after he abruptly walked off the live late night show in a protest of censors.

But it fits.

I suddenly quit writing blogs for this site on Nov. 5, 2007.

I wanted more money.

Blogging wasn't putting any extra cash in my pocket.

No bucks. No blogs.

I think it's in the Bible -- "Thou getteth what thou payest for."

So I quit writing a blog and just sat back and waited for the big boss to drop to his knees and beg me for my prose and order his trusted bean counter to add more zeroes to my pay check.

I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Then one day I got an e-mail from corporate headquarters.

I was getting a five-percent pay cut.

The newspaper world has changed drastically in the last 18 months.

And so has my attitude.

I started blogging again not to get more money.

Now I just want to keep my job.

Doing more and getting less these days is certainly better than the alternative -- doing nothing and getting nothing.

"Multi-tasking" is not good in all businesses -- you don't want your heart surgeon Twittering during a triple bypass -- but it's good in the newspaper business.

If you can write for the paper, write for the Web, shoot pictures, shoot video, sell ads, clean the urinals and change the oil in the boss' car, it gives a better chance of avoiding the next company layoff than the guy who only writes a few columns a week.

So, I'm baaaaaack.

And although I really should think twice about writing about priests in raincoats or women with little titties, I probably won't.

So all of you full-time Web site commenters with nicknames like "buttbreath" and "birdcrap" -- especially those of you brain washed by the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity and Joe Conservative -- are going to stay busy bitching about me.

Enjoy.

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Hope you had a Happy Earth Day.

How long is it going be before April 22 (that's Earth Day for the 99.9 percent of you who don't know) becomes a national holiday?

If Jose Cuervo can do it for Cinco De Mayo, surely Hallmark and the Post Office will be able to do it for Earth Day.

Give us three-day weekends.

Get the mall to pay some wine-o a couple of bucks to dress up with a globe on his head. Con all us parents and grandparents to pay $20 or $25 to have our kids sit on Earthman's urine-stained lap and have pictures taken with him.

Or maybe you believe more like me and George Carlin, who once said:

"Save the planet? We don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the (f---ing) planet?

"Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The people are (f---ed)."

Posted by at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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