I'm Proud Of You, Son

Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto
(shown here at age 20) hid behind the pen
name Pablo Neruda so that his
father wouldn't have to bear the shame
of having a son who was a poet.
He went on to win the Nobel Prize in
Literature and is regarded as the most
influential poet of the 20th century.
He is also the most widely read author
since Shakespeare.

Greg:

I was digging around in the bowels of my computer looking for - hell, I can't even remember now - when I found a bunch of letters that I had written to Aaron years ago. Among them was one that I wrote to him about what it means to be proud of your son. I thought I'd reprint it here for your enjoyment.

Cheers,

-Thaddeus


8 September 2004

Dear Aaron:

I am proud of you. I mean that sincerely. Now let me explain what I mean by that auspicious opening line.

I always thought that I could do something or be something that would make my old man proud. I figured that if I could second–guess what he wanted me to achieve, I would have fulfilled my purpose in life: to make my dad proud. So I wound up doing all kinds of things that I thought my dad might approve of. Like going to an Episcopalian church, being a good student, being a writer, whatever. I don't know if any of that worked, even though I may have been the beneficiary of those actions in the long run. I really love being a writer, even if it was at first motivated by a need to make my dad proud of how literate and verbose I was. Then I grew up and had a son of my own and it changed my whole picture of what pride in one's progeny is and how it works.

I'm proud of you for who you are, not simply for what you do. There's a distinct difference. If you're only proud of someone for what they do, then your pride is poorly founded. Why? Because a single accomplishment will become meaningless over time, the merits of it may be offset by other accomplishments or failures, or it may not be relative at all to your current situation. For instance, if you're real proud of your kid for being able to make it to the toilet on time when he's two, what meaning does that have when he's five? Now it's expected. Now it means nothing. Now there's no reason to praise or be proud. So that makes pride fickle by nature, so what good is it? Why even make the effort to make someone proud of you?

What I'm talking about when I say that I'm proud of you is something far more firm and constant. Again, I'm proud of you for who you are, not for what you have done for me. I'm proud of you for what you have made of yourself, not because you have fulfilled some sort of expectation that I had of you. You have developed your character in ways that I could not have imagined on the day you were born. And all of the positive growth that you've done, although it may seem commonplace and unremarkable from your perspective, is truly stunning from my perspective as your dad. Examples? Your knack and natural enthusiasm for entrepreneurship is both amazing and authentic. Nobody could have taught you that. Your sense of humor is brilliant, sharp and original. And each time I see your artwork, your style becomes more and more distinct and unique. These are just a few, and they are also things that no one could teach you. Nor could anyone cause you to develop these talents by placing some sort of expectation on you and then hoping you'll fulfill it. You're an original, Aaron. That's you. And that will never change. And that's what makes me more proud of you than I can ever put into words.

So instead of placing an expectation on you and giving you the impression that if you fulfill it I'll be happy and if you don't I'll be mad or disappointed, here's what I really think. I do not have an expectation you'll accomplish this or that thing. Instead I have a wish, or prayer or blessing or whatever you want to call it. I wish you peace of mind. Whatever you do, wherever you go, however you make your life, I wish for you peace of mind as you go along your unique path. In my view, peace of mind is the only thing worth pursuing, and everything else in life is downstream from that. I know that any person's quality of life is only what they think and what they feel. It's not any particular thing that happened to them, it's not how much stuff they owned, it's not some job they had or where they went to school. It's how they thought and felt about it and that's it. So that's why I wish that no matter what you do or whatever happens to you in this life, that you always take with you a deep and meaningful peace of mind.

There's a little Dharma story that goes like this: A teacher asks a student, "What is the surface of the Earth like?" And the student says, "It's nice in some places, but it mostly rough and covered with rocks and it'll hurt your feet." So the teacher says, "Would the Earth be smoother and kinder to your feet if you covered it with soft leather?" And the student says, "Yeah, but that's crazy talk. You can't cover the Earth with leather. It's impossible." To which the teacher replies, "No, but you can wear shoes. That way, it's the same as the whole Earth being covered with soft leather wherever you go ." So that's what peace of mind is. It's shoe leather.

I love you and I'm proud of you, my son.

-Dad

Turn Me Into Buzzard Snacks, Please

Sky Burial: Why is it that at every party you go to everyone always
hangs out in the kitchen?

Greg:

Last I heard you were moving and you were going to give me your new address. And that was definitely The Last I heard from you. Hopefully you're not living in your tuba. I can just see you burying that thing up to its bell in the desert sand, then crouching inside it like an ant lion, springing forth to snatch errant hobos as they shamble past, and pulling them down into the warren-like tubing to feast upon their tender innards. Don't tell me you haven't thought of it.

If you have fallen off the social grid into main shaft of the Mines of Endless Leisure (read: homeless), then hopefully either the Reno Public Library or Reverend Dick's Gospel Shelter has Web access and you're reading this right now.

So let me update you on a small family matter which also involves a change of residence: the folks have arrived on the door of their future mortuary. No, they're not dead. They're in Missouri.

I don't know if you spoke to them any time during the run up to their eventual departure to the Ozarks. It wasn't the lack of intellectual stimulus or the abundance of ticks, chiggers and hillbillies that sold them on the place. It was, in fact, the absence of laws governing where and how deep one can bury their relatives. Apparently in Missouri, once a person stops whittling and the corncob pipe drops from their slackened jaws, they're fair game for the mulch pile. None of those fancy rules about "coffins" and "water tables".

Don't get me wrong. Even though I'm clearly not on the Missouri Board of Tourism, I completely understand the motivation behind self-determination at the end of life. Aging is an undeniable process that robs you of functions and freedoms one by one. If you've been on life's stage as long as our folks have (over a century and a half at last reckoning), I think you oughtta be able to have a say regarding your exit.

So, while we're on the subject, and El Dia de los Muertos is right around the corner, I think I'll go ahead and publish my burial instructions right here and now. They're real simple: Don't bury me.

Here's what you do. Buy my corpse a ticket to Bhutan. (If I've planned things right, I should be there already when I give up the ghost. My current death fantasy is to die in Bhutan while hiking - quickly and and by accident, of course. Age of death doesn't matter. I'm in Bhutan, which is a fundamentally a Buddhist theocracy. I'm hiking and I couldn't be happier. What better time to kack?)

So once I've accomplished the kacking part, I want what they call a "sky burial". Here's how it works. The undertaker hauls your corpse up into the mountains. Then he whips out his Amazing Ginsu, flenses your flesh from your bones, and pounds it into meal with a little flour. (I'd like some cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar added. The idea of being turned into a meaty cinnamon roll appeals to me.) Then he feeds the Death Dough to the buzzards who have by now congregated close by and in great number. Once they've eaten all the dough and licked the plates, the undertaker hauls the leftovers - bones and gristle and whatnot - back down the mountain and throws it all into the crematorium. (Sometimes not. Sometimes your bones get pounded into meal too, which would be fine by me. I pray for an undertaker who can swing a sledgehammer like John Henry.) And there you are. The buzzards crap you onto the bottom rung of the food chain and your ashes go in the garden. I can't think of a more wonderful and fitting end.

Of course you're going to say, "It's your funeral. You won't be there. What do you care?" Yeah, so you're right. After I die, I plan to be in the bardo for the next 42 days playing single-platoon old school football with Grampa Teachout (that is until I'm reincarnated as a cold sore for my abysmally horrid karma). Let's just say I want to do this because I believe in recycling. As a matter of fact, I think I'll go have "Please Recycle" tattooed on my sternum, right next to my favorite haiku* and "Do Not Resuscitate" in twenty seven languages. I hope I have a broad enough sternum and enough skin.

So yeah, when I die, be a peach and get me a sky burial, wouldja?

Cheers,

-Thaddeus

*It is a dewdrop world
Surely it is
And yet
And yet -

-Kobayashi Issa

The War On Christmas Part I: Full Metal Teepee

If you can't take the day off to celebrate Indigenous People's Day,
(Monday, October 9th), at least find some time to pray in the
direction of Sherman Alexie.

Greg:

I'm pissed.

I fuckin' walked into fuckin' Lowe's fuckin' Home and fuckin' Garden fuckin' Center (fuckers), and what to my wondering eyes should appear but a quarter-acre CHRISTMAS DISPLAY. They got plastic Christmas trees, wreaths, garlands, lights, and those horrendous inflatable 6-foot-high snow globes with a blower in 'em that makes it look like Santa is in the eye of a Tony Montana-sized coke-storm. So what's wrong with that? It was SEPTEMBER FUCKIN' TWENTY-FOURTH! Last time I checked the calendar, we had a whole three months before I had to sit up all night with a shotgun waiting for the fat man. Fawk!

Look, do not for a second think that I'm siding with that toothless, gum-bumping douchebag-with-a-microphone who says there's some kind of ACLU-endorsed "war on Christmas", but goddamnit - I'm about to start one! Are you with me? Then rally the damn troops.

So like any war (with the possible exception of the invasion of Iraq), this war has a plan. I already brewed one up. I knew push was gonna come to shove, so here's how we're gonna shove Dasher, Dancer, and Jesus all the way back to December 24th where they belong.

1. Celebrate the shit out of every holiday between now and December 24th, starting with Indigenous People's Day on Monday, October 9th. (Thought Monday was Columbus' Day? Think again.) As an added bonus, Canadian Thanksgiving Day (or Thanksgiving I: Maple Leaf Rag, as I like to call it) is celebrated the same day. If you're not going to throw down a feast, at least go into Lowe's and ask them where the Indigenous People's Day decorations are. When they shrug and gape at your requrest, stage a sit-in until they give you donuts and beer.

2. Buy Halloween decorations. As a matter of fact, buy all the Halloween schwag you can, including those crazy little ghost candles and stuff. When retailers start seeing a "Halloween bump" in sales, they'll start painting their faces and worshipping Satan faster than you can say "revenue stream".

3. Celebrate Thanksgiving II: The Kreusening (November 23rd). I've given it this title to differentiate it from Thanksgiving I, and to underscore the fact that you should get =/~ drunk as a lord in celebration; that is to say, become "fully kreusened" by internalizing the final stage of the brewing process (or as my wife used to say, become "ale battered"). Honestly, it's the only decent and noble way to honor the brave Native American soldiers who vanquished the white teetotalers at Roanoke Island in 1590. It's either that or take a stone hatchet to a Puritan. Your call.

4. Celebrate Christmas. Yeah, I know, you're all "what the hell!" But hear me out. Just hold out on celebrating until December 24th, and then keep that party goin' 'til Twelfth Night on January 6th. Do not let up. Ya don't stop the punk rock, especially when it comes to the biggest feast of the year. And as a matter of fact, walk right the hell out of work on December 24th and don't come back until January 6th. If they try to fire you, tell 'em to go suck a yule log. Sue them for impinging on your religious freedoms. What're they gonna do, condemn you for celebrating a Christian holiday? Not in George Dubya Bush's America! Nosiree!

Here's my last thought: I'm thinking about creating a foam Baby Jesus In The Manger hat, kinda like those Cheesehead deals you see people wearing at Green Bay Packers games. I mean what screams "Christmas" louder than wearing a manger-nested Christ Child on your head?

Cheers,

-Thaddeus

This Is Your Brain On Yelp

Michelle B. at feeding time. Warm-blooded, good-natured and
exclusively frugivorous, Michelle is the person who is solely re-
sponsible for getting me hooked on Yelp.

Greg:

Look, don't expect much of me today. I'm tired and my brain power is at an all-time low. In fact, I'm experiencing what some might call "rolling blackouts" of the mental variety. I keep drifting off the subject and then not remembering what I was talking about. Might not be so bad except that people keep pointing it out to me.

The upside is that I write crapmail for a living, which means that I know how to write a mean bullet-point list. Bullet-point lists are what you write when you're not smart enough to construct a meaningful conversation, and would just rather lob shit at people than talk to them. This is all fine by me, since most of my conversations nowadays seem to go like this:

ME: Hey, did you hear about the 'Hawks game?
YOU: No, what happened?
ME: What?
YOU: Huh?
ME: What was I talking about?
YOU: (Capitalizing on the opportunity) How you only owe me thirty bucks.
ME: You're goddamn right! And not a penny more. (Shells out $30.)

But check this out. What I'm going to write next is a modified bullet list that will talk at you about the several and diverse topics currently circulating in my world. The modified bullet list will allow you to see in a single glance the salient points of my utterly flavorless existence - with very little writing effort on my part! Hell, I could mash a monkey's face into my keyboard right now and it would probably result in the same quality and clarity of prose. Such is the beauty of the modified bullet list. So here goes:

My Latest Conspiracy Theory - A few years back, Bob Woodward cranked out a 400-page handjob-to-the-administration titled Bush At War. Then just yesterday he grunted out a six-and-a-half-pound hatchet-job on the same administration titled State Of Denial. If he wrote the former so that he could butter up the keyholes at the White House to get unprecedented access to write the latter, he is my new hero. God bless you, Mr. Woodward, you are a one-man Trojan horse.

Seahawks - Got shellacked (37-6) Sunday night by the Chicago Bears and are now 3 and 1. Oh look, you're already asleep.

The HellClimber 3000 - Each and every morning, I've been flaming off 1,000 calories on the HC3K (if I am to believe anything that LED readouts on exercise machines tell me). Then I go lift. I'm doing this so that I'll be ready for next hiking season. Why the intense preparation, you ask? Because next year on my hikes I intend to carry no bear spray, and eat whatever'n'th'fuck I want wherever'n'th'fuck I wanna eat it. That also means I'm probably going to have to wrestle some bears for my peanut butter and banana sandwiches. I also intend to wear a salmon suit and slather myself with dingleberry jam. Wish me luck.

Modern Drunkard Magazine - Puking is probably not really as much fun as I remember it being, but reading the brilliantly unapologetic Modern Drunkard Magazine makes me wish it were. In typically alcoholic fashion, I can't remember how I came across this little gem-at-the-bottom-of-a-shot-of-rye, but I'm very glad I did. Such unabashed praise of drunkenarianism is more than enough to send most former drunks like myself scuttling off to an AA meeting with flagellum in hand. But part of what I had to do in order to stop the guilt cycle that kept me drinking was to realize that I had some really good times being drunk. In a very satisfying and practical way, MDM lets me relive those giddy Bacchanalian days without the money-spendy-blacky-outy-auto-wrecky stuff.

Yelp - My latest addiction is a website that combines the personalization of MySpace with...oh I don't know...some other site where they review stores and restaurants and shit. Michelle - somebody who used to work here (meaning RealNetworks) got a gig over there (meaning Yelp dot com) turned me and a bunch of other folks around here on to it. I haven't been able to leave it alone. I've reviewed a ton of stuff and often turn to it for inspiration when I'm not even inspired enough to write a bullet list. It's fun as hell and will most likely cost me my job. Go sign up or I'll review you.

See ya on Yelp.

-Thaddeus

One Giant Biscotto With Dingleberry Jam, Please

Greg:

I don't know how you got your grubbies on that photo. I've had dozens of lawyers trying to track down that image and suppress it. Now my fascist inclinations are exposed. Damn you, Getty Images!

Apparently Getty can - and will - sell photos of just about anything, up to and including the moment when I brought the populace of Missoula, MT to its collectively quaking knees by threatening it with a mammoth Italian confection. Getty and its minions are everywhere. At least once a week they come by my door trying to peddle another snapshot of Fidel Castro rolling down Broadway in an Escalade loaded to the gunnels with boxes of high-end electronics and cookware from Williams-Sonoma. ("Products which fall from the back of a truck or that can be readily pried from the greedy hands of the capitalist oppressors shall become the rightful property of the people." -Castro.) Or you in your frilly under-drawers, huffing away on that tuba of yours. And I don't care what you say, that underwear doesn't make you a better tuba player.

Speaking of food and Missoula, check this out. At this restaurant in Missoula called The Shack, they have a crouton omelet. No, seriously. Jack cheese, veggies, and garlic croutons. And not small ones. Croutons about the size of Yahtzee dice. And I'm thinkin', who thought this shit up? I mean, c'mon, you gotta be pretty high on weed to think, "croutons - that's what this thing needs!" I should know. When I was in college, I used to spend all night playing the bong and then take a pair of scissors and cut a day-old Totino's party pizza into 5" by 5" squares. Then I'd spark up the toaster and drop it in. Once that popped, I'd put some jam on it and scarf it down. That may sound a little weird, but at the time, it seemed to me that anything that came out of a toaster should have jam on it - like there was some culinary law about that. So I know how these things happen.

But I must say that my hat is off to the members of the Missoula Montana Bong-estra who first cobbled this crouton omelet thing up because it's freakin' delicious. If the good people at The Shack told me they had an omelet that was made with a petrified jelly donut that they carved up with a door plane, I'd eat that too.

All this talk of food has made me hungry. I'm going to sign off now and go eat. I got a jar of homemade dingleberry jam from somewhere in Canada. (Teresa says it's huckleberry but I swear to God the guy said dingleberry.) I think I'm going to start at the east side of the kitchen with that jar of jam and work my way west. I'll let you know tomorrow what goes good with dingleberry jam and what doesn't - although I really doubt there's anything that doesn't.

Cheers,

-Thaddeus

Guns Don't Kill Writers. Bulleted Lists Do.

Me, hanging my fool ass off the side of a mountain.
Crypt Lake trail, Waterton Lakes, Alberta, Canada.

Greg:

I've been meaning to give you more detail on the vacation I just took, the one that was mostly comprised of backpacking in the Canadian Rockies, also known as the vacation that will go down in history as The Best Freakin' Vacation Ever, Eh?

Since my astoundingly lucrative career as a crudmail writer has compromised every writing skill I ever possessed, I will have to recap (See? I can't even write the word "recapitulate" any more) using bullet points. There's a real funny story about how I wanted to be a famous writer so I made this deal with this one guy. (Featuring: ●Crossroads ●Dead of night ●Banjo string ●Black cat bone ●PLUS - Guy with horns. -Ed.) The upshot is that though I make a load of dough and have literally millions of readers (...no really, he does. Why does no one believe that? -Ed.), nobody knows my name, and all I can write is poopmail that gets promptly deleted. You win some. Then you go to hell. I digress. Onward.

Here are the salient points (Read: ●Bullets. -Ed.) in brief of the places we visited. And by "salient", I mean "filled with salt".

Eastern Washington
● Major Industries: Dust devil farming; Asian automobile modification; shouting epithets from the porches of double-wides
● Major Foodstuffs Produced: Chicken-Fried Steak, Chicken-Fried Steak Substitute
● Ethnic Composition of Population: Bigot-O-'Mericans (Rednecks): 30%, Affluent Bigot-O-'Mericans (Rednecques): 11%, Next-Generation Bigot-O-'Mericans (Red Next): 3%, Mexicans (Voted Most Likely To Be True Americans): 68%.
● Recommended Lodging: My wife's brown-ness prohibited us from staying anywhere.

Idaho
● Best Feature(s): Doesn't take long to cross going east to west; has trees
● Biggest Boast(s): Great potatoes; fewer Nazis than before
● Dirtiest Children Found Anywhere In The Continental US: Wallace, ID
● Highest Concentration of Crap Merchants Per Square Block: Wallace, ID
● Most Fucking Depressing Place On Earth: Wallace, ID

Montana
● Greatest Attribute: It's huge
● Place You'll Think Is Really Nice Because You Haven't Been To Canada Yet: Missoula, MT
● Best Thing To Do While Visiting Glacier National Park: Shoot the guy who runs his gas generator in the campground right after you shoot the guy who cranks his freakin' radio day and night in the campground; ride the bears.

Waterton Lakes, Alberta, Canada
● Do Not Stay At The: Prince of Wales Hotel
● Why Not?: Because despite stunning photo portraits to the contrary, it is rife with shitholiness. And it costs USD$290 per night and you can hear the Kentish couple next door doing their laundry in the bathtub just as plain as day.
● So What Should I Do Instead?: Stay somewhere else. But definitely go on the Crypt Lake hike.
● Whuffo I Wanna Do That Fo'?: Because you have to take a boat, then hike six miles up above the treeline, then a walk a ledge that has a 600-foot dropoff on one side, then scramble through a tunnel in the rock, then grab a cable and toe-hold your way around another rock face (with another dropoff), then freak out when you see now beautiful Crypt Lake is. And there are bears. In short, it's ossum times Fear Factor. I peed all of my pants - every single pair I own.

Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada
● Definitely Stay At: Deer Lodge.
● People Per Hectare on the Shore of Lake Louise: Over one thousand. No, really, over a thousand. It's gross.
● Best Thing To Do In Lake Louise: Leave and go someplace nice, like...

Skoki Lodge, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
● Talk To Me, Goose: Hike back in the park about 8 miles, go through two mountain passes, gain a shitload of altitude (Shitload: about 8,450 feet. -Ed.), and find yourself at the sweetest backwoods cabin you've ever seen. No electricity, no running water. Wood heat, kerosene lamps, homemade food and the best hiking on earth.
● Who Runs This Joint?: A bunch of very excellent Canadians.
● Why'd Ya Come Back?: That's a very good question. I was thisclose to chucking it all and becoming the Canadian version of Apocalypse Now's Colonel Kurtz.

● Thaddeus

Merry Gregmas!

Oyez, oyez, oyez!

Faithful rise, be counted, and be of good cheer!

'Tis Gregmas, the Greggiest day of all Septembertide!

This would be totally appropriate attire for any Gregmas celebration.

Dear Multitude:

Even though Dear Gregory has been published since the dawn of the Jet Age, precious few Touchers of the Hem, Adherents to the Peanut Butter Diet, or Readers of This Blog realize that September 13th is the Feast of Gregmas. To wit, it is Greg's birthday, just as Christmas is the birthday of my friend Chris T, or Criticalmass is the birthday of J. Robert Oppenheimer. (J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, or in his words, "Shiva", once gave his teacher a poisoned apple. I shit you not, and neither does last week's New Yorker. Look it up. -Ed.)

I assume that you who are in the majority are now confounded and befuddled. On one hand, you have a whole new square on the calendar to devote to revelry - such a boon! Ut hoy! you cry, and reach for the hookah. But in a trice you realize that you spend every other weeknight practicing the hookah, and this holiday begs for both uniqueness and propriety. What to do?

Fuddle no longer. Below I have compiled a short list of Gregmas facts, customs and traditions. Most of the objects required for celebration (...and worship, if you're so inclined... -Ed.) can be found in the average home (...the exception being the tuba. -Ed.) Enjoy, revel, and Merry Gregmas!

TRADITIONS
Tradition The First: Immediately upon arising on the morning of September 13th, make a very strong pot of coffee (it should absorb 98% of the available light), fashion a sandwich from peanut butter, bananas and mayonnaise on Roman Meal bread, and grumble while eating your solitary breakfast over the kitchen sink.

Tradition The Second: Six to eight times during the day, seize your tuba with a great deal of ardor and play the piccolo part from "Stars and Stripes Forever".

Tradition The Third: Suffer from the ill-conceived notion that drinking an entire 8-pack of Little Kings Cream Ale won't get you drunk because "the bottles are so small". Re-think your original hypothesis later when you find yourself in an unrecognizable quarter of the Detroit megalopolis (specifically Hamtramck), surrounded by surly Poles demanding to know there whereabouts of their pierogis and their daughters.

FACTS
My brother Gregory Ives was born on September 13th, 1671. Try as they might, the folks went quite a stretch with no kids - that is until 1962 when I was born. That's why I was named after the patron saint of lost causes. But that's beside the point. The amazing fact about Greg is that although he is three hundred and thirty five years old, rare pharmeceuticals with uncanny moisturizing properties have preserved his ancient flesh. He doesn't look a day over 53.

Greg subsists entirely on peanut butter. "If it's good enough for the koala bear, it's good enough for me!" he has been known to shout.

Do not be misled by his sunken chest and chalky legs. He often crushes Volkswagens with his bare hands.

His favorite movie: Fitzcarraldo. Or is it Nosferatu? Can't remember. Maybe it's Nosfitzcarratu. Anyway, he has a huge poster from Aguirre: The Wrath of God which he can scarcely tear his gaze away from, and he often tries to emulate Klaus Kinski's evil leer, even going so far as to don a tin conquistador helmet at times to heighten the effect.

CUSTOMS
On Gregmas Day, it is customary to write The Gregory a letter, which he will respond to with silence by the bucketload. So sayeth the lore of Gregmas. Believe me, I've been writing to him for years, and I have yet to see one blot of ink on a shred of paper in reply to a single one of my epistles. On the other hand, he does call "all the gol-damn time" as they say in the red states. Anyhoo, if you like, you can write to him by posting a comment to this blog. (Clog. -Ed.)

It is also customary on Gregmas Day to spend a great deal of time in the bathtub. (That is after the sandwich and the tuba thing. You don't want to do either one of those in the bath. -Ed.) This is to re-enact the Miracle of Gregmas. After six to eight hours in the tub (something Greg does each and every day), your skin shall be verily furrowed with wrinkles from stem to stern, much as The Gregory's skin was once. Then one fateful day, he combined lanolin with turpentine and methyl-ethyl-ketone (MEK) and created the Burnishing Glaze of Brass Instruments and Eternal Youth. And lo, his smooth and youthful hide didst shine like the horn section of the Burbank Police Boy's Band during the Bataan Death March, and he aged no more. You can accomplish the same effect by rubbing yourself down with Mop-N-Glo. Give 'er a whirl. It's a holiday, after all.

And finally, it is customary to purchase several if not hundreds of items from The GregMart for your self, friends and family. Because hey, why give Jesus all your money?

Squirrels The Size Of Rump Roast - OR - What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Grizzlies, hell! Watch out for this little bastard. He'll go straight
for your jugular. And he carries Bubonic Plague. Or so the guide
book I read ("Nature Wants To Fucking Kill You!: A Guide to the
Wildlife of the Canadian Rockies") tells me.

Greg:

Two weeks immersed in alpine splendor have completely robbed me of the power of speech. To get a gander at the splendor of which I speak, click on the picture of the tiny, tiny bear (above). I'll write more when my sprrch gerz bhurn drrr. Frr? Hack! Kaff! I'll write more when my speech crrrmss brrr.

Shmerr vrr brrrz,

-Thaddeus

REMOVED: Why Must The Horse Suffer?

Post removed at Greg's request.

Instructions For Life: Ever-So-Slightly-Abridged Version

Research shows that the elderly (pictured above) often spend their autumn
years quietly reliving fond memories of getting hammered and chasing tail.

Greg:

You know that hackneyed old email that's been orbiting the InterWeb since the UNIVAC was a big deal? The one about how the Dalai Lama supposedly gave a bulleted list of "Instructions for Life" or whatever that read like Chicken Soup for the ADHD Child's - Hey, Let's Go Ride Bikes! Well anyhoo, somebod(ies) are sending it to me again, no doubt in good faith and humor, knowing that I'm, like, all Buddhist and stuff and a huge fan of His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama of Tibet. Supposedly this list of instructions comes from a man who is the reincarnation of the Buddha of Compassion, yet if you fail to forward it to 96 friends in 36 hours, your pee-pee is supposed to fall off or something. Conversely, if you succeed in co-spamming a mega-gaggle of your friends, then you're supposed to win the lottery. Or something. As the drawing for the $49 million dollar MegaMillions jackpot is tonight, and inasmuch as I hold a ticket for it in my callous-free palm, I figure why fuck with religion? I can use this blog (Correction: clog. -Ed.) to spam all 682+ of the Dear Gregory faithful.

I figure that also means that everyone on the mail list has to forward the link to this blog (Correction: clog. Ed.) to 96 of their friends, so if you do the math, that means by tomorrow, everyone on Earth will be reading this except for that one guy in Bethel who refused to get a phone and had a honey bucket in his living room. Remember him? So yeah, I figure that'll generate enough mojo to win me that $49 MegaLarge easy.

And will I insert my own comments? Oh mais oui. You can count on it. I can't resist. Feel free to forward those, too.

Here's the email (below) as it appeared at the turn of the 21st century. I call it LamaSpam 2000 for short. Enjoy.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is what The Dalai Lama has to say on the millennium, all it takes is a few seconds to read and think. (Even less if you're a UNIVAC. -TRG) Do not keep this message. The mantra must leave your hands within 96 hours. You will get a very pleasant surprise. This is true even if you are not superstitious. (However, it may work even better if you are superstitious. I'm a firm believer in illusionary correlation. -TRG)

INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIFE (Abridged)

Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
(There's a joke about condoms in here somewhere.)

When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
(Wait - what was that first part again?)

Follow the three Rs: Respect for self Respect for others and Responsibility for all your actions.
(Fourth R: Reaving Ras Vegas.)

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
(...but most of the time, it's just a stroke.)

Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
(Same goes for windows if you're a burglar.)

Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
(...like whether somebody was somebody's girlfriend when somebody else slept with her. Get over it, Dan! Jesus! It's been like 20 years or something!)

When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
(So if you made a mistake by like having a gram bottle fall out of your pocket during a company meeting, immediately step on it. I heard somebody did that once back in 1984 and it was a real life-saver.)

Spend some time alone every day.
(And if you enjoy it, you may have a future in solitary confinement.)

Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
(...by like, opening your arms when you forgot to button your shirt, and then you realize that you also "forgot" to wear a bra. And then you realize, hey, I didn't forget, I'm just kinda that way! And I'm okay with that! Fuck you and your Puritan bullshit! And then the boys start throwing money.)

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
(This is a very diplomatic way of saying "shut the fuck up".)

Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
(Point of contention: I often sit back and enjoy memories of the things that I did that were far from honorable...if ya know what I mean.)

In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
(For instance, "I'm glad you're not as much of an asshole as you used to be" is always a good thing to say to someone when they're homicidally pissed off.)

Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.
(Fuck that. Carve a 90-foot statue of yourself in titanium and then shoot two presidents. Now that's a way to achieve immortality!)

Be gentle with the earth.
(Fuck that too. Dude, the earth hates you. It's going to turn you into humus some day. I mean look, the weather tries to kill you every time you walk outside. That's why I carry around a mattick and beat the shit out of the ground every chance I get. And I wear solid iron stilletto heels everywhere. I'm all, "hey Earth, how about a poke in the eye?!" And then somebody always says, "Man, that's the craziest miner I've ever seen!")

Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
(Last year, I went into my wife's closet. I'm sure as shit never doing that again. I got all tangled up and thought I was going to wind up in Narnia or some shit. And that's scary because, hey, did you see those British kids' teeth? Fuck sakes! They're like nurse sharks or something!)

Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
(I'm a man. My "love" ganglion has my "need" gland in a stranglehold. I can scarcely perceive the difference.)

Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
(I gave up $1 to buy a lottery ticket. Then I won $49 million in the lottery. What a total goddamn failure.)

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
(People who believe that have burns in very tender places.)

Cheers, and forward this email to Marie within 96 hours or your pee-pee will fall off.

-Thaddeus

The Patron Saint Of Grumpiness

Even the most mild-mannered among us may don the demeanor
and raiment of King of the Grumps on Saint Churlemond's Day.
After consuming a Fuji-sized mound of cocaine (a traditional holiday dish),
Tony "Ever-So-Slightly Peevish" Montana celebrates
the anxiously-awaited arrival of Churlemondtide with his little friend.

Greg:

First things first. Sorry I haven't written in so long, but it is now the NFL preseason and I have been all ghey for the football. You will notice (if you put down that greasy turkey leg and click the link in the previous sentence) that I have moved all of my football-related correspondence over to a blog (no - clog) designed specifically for that purpose. Hereafter I won't bother you with it, as it only falls on deaf ears in this forum. I often fancy that I can actually see the disinterest cloud your eyes like snow on a dead TV channel the minute I so much as mention the word "football". So there, I've done you a favor. Thank me. And I'll try to stick to my word and not mention football here. (Offer may not be valid in Seattle, and may be complete bullshit elsewhere. Check your local blogroll for details. - Ed.)

May I say this, though? I have tickets to 6 of the 8 Seahawks home games, the exceptions being the two Monday night games. Don't matter none to me. In a completely sold out season, I'm happy to have what I got. Oh wait. Your eyes have gone completely back into your skull. I'll stop with the football.

So - work. We're building up to a product launch. Everyone is stressed out and grumpy. And let me preface my comments that follow by pointing out that I, of all the people in the office, am King Grump of Bitch Island. I rule the grump roost because it doesn't take a product launch to make me grumpy. I'm grumpy on principle - that principle being that mere humans to not meet my exacting standards of excellence, and as such, are as annoying as clouds of stinging gnats, what with their "talking" with "words" and asking me "questions" like "how are you" and making "statements" like "boy don't you look nice today". RRRG! Jesus! Talk about knowing exactly how to piss me off! Inasmuch as I hold myself to the same standards, I also piss myself off with my "being pissed off". Grump without end, amen.

So yeah, so it seems that not only are people stressed out and grumpy, it seems that the expectation of stress and grumpiness was set long before the product launch ever occurred. (Pre-postscript: I wanted to put the phrase "Don't freak out. It's only work." in my email signature just to point out what ridiculous stress levels we were maintaining, but I was told not to because that alone might freak people out. 'Zat give you any idea? In a week, people will be crapping diamonds around here.) Weeks ago, everyone was already talking about how stressful launch was going to be, and regaling each other with nostalgic tales of grumpinesses and stress festivals past. So it looks as though we're living up to that projection so far, so that means we oughtta be happy, right? Tell me I'm crazy. Things are exactly as screwed up, bass-ackwards and stress-inducing as we expected them to be, so we should revel in our astounding prescience and good fortune! Otherwise we're like people going to a bull fight and wanting our money back because the bull was too mean to that poor man.

Actually, let's not screw around. Since these events seem to come with so much anticipation and folklore attached, let's just put them on the calendar as movable feasts dedicated to Saint Churlemond the Fractious, Patron of Grumpiness. Then we can all don costumes of hairshirt and steel wool, drink bile, and give each other the bras d'honneur when we pass in the hallway. I think that sounds like a capital idea, don't you?

So on a final note, I'll probably get fired tomorrow for throwing this into the middle of what sounded to me like a rather, shall we say, contentious email string regarding some ball that got dropped somehwere on some damn thing or other. (I'll save you reading the rest of the string and just put in the good part.)

DATE: August 17th, 2006
SUBJECT: Stakeholder review - 8/17

Going forward, could we change the spelling of "stakeholder" - at least in internal communications - to "Steak Holder"? I think it might make things, you know, funnier. Besides, a "stakeholder" sounds like half of a vampire-killing duo. (The other guy would be the "stakepounder" of course.) And besides... Mmm! Steak! Know what I mean?

-------

Wish me luck at the welfare office, and give my best to Marie.

-Thaddeus

The Follow-Up Letter

You are familiar with my handiwork, no?

Greg:

We've been brothers for, oh, any number of years, right? But here's something I bet you didn't know about me. I interview for jobs, like, all the time. I think it's good practice. For instance, it's a good method for seeing what's really out there, knowing how much you're really worth, knowing what the market is really like and so on. In a way, it keeps me from becoming myopically negative about my current work situation every time it becomes frustrating. Every job on earth is frustrating some of the time. Don't get me started about when I was a jail guard. (No seriously. He really was a jail guard. Back in 1982. Why do people not believe that? -Ed.)

Don't get me wrong. I don't do it because I hate my current job. I don't. I really like my job. I love the bunch of silly nutbags that I work with and it would make me genuinely sad to leave. Besides, I love it when I'm talking to a recruiter at some company and they ask me why I'm unhappy with my current position and I tell them I'm not. I tell them that I love my job. And then they choke. (See, they're always counting on low-balling you because you're desperate to leave your stinkin' job.) And then they ask me what my "compensation requirements" are. And I tell them a bazillion dollars, a solid-gold rocket car (chauffered, of course), and a trilingual helper monkey (also chauffered). And then they tell me that's probably outside their compensation range. To which I reply that it's okay because I noticed a funny smell on the way in to their office that I probably couldn't live with, were I to get a job there.

Just for shiggles, I thought I'd pass along an actual follow-up letter that I actually sent to somebody that I actually interviewed with. (No really. He did. Why do people not believe that? -Ed.) One quick read-through and you'll no doubt see why these interviews seldom result in offers. Enjoy.

12 July 2006

Dear E~:

As I said at the end of the interview yesterday, I knew I'd think of something on the way home that I should've said then. And it happened. I remembered something.

You asked me a question about my previous work experience, and just last night I remembered a nationwide campaign that I spearheaded on behalf of the band Iron Maiden.

It was a simple plan, really: arm legions of surly teens with ball point pens and have them inscribe the name of Iron Maiden in bathroom stalls from coast to coast. The creative was concise and divided into three distinct messages: Iron Maiden ROCKS, Iron Maiden RULZ, and simply IRON MAIDEN. These messages were to be presented in the distinctive Iron Maiden™ sans serif block style ironclad death 'n' mayhem font in BOLD. The talent was recompensed on a pay per message basis. Each twelve messages fully inscribed were paid for in trade by one (1) Bud Tall Boy and a pack of GPC menthols. As most teens are wont to leave a job "half assed", the churn on my talent pool was something astounding. But that also means that the breakage on my payouts practically left me money ahead. In the end, I only had to cash out four and a half Bud Tall Boys, four packs of GPCs, and a couple drags off my last Marlboro Light for approximately four million seven hundred seventy three thousand nine hundred eighty one messages placed.

While a failure in my tracking mechanism – a simple stroke sheet that I carried from bar to bar during my tenure in the "high life" – stymied my attempts to fully quantify the impact of the campaign, I feel that I can take at least partial credit for a few of the current 300,000 registrants on IronMaiden.com. Likewise, the ensuing repetitive-motion injury class-action suit on behalf of the teens was dropped when none of them appeared to testify – point in my favor - and I have it on the best authority from Bruce Dickinson's roady's ex-girlfriend that Bruce himself thought the whole bathroom wall idea was "awesome". Therefore I number the Iron Maiden campaign among my most successful to date.

If you have any other questions regarding my previous experience, please don't hesitate to ask.

Sincerely,

Thaddeus R Gunn

Auto Da Fe

Now this is my kinda heatwave!

Greg:

The South has risen again, right on the west coast of Washington, where we are sweltering under an Al-Gore-nodding-his-head-with-I-told-ya-so-smugness heat wave of nearly Orleanean proportions. (And then the author was crushed under a falling stack of modifiers. -Ed.) I have been forced to leave my windows open each night, which has done a great job of welcoming in (and amplifying) the hoots and bellows of the sweating, gleeful Chinatownians. Somehow the 90-degree temperatures and giant flapjacks of 100% humidity falling from the sky bring out their best. Under such conditions, they are wont to expound loudly and at length upon their personal virtue, the size of their man-parts; the fecklessness and moral turpitude of their enemies, as well as their enemies' significant others, parentage, etc. - late into the steaming, acrid night.

Fawk. This is not just a heat wave. This is a trial - a trial by fire which I have failed egregiously. I have proven myself to be both a pisser and a moaner. Can you mail me something that I can stab myself with? They don't let me have sharp stuff because I'm "depressive", if you can believe that. I have to shave with a cat's tongue and cut my bread with that one magical word from Dune.

As you can plainly see, the heat has made me go completely mad. But it's not the heat, really. It's the lack of sleep. And the fact that I feel like an old man because I'm whining about the heat. Just last weekend, I was laboring - laboring, I tell you! - with a pack at nearly 9,000 feet at 87 degrees F. And did I whine? Nay. Perhaps because I couldn't summon the breath. But more likely because I was in the toolies, huffing the pine-rich air, frolicking with Don Lagarto and his pals by the shores of Crater Lake. I've found that stunning natural beauty can make you choke down a shitload of heat without complaining.

So that is why, dear brother, I have decided either to a) stab myself in the whoknowswhere (not likely) or b) purchase myself a piece of dirt somewhere up in the high pineys whereupon to swelter joyfully in the summer months. The heat has driven me to it. Spending summers withstanding blazing sciroccos of dumpster stench is not as appealing as it once was, and the tonic effects of nature are too self-evident on my heat-knackered corpse to ignore.

To that end, I have alerted John L. Scott Emerald-Award-Winning agent Gloria Lee of my intentions, and am arranging viewings of 20-acre parcels within the Olympic National Forest. I've found one that seems to be unbelievably cheap, so she is going to do a little research to find out exactly how much nuclear waste is stored on the premises, exactly how much anthrax is still living in the soil, and whether the ancient Salish curse in those parts applies to this particular piece of land. Those issues resolved, I plan on first completely freaking out, and then second, crapping out the largest stack of $20s I can muster for a down payment. Then I'll march up there, throw down a double-wide, and subscribe to Guns 'N' Ammo.

I'll let you know how this one turns out.

Cheers, and give my best to Marie.

-Thaddeus

David W. Miller Junior Of Somewhere In Michigan - We Thank You!

Could David W. Miller, Jr. of Somewhere In Michigan be one of these
merry, banjo-plucking coots? Perhaps we'll never know.

Greg:

I don't have much time, so I gotta make this short. Just got back from a 4-day vacation at Crater Lake - details to follow in a later installment. The remainder of this epistle is brought to you by:

[Drum roll!]

DAVID W. MILLER JR. of SOMEWHERE IN MICHIGAN who, for God knows what reason, purchased an EYE-SCORCHINGLY GREY "SQUIRRELS GRABBED MY NUTSACK" T-SHIRT from THE GREGMART! Thanks to D.W. Miller, Jr., The Gunn Family has now skyrocketed into a tax bracket that is $2 (American) higher than the one we were in before DWM-JR five-fingered his dad's credit card and illegitimately procured the finest garment in the whole line of GregMart's NutSackWear(tm). Why he purchased it, I have no idea. He's not on my direct mail list, nor does his name sound familiar.

(Hey wait - isn't he David W. Miller's kid? You and I are both from Michigan, after all. Maybe it is someone we know. Is it that Miller kid from over on Elizabeth Lake Boulevard who was always trying to get us to touch the dog - oh never mind. Probably not him. He'd be an old man by now.)

Perhaps he went Googling for keyword: nutsack. Perhaps we will never know. But we will be happy in our ignorance as we peel back one...two...two whole pictures of George Washington (or Barbara Bush, if you like), load them into the ice cream vending machine, retrieve our Lil' Giant Ice Cream Sandwiches from the lower tray, and thrill at the happy clinking of our two bits in change - which I will promptly donate to the first hobo I come across. I am already dizzy with my future largesse.

Now stay close because we're gonna move quickly through the rest of this, okay? I'm going to put bold headlines on this stuff so you can assimilate it easily. Here we go:

[Clog roll!]

WHAT YOU ARE READING IS NOT A BLOG. Surprised? Some were. The word "blog" is of course a truncation of the words "Web" and "log", neither of which accurately describes what you see before you here. This is correspondence from me (Thaddeus) to you (Gregory), after all. The fact that it is read by hundreds of others is a happy accident arising from the fact that I put it on the Internet, and then invited hundreds of people to read it. Who'd've thought they actually would? Anyway, if it's a log of anything, it's a log of correspondence, or a "correspondence log" which makes it in fact a "clog" - which is exactly how it will be referred to in the future. "Hey, have you seen Greg's clog?" Has a certain snappiness to it, don't it?

[Fudge roll!]

FACT: FUDGEPACKERS ACTUALLY PACK FUDGE. "Fudgepacker" - a slanderous epithet which you no doubt use with alarming frequency - is not what you thought it was either. Hiking in Crater Lake National Park last weekend, I saw the definitional paragon of fudgepacking, and it is this: two oxygen-starved, Hush-Puppy-wearing nerds at 8,500 feet on the side of Mount Scott, overwhelmed by the abundant beauty surrounding them, threw down their book bags (yes, book bags) and their jumbo-sized, Crater-Lake-Blue Gott bigmouth cooler jug with EZ-grip handle (yes, cooler jug - not pictured here), and tearing their button-down shirts from their chalky, chalky flesh, nearly flung themselves off a cornice and down a snowfield whilst shrieking in paroxysms of einfüling. In the melee, the entire contents of their luggage spilled forth onto the pumice trail - exposing, yes, an industrial-strength bag of chocolate fudge. Crapping you am I? Nay, I am not. If that's not fudgepacking, and if they're not fudgepackers, I don't know what is and what are. Now you can stop badgering the people over at See's Candies with those silly crank phone calls.

[Plug roll!]

THIS CLOG HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO YOU BY DAVID W. MILLER JR OF SOMEWHERE IN MICHIGAN.

[Cheers roll!]

Cheers, and give my best to Marie.

-Thaddeus

Goal Achieved: Complete Whoredom

Chock Full O' Nutsack: Own the grail of Dear Gregory
schwag, the limited edition "Squirrels grabbed my
nutsack" 100% ceramic mug. Suitable for coffee,
tea, or - Greg's favorite - frosty cold absinthe.
Nab one now from The GregMart!

Greg:

Yes, that's you on a mug. Yes, it says "Squirrels grabbed my nutsack" on the side. Yes, I'm selling them. Yes, for money. But wait - before you start, let me say this: if Satan had given me a tail or the Power of Flight or the Ability to Smell Invisible People, I would've used all of them for good. However, He did not. He gave me a job in marketing instead. Therefore I had to put my marketing skills to good use somehow (he said, bending the definition of the word "good" until it made a twanging sound). It was inevitable. I had to create Dear Gregory schwag. And to sell that schwag, I had to open an online shop called The GregMart. The stupendous comedic power of your elementary school picture behove it. And that item came into my possession through no small amount of lies and world-championship-caliber wheedling, let me tell you. I mean, just look at it! Christ Jesus, it looks like you had to eat through a cowcatcher! Who would believe that picture after seeing you now? Answer: no one. Thus, it had to be made real and public. In short, if The GregMart did not exist, it would've been necessary to invent it. (-Voltaire.)

At this moment, GregMart's sole ware is this handsome ceramic mug with its priceless portrait and squirrel/groin-oriented humor, guaranteed to raise a smile on the face of the most hardened of Human Resources professionals. But as Jesus once said, pricelessness has its price, and that price is Only $12.99!

Certainly in the coming weeks - nay, days - I shall find more ways to capitalize on your - I mean - spread your face and fame worldwide. And you shall benefit! Hundreds upon dozens of people shall pour into Barney's Casino, Rib Shack & Whorehouse to hear your band and its unmistakably sloppydrunkrocknroll stylings. Tens of five persons will meander into Coldwell Banker Village Realty to purchase from your lovely wife Marie even the smallest piece of dirt whereupon you have trod. And you? You will bask in the glory of the buying public whilst sipping your morning brew from a mug which bears your own visage -just like the Queen of England does each and every day!

Yes, I've caved in to capitalism and I'm due a vituperative reading from any passage of Mao's lil' red book that you choose. But at the end of the day, what buys those frilly woolen under-drawers that you love so dearly better than cold hard American cash?

Yes, that's right - cord hald Japanese Yen.

Next in GregguMart! Crazy bucktooth gaijin say Eskwerrus grabbu mai nuttu sakku!

Sainthood For Calhoun!

Saint Haystack Calhoun
(dba Dr. Brian Graham, DC)
shown here giving the what-for to another
soon-to-be satisfied customer. If you support
sainthood for Calhoun as I do, please feel
free to circulate one of those Internet petitions
that are ever-so-popular these days. I would,
but I'm way too lazy and it's sunny outside
right now. Thank you. -TRG

Greg:

Okay so while I was mewling and puking in my last letter and saying that I hate my birthday, I forgot to mention one little thing and that is that I actually love my birthday. It's the anticipation of a horrible day based on a long-past event that should've been resolved long ago. It counfounds me every time. As the Dalai Lama says, "Fuck it". And so I shall. (See "Dalai Lama drops the f-bomb" in...uhh...I think it's the San Francisco Examiner or something. Anyway, I was there when it happened. -Ed.)

As an aside, my birthday turned out to be OSSUM, and featured one of the burliest pies I have ever seen in my life. I believe it was Bulletproof Rhubarb or something like that. I think the crew here at work purchased it at the local ironworks. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad pie. Much to the contrary. It was - how you say - robust. Imagine if you will, a tender rhubarb filling - not too tart, not too sweet - armored in foot-thick multgrain cookie, and latticed with an artfulness usually reserved for Islamic balconies. Now that's good eatin'!

And now, on to the digressions:

Sainthood for Calhoun! Sainthood, I say! He and his crack duo of International Health & Wellness Ninjas (Dr. Mark "Drop And Give Me 20" Grovan, and masseuse Sinithia "The Good Pain Train") have relieved an agony so immense, words like "ohmigawdmyfreakin'backjustkillmekillmekillmeplease!" cannot begin to describe it. I was on the verge of letting Senator Ted Stevens himself open my lower spine for drilling until Calhoun & Cohorts threw down the indescribable whammy that restored me to the spritely-stepping youth you see before you. (Video portion of this letter not available in all areas. Consult local listings for details. "Stepping spritely" may not be legal in certain Red States.)

So here's the deal. The Catholics are loaded up on saints, right? And they're unlikely to introduce a new one right now, what with all the red-hats filibustering to canonize dead-ish former pope John Paul ex-post-haste-o. However, the Episcopalians have no saints whatsoever (do they?), at least none that I know of - none that weren't purchased from SaintMart, the Catholic Saint 'n' Martyr Supply Store. So that means there's an opportunity for us to give the Episcopalians their own original saint: St. Calhoun, patron saint of chiropractors. All we have to do is get Dad to don his clerics and ply key members of the diocese with Christian Brothers Sherry. It's a slam dunk, Mister President! Hand Calhoun a robe and and a nimbus!

And speaking of nimbae, it's a completely spotless day in Seattle - 70 degrees and sunshine - which means the hordes of dysthymic locals are pissed to the gills, and the tourists are slobbering on themselves while they power-dawdle every crosswalk and pathway in the city limits. Time to find a rock to sun myself on before the sky slams shut again.

Cheers, give my best to Marie, and have a happy 4th.

-Thaddeus

Screw My Birthday Already, Part 2

A detail of one of forty-eight tiles from my son Aaron's project titled
"Take Eon Home". Acrylic paint on pressboard. Most awesome
Father's Day present I ever got.

Greg:

It's my birthday. Fucking hell. I've said it once before and I'll say it again. I hate my birthday. Screw it.

Well actually, let me clarify that just a little bit. What I don't like is the one day a year that has an infinite potential to make any one of us feel completely forgotten. Although I'm sure my wife would never let that happen, the dread of that possibility is - I don't know how else to say it. It makes me angry. I get angry because the possibility even exists, and that I have to be reminded of it every year. And if this whole thing is making me angry because of that bullshit-anniversarial-recurrent-past-whatever-it-is that my ninth birthday went by completely unnoticed, that seems downright maudlin and retarded and a self-centered pity party and why shouldn't I just get over it? I am a grown-ass man. I have grey hair, fer crissakes. I have an adult child whose job it is to forget my birthday just like I forget our Dad's birthday every year. (What is it - December 13th or 4th or something? I always get it confused with Sgt. Rock's birthday, and by the time I've sorted it out, both of their birthdays have passed and it's Baby Jesus' birthday, and God knows I can't fuck that one off or I'm doomed.)

So let me just leave that for the time being and get on to a cheerier topic, like the beating that you witnessed the other night.

Man. I don't even know what to say. Watching someone get beaten within an inch of their life is a hard thing to witness. It's even worse when it's a fight between two people that you've been close to for the past four years. As you know, I've studied agression and empathy a great deal, and I still don't know what to say about it other than I'm sorry it happened. I don't doubt you one bit when you tell me were it not for the intervention of several people, someone would've been beaten to death.

There are all kinds of things that I could tell you about aggression, like the fact that both the perpetrators and the victims of abusive violence sustain psychological damage from it. That still doesn't explain away the sickening mass that you have to digest when you witness these things, or the sheer helplessness you must've felt that night in the presence of a seemingly unquenchable force.

I know how it feels because I was the only kid in the family who didn't get hit. Growing up, I watched all my siblings take beatings - including you, of course - but I never got one. I've been in counseling for 25 years now. I must've gone through the whole "survivor's guilt" talk with a over a dozen counselors by now. While it makes intellectualizing the subject more comfortable, as Anthony Burgess once said, “The scientific approach to life is not really appropriate to states of visceral anguish”. That "sick" feeling never seems to go away, no matter how much I try to explain it to myself. I've written a paper and read thousands of pages on the subject of aggression, so I can tell you everything about the how of it. Although I'm a full grown man, I still have the cold stomach of a terrified child in the presence of that maddeningly unanswerable question of why.

Growing up, I remember hearing the phrase a right to be angry over and over again. I can understand a person feeling that they should not be denied the opportunity to express themselves. That's one thing. What I disagree with in that phrase is the idea of rights, which is a different issue entirely. Anger is a state of being, just like other emotional states. Logically speaking, right and entitlement have nothing to do with it. It's like saying that ice has a right to be ice. The concept of rights implies an entitlement to practice an ethic or carry out a certain action because it is morally or legally fitting. So if you have a right to be angry, then you can use that as an ethical basis for or defense of - hell, you name it. He made me angry, I have a right to be angry, my right entitles me to visit harm on the source of my anger, therefore I - beat my kid, kicked that guy's ass, killed dozens of unarmed civilians in an open field. I am acutely aware of the self-justifying properties of anger from both a cognitive and a neurological perspective. That's why I'm so careful with my own.

Man oh man, where does all this cheer come from? What merry little bird sings so sweetly within my soul as to produce these lilting phrases from mine own lips? I swear if I go on any further, this letter is going to become as dire as a Chekov comedy. "But wait. Here's the funny part: he dies."

Anyway, thanks for listening as usual. I know you don't drink much if at all, but one thing I'd like you to do in honor of my birthday if you would is to get drunk as a lord on several Ketel One 'n' cranberrys. Give 'em a twist of lime as well - which I believe would make them technically a Cape Codder. I'm quite a fan of the Cape Cod style of architecture. Likewise, I was once a world-class alcoholic who often dreamed of being drunk as a lord inside my very own 2-story Cape Cod dwelling, so I believe that would make a birthday libation in this style utterly appropriate.

Cheers - and I mean that - and give my best to Marie.

-Thaddeus

Happy Farter's Day!

How we practice Tough Love at the Gunn household.

Greg:

You are no doubt smitten by my waggish play on "Father's Day" in the title of this letter. My reasoning: what is more memorable about fathers than their boyish glee at All Things Digestive - to wit, bodily noises - and jokes thereabout? Who doesn't think of "father" without thinking of "Hey, c'mere 'n' pull my finger!" Who does not hear the word "father" without recalling such ribald classics of the comedy genre as "didjahearthewunnabout the lady water-skier who fell offa her skis an' got a medal in the hunnert-yard DOUCHE!? Har-hur-WHEEZE!" So yeah, Father's Day, the day when men all over the world are reminded to not grow up. If men actually grew up into men, what a tragedy that would be, no? Or if not no, then yes? Which is my point exactly. Wait for it. It'll come to you.

I am so drunk on sugar right now it's unbelievable. The pie in the commissary here at work has got to be at least 96.6% sugar. But as they say, the first rule of Pie Club is: nobody talks about Pie Club. So I shall shamefully continue to eat my pie in the dark while the room begins to spin, and I shall cry not for help, tho' the sugar-beasts torment me.

Which brings me to my son, without whom I would not be a father, but just some random strange guy who kept calling him to ask him how he was, if he was eating enough, and if for the Love of Baby-fawking-Jesus he was going to mow the fawking lawn before Henry-fawking-Morton-fawking-Stanley sticks his limey neck out of the boscage and doffs his fawking pith helmet at me. He makes me proud, the boy does, with his penchant for enterpreneurship, even though he's in the midst of learning some hard lessons at the moment. No one can fully fathom the capacity of the human soul for unmitigated feats of douchebaggery until one has gone into business for oneself and had a bad client. I know. I've had 'em. To use the words of a certain character from a certain movie, "they f*ck you and they f*ck you and just when you think it's over, that's when the real f*cking begins!" Not only do they cause you grief, they cost you thousands of dollars as well (but only thousands if you're lucky). I've been commiserating with him on the phone, reminding him that as much as he's been genuinely aggrieved, and as much as he'd like like to punch this guy squarely in the "c", punching people squarely in the "c" is specifically proscribed by the Revised Code of Washington. As satisfying as it may be, it will not get you your money. It may, on the other hand, get you a free stay at the Gray Bar Hotel, along with a complimentary Hoovering of your pockets. I must say this though - he's learning lessons at 18 that I was learning at 30. He's way ahead of any curve that I established.

And now I'm reminded that our own dear Dad was also inclined to the enterpreneureal, what with the gas station and the bed and breakfast business, of course with a little cash to fill in the cracks from Jesus, Inc. And you and the wife hanging out your shingle as Genuine Nevada Dirt Peddlers - there's some of that enterpreneureal DNA at work right there. Not to mention John and Tom's foray into the Peddling of Augmented Cognition as further evidence of genetic expression. Don't we have some innkeepers and storekeepers and enterprising boozehounds back there in Retford, Nottinghamshire as well? And didn't our ancestor Charles Ives sell insurance or some damn thing? So as I continue to wax nostalgio-patriarchal, it seems the boy has plucked a long and noble cord that runs back to the day our first Scottish ancestor pinched his first farthing, and I say weell doon, laddy. 'T'a'in't easy 't'all, but if you make it, the glory's all yours. And if not, well - I can still offer to hold his head while he pukes.

And now - drunk on sugar and nearly in an insulin coma - I will leave you with this short and pointless story. I went camping in The Most Beautiful Place On Earth last weekend. As you know, I am completely manic when it comes to coffee. So suffice it to say, I took great pains to transport a very exacting amount of my own special grind out into el quinto piño. Heaven forfend that I should miss out on my morning coffee. Me without morning coffee is a frightening prospect, even to a bear. So here I am, in the bosom of the wild wood, with my precisely measured, perfectly ground beans sitting in the bottom of my brand-new space-age (wide open) French press mug (with the top off)...and I'm watching the morning glow illuminate the long strands of moss and listening to the music of the mountain jays and the chipmunks and the tiny, tiny bears, and listening to the thudding of my contented heart...and apropos of nothing, I'm possessed by a completely stonerrific thought - hey man, I wonder what's written on the bottom of this mug? So I turn the mug over forthwith and pour the precious, precious coffee onto my foot. One word: fawk. Second word: retard.

All of nature and several hippies exploded in unbound mirth at my gaucherie. Fin. Credits.

Cheers, and give my best to Marie.

I Heart Satan

Waiter! Two glasses of Chardonnay, please - with
ample space between them!

Greg:

What the hell happened to all the decent Satan worshippers in the world? Seems to me that when we were young, there were scads of them. Remember in 1970 or so, right around the release of The Exorcist, how Satan-worshippers were piled up to the eaves of every house in suburbia? Or was that just in our neighborhood? Or was that just the formerly dry-as-emery-toast Episcopalians trying to drum up business during the charismatic movement?

Speaking of Satan, I was deeply saddened when my television informed me that the Masons - contrary to popular myth - are not cat-buggering Satan worshippers. (However, it seems that certain members of The Royal Navy are.) I had so hoped that they were. According to The History Channel, which in my household is also called The Unimpeachable Voice of Truth, the Masons are nothing of the sort. They were originally a sort of labor union, and then they morphed into a secret society of free-thinkers trying to avoid the ire of the church and the monarchy. Now they're a bunch of well-meaning, bespectacled old farts who couldn't even stab a tuna sandwich in fit of rage.

That's too bad. It would be weirdly comforting to me to know that events such as the invasion and occupation of Iraq were the handiwork of an evil, multinational cabal and not the result of the nexus of blind zeal and staggering incompetence. It would be so much nicer to believe that the NeoCons were genuinely pernicious and not just a bunch of dumbasses with really big guns.

I know what you're going to say. You're going to say that it's a thin-to-nonexistent line between ignorant and evil. Agreed - but! I say that if you're gonna be evil, don't do it by the default of your own ignorance. If you're gonna be evil in my dream world, I want you inverting pentagrams and slamming ham on the altar of St. Mark's Cathedral during a first communion celebration for deaf children. I want you to derive your wickedness from a pure source. I want you to drill down 'til you hit Beelzebub himself. Don't just get put into "office" in an "election" or be "appointed" by the "president". That's the "pussy way out". (FACT: quotation marks are actually a typeset representation of the Hex Against The Evil Eye, but NOT the International Mullet-Wearer's Salute, which is shockingly similar. So for instance, when you say pussy way out or any other quotationally-ensconced phrase, you must, by Washington State Law, make with The Sign already. FURTHER NOTE: making The Sign with one hand is perfectly legal and acceptable if one of your limbs has been lopped off and replaced with a hook or a chainsaw or a garage-door opener or something.)

I don't have much else to say on the subject of evil, so I'll leave you for now with this exhibit of journalistic evil. These two blurbs appeared exactly in this order on the front page of the online edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I crap you negative. You cannot make this stuff up.

Study: Millions have 'rage' disorder
CHICAGO -- To you, that angry, horn-blasting tailgater is suffering from road rage. But doctors have another name for it -- intermittent explosive disorder -- and a new study suggests it is far more common than they realized. Update · 2:00 p.m.

Man attempts to blow up house
A man apparently attempted to blow up his South Seattle home with natural gas after a standoff with police Sunday. Update · 12:02 p.m.

Cheers, and give my best to Marie.

-Thaddeus