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

The One Thing Big Oil Can't Beat

Killin' stuff has never been so fun!
Want your kids to grow up "green bonded"?
Get 'em the new Deer-Killin' Barbie!

Greg:

Hi, it's me, your dirt-hugging tree-licking brother. You and Marie sell dirt, right? ("Real estate", okay, whatever.) So I imagine you guys are out in the toolies every once in a while selling psuedo-ranches and mini-mansions to jodhpur-clad horse-weenies - people who consider themselves "outdoorsy" because they circumnavigated Lake Tahoe in their Escalade. Okay, so, tell me what you think of this. I was recently introduced to the term "green bonded" by a writer from The Mountaineers. In the piece I read, he posited that people who spend time in the outdoors become bonded to nature and the outdoors, and are thus more likely to back ecologically-minded legislation. Interesting thought, however I believe there needs to be an allowance made for the way in which you become bonded to the outdoors. For instance, do you become bonded to the outdoors through hiking and backpacking, or through chasing down pregnant caribou with a snowmobile?

I get catalogs from a whole slew of outdoors outfitters, among them REI and Cabelas, which is just like REI except that it's outdoor gear for people who like to kill stuff. Take both catalogs, put them side by side, and turn over the idea that both sets of folks are "green bonded". By the way, believe it or not, I don't have anything against hunting (except that I wouldn't do it). I do have a problem with leghold traps and high-powered rifles. I say that if you're of a mind to eat some deer, you oughtta at least be able to physically dominate it. At least be able to beat it at leg-wrestling. That's all I ask. Speaking of physical domination, certain Great Plains tribes used to get two guys to chase a deer down until it dropped from exhaustion, and then they'd hold a bag over its head until it smothered. (It can be done. Deer are built for short bursts of speed. If you get one boxed in between two Kenyan long-distance runners, the deer'll be sucking wind and crying uncle in no time.)

Which brings me to global warming (didja see how I did that - pulled a logical flea-flicker?), and how I hear the Big Oil is running a campaign to discredit my most beloved green-bonded tree-hugging brother, Al "Stiff As A Larch" Gore. Short story: Big Oil (or Greasy Bastards as I like to call them) is running some TV ads to say that the science behind Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" is turds. So yeah, they're fuckers. Not surprising. They think that people will just go "Oh - I see. It's turds. Lemme go back to flaming off this thirty-gallon barrel of sweet light crude I've got in the backyard."

Here's why this smear campaign will never work: COGNITIVE SCIENCE. The brain is really interested in self-preservation, so much so that it is impossible for any living thing to suppress its own startle response. S'a'fact. You can't do it no matter how much weed you smoke while watching "Gilligan's Island". Believe me, I've tried. As organisms, we're way into staying alive by way of staying alert. That's why news stories of danger and tragedy are so engaging and compelling to the human psyche. We believe that we have somehow avoided danger by being informed of it, even if it happened on the other side of the globe. Add to that the fact that every bit of weather we get is now underscored in common conversation by "because of global warming", and you have an indelible connection. Hurricane Katrina? Global warming. Floods in France? Global warming. Pizzlies invading Los Angeles? Global warming and photo op with Al Gore. So yeah, so Greasy Bastards, Inc., will spend all this money saying, "It's poop-science!" and then the next big storm we get (which will be about twenty minutes from...thousand one...thousand two...now) will completely erase from every human mind whatever Big Oil was blathering about. There is not a single goddamn thing anyone can do to stop humans from being afraid of the weather.

Don't get me wrong. That's a good thing. People should be afraid of the weather, considering how many people get killed by it every year. I believe that "green bonded" or no, folks who were otherwise uninterested in the outdoors will become keenly interested in the short-term future. For the first time in modern history, they will come to understand that their personal survival depends on that vast expanse outside their window.

I'd like to hear what you think of all that. Oh yeah! Totally off the subject, but only marginally related: a zero-energy home that doesn't look like a spaceship piloted by stinky hippies AND only costs a buck-two-ninety-five to build! Smoke that, Big Oil!

Cheers, and give my best to Marie.

-Thaddeus

My Sole Literary Ambition

Let's make some noise! Avant garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen
(pictured here, preparing to kill everyone) gets paid to
make music out of train wrecks and ostrich farts. Why can't I make a
living with my obsession?

Greg:

Got your message. Heard you were going to be out until Monday. What do you have to do that's so all-fired important that it's going to keep you away from the telephone for that long? Are you camping out for tickets to an Imax film about the history of the slide rule? Or is the Nevada Whores Orphan's Symphony mounting a retrospective of the works of Karlheinz Stockhausen? Whatever it is, I hope it brings you joy, and that you return to the telephone with your voice intact. I know how you like to shout yourself hoarse at Stockhausen concerts.

Which brings me to my next point which is things that bring me joy. Correction: "the" thing that brings me joy. It's just that yesterday while I was revising my profile to say "My sole literary ambition is to write these letters to my brother Greg", I realized that my sole literary ambition is to write these letters to my brother Greg. So it's the joy of self-actualization, one that you are keenly aware of being a musician and all. It seems that those who are aware of exactly what their self-actualizing gig is - the one thing that they do with their own hands that gives their life purpose, meaning and direction - are understandably the ones who feel the constant frustration of not being able to do just that one thing all the time.

Some folks might say that's just the way life is, that you don't just get to entertain your obsessions, artistic, scientific or otherwise. I say that's a load of hooey - you don't get to entertain your obsessions if you can't make money doing it. But this is America, dammit! There's a way to make money doing just about anything!

So what predicated my assertion of letter-writing as my sole literary ambition was a recent compliment I received from one of my co-workers. Patrick Kevin, a marketing - wizard? junkie? stylist? seargent? - anyway, he came into my office, apropos of nothing, and asked me in (what I took to be) abejct flabbergastration, "What are you doing here?!" At first I thought he was implying that I blew off a deadline by sitting on my hands or playing Frogger or something.

Clarification and amelioration: I do, at times, sit on my hands and/or play Frogger. I do not, however, blow deadlines. Why? Not because I have a good work ethic. Because I'm as neurotic as a hamster on meth, and believe that I'll be stricken with boils if I'm dilatory. This digression has been brought to you by GlaxoSmithKline, makers of both Dexedrine and Paxil.

So I says to him I says, "uhhhhhwwWWwhhhhuhhhh?" And he surprises me by telling me that he's been reading my blog and why am I not making big cash dollars writing screenplays or something instead of writing junk - excuse me, opt-in email when all the writing he sees out in the world can't touch mine with a three-meter pole and so on. I know that Patrick knows his way around good writing from our conversations. And I could see he was really serious about what he was saying by the way he was stirring the air in my office with his right arm and then his left, as though he were making peanut brittle and trying to make good and goddamn sure it didn't scorch before it reached the hard-ball stage. (That's a little confectionary insider joke.)

I have to tell you honestly, it was the best compliment I've received on my writing since PEN/Faulkner and National Book Award Winner T. Coraghessan Boyle called me "a fine and pithy writer who won't miss any more classes." (Emphasis: his.)

So anyway, yeah, that about made me stammer and blush. But it also made me think about why I'm not making big cash dollars writing screenplays. Then I remembered how I've already written six or so screenplays, ranging in quality from "sucky" to "unbelievably sucky" to "unforgivable", and that I really didn't like the whole film culture (oxymoron?) or writing screenplays. It also occurred to me that I might write a novel or something, but coming home mentally knackered after a hard day at the email factory left me precious little motivation to even press the start button on the TiVo, let alone coordinate the mammoth task of creating an ampersand by way of pressing the shift key.

Then I realized that the one thing that taps into a boundless well of desire to write is the simple thought of writing to you. There's nothing I'd rather do than gab to my brother Greg on paper every gol-durn day. Honestly, I can only - and do often - converse unceasingly with you on subjects as diverse as game theory, The Funkadelics, my cat's ass (aka The Brownstar), and the hubristic hegemony of the right wing. Watch, I'll prove it. I can say, "Fast and bulbous, The Mascara Snake!" And you'll automatically say, "Also a tin teardrop!" And I bet you even said it before you read that sentence. Why? Because you get it, and by extension, you get me. And there's nothing more affirming and comforting in this often confounding and heartbreaking life than being understood. It's the one time you're sure that you're alive.

Thanks for being my brother, and thanks for giving me a reason to write.

And if you enjoyed this, please send $75,000 and full medical coverage to my home address.

-Thaddeus

Jaco And The Corn Flakes Box

Greg:

I wanna tell the people who read your mail that one story about Jaco Pastorius. Hold on. I'll be right back. And try not to butt in!

Hey You Guys:

You may not know this about my brother Greg, but he has many talents other than being a genius inventor and loveable old crank. He is also a very talented musician and luthier, so he not only plays basses, he makes 'em, sometimes from the remains of old Chris Craft cabin cruisers, sometimes from fine endangered hardwoods, and sometimes from crap that's just laying around the house.

Take the time he made a bass with a Corn Flakes box for a pick guard. Way back in 1984, he had this piece of shite '62 Fender p-bass reissue that he wanted to turn into a fretless jazz bass. So he took a pair of needle nose pliers one day and yanked out all the frets and filled in the neck with plastic wood.

(Greg: Oh I did not! Me: Shut up! I'm telling the story!)

No, honestly the thing looked like hell. And it didn't have a pick guard. So he just up and cut the shape of one from a Corn Flakes box (those were MY Corn Flakes, by the way, you breakfast stealer!) and then just freakin' poured Verathane or whatever the hell it was all over it right there on the kitchen counter...and spilled some, too, thank you very much!

(Greg: I cleaned it up! Me: Like hell you did! You thought you could make it dry up by blasting it with my blowdryer - which died, thank you - and that didn't even work. So we had that gummy patch on the counter forever. And you guys over there, stop snickering about the blowdryer. It was the 80s. Men had blowdryers. And Greg, I never got my deposit back on that apartment, either. Greg: That's because our roommate Kelly burned the kitchen down. Me: Well, that's another story.)

So yeah, so now he's got this petrified Corn Flakes box cover that he screws to the beat-to-shit body and multifariously-pigmented neck of this Frankenstein of a bass of his. Then he put a different tail piece on it and some different pickups or whatever. Actually, he coulda put curb feelers, chrome spinners and ermine mud flaps on it for all I know. I don't know much about stringed instruments.

(Greg: I'll say. The only thing you can play is the stereo. Me: Shut up!)

Okay, so then he gets accepted to the Musician's Institute in Hollywood and goes down there and is all wowing 'em with his amazing musical prowess - and LO! Who should come to the Institute for a bass clinic but JACO PASTORIUS. Okay, a bunch of you in the front row are scratching your heads, so let me spell it out for you: Jaco is considered far and wide to be the greatest bass player who ever lived. No, seriously. 'S'a'fact. And so Jaco sees my brother over there playing his bass, going Bow-bikka-bow-bikka doodley oodleyoodleyoodley - bweeeewuuuwweeewuuuuh! on his FrankenBass, and he's all like, "Hey man, you're a pretty bitchen bass player, and that's a pretty freaked out bass you got there." And Greg's all, "Yeah I made it out of groceries that I stole from my brother."

(Greg: I did not! Me: Shut up! I'm telling the story! You wanna tell the story, go get your own blog, call it How My Brother Ruined My Jaco Pastorius Story dot Blogspot dom Com, and friggin' tell the story yourself. Greg: I'm going to punch a sheet of my stationery as hard as I can. Then I'm going to put it in an envelope and mail it to you. When it arrives, take the sheet of stationery out of the envelope and apply it to your nose.)

So then Jaco's all, "Hey man, can I play the FrankenBass?" And Greg's all, "For a dollar. PSYCHE!" And Jaco's all, "Check out your razor-sharp wit, man!" And then Greg's all, "Here you go, knock yourself out." And he hands Jaco the bass.

What happened next is history.

So then Jaco is like, "Hey man, that's the best bass I've ever played. Can I have it?" And Greg goes, "No." And Jaco's like, "Why?" And Greg goes, "That box of Corn Flakes was the last one that Kellogg's issued with the planar-geometric rooster illustration on the front. It's, like, priceless." So Jaco whips out a Sharpie and signs the pick guard. Later, Greg busts out some more Verathane and ruins another apartment when he laminates over Jaco's autograph.

The really sad part of the story is that although Jaco was a musical prodigy, had serious troubles with drugs and alcohol, not to mention mental illness. On September 17th, 1987, outside a club in Ft. Lauderdale, Jaco was beaten to death by a bouncer when he tried to get in without paying.

My brother Greg, on the other hand, came down with a strange illness that afflicted his hands. Now he can only play the bass and dial the telephone, but somehow inexplicably cannot answer correspondence. His hands just curl up like that witch's feet in The Wizard of Oz - you know, the one the house fell on - whenever he tries to pick up a pen. It's called gregorian hand-withering syndrome. And it must be stopped in our lifetime. Send donations to: GHWS, 40 Knucklebone Lane, Sho' 'Nuf, Shackabama, 24242.

(Greg: Retard. Me: Corn Flakes stealer. Greg: Tooth jockey. Me: Low-charisma. Greg: Mountebank.... )