Newsletter -- My Staff

It's nice to finally get back to the newsletter (and also blogging), after a few days off. I say "days off," when in fact it's been anything but.

Having a staff has turned into a mixed blessing, mostly bad, but fascinating nonetheless. I got four prisoners, paid pennies by the state, from the work release farm. The first mixed blessing is you have to sign your life away with the forms. I had to give assent to the official terms, that "Hiring said parties may result in death and dismemberment to the party of the first part," i.e., me. The way I look at it, I have a Savior, I'm ready to go if need be. Although, God forbid! -- am I right?

Still, anything to save money. Then there's the token lady. I never want to be accused of favoring male prisoners over law-abiding women. No, seriously, I love women; my Mom was a lady. But as you can imagine, it's a potent mix. Some of these characters act like they haven't learned the basic lessons of childhood, like "Don't stare." The lady seems to be taking it as a compliment, but it's making me uncomfortable as hell.

A lot of my time is spent trying to instill in these guys -- I'll call them what they are, losers -- a few of the basics of propriety and decency. Then, assuming we can get the preliminaries out of the way, we can buckle down and put out the best newsletter anyone's ever known! At the present moment I'm proposing a modest three-pager. Drill the guys for a few blurbs, if they're able to think of anything, and also open it up for the lady, if she has a recipe or make-up tip.

I probably should introduce them, Dashing Danny Whfrf, Spud Tuber, Stan "Tipsy" White, and the Cannibal. I already introduced the lady. Right away when we came together for our first editorial meeting I noticed a weird dynamic and addressed one key issue: "Keep your filthy hands off the lady. If anything happens beyond 'God bless you," you're out, back to the farm!" The first three were silent, making Cannibal's hissing and clawing at the air that much more unsettling.

That out of the way, I described my blog, my claim to fame, as a fairly well-known blog in the online world. Famous among the literati, glitterati, those into esoteric lore, as well as the entirely conventional. Everyone from your plain jane to your chocolatey gooey mess. These are my people! The unselfconscious vanilla milquetoast as well as those so far off the wall they're in the field.

The lady asked, "If you have such a successful blog why put out a newsletter?" I had to wonder if one of the prisoners coached her on such a coherent, insightful question, but they kept a completely blank expression, poker faced. "I want something more special for my readers, something that's exclusive for subscribers only." She had no comeback for that, the coaching obviously not extending to rejoinders, and still the guys weren't revealing anything. Cannibal munched playfully on the Potato Man's arm before he rose up and backhanded Cannibal across the room. It did my heart good; playfulness is good for community-building. Tipsy sipped on one of those tiny bottles of whiskey. Danny paid close attention, giving me the creepy feeling that he might be a usurper.

I've always been something of a people-watcher, so it did my heart good to see the dynamic going on. I take after my dad, who would often sit on the bench and watch people till he fell asleep. We would come along later and help him home and to bed, only to prop him up again on the bench the next day and leave. I really found out in those days how good people are. Thieves would come by and try to strip him of valuables, but passersby were great, so often coming to his aid and restoring his things.

We're getting close to Father's Day, so that's not a half bad memory. Might make the newsletter. Spruce it up, make us kids look better than we were, while keeping the "people are great" angle. You compliment people and they'll eat out of your hand. Meaning, another great article would be to compliment my readers. I love my readers. I'm reminded of a record/CD store I used to go to: "Through these doors pass the greatest people in the world." Then every CD had about five anti-theft devices on it, that's how good they were.

Keep your enemies close, your friends closer. And if you have an editorial team made up of prisoners, with a lady in the mix, keep them as close as can be, without them able to actually chew on you. Looking at the lady, though, a little harmless love nosh wouldn't be so terrible.

Excuse me. "Cannibal, that's close enough! Remember, the lady needs her personal space!"

Go Away, Dad, It's Still May

It seems like every year it gets worse, the encroachment of one holiday on another, and opening up the shopping season way too soon. You hear people crying out about it, complaining, and even picketing stores -- Who can forget the great anti-Christmas sit-in of July '74? But they still do it, the moneygrubbing stores, worshiping the Almighty Buck! If they had their way we'd have the tree up in April and Easter in October.

Of course I see it personally every year. I've gotten used to the cycle, and, being as easy-going as I am, for the most part I just shut it out. I expect to see Valentine's merchandise the day after Christmas, and that's that. And the fact that 99% of retail workers have to work Thanksgiving to get ready for Black Friday, I'm OK with that, just as long as they keep their end of the bargain, the promise to keep Thanksgiving some time in the last six months of the year.

But give 'em an inch and they'll take ... Mother's Day!?

Am I seriously supposed to believe what my fool eyes and my other fool senses are trying to tell me?! There better be some mistake here! Even Mother's Day is up for grabs!? Excuse me, this is too much -- cough cough, let me catch my breath... Good Christ in Heaven, is nothing sacred anymore? I saw it the last couple years but didn't say anything, because I was hoping my mom wouldn't notice, and I wouldn't have to explain it to her. But now that she's passed on, I'm taking the gloves off. As for her, I'm glad she didn't hear. I can only picture her rolling in her grave, had we not opted for cremation.

But it's true! There's no mistaking it. It's still May, and has been for some time, close to a month, and I saw it right away, Father's Day gifts out and for sale so early. Of course I don't personally have a dog in this fight, since my dad's also passed away, traditional burial. But I don't think it's a very nice thing to give Mom (the memory of mine and everyone else's still-living Moms) the short shrift. Screwing her once again, this time out of her day-month of recognition.

No doubt there's some lousy dads out there -- deadbeats -- who are OK with this. You have to guess that some of the moneygrubbing guys in retail are dads. Either out to line their pockets, or, to put an even worse spin on it, to totally diss their wives and girlfriends by whom they've had children. Dads, does that show real care for your wife and the various mothers of your children, that you can't even make their day-month special? You have to take it for yourself? I remember when men were men...

The gifts on display are plentiful, too, no shortage. We're not talking about what they do for St. Patrick's Day, which is to have a 10 x 10 foot area of green hats and necklaces in the middle of January. Far from it! There's entire sections of the store, large areas, devoted to things Dad would like: Slacks, shirts, ties, sporting goods, fishing supplies, hardware... Go right on down the line. Anything and everything Dad might like, they've got it, nothing missing, no holding back. Just blatantly ... right there ... in your face, bold as life.

It takes away the specialness of Mother's Day and Father's Day. You know what I think a good dad would want, the all-American red, white, and blue dad? For the store to clear away all those things that appeal to men. Just get rid of them, put them in storage the last week of April. Then keep May, the whole month, centered exclusively on Mothers. And then all the workers work overtime the last day of May, starting around 10 p.m., bringing Dad's stuff back on the floor. So that Dad gets June, the way he's supposed to.

Happy Horny Bastard's Day

I was walking downtown today with my old friend, The Imaginary Stud, .... [pause for his links]

The Imaginary Stud
The Imaginary Stud -- Something So Precious
The Imaginary Stud -- Johnny Peopleseed
The Imaginary Stud -- Your Biological Clock
The Imaginary Stud -- What's In A Name?

... when we saw a young woman lugging a big laundry basket of baby clothes up the sidewalk. He ducked in a doorway till she was out of sight. Then he says to me, "I haven't seen her for nine or ten months. I didn't even know she was expecting!"

I thought, "You horny bastard! That's all you're good for, eyeing all the ladies, then coming on to them, offering them drinks and a friendly smile, then it's off to your place or, more likely, the cheap motel on the north side of town! Love 'em and leave 'em, yep, that's your one goal in life!"

And really, when you think about it, that mostly what fathers are, or what they start out as, horny bastards. Which I say in the nicest way possible. Because they can't help it. The good Lord put it in our mind, thanks to His great system of evolution and natural selection, involving sexual reproduction, to scatter our seed far and wide, and wherever it lands, there it stays!

Life is the same all over, this planet anyway and probably the others. If you want to populate the place you could have 40 women and one man. That's why during hunting season you can shoot buck deer and cock pheasants, but not does or hens. Because deer and pheasants only need a few males, but a bunch of females. The same thing goes for bulls and boars, which is probably why these animals are so potent and heavy in the sack, because their lot in life is to be very busy.

Along with eating and killing enemies, horniness is the man's biggest drive. He can be 14, which means he's underage, although of course that's a socially-determined thing, or 90 and in the nursing home, and he will think he's gotta find a woman. Before the other guy! Whom he just might kill! Which might be why we have homosexual men. Nature's way of preserving someone thought to be non-threatening in case all the other men of the tribe get killed. Then he would step up to the task ... I know, I'm digging myself a big hole here, LOL.

It's hard to believe that evolution and the whole natural selection thing is still behind everything we do, but we're as primitive as ever, primitive meaning the same as nature made us. So dear old Dad, that balding guy with the pipe in his mouth, sitting on the easy chair, now with something of an old man's slump and a very bitter look, is still a horny bastard. He was a horny bastard when he was looking at Mom, all those years ago. And he'll be a horny bastard maybe to the day he dies, depending on certain things, like unless he completely loses his mind, or somehow he gets testicular cancer and has to have them removed, God forbid. At that point I don't know what happens next, and I hope I never find out...

Imagine how horny of a bastard he was back in the day. Mom was a teenage girl, a fox, and Dad was a teenage boy, a stud. Enough said. Then they had all the advantages you read about in sociology books: A mobile society, kids with cars, places to go to be away from the family, increased disposable income, an easier access to prophylactics, social upheaval after two world wars and the Depression, the questioning of religious strictures, and reading the racy Scarlet Letter in high school. It's a combustible mix, with the spark that sets it off being Dad's raging hormones, a seething and smoldering in his pants, and next thing you know Mom is lugging baby clothes out of the laundromat. (Editor's note: We will save an account of Mom's raging horniness for Mother's Day.)

The fact is, however, that a lot of men, unlike The Imaginary Stud, stick around and fulfill their responsibilities to the mother and his growing gang of rugrats. For that, we honor them on this greatest holiday in recognition of paternity, of horny bastards everywhere, Father's Day. Natural selection honors them, too. Their staying around protects their offspring, so they'll grow up and continue his line with horniness of their own.

NOTE: I notice a lot of my Facebook friends are wishing a Happy Father's Day to their horny old dads in Heaven. I'm afraid you are suffering from a little bit of ignorance, however innocent you may be. Father's Day in Heaven is not till October. Everything's pushed forward like that because Easter's a three-month long holiday in heaven. Jesus takes His Resurrection very seriously. Christmas is about the same, but with that at least we on Earth are catching up, starting in September.