The History Ace; and All About 'Blogs'

I tried best I could, but I couldn't hide from Feelgood Sockhanes forever. This Old Folks' Home is not all that big. I was tryin' to hide because I knowd he wanted to tell me about Lewis and Clark and their trip to Samoa. I had never heard of such a thing, but Feelgood knows every history ever histed, so he had to tell somebody. Ol' Hoss was it. Tagged.

Feelgood: "See, what happened was Lewis and Clark, bein' inquisitive types, boated to American Samoa in 1801. What they found there was a strait-laced society, not at all like that Free Love paradise what Margaret Mead wrote about."

Hoss: "So, they didn't get laid?"

Feelgood: "Hell, no! Lewis and Clark was as gay as a Maypole. You think they went from 1803 to 1806 without a piece a ass? They got so wrapped up in each other that Sally Hemmings had to invent the Oregon Trail."

(I breathe easy. At last, Feelgood has told me a true story. We learn all about the Oregon Trail in grade school.)

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Just before I fell sick, there seemed to be an incipient movement among us Internet writers to rid outselves of the word "blog." (Well, there were three of us. Enough for Musketeers. You ready for this, Athos?

So today is the last day you will see that fugly word on Old Horsetail's stationery. But what to call these missives? I don't know -- missive, maybe? Or letter, or account, or journal, or diary, or diatribe, or rant, or column?

When I was in the newspaper racket we did have columnists, but they seemed kind of bombastic, fulla hot air, tellin' people "Here's what's best for you, asshole." So I don't call my entries "columns," as I am not so much full of hot air as I am that other commodity you associate me with.

We also had people in the newspaper game who could write a "piece." These were prizes. A piece was reflective, passionate, an elegy, a eulogy, a picture painted with words, the human comedy, the kindly dog, the dog in heat too, I guess.

So in the hereinhereafter, Ol' Hoss will be writin' his piece, every day or two.

(Over at www.zombiepiefight.blogspot.com, the Zombie had something similar to say yesterday, April 7. He called blog "a smelly snatch of a word." And lots of people agreed with him in his comments. Maybe get something done, yet.)

Anyway, I get it over with. For the last time: BL-UGH.