China Will Never Be the Same, Thank Goodness

Hoo boy! Ol' Hoss, the oldest fart in The Old People's Home, is about to get even with the Chinese. I have an idea for Making My Pile that is so meritorious I'm surprised my buddy Bill Gates didn't think of it back when he was in knickers.

Y'all know of my detestation for the Chinese merchant class. They has stole Ol Hoss's money-making schemes time after time. Probably the biggest ripoff was of my bodice ripper, "Long Gone With the Wind and the Rain," published in this space back in February. That was the book that was going to become a movie that would win 13 Academy Awards until some China guy swiped it off the Internet and serialized it in the Beijing Evening News.

But now it is Hoss's turn to pounce. This scheme is so brilliant it will probably wind up givin' the U.S. a favorable balance of trade with China. That's how much money is in it: Billions. Maybe Octillions. Scan this picture careful-like. See that three-headed idol on the mantel? See those two sticks on the floor? See where I'm goin'?

Well, a course you don't, because you're still riding a one-speed and Hoss is leading the Tour de France. Anyway, those items are key to my latest swindle, which is Hoss Joss Sticks and Diddling of Asia. A joss stick is incense which is burned in front of a Chinese idol or shrine. A three-header is a big name in the idol game.

What a lot of Chinese do is burn their joss while they toss a couple of sticks in front of this idol guy, which is not unlike an American Idol judge on accounta it has a lot of talking heads. The sticks are flat on one side and rounded on the other. When a guy tosses them in the air and they both land flat side down, that represents Good Fortune. If one of the sticks lands flat side up, that represents Bad Luck. This isn't like Fortune Cookies, which sometimes can't be understood at all.

Here's the key: If the Bad Luck happens, the Chinese get hot under the collar, threaten their idol and sometimes burn it up.

Now then, because Oregon has so damn many trees, I can make three-headed idols and throwin' sticks till you got 'em comin' out the wazoo. And the Chinese will be burnin' my idols right regular, because I am gonna sell 'em loaded sticks. I will fix it so that one of these sticks never lands flat side down. So, poof! another three-headed idol goes up in smoke. And, sweet Jesus, they buy a new one from Ol' Hoss because he's got so much damn wood he can make these idols really cheapo.

There are 1.3 billion Chinese. I am such a damn good merchandiser (just look what Billy Bob Gates and Ol' Hoss has done with Microsoft XP), I expect to turn at least half of 'em on to Hoss Joss Sticks and the Diddle.

Oh, the joss incense stuff? Outsourced to Tibet.

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My favorite word today is incense. Vb., take care. Def.: What you don't want to do to Mother Nature if you're living in a double-wide in Florida.

Sort of Back in the Book Business

Last week I tried a couple of times to post that picture of the Oregon Sea Lion Caves, and it just didn't take. But I am a persistent cuss, so I've finally been able to get 'er done. I don't have room for it in this post, though, but if you click here at This Place you can see the picture. It's pretty nifty.

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The Smithsonian Institution is all over me like a tall dog. Folks there want me to donate my latest archaeological find, a missing piece of The Bible. See, on my last trip to Dallas, Texas, I was fumbling around in my treasure maps and I came across one that led me to an historical hotspot. There is where I found The Book of Hemp, which now has been designated as "The Grassy Knoll Scroll."

We all should have known there was a lost book of The Bible. In Numero Uno 4:12 it says, "The odds of getting high are very high, according to the Hempsters." I didn't check this quote but the Numbers guy was a pretty good oddsmaker so it makes sense. He also went on to describe the hemp, which looks like this.

And there are other biblical mentions. In Genesis 1:11 it says, "And God said, 'Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed.'" And there's Hosea 8:7, which sort of points to a disaster in Hemp World: "They sow the wind, And reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no bud."

Here is a selection from THE BOOK OF HEMP:

"1. Thou shalt grow thy hemp from seed to supply thy community with rope and paper. Shouldst thou needest to plant cannabis sativa (a.k.a. weed, reefer, mary jane, pot), so be it.

"2. Yea when thou hast an excess of leaf and bud, thou shalt use it rolled up like a fine panatella to alleviate nausea of pregnancy, reduce depression, treat diarrhea, ease the pain of carpal tunnel and do battle with senility. Thou shalt inhale deeply to ward off the puke.

"3. Shouldst thou engage overly in introspection, smoke thee thine hemp so thy life will not be seen as if in a dumpster.

"4. Note well thine hemp's contribution to economic well-being, for by the baking of brownies thus will the baking industry be glorified; by the making of bongs, thus will the glass industry be stabilized; by storing thine leftovers in baggies will the plastic industry become healthy once again; and grocers will become overjoyed to discover thou hast developed 'the munchies.'

"5. Be not deceived. If thou smokest thine hemp thou wilt be able to do all that thou normally do, but thou wilt recognizeth that it is not worth the effort."

(I don't know whether to sell this thing or give it to the Smithsonian and take the tax dodge. I'd prefer an outright sale for, say, 30 big pieces of silver.)

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My favorite word today is backbiter. N., nouveau riche. Def.: The guy who is rich because his grandparents developed land in the Florida Everglades who now opposes development of the Florida Everglades.

Here's My Another Pal

Here is the second of the two Internet writers to visit Ol' Hoss lately. This is
Vicki, who writes at OutsideIn over there in Michigan (in this photo, Vicki is the pretty one; usually I am the prettiest in these photos but I am outshined today). Vicki was accompanied by her husband, F.G., a peach of a prince. They showered Mr. and Mrs. Maudlin with gifts, for which we are mighty grateful.

Vicki is one of the bestest writers on the Internet, even better'n Ol' Hoss, if you can believe. Go see for yourself.

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Here in The Old Folks' Home, one of the main items of conversation is getting old, and how it pretty much sucks. We have taken a vote and decided how to know when you're getting past your prime:

--When you have time to stare at your reflection in the mirror and wonder what is the name of that little thing that hangs down in the back of your throat.*

--When you realize you haven't heard anybody talking in "Pig Latin" for over 50 years.**

--When you tell a joke you have just invented and nobody laughs.***

--When you make up words like "frapple" to describe that extra bulge in the buttocks.****

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From my buddy Oz down in Australia:

Do students of Zen Buddhism do Om-work?

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Here is the recruiting poster for Redneck Bubbas that the government wants to drop behind the lines of the Iraqi insurgents:

"It is always open season.
"There is no bag limit.
"They taste like chicken.
"They don't like country music, or Jesus.
"Some is queer.
"They are directly responsible for the death of Dale Earnhardt."

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My favorite word today is protogenius. Vb., laugh a minute. Def.: The morning-after rumination that you are really not very funny while drunk.

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* Uvula.
** But everybody has a Shizolator and Oxford Slang Dictionary.
*** Jokes are better when they're funny.
**** The name of this is sub-gluteal flapple, which translates as "fat ass."

Is This the Pathway to Riches?

Yesterday I told you about getting a visit from fellow Internet writer Tammy Boo of Maine, and later that day her friend Randy up in Washington State sent me this picture. Tammy is the one who looks like a girl.

I told her we had a lot in common, for the City of Portland, Oregon, was named in honor of the City of Portland, Maine. And Tammy said, "Zzzzzzzz." She laid on me a brace of Corona beers, and we toasted somebody, maybe Lizzie Borden. A grand time was had by all except for Randy, who had heard I was funny but found out that I only look funny.

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The Administrator of Our Social Security Bide-a-Wee has been going around making sure everybody has got a "living will." You know, one of those things that dole out all your worldly goods and all your body parts and tell people whether or not you want to be resuscitated if you get a bad case of yellow jaundice.

Ol' Hoss is well fixed in this department. I have instructed that I am to be cremated and THEN resuscitated in 50 or 60 years when the world is at peace and the doctors have got a cure for my gout. Of course, they will first have to get my ashes back from Halley's Comet.

Maybe I didn't tell you. I have finally decided (tentatively) to have my ashes shot into space on a cheap spaceship (think Burt Rutan) and dropped off on Old Halley. He can be got at pretty easy since his orbital is well charted. This has the benefit of providing my cremains with cold storage but no electricity is required. All I need is to leave a hefty deposit with my banker to pay for the space shipping.

Which brings me to a sure-fire way to Make My Pile. I have doped out that there is a lot of money in scalping. No, not some lousy World Series or Super Bowl tickets. That's for chumps. What I am thinking is the big money to be made at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).

See, what happens when you go out to get a driving test, or renew a title? You gotta Take A Number. And naturally every time you have had to take a number you get something like No. 58 when up on the wall it says, "Now serving No. 3." And, naturally, every time you say the same thing: "I don't have time for this nonsense shit."

This is where Ol' Hoss comes to the rescue. You see, first thing every morning Hoss is going to be first in line when the DMV opens. I will race in and grab all the numbers from 1 to 40. Then I will hunt up the poor suckers who have got No. 41 and No. 64 and so on and sell them one of my little numbers. Because time is money, I expect to get maybe $100 for No. 2, 3 and 4, and maybe a little less ($99?) for the rest.

Of course I will keep No. 1 for myself. I just might have to get somethin' renewed one of these days, and I hate to wait.

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My favorite word today is lucky stiff. N., no waiting. Def.: The guy at the DMV with a lower number than you have.

B**gger Has Been Hungry Lately

I have noticed that pretty often people complain that the B**gger service "ate" their posts. And it is always the best thing they have ever, ever written. These were pieces that Hemingway and Booth Tarkenton would have been proud to claim, probably. We will never know, of course, for they are gone with the wind and the rain. What's really too bad, though, is that B**gger didn't also eat their replacement posts. (Hoo boy! Hoss 1, Writers Who Got Ate 0).

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Yesterday in this space Feelgood Haines told us the history of pelvic crabs and sea lions (as I recall). And I ran a picture of the Oregon Sea Lion Caves. Only the picture was of something else. My guess is that B**gger ate my original picture and subbed a cartoon. Anyway, here is the thrilling picture of the Sea Lion Caves I meant to post yesterday. It's just a scenic, so you don't need to look at it if you don't want to. Instead, just take advantage of that little box up in the right-hand corner that says "Next Blog." That's what I'd do.

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I am being visited in droves by people who want to take a gander at the goose who writes in this place. (For those of you who don't know much about movin' cattle, "droves" is anything I say it is, and in this case it is two.)

I will tell you about the second of these in a few days after she sends me a picture. The first visitor was Tammy Boo, who is from Maine. She flew out to Washington State to visit an Iraq veteran with whom she has become acquainted, and noodled on down Interstate 5 to Salem to see Ol' Hoss, which was kind of her indeed.

Boo: "I wonder if you could give me an autograph."

Hoss: "Sure. What you want me to say?"

Boo: "To Tammy, with love, Elvis Presley."

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I am not here again today. I have guest posted over at Spazzymoto's Revenge. This site is run by a 33-year-old lass who has apilepsy and makes fun of herself about it. She asked me to bring the quality of her page down a couple of notches, which is what Ol' Hoss has done.

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My favorite word today is saintly. Adv., too good to be true. Def.: Carrying elephant shit in your pocket in hope that you will see a dung beetle in need of feeding.

The House Historian Strikes Again

Feelgood Haines, the history buff in our Old Folks' Home, has me trapped in the Fireside Room. It is 90 degrees outside but that's not warm enough for old bones, so we got the fireplace roarin'. It is, unhappily, not roarin' loud enough to drown out Feelgood Haines.

Feelgood: "I been meanin' to tell you: There's a place on the Oregon Coast called Heceta Head, which was named by some local historians for Don Bruno de Heceta, a Spanish fly merchant who sailed by in 1775. You didn't know that, did you?"

Hoss: "No, and my lumbago is killin' me, so see you later."

Feelgood: "Just get closer to the fire, there. Anyway, sometime in the 1960's somebody put up a resort over there and called it The Inn at Spanish Head. They was bein' cute, right? Naming their place after the bathroom on Don Bruno's boat."

Hoss: "Yeah, well, I think my mother is callin'."

Feelgood: "She can wait. The point is that Don Bruno wasn't a real mafia Don like you would expect because he didn't live close enough to Sicily. In fact, I think his folks grew olives, which is a pretty paintywaist industry. So as a result of bein' a pantywaist, Don Bruno failed to discover the Sea Lion Caves right there at Heceta Head." (Picture of Sea Lion Caves at left.)

Hoss: "I'm sure you're sure about this, but my cancer is flarin' up and I..."

Feelgood: "It'll keep. You gotta go sometime; might as well be after you are armed with a good story to tell St. Peter. So nowadays they charge almost $10 a head to ride the elevator from the Coast Highway down to Sea Lion Caves, where it stinks like holy hell. Heceta was lookin' for gold, and it was starin' him right in the face. All he had to do was invent an elevator and get those Indians to ride it up and down and he coulda made millions."

Hoss: "You know, I think I've got smallpox."

Feelgood: "We've all had that. So Heceta never landed in Oregon, but he did up in Washington State, and claimed land for the Spanish crown. But a course it did them no good. The phonies couldn't even hold onto California when push came to shove. But I guess they're winnin' anyway."

Hoss: (Suddenly interested) "How's that?"

Feelgood: "A Hispanic got hisself elected mayor of Los Angeles didn't he? Next thing you know, some bozo named Don Arnold de Schwarzenilla will be elected governor and the Iberians will start haulin' the California gold back to Spain again. So I feel sorry for those poor bastards in Washington because some relative of Bruno Heceta will be along soon with the title to Puget Sound. Washington folks will be wishin' ol' Don Bruno had stuck to showin' off sea lions when he had the chance."

(Later on that day, Feelgood sent me a bill for $100. Said it was his usual charge for giving people a good story to tell St. Pete.)

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My favorite word today is harpooned. Vb., it's always the way. Def.: When you find the combination to the lock you finally threw away last week.

So What About Huevos and Tequila?

Us male people in the Old and in the Way Home are being well treated these days. At night to give us hot chocolate to help us sleep, and Viagra to make sure we don't roll out of bed.

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Listen, I warned you the other day that I had a rant coming, and it's been boilin' up in my inside. Sosmetimes a guy has got to do to a guy who's got it coming. Well, it's not a guy; it's Mexico City's air quality. You would think, after all the warning they been getting, that they would give up their cars and start riding bicycles like the people in Los Angeles.

Look at this picture. See them arrows coming over the hills into Mexico City? Those are Mexican jumping beans which, once they get into town, turn into frijoles that cause all the farting that fills the air with methane. (If they wasn't Mexican jumping beans they couldn't get over the hills, so that's the why of that.)

Then there's their damn hot sauces, fired up with habanero and pequin chiles. People eat that shit and breathe fire, which ignites all the cardboard that's laying around waiting for somebody to build a house in Tijuana out of it. So there you get some more air pollution.

The cars they got in Mexico City are all 30-year-old Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs and Renaults. These cars is in such bad shape that they put out pollution even when they're not running. Lots of people in Texas has got rich selling Mexicans their junkers. They got more yard cars in Mexico than they got people.

The latest law they passed limits everybody to 57 breaths a day. This was an advertising payback to Heinz 57 Sauce, which moved all their factories to Mexico because President Fox said Heinz couldn't get the blacks to do the work. Heinz 57 is not a big seller in Mexico because it doesn't cause heartburn. So it's all brought to the U.S. in broken-down trucks because they want to spread the pollution around.

Don't think for a minute I am anti-Mexican. Listen, some of my best friends aren't Mexican. They aren't Texans, either.

I think the solution to the air quality problem down there is to move Mexico City to Florida so it can get washed up by one of them hurricanes. Clean their air right up.

I probably ought to get paid for comin' up with solutions like this, but, what the hell, this one is on me.

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When I did that piece about Tennessee over at Poop Happens, somebody said I forgot to mention Tennessee Williams, the playwright. Well, that wasn't an oversight. T. Williams never lived in Tennessee, although his dad did.

Tennessee Williams was a homo. He is not the first homo who never lived in Tennessee, and probably won't be the last. For instance, there is a lot of people in San Francisco who are not moving to Tennessee today.

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My favorite word today is hearing aid. N., $2,000 a pop. The thing that doesn't work when talk turns to moving mum into a nursing home.

More Stuff About a Good Ol' Boy

I read somewhere that people are starting to pay Internet writers (b**ggers) to promote their products or services. See, like if I could get paid for it, I would send you to Cuffs so you'd know where to buy your handcuffs and leg irons. Every family should have handcuffs and leg irons. In fact, if I got paid enough, I'd recommend you buy two sets in case your burglars or your sado-masochists are coming in pairs.

So far, this is not working too well. I am certainly willing to get paid, but nobody wants to pay me. So, get your handcuffs somewhere else, as far as I'm concerned.

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If you see this license plate anywhere, like in Florida or Texas or Macedonia, grab the guy behind the wheel and buy him a beer. You owe it to Ol' Hoss for providin' you with the continuing story of his life. Here are some more numbers as we continue toward "12,848 Things About Me."

87. I had to have my prostate removed on accounta I was getting the Arnold Palmer disease before he had it. Twelve days of catheter is not like 12 days of Christmas. With the profits from this trim job, my doctor bought hisself an SUV. Now the poor sucker is paying $2.40 a gallon for gas. The dipshit will have to cut twice as fast, now.

88. When I had my heart attack the doctor had to send a wand thingie up a leg artery to a spot near my neck that was fairly well clogged with hog fat. Then he did this angioplasty whatsit. I saw him a couple of weeks after I got out of the hospital and he asked if I had quit smoking. I said, "No." And he said, "Why am I not surprised?" I always vote against smart-ass doctors.

89. I quit smoking in March this year, though, because the alternative was to quit breathing altogether. This damn doctor told me you need to be able to breathe to smoke but if you smoke you can't breathe. I don't think there's a doctor alive that hasn't pissed me off.

90. In 1950 I worked on the railroad section gang for a lumber company in Bend, Ore. We would realign rail track and replace old ties. We were transported to work by a little powered railroad car called a speeder. There was hardly ever a better job because it was portal-to-portal -- our pay started when we got on the speeder and ended when we got back to the lumber mill. Everything in the old days is better than today.

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My favorite word today is surprise. N., son of a beach. Def.: The large pile of sand on the floor in front of the washing machine that your son swears was shaken from the beach blanket before it was stowed in the trunk.

It Takes a Lot of Bananas to Catch One Fish

Once again, I am not here today. I wrote a guest post for my buddy over at Poop Happens, so you can use the link in my Geriatric Ward to go see it. For one thing, that piece tells you why I am not homeless.

It wouldn't be right, though, to leave you without a ribtickler since you took the time to visit Ol' Hoss today. So here's a puny effort to get you started while you're hanging around the coffee pot at work.

I hope you like the catchy title for this piece. See, the other day I was complainin' about having to write titles for my stories and allowed as how maybe I should just tell everything under a catchall title. But my new buddy Karla sent me a few titles so now I'm all fixed up. The titles don't relate to anything I'm writin' about, but who cares?

The theme of my piece over at Poopie's site is education. I am damn good as a educator. For instance, I can tell your parents not to name you after a body part. See, that's what somebody did to this baseball pitcher playing for the Los Angeles/Anaheim Angels. His name is Bartolo Colon. Everybody tells him, "Oooo, too bad, Bartolo, ain't that the shits?" Then they giggle and go back in their holes.

Amd how about this headline in the New York Times: "Yankees Put Wang on Disabled List." My first thought was, well, sure, some poor sap got hisself one of those Cialis 36-hour hard-ons, and his wang ain't worth sour owlshit. (It later turned out they was talking about a Korean pitcher named Chief-Ming Wang, but still.... Just don't name your babies after penises.)

And don't name 'em after armpits, either.

The dodo bird has been extinct since 1681.

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My favorite phrase today is a bad spell. N., learning by rote. Def.: A road sign that says "No Truning" as if the sign painters intended to keep you alert to more than one possibility.

Why Do I Have to Have a Title?

This little business of writing pieces for the Internet gets onerous when you have to come up with a catchy title day after day. I guess the purpose of the title is to persuade somebody there's something interesting going on down below. There hardly ever is, no matter how much the title promises.

So, why not just have a standing title, something that says the same thing every day? If readers don't wanna scroll down to see what's what, tough bananas to them. I think I'll start this tomorrow with this title: Up yours mine.

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I've got a chance to go into the Demonstration Sign Business. You know, homemade-looking signs to protest this or damn that. My partner says the signs will be professionally made but will look like crap so's the TV will be sure to give us some play. This here is a sign that needs a little work on the spelling, but you know everybody will notice it just on accounta that. Pretty slick, I'd say.

(We used this sign to protest at the Mensa convention. Later on, I imagine we'll segue right over to a meeting of Bush's Cabinet, and then take our sign over to Tom Cruises's wedding.)

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One thing you don't see a lot of on Ol' Hoss's page is a rant. You go back and check my stuff and you'll find a total of one (1). That was about the government's treatment of Japanese citizens during World War II. I still get a little ass-burn when I think about it.

Anyway, I think I might be entitled to take off on somebody or something one of these days. Of course there are several subjects that are off-limits, such as war, religion, politics, sex, sports, books, movies, pyramids, pulmonary thrombosis and apples. I'm not a very deep thinker, so best I can figure is that this leaves me with just these topics to rant about:

Why shoelaces are too short
Why the Romans called their roads "iter"*
Why shorts tend to creep up your ass-crack
Air quality in Mexico City
Why the French have nothing to be smug about
Why listen to the mockingbird

If you got any good topics I haven't thought of (which I doubt you do, since I have now decided I am a pretty good thinker after all), send 'em in.

(* I think it was because iter works so good in crossword puzzles.)

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So Heather Heep called our Administrator here in the Olden Days Home and said she couldn't come to work on accounta she's got anal glaucoma.

Administrator: "What's that?"
Heather: "I can't see my ass coming to work today."

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My favorite word today is ameliorate. N., mixed blessing. Def.: When you are able to announce what Amelior ate for dinner.

(There's not a lot of call for this word. I guess because there aren't a lot of people named Amelior.)

I Am Somewhere Else Today

I am not here today. I was roped into being a guest poster person this one time only for
Melody Ann so I will be few of words on my own site. The good news is illustrated by this picture, which demonstrates a new line of work for Ol' Hoss -- sellin' braille magazines. I think I was born with a golden touch. Blind people is good clients as they can't see how much money you're taking out of their wallets.

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Here is a good line from my buddy Christine:

"Hypochondriacs get sick occasionally. Just not as often as they would like."

Go visit Christine. She's a pistol. She's writing "100 Reasons Why I Hate My Husband." Fortunately, her husband is a well worth hating. This is funny stuff, folks. Go browse for awhile.

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My favorite word today is suspicion. N., uses for a fingernail. Def.: A booger that is carefully examined before being discarded.

I Think I'll Teach You How to Write

My buddy Se7en put a Site Meter on my page on April 23 because I am a whore for comments. I think I was supposed to tootle my horn when I went to 10,000, but it got away from me. So anyway, here is "One Thumb Up or Down" for whomever is visitor No. ...let's see...um...12002, which might happen today. I DO love me some comments; they're always funnier than Ol' Hoss.

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Somebody emailed me and said Ol' Hoss shouldn't be referring to Ol' Hoss in the third person. Well, there is a decent explanation for this. See, I am one of the best writers ever borned, but I am so modest I can't just come right out and say that. So the next best thing to say is: "Ol' Hoss is one of the best writers ever borned." See the differments? Modesty prohibits me from making the claim, but it's okay if YOU say it. If this doesn't make sense, there is no hope for you.

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Somebody else wrote to say: "I don't get your writing style. You start out one place and wind up somewhere else far removed. This is confusing and ineffective."

WHAT THE HELL!!?? Hemingway and Obadiah and Karl Marx and all the good writers penned their stuff like that, and they sold lots a books. But I will leave it up to my readers. Below is a short story where Hoss struts his stuff. You get to vote on it, on a scale of one to ten, where one is "dreary" and ten is "shows no merit."

A SHORT STORY IN A FINE WRITING STYLE

"Bobby Fischer, once the world's chess champ, is crazy as a latent zookeeper but he has got hisself a nice home in Iceland. He got asylum because the asshole U.S. government wants to put him in jail for some ass-crack reason. Iceland has been visited by two Presidents, Nixon and Reagan. They never met Fischer because neither ever advanced much past checkers. Well, Nixon gave "the Checkers Speech," but that didn't help Fischer much.

"Iceland is where the world's first hydrogen filling station was developed. The little country also is full of geothermal sites, like in Yellowstone Park, which was made a National Park by Teddy Roosevelt. Yellowstone is pretty close to Glacier Park in Montana, where Ford has those buses powered by natural gas. Which is how you spell Reykjavik."

The voting starts now.

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My pal Lorraine has this friend who got an answer to his letter to a congressman:

"Mr. Lee XXXXX
"Grand Rapids, Michigan

"Dear Lee:

"Letter begins here.

"Sincerely,
"Vernon J. Ehlers
"Member of Congress"

The sonofabitch is speechless.

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My favorite word today is corner. N., looking good. Def.: A part of the eye used to avoid being blindsided.

Some of This, Some of That

In this, the "Summer of Compliments," I now insist you go visit my buddy Angie. Everybody who goes to her site agrees that she's one of the most interesting people we've ever run across. This is from her website:

"I married a geek I met on the net.
"And then we bought a farm.
"And then he bought me a cool car.
"And then he gave me a baby."

Angie will be giving birth in February next year. She's done it before, once as a surrogate mother. The story she told of that was one of the most moving I've ever experienced. Go see her. If you're lucky, maybe she'll favor you with one of her delightful recipes. Remember, I have never steered you wrong. Go.

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Yesterday I wrote how I could maybe Make My Pile by cornering the market on suspenders, which are going to be mandated for American boys so as to hoist their jeans to cover up their ass crack. The ink was hardly dry on my piece before Debi told me about the new form of ass-crack, seen here at left. Looks like somebody cut a hole in the lady's dress, don't it? What it is, is a pattern printed in the cloth. According to Moxie, the ass-crack pattern is all the rage in Japan. On Moxie's site are three more pictures like this one. Hoss is stunned. Here I am trying to cover up ass-crack in America and the Japanese are peddling it as high fashion. This means war. Tora! Tora! Tora!

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"For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press 3." --Alice Kahn.

And from Laura, one of my buddies down in Florida: "I made the mistake of looking up The Olive Garden in the garden section of the phone book."

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This cartoon is here simply because I need to get rid of it.

Well, maybe I forgot the rules. I guess what you're supposed to say when you don't have anything to write is: "Well, I guess I'll get some sleep now."

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My favorite word today is busted. N., your luggage went to Morocco. Def.: If your suitcase comes open on the carousel as you arrive home, your fecally-striped shorts will be on top.

The Schemer Works on Making His Pile

I sort of hate it (not really) when I beat you and my buddy Bill Gates to all the good money-making ideas. But, of course, you don't need money as bad as I do. Well, I guess Bill could stand to make a few more dollars, but still.

(One of these days somebody is going to Google "Bill Gates" and they're going to come to the site of Mr. Snake, and they're going to say, "What the fuck?")

If you have visited here before, you know of my need for money. It is called Ol' Hoss's never ending search, his unquenchable thirst, his baby-needs-a-new-pair-of-shoes crap-shoot to Make My Pile. See, it will cost a small fortune to have my body crated up and shipped to the Bikini Atoll. My plan is to have my corpse absorb all the radiation left over from the A-Bomb tests so the people who used to live there can go home.

"One small corpse of man, one giant gift to people wearing bikinis."

So the investment idea this time is Suspenders. You know how schools have got the right to make the kids wear uniforms? Well, if they can require uniforms, they can require suspenders. And the reason they should require suspenders is because us adults are damn sick and tired of looking at ass cracks. Look at this picture. You see any ass cracks? Well, if you go to your local junior high school you will see plenty. Kids wear their jeans so low they're on a continuous moon of the principal.

And then, look at THIS picture. Now I know these is women, but they're wearing suspenders on their hosiery, which is commendable. However, they are showing quite a bit of ass crack, so I don't know what to think about that. I DO know that up until about 1906 somebody was selling menstrual pad suspenders. Which had nothing to do with ass crack, I guess. I also know that the phrase "on the rag" was born of truth. Women needing menstrual pads used to make their own out of cotton rags. T-shirts that said "Save the Bloodwort" made the best rags.

The schools need to start requiring the kids to wear suspenders. So then when they try to push their jeans down to show their ass crack, the elastic in the suspenders will snap them jeans right up tight against their balls. Their ass-crack days are over.

Just as the requirement to wear suspenders comes into being, it will be a coincidence that Ol' Hoss has cornered the market on suspenders of all shape and form. Suspenders are so passe' today that all the patent leathers have expired, so I get the rights to manufacture braces for nothing. And if I can corner the market on suspenders for Junior, can breast suspenders for women be far behind? Let's hear it for improved cleavage.

All of this fine thinking should come as no surprise to anybody. What more could you expect from the guy all the people at The Old Folks' Home are calling "His Entrepreneurship?"

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My favorite word today is copping. Vb., dirty pool. Def.: The inadvertent fondling of a female breast as you make your way to your seat in a darkened theater.

Another Free Book on the Internet

(It just dawned on me: Why would anybody buy my book when I put the whole thing on the Internet? That makes it free, just like the Bible, to which my book has been favorably compared. Making My Pile is getting harder and harder. Well, anyway, let's get the sucker over with.)

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WEENY WHODUNITS AND OTHER YODA YOGA

(Synopsis: In Chapter 1, Frank Buck taught several elephants how to jump. In Chapter 2, the field of medicine took a step backward. In Chapter 3, several noteworthy things occurred but it's all pretty murky. In Chapter 4, several Canadians were strung up on barbed wire as a warning to stay in Mexico. Chapter 5 invented Walden Pond and bird watching.)

CHAPTER SIX

As the ants were not fighting today -- it was a holiday -- Hector McBuck Buck decided to give up the solitary life on Called Up Pond. Moss was growing on his north side; he knew he should have joined the Holy Rolling Stones Church but that would have made him less of a lone ranger, who was William Boyd. As Buck emerged from his cabin on the shores of Gitchegoomee, several woodpeckers took the moss for nesting material.

"Ah gotta me a woman get," said Hector and Yoda in unison. "Hector is the last Buck, and the Bucks stop here must not."

As the progeny of an incestuous relationship between retarded twin girls, Hector....

(See, the way it worked was, Fifty Buck turned out to be a lesbian, so that's how Two-Dolla Buck got pregnant. This is according to Dr. Jekyll and Dr. Ruth.)

As the progeny of an incestuous relationship between retarded twin girls, Hector was about as bright as an off-ox, but he was also ugly. Hector often wondered if this made him one of those disadvantaged people that get government grants. Never mind; he Googled one of those "single women looking to get laid today" sites, and entered his curriculum vitae and stuff.

Name: Hector McBuck Buck
Famous Relatives: Frank Buck, the Other Pearl Buck, Tarzan, Thoreau
Race: 10,000 Meters
Yoga Position: Cat-Cow Sequence
Occupation: I generally occupy the first shitter I come to.
Aim in Life: I try to avoid pissing on my shoes.
Female Type Preferred: Yes.

Nobody answered Hector's ad. Mr. Horsetail Snake and his buddy Bill Gates paid for Hector's cremation. It cost them big Bucks.

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My favorite word today is discombobulation. Adv., first sign of senility. Def.: Standing in the bedroom wondering why you went in there.

Take Courtney to Lunch; the Book's on Hold

Hey! You owe me, so I'm calling in your marker. Promise me you will go visit a 17-year-old writer named Courtney, who is an artist, a computer wizard, writer and movie-maker. Recently she went to South Korea with a school group to videotape the kids' chorus and she's got an interesting report and a batch of pictures about it. Show her some encouragement. She's the daughter of Jamie Dawn, one of my Internet buddies. Visit Jamie, too. Get with it, you weasels, or I'll be all over you like a tall dog.

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It has taken Ol' Hoss all day to get a push from George W., so as a result the death throes of my book, "Weeny Whodunits and Other Yoda Yoga," will not be in evidence until tomorrow. Be forewarned: It is a two-hanky tear-jerker.

I was reading some position papers by George W. this morning hoping for some enlightenment about the direction the country is taking. Hoo boy and boy howdy, the direction is splungth, an Old Serbian word meaning "up in the air."

"It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way." --Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005.

"We're looking forward to analyzing and working with legislation that will make it --it would hope -- put a free press's mind at ease that you're not being denied information you shouldn't see." --Washington, D.C., Aapril 14, 2005.

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There is a reason why Chapter Six will be the finale for "Weeny Whodunits." I have been advised by my publisher to wrap it up while it still has legs. (For you non-book writers, a book "has legs" if it has "a long run" with the public. I just made this up, probably.) See, the publisher is anxious for me to write some other books I've been briefing him on ever since the Nagasaki H-bomb created so many construction jobs. Here are some of the titles:

"War and Peas," a thinly disguised biography of the monk, Gregor Mendel, whose sugar snaps fueled the American Revolution.

"That Sucks," co-authored with Bill Clinton about the allure of Revlon Red on beefy lips.

"Vanity Hair," an expose' of how the one-eyed look made Veronica Lake a star.

"Vanity Shelf," a novella about woodworking in the 17th Century.

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My favorite word today is a-twitter. Vb., naked anxiety. Def.: Shifting from one foot to the other in a desperate attempt to forestall disaster because the boss is telling a joke that has interrupted your trip to the bathroom.

Das Book: My Cup Continue to Runneth

(Synopsis: Chapter 1 might have detailed the early friendship between Teddy Roosevelt and Frank Buck. Chapter 2 explained why it is preferable to take deep breaths rather than being stepped on by an elephant. Chapter 3 was made up entirely of clefs, codas, and 16th notes that peppered the music of John Phillip Sousa. Chapter 4 detailed the life of a boy whose middle name did not lend itself to chicken jokes.)

CHAPTER FIVE

This is the life story of a tree: It grew up, the logger logged it, the bucker* bucked it, the choker setter** choked it, the whistle punk*** whistled, the skidder**** skidded it to the landing and the loader loaded it. The trucker took it to a lumber mill. The mill cut it into pieces called wood. A builder made it into a house. The house was destroyed by termites.*****

The story did not fit well with Hector McBuck Buck, only child of Fifty and Two-Dolla Buck, the twins born to Buck Leroy Buck. Twins ordinarily don't marry, except in West Virginia. Fifty Buck herself performed the rites since she had been ordained by the Universal Life Church, as has everybody else.

It was on a calm and stormy night that Hector McBuck Buck had a vision. "I have been called upon to save trees from termites and other bestiality....Oh, my! What I just said! It is so portentous: 'called upon.'"

Thus was born "Called Up Pond." An idyllic retreat once occupied by a gentleman named Thorough, it was from there that Hector wrote epistles against the savaging of trees by termites, gypsy moths, West Nile virus and gonorrhea. Here is the content of one of Hector's pieces on "The Blog From Called Up Pond":

"When I awoke this morning I didn't know whether to shit or go blind, so I closed one eye and farted. Breakfast was Pop Tarts and cold coffee. The electricity is not out; we never had any.

"I slept well. Nothing much to write about again today, but I sure appreciate your comments, so keep 'em coming, kids. Oh, I did kill two carpenter ants yesterday.

"I guess this is a pretty good piece today after all. Yoda said I should up the flagpole run it and salute if anybody sees."

* Cutting limbs off the tree, and cutting the tree into segments.
** Setting a cable around one end of the tree.
*** The "punk" whistles to warn workers that a tree is about to be moved.
**** A tractor that drags the tree to the landing.
***** A bug smaller than a bread box.

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My favorite word today is downleg. N., law of gravity. Def.: A guy's pee that doesn't get into the urinal.

Das Book, the Continuing Saga

(Synopsis: In earlier chapters we found Frank Buck heavily ensconced in the elephant parts business. Would-be doctors were shoving ice cubes up their patients butts, and Tarzan invented the zebra. Frank Buck died in 1950 after helping out John Phillip Sousa with some march tunes. Pearl Buck died a few minutes after 1950.)


CHAPTER FOUR

The lone progeny of Frank and Pearl Buck was a boy named Buck. Buck Buck, actually. Childhood friends nicknamed him "Chicken" because they found if they said "Buck Buck" in falsetto it would sound like a Rhode Island Red on the peck. His middle name was Leroy, but since that didn't lend itself to sounding like a chicken, or even a mongoose, it fell into disuse.

Since Frank Buck had seen to the creation of the Dallas Zoo, it was only natural that Buck Buck became a barbed wire salesman. He only did it because it lent itself so well to a Texas accent: "bobbed w'ahr," he would say to Bostonians, who hardly ever ordered any.

Buck became the leading exponent of double twisted yin-yang bobbed w'ahr, and soon had thrown it up all along the Rio Grande to deter Canadian wetbacks. He was designated a Texas Ranger after proving, according to Yoda, "that no Canadians the U.S. border from Mexico illegally crossed."

He worked hard to replace string with bobbed w'ahr, but came up empty when string was replaced by Scotch tape and Sticky Notes. He did manage to get some of his yin-yang w'ahr used as the tape at the finish line for the 100-meter dash at the 1992 Olympics. He took full responsibility for the ensuing carnage by cancelling his bill.

"Crackerjack salesman," admirers would call Buck Buck. So, in his retirement, Buck Leroy Buck sold Crackerjacks at the Houston Astros baseball stadium, after first removing the prize. He liked to see small children hit on their daddies when they found no prize in their Crackerjacks, and no joy in Mudville.

Buck Buck was married in 1947 to Ten Broek, who then became Ten Buck. She bore twins, naming them Fifty and Two-Dolla.

The twins entered the elephant parts business in 1988 after successfully developing the world's first elephant feedlot in Omaha. They also managed free-range elephants on Ted Turner's property in Montana. Parts from there were more expensive but this mattered not to environmentalists, who will pay any price to give elephants and windmills a home on the range, which was Roy Rogers's favorite song but not as popular as Gene Autry's "Back in the Saddle Again."

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Courtesy of OzGuru my favorite word today is suburbia. N., New York City slang. Def.: Where they tear out the trees and name streets after them.

Das Book: The Bucks Stop Here

WEENY WHODUNITS AND OTHER YODA YOGA

(Synopsis: In Chapter 1 we found Frank "Bring 'Em Back Dead or Alive" Buck involved in the elephant parts business in a big way. Frank is being helped by his wife, Pearl Buck, who is the other Pearl Buck, as you shall see, not the one you're thinking of. In Chapter 2, we found ourselves doing deep breathing exercises for no particular reason.)

CHAPTER THREE

Frank "Bring 'Em, etc." Buck was responsible for bringing to the United States thousands of animals from places like Calcutta, India, and Jungle Jim, Brazil. Some of his work included bringing here for the first time such oddities as the elephant pouch (left), the nutria and the banana slug, for which he is rightfully over-appreciated.

In 1935, some 150 rhesus monkeys he had taken to the Chicago World's Fair escaped. This frightened Mrs. O'Leary's replacement cow, causing Lake Michigan.

Frank's wife, Pearl, was not THAT Pearl Buck. THAT Pearl Buck was a lot younger than Frank Buck and besides that she lived most of the time in China and Frank didn't go there much as he had no interest in Giant Pandas. The "famous" Pearl Buck wrote The Good Earth about her time in China. Most of the good earth she wrote about is now under water behind the Three Gorges Dam.

Frank "Bring 'Em Back etc." Buck's most famous trips were the result of assignments to bring back rare animals from Africa. The Chicago Zoo asked him to go to Africa to bring back a rare hornless rhinoceros. Frank hacked his way through the jungle and finally found a guy named Tarzan who was hybridizing, or swinging from, grape vines (this was never made clear). This Tarzan was painting on a strange horse. He seemed to be painting white stripes on a black horse, or black stripes on a white horse, or black and white stripes on a clear horse. Frank said to Tarzan, "You see-'um any hornless rhino anywhere, Chief?"

Tarzan said, "You don't need to talk pidgin to me, buster. I be vanilla, just like you. Anyway, there yonder is the animal you seek-'um."

So Frank collected the rhino, collected his commission, and was promptly hired again and again. He was asked to bring back a short-neck giraffe and a trunkless elephant. Both times he sought help from Tarzan, who, though busy painting stripes on horses, was glad to assist.

Frank Buck died in 1950, not long after writing the famous march music, "Tarzan Stripes Forever."

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My favorite word today is loser. N., of femininity. Def.: The girl who married the guy you dumped.

The Unga Clan + More Weeny Whodunits

This is in keeping with my promise to expand the Word Whiz's "Summer of Compliments" and tell you about some of the people in my Geriatric Ward. See, what happened is I stepped into a whole nest of the little buggers. I got about 60 people on my b**groll, and four of them are from one family. Go visit these people.

The matriarch is young Unga Chunga, who got roped into writin' Internet pieces by a daughter. And what she does is open up her heart and let scintillating words fall out. Unga was once in a convent, but I think she gave it up for Lent. She "gave voice" to the clan -- all three of her daughters are excellent singers. And she herself will be appearing with the Alexandria, Va., Singers July 9-10, singing Broadway show tunes.

The first to become an Internet princess was niece Meredith, who is in Pennsylvania but is moving to Okinawa on accounta her husband is a U.S. Marine. This lady is an excellent writer, amusing and sincere. She gave birth to Eli five months ago and is looking for advice on how to raise him. (Oh God, she'll kill me!! No she isn't!!!)

One of my best pals is MommaK, the first of three daughters of Unga Chunga. Momma is a fine writer with a fine mind and a Mary Martin voice box (she was Maria in "Sound of Music" in the 8th grade). She lives close enough to Mom in Virginia to swim in her pool now and then. MommaK is a Household CEO with four kids, a mutt named Kasey and a Great Dane named Lillian. (Odd, I know the names of the dogs but not the names of the children. Pay attention, Hoss.)

The other writer in the family is the newest, CowgirlUP, who also has golden pipes, good enough to sing professionally if she wanted. She's the No. 3 daughter of Unga Chunga. She lives in Maryland but is moving to Nashville to go to school in hopes of becoming (as I understand it) a music producer. She loves country music, which means Hoss is in love with the Cowgirl because that's also his favorite. She bleeds enthusiasm; you'll love her too.

Unga Chunga's second daughter, AM, is no devotee of the Internet b**gworld. Get cracking, AM.

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WEENY WHODUNITS AND OTHER YODA YOGA

(Synopsis: In Chapter 1, the estimable Frank Buck is on the verge of a great financial triumph via the buying and selling of elephant parts. We were introduced to his wife Pearl, who has big parts in this book that are not quite worth calling "cameo" appearances.)

CHAPTER TWO

In medical school, one of the first things medicos-in-training are taught is how to get people to take a deep breath. All too often, they are told, patients have to be bitch-slapped because they breathe so shallowly. Bitch-slapping is not good for doctor-patient relations, however, so other methods of obtaining the deep breath are often employed.

For instance, males can be encouraged to take a deep breath if you shove something up their ass, like a poker or an ice cube. Women will gasp inwardly at the sight of a manly wang, so most doctors-in-training today are buying appendage enhancement tools on eBay. Another way to get patients to gasp inwardly is to have an elephant step on their toes.*

Some patients can be coaxed into taking a deep breath by being told how good they will feel when they exhale. Those who do this well are given one of those gowns that tie in the back but that no male in history has ever been able to tie in back. If a guy isn't told early in life how to tie aprons he will be lost when it comes to hospital gowns.

This is about all the instruction on deep breathing that would-be doctors get, because they have to spend a lot of time learning how to take out gall bladders. There is big money in taking out gall bladders. And from there it is only a short trip to taking out spleens, appendixes and half the kidneys. There is big money in taking excess parts out of humans, just like there is in taking parts out of elephants.*

(* This is an author's device to protect against the possibility that the entire book will be about elephants.)

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My favorite word today is enigma. Vb., to confound the masses. Def.: Division of the restaurant check into unmanageable segments when one person in the party of five announces she did not have dessert.

Das Book

Well, Ol' Hoss does not make empty threats. When he says he can write a book, he will. But he has bowed to popular demand, and has amended the title.

WEENY WHODUNITS AND OTHER YODA YOGA

-- A Book by Mr. Horsetail Snake

CHAPTER ONE

It was a dark and stormy night when Frank "Bring 'Em Back Dead or Alive" Buck had his epiphany. "Elephants," he mused, pawing the air where his beard used to be, "have two tusks, but they have FOUR legs. All these years we have been throwing out the baby with the sauna water."

What Frank realized was that elephants were good for something other than growing tusks for the Asian aphrodisiac bodega and the Nigerian piano keys Saturday market. Elephant ears could be made into giant fans to keep the Saudi harems cool as a burpless cucumber, or sold as confections at county fairs. Elephant tails could be made into dusters for use in Old Folks' Homes where people are allergic to feathers. Elephant skin would come in handy for covering furniture, according to Buck's friend Yoda, given that "almost all of the world's naugas their hydes have given up already."

But the meat of the Imogene Coca nut lay in the elephant stem-bones. Elephant legs can be made into chairs and umbrella stands. Instead of using the nation's oak forests for making chairs, the oaks could be used in construction of croquet sets, for which is there is unusually heavy demand. Women owning an elephant leg umbrella stand would delight in coloring the toenails, and Revlon stock would hit a new high. Elephant legs could be bronzed and set outside Frank Lloyd Wright Houses as sort of an afterthought.

Pearl Schmuck Buck, Frank's wife, interrupted his thought of train. "I know what you're thinking. But you have a raw materials problem. See, the elephants are using their bodies for other purposes, none of which involve being made into umbrella stands."

Imperturbable, Frank replied, "They shoot horses, don't they?"

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My favorite word today is parthenogenesis. N., sex-related. Def.: The only long word you know, but which you have been unable to work into a conversation.

Hoss Gears Up to Write His Book

My buddy Whizzer has started something very nice: She has begun a "Summer of Compliments," in which she extolls the virtues of various Internet writers she visits. That is such a whale of an idea I am going to be stealing it. (And "Whizzer" is NOT short for bathroom humor. The name is because she is such a whiz, as in ex-Supreme Court Justice Whizzer White, who was an All-American football player.)

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I have decided the way to get rich is to write a best-selling book. I know quite a few people (1) who write pieces on the Internet who have made it big. As you are well aware, I need to raise lots of money in a huge stack to be able to finance my lavish funeral and my comeback reincarnatin'-wise. Writing of a book is called The Means Whereby Hoss Will Make My Pile.

Several friends have discouraged me from writing a book, noting that the last book I wrote was swiped right off the Internet by some Chinese robber barons. I think I'll chance it, though, because the number of hits this site has been getting from China has dropped considerably ever since I started using bigger words, like lachrymose.

The Chinese don't know jack shit about humor, anyway. If they did they'd be stealing right and left from my buddy Esther over at Topic Drift. The Chinese ARE funny, though. The last do-it-yourself kit I got from there advised "connect Part A to Part B unless in Ascuncion, in which case counter-clockwise."

The key to selling books is to have a snappy title. Now, you take a book like "Tropic of Cancer." It wasn't about cancer at all, but it sold well because people are always interested in Reader's Digest-type stories about "My Most Unforgettable Tumor." Or, you take "Forever Amber." This sold to zoology doctoral candidates because they thought it was that kind of amber that solidifies around ancient insects. It also sold to voyeurs.

So, the title to my book is Weenie Whodunits and Other Yoga. See, right there I got all three elements required for a best-seller these days: Sex, Crime and Exercise. I don't know much about any of those things, but I expect to learn as I go along, although I doubt the book will have much sex, crime or exercise tips. I ain't interested in content, I am interested in sales.

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My favorite word today is spackle. N., a la carte. Def.: The bits of food caught in a mustache that hangs over the upper lip, to the annoyance of one's dining companions.

My Life in Imagery

I see some other Internet writers are playing with this concept. It's where you tell a little about yourself through the use of pictures from Google Images. What you do is ask yourself a series of personal questions, then type in the answers on the page for Google Images. There you will get a selection of pictures to steal. Let's see if it works.

My name is







Where I grew up







Where I live now




My favorite color



My favorite animal












My favorite smell









My candidate for President, Maxine Knowsall

















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My favorite word today is mystery. N., howcome? Def.: Where the door marked "in" pulls "out."

The Newsletter Is Bad News

Here at the Home for the Halt and the Lame we get a monthly newsletter. It is driving me nuts. See, as a former journalist I know something about spelling and shit. This newsletter is trying to dumb me down. It reports, for instance, that "the book mobil" will be here soon. It offers "congradulations" to the bingo contest winner.

Do you know what this is: '? That's one of those things alerting you that an "s" is coming up at the end of a word. The newsletter advises us that "...X say's she loves her home here..." and that "What we love most about X is how she alway's goes out of her way..."

Boy howdy. That kind of stuff hack's me off. I get really cros's.

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Lately I have stumbled across some writing that deserves your attention because it is so visual, visceral, vital or otherwise mind-bending.

Word Shadows writes: "The considerate yardworker digs even the most ordinary holes after nightfall, so that on those occasions when he isn't burying a body his neighbors will have something to talk about."

Ozguru provides:
"Don't lose your head
To gain a minute.
You need your head,
Your brains are in it." --Burma Shave.

My buddy Shane, reporting the worried words of a friend of his who is in Africa: "I wouldn't want to end up in some brief encounter situation Congolese jail style with me desperately flicking through my phrase book lookin' for 'Please no, prettier men will be along soon.'"

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So this guy and his wife are working in the garden, and the guy says, "Geez, your ass has gotten really big. I bet it's bigger than the barbecue." He measures and says, "Yep, your ass is two inches wider than the Weber."

That night, feeling frisky, the gardener tries to jump his wife. She says, "No way am I firing up this big ass barbecue to heat a little weeny like that."

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How smart you? Go to IQ Test to find out.

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My favorite word today is insanity. Vb., fruitless. Def.: Looking for the remote in all the places you have already looked.

Celebrating 27,302 Days on Earth

From the minutes of The Old Folks' Home Resident Council meeting:

"Residents want a flag to be outside the building, and also one in the dinning (sic) room."

So here is the flag we are flying at The Old Depends Home.

Sadie Loveseat to Administrator: "What the hell is that?"

Administrator: "That is a flag. You requested we fly a flag, so we followed up."

Sadie: "That's a goddam flag of Cuba."

Administrator: "You didn't say you wanted an American flag. Cuban flags were on sale. So shut up."

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Yesterday I mentioned something about my birthday, and somebody said when is it. Well here's the tragic tale:

86 (the number, so far, of the 15,878 things I am telling you about myself). I was born at 2 a.m. Oct. 2, 1930. My birthday is Oct. 1. See, all my life my Mom told me I was born on Oct. 2, so that's what I always used, and the date I got on my Social Security records. Howsomeever, the delivery doctor had been up all night deliverin' kids and he was still on October 1, mentally. So that's what he put on my birth certificate. I only found this out about 14 years ago, when I inherited the certificate. But it doesn't matter, because I can celebrate my birthday any day I want. Nobody said I couldn't.

It turns out that I am now 27,302 days old. I found this out not by doing the math but by asking at This Place. This is an interesting little site, which I got from Chris Cope. It tells you how many days, weeks or months of age you are, the day of the week on which you were born, your astrological sign and your "Life Path" number. It turns out that my Life Path number is 6, and all this time I thought it was 5. So I am requesting a life do-over.

87. In my junior and senior years of high school I had the male lead in our class plays. This is because I only weighed 129 pounds and couldn't make the football team. Since I was the only boy who couldn't make the football team I was drafted as an actor. This has worked out pretty good. Ever since then I have been pretending to know what I'm doing.

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My favorite word today is shit! N., do-overs. Def.: After lengthy handshakes, hugs, kisses and goodbyes with all at the party, you leave the house only to discover you have left your purse behind.

Having Dinner With Abe Lincoln

My buddy Cheryl "Mags" has played tag on me. This is a pretty good meme, inasmuch as I didn't get bored with it nearly as fast as usual. Here are the things Maggie asked, and my insipid responses:

What were three of the stupidest things you have done in your life?

1. Marriage No. 1. It was okay to legalize the sex, but there ARE some other things, like compatability on finances, recreational interests, and education. I was too young for this shit.
2. Marriage No. 2. Do not buy into a two-for-one marriage. If your mate comes accompanied by a Mother Who Rules in All Things Important, do your Claude Rains invisible man trick.
3. I have never done anything stupid.

At the current moment, who has the most influence in your life?

I disrespect George W. Bush just as much as you do.

If you were given a time machine that functioned, and you were allowed to only pick up to five people to dine with, whom would you pick?

Here are my five, and the questions I would have:
Jesus: "You were a carpenter. Do you prefer mortise and tenon, or nails?"
Abraham Lincoln: "Is it true Mary was nuts?"
Clark Gable: "Did you use Wrigley's Spearmint or Topps Bubble Gum to pin back your ears?"
Leonard Da Vinci: "You invented a helicopter but missed out on the Frisbee. Does this make you sad?"
Christopher Columbus: "How much truth is there to this popular song?
.....Columbo had a cabin boy, this boy's name was Ripper.
.....He filled his ass
.....With broken glass
.....And circumcised the skipper."

If you had 3 wishes that were not supernatural, what would they be?

1. A cure for my wife's disease. You do that one, and you can have the other two.

Someone is visiting your hometown. Name two things you regret your city not having, and two things people should avoid.

Regrets: 1. I regret we don't have any glaciers. 2. I regret that somebody killed all of our oreodonts.
Avoid: 1. Avoid hotels that don't launder the wet spots. 2. Avoid hard luck stories by our local Nigerians.

Name one event that changed your life.

That would have to be my becoming buddies with Bill Gates. I have often written about this. So far, Bill has not been good about remembering my birthday.

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My favorite word today is escapism. Vb., nobody's home. Def.: Hiding in the kitchen when the Jehovah's Witnesses come to the door.

It's Always All About Me

Well, I guess I lied. I told you I looked a lot like Marilyn Monroe, but I forgot she had long hair. I also told you I looked a lot like Nefertiti, but I forgot I don't look good in profile. I also told you I am really pretty. I guess you now know that that was the biggest lie of all. Instead, I am really handsome, sort of a cross between Robert Redford and Pierce Brosnan.

My grandson saw this picture and he said, "Hey, Mom, look. It's Elephant Man." I don't know what he meant, but I guess the Elephant Man was some pretty good looker. So, ladies, I hope you didn't fall on anything sharp when you swooned.

By the way, if I should ever say something like, "Come see me if you're ever in Salem," this is not an invitation. I would just say that to make you feel wanted.

In the interest of making this post entirely one-sided, here are some more of the 11,878 things about why I am so wonderful:

82. I have a miniature bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey that was given to me in 1974 by a friend. He wrote on the label: "Save this for the good times ahead." 1974 was my last good year, so I still have it. Maybe there will be some good times next year.

83. In 1942 I had a newspaper route delivering to Camp Abbott, south of Bend, Oregon, which was training grounds for soldiers fixin' to go to war. I sold papers to the dogfaces for .05 cents each. One day on leaving camp I took the wrong road, and walked two miles looking for my ride. I got picked up by some strangers and delivered home, in tears. They didn't mug me for my nickels.

84. Oregon has some geothermal sites. A lot of people in Klamath Falls heat their homes with hot water from underground. At Lakeview there is a place called Hunter's Lodge, which has a perpetual, small, geyser. I once stayed at Hunter's Lodge so I could watch the geyser. It gets pretty boring after about 10 minutes. Fortunately they also had a bar.

85. In the 1960's I would take my chain saw and pickup truck out into the woods to cut firewood. A friend had 50 acres of oak and fir; he let me cut oak, not fir. One day in the rain my pickup slid backward into a fir tree and I couldn't get unstuck. So I cut the offending fir tree at ground level, bucked it up, loaded up all the wood and branches, covered the stump with dirt and went home. I doubt my friend reads this stuff. I burned the evidence, anyway.

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My favorite phrase today is hard cheese. N., from Wisconsin cows. Def.: What unemployed dentists slip into your Velveeta.

An Adventure in Fine Dying and Dining

As you know, I spend a lot of time writin' about dyin' and shit. Now then, I ain't fixated on dying. I like breathing just as much as the next horse's ass. What I mean to emphasize is my fixation on What Comes Next. And here's where it gets sticky. See, there's all kinds of guessworks about What Comes Next:

1. Heaven
2. Hell
3. Hang around on earth as a ghost
4. Merge into somebody else's body (this one is tricky, on account of some bodies are better than others; see Lindsay Lohan, Rosie O'Donnell)
5. Reincarnate
6. Dust to dust in a coffin
7. Ashes to ashes in an urn
8. Medical School cadaver
9. Organs donator
10. The Slow Rot (where you die and nobody finds you for a couple of years)
11. Go into a "disease fixit shop" after 40-50 years in a cryogenics lab

Anyway, if you're going to keep breathing you need to eat well, and this is where my latest invention comes in. (I need to keep inventing stuff so I can Make My Pile. My Last Will and Testimony specifies that I have opted for No. 5, above, in case No. 1 is closed off, which it will be.)


This invention is so inventive that I'm suprised my buddy Bill Gates didn't think of it. It is based on the "eat your vegetables" principle. Some people just don't like turnips or broccoli or rutabagas or pureed carrots or salsify or squash or spinach or collard greens or okra or black-eyed peas, which make up the 10 basic food groups, I think. Some people can't eat bread because of the gluten. And some people are allergic to bovine milk.

The solution: Ol' Hoss's One Food Fits All.

My scientists have developed a formula where all vegetables, all bread, all milk, all rice, all kumquats and mangoes will look the same but be made out of, and taste just like, Tenderloin Steak. (For people who don't like beeve, these things will be made out of abalone.) You won't ever have to threaten the kids again. They'll be rooting for vegetables in their lunch boxes. They'll want okra snacks after school, and cookies and tenderloin milk at bedtime.

I'll take my time getting this off the ground so's you have time to invest in a feedlot.

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My favorite word today is peeve. Vb., Ode to a Grecian Urn. Def.: Bitching about the loss of the word "gay" as a synonym for frolicsome, even though you never used it anyway.

Lookee What Hoss Finded

Pretty As a Welsh Town

On many occasions (8? 30? 300?) I have told you how pretty I am. It is quite a feat for a guy in an Old Folks' Home who is 74 270/365ths years of age to continue to be pretty. But there ain't much I can't do once I set my mind to it. So, the other day I compared my likeness to that of Nefertiti. Here is a picture of what somebody thinks she must have looked like. I may have made a mistake in the comparison. Actually, I look more like Marilyn Monroe (the live version, not the dead one; screw you).

I am hoping to be able to publish my picture here one of these days. Maybe I'll warn you in advance so if you're one of those people who easily swoon at the sight of superior pulchritudininity you will not want to visit me that day. Folks usually faint right and left when I do my Frank Sinatra impressions.

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My buddy TanLucyPez probably thinks that because I have been dumped in an Old Folks' Place that I am the dumping ground for arcane information. She is probably right. So she told me the name of a town in Wales, which is LLANFAIRWLLGWYNGLLGOGERYYCHWYRNDROBWILLLLANTYHSILIOGOGOGOCH. She said, "Maybe you can do something with it."

Well, unbeknownst to all of you, I happen to be an expert on things Wales. I know right where it is, which is somewhere west of London. Several kilometers, maybe. Possibly more than several. I am an expert by osmosis from my pal Chris Cope, over in Minniehaha, Minnesota. Chris can speak Welsh and HAS A WELSH BLOG, for cripe's sake.

Chris has been to this place, and says the name usually is shortened to Llanfairpwll (Thaahn-vair-puth). He adds, "The name was created in the 1850s part as a tourism gimmick and part as something to deliberately annoy the English -- who can't pronounce Welsh words to save their lives. The meaning of the name is 'The church of St. Mary's in the white hazel hollow near a rapid whirlpool and the red cave church of St. Tysilio.'"

I am glad I asked. When I read it, I wasn't sure whether it was "white hazel" or "grey hazel."

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My favorite word today is cope. vb., welsh corgie. Def.: To set out for the scene of an auto accident with a picnic basket.

Hoss Is Warming to the Task

If this works, this will be the first picture Ol' Hoss has ever put on his site from The Old Folks in the Way Home. Google/Blogger has made it so simple to steal pictures off'n the Internet that even a really smart guy like me should have no trouble. (If the picture doesn't show on your computer, that means this whole thing is a stupid plot to try to make smart people look stupid.)

The picture is of Mirror Pond in my hometown of Bend, Oregon. This is about 3,000 miles from Walden Pond (which is apropos of zilch). The "pond" is actually a small reservoir behind a little dam on the Deschutes River, one of the best fly-fishing rivers in the whole Newnited States and Canada.

The figure in the picture is standing on what we called "The Point," a sort-of isthmus. One day I sat there fishing with night crawlers and caught nada. The boy next to me caught two 14-inch rainbow trout using "dough babies." Dough babies is bread mixed with egg. If you try that on your next fishing trip and it works, remember I probably got a patent on it.

The mountain in the distance is the North Sister. There are several peaks visible from Bend that are over 10,000 feet high. One of the finest skiing sites in the world is at Mount Bachelor, about 20 miles west of Bend. The real name of the peak is Bachelor Butte, a volcanic cone less than 10,000 feet high. The ski place developers wanted a snazzier name, so the thing is now referred to as Mount Bachelor, even if it is too tiny to merit a big title. Of course, if it were in Florida it would look like Mt. Everest. And knowing how weird Florida is, it probably would have its own fleet of Yetis.

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I really didn't intend to post anything today, because I feel like I am spoiling you. But since I had nothing to say, I thought I would get it off my chest. And since I fished a bit there, I think I will call this No. 81 in my list of 8,000 things about me.

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My favorite word today is PMS. n., ladies-only. Def.: A synonym for road rage.

Names Were Made to Be Sold

I'm not exactly sure how I'll go about this, but somehow I'm going to gather up the Naming Rights to a whole bunch of things. I hope I won't need a lawyer, because lawyers are so shifty and personally bottom-line oriented. Squinty, too. Lawyers is like porcupines, they....Well, hold on, this ain't about lawyers; this is about Naming Rights. I'll get to lawyers some day, and I bet they ain't gonna like it much. Lawyers is like beached whales, see, because they....Okay, okay, Naming Rights.

The importance of gathering up Rights to Naming Rights is, of course, part of my Grand Plan to Make My Pile. I probably haven't told you this before, but I need to make a lot of money real soon on accounta my days is numbered (706 and counting down; my doctor says you can bet your sweet bippy on this). The money will be used to create a Doctoral Chair at the University of Oregon that is dedicated to making up jokes about lawyers.

Hah! I'm just kidding. Lawyers is natural born jokes. They don't need no help. Lawyers is like blowflies, see, because they....Naming Rights! Yessiree, I got it.

I NEED A LOT OF MONEY TO PAY FOR A GOLD-LINED CASKET! OKAY? Then in 2000 years when the archaeologists dig me up they'll say, "Hoo boy, we got us another King Tut." Bein' famous when you're dead ain't like bein' famous when you're alive, but not all of us can be Osama bin Laden. Maybe not all of us want to.

Here are just a few of the Naming Rights I think I can put together:

OLD NAME.....................NEW NAME
St. Louis Arch..................Dr. Scholls Arch Supports
Jennifer Wilbanks............Wells Fargo Wilbanks
Halfway, Oregon..............Ellen Degeneres
Carnival Lines..................Tom Cruise
Peewee Herman................Palm Sunday*
Jackson, Mississippi.........Michael Jackson, Mississippi
Intercourse, PA...............Heidi Fleiss
Grand Forks, NE..............Rogers Silverplate
Florida Keys....................Yale Locks
Grand Banks...................Jennifer Wilbanks

Doubling up on the name of the Runaway Bride is probably pretty smart cookies, since the only other news of late is about W's shrinking poll numbers. Strike while the Greyhound to Albuquerque is hot, I always say.

(Boy howdy, I just can't wait to see what other suggestions appear in the comments. I might make millions.)

* I'm just hoping somebody has to ask what this is all about. I've long wanted to exercise my knowledge of what goes on in Triple X-rated movie houses.

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My favorite word today is flupth. n., thedogdidit. Def.: The kind of fart you hope will go unnoticed.

Interesting Experiences You Can Buy

Not everybody is rich like you. Some of us have to scrape for every penny to make meat ends.

You're probably sick of hearing it, but Ol' Hoss desperate needs to Make My Pile if I'm going to be able to afford one of them Jack Kennedy-style horsetrot funeral processions down Pennsylvania Avenue. Or maybe a Gambino crime family 40 Cadillacs-style slow tour of downtown New York on the way to the St. John's Cemetery, where Lucky Luciano and Vito Genovese are buried. Anything that suits my exalted but penniless station in life.

So here's my current thinking on How to Get Rich. I will soon be selling Mail Order Near Death and Other Bad Experiences. (Once again, I have beat my buddy Bill Gates to the finish line. Turn the other cheek, Bill.)

You might wonder why you would want to buy a Bad Experience. Well, let's face it. You have about run out of things to tell people like my buddy Susie, who is a therapist. So to brighten her day you need some weird stuff that has got you in turmoil, even if it's somebody else's turmoil. You do not want to disappoint a therapist; she is counting on you to have bad things to report.

Here is a description of a For Instance that you can buy and call your own:

"I was walking down a long hallway when, in the distance, I saw someone I vaguely knew. We pretended we didn't know each other, in a vain effort to avoid recognition over the whole length of the corridor. The distance between us didn't slacken fast enough, so the half-smiles on our faces took on a glacier-like quality. To break the tension, we each examine the ceiling and walls of the hallway. A sign on the wall says 'Fallout Shelter.' I break out my Blackberry and make a note. Then I randomly punch in other codes hoping this might transport me to a friendlier place where there is beer instead of a long hallway containing two semi-acquaintances who, somehow, must get over the queer feeling that we both should be embarrassed. The other person, a woman, suddenly recognizes me and calls out, 'Oh, it's you! Good grief!' The worst is over. We pass each other, doffing sick grins."

Now then, chances are that two or more of you are going to be visiting my Susie, so you will need different stories. Here are some other titles:

"While near death, I hovered over my doctor's shoulder as he removed my uterus and slyly implanted a tracking device as required under the Patriot Act."

"I awoke to find myself in a strange bedroom where the gay lifeguard was giving me lip service."

"I dreamed I was in Thailand ministering to conjoined felines, the first Siamese twin cats."

These are strictly cash and carry. If you cannot find a Pay Pal button on my site, it means I am sold out.

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My favorite word today is invisible. adj., from Claude Rains. Def.: How the best piece you have ever written appears on Blogger when you click "Publish."

Hoss May Have a Girlish Figure

I been thinking about all the female talents I got, and wondering if I wouldn't have been a damn good woman (a.k.a. person without package). Just check out my feminine side:

I am really pretty. I don't know how to put pictures on here, so you'll just have to take my word for it. It would be safe to say I look a lot like Nefertiti, because nobody knows what she looked like, and that's good enough for me.

I am artsy-craftsy. I have braided a 4x6-foot rug, needlepointed a 9x13-inch picture, and hooked a 3x5-foot wool rug. Some crazed ex-wives got away with the braided rug and the needlepoint, but I still have the fruits from my experience as a hooker. More mundanely, I have ironed clothes, darned socks, scrapbooked, and coveted spike heels.

I wrote a cookbook. I am an excellent cook. Everybody says I am the only one they know who can make horsemeat taste like tuna, beef, pork or chicken.

I am not afraid to be pregnant. To prove it, on a cousin's dare I swallowed a watermelon seed when I was 11.

I am not too proud to say that nobody would be envious of me, despite my prettiness, because my breasts are pretty small. I don't want your husband anyway, even if he is too good for you.

I can only think of two disadvantages to being a woman. One, you spend most of the time on the bottom, and, two, you are perpetually underpaid.

Oh, I suppose there are other disadvantages. Serious disadvantages. I mean, if you can believe it, somebody has to be Mrs. Donald Trump.

I think this should count as No. 78 in my list of 2,000-5,000 things I plan to tell you about myself. Yes, let's do that.

79. My mother always claimed that the Maudlin family was related to Bill Mauldin, the famous Stars and Stripes cartoonist of World War II fame. She said his family changed their name from Maudlin to Mauldin because maudlin means "drunk, sentimentally silly." I can't prove this name change thing, so it doesn't mean anything. But if I COULD prove it, it still wouldn't mean anything.

80. In college, our fraternity borrowed some steel tables for our annual sweetheart dance. We moved them from the Capitol to the dance site on a flatbed truck. Three of us steadied the tables while Brother Bob drove the truck. Bob drove it over a curb, dumped me and one of the tables -- on top of me. I didn't tell my folks back in Bend that I spent time in the Emergency Room but they read about it in The Oregonian newspaper. Thereafter, I always voted for 'fessing up.

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My favorite word today is parse. vb., from long division. Def.: In any distribution of food equally among several people, to give yourself the extra slice.

My Kingdom for a Horsemeat

I suppose you know all about my plan to be reincarnated. Howsomeever, since I ain't done this before, I wonder if they is some trick to it. Do you have to know somebody? Any palms gotta be greased? Votes bought and sold?

If all it takes is money, that will be no problem. See, what I have done is I have bought me a horsemeat franchise. Lots of money in horsemeat. I hear that's what the dark chicken is in many Chinese restaurants. Rumor is that horsemeat is the tuna that's in a lot of Thai restaurants.

And the neat thing is, you can make horsemeat out of dogs. People who would eat horsemeat aren't very discriminating, so they don't care. The beef in lots of Vietnamese restaurants is dog, but the customers are happy because they think it's horsemeat.

When I return from my slow, painful death, I will have a major choice to make. Do I want to come back as a famous person (Ozzie Nelson)? A famous fish (Flipper)? Or a famous fish (Prince Charles)?

I have borrowed from the library a book with all named professions; maybe there's something in there I can use. These professions range from Aardvark Killer to Zorroing. Zorroing is where you go around slashing Z's on doors, walls and people's chests. This has some appeal.

Maybe I should come back as Mark Twain. I'll bet he could get a laugh out of a scientist joke.

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I hear the Amish have taken over a town in Eastern Oregon, and they plan to close the zipper factory. (Close the zipper factory!! Get it??!!) Scientists have put this in the category of "too bad."

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I must share this with you from Chris:

"You know you are addicted to blogging:

"--When you have consoled yourself after a horrible day by thinking, 'At least this will make a great blog post.'

"--When you have written posts to notify people you're going to sleep now."

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My favorite word today is despair. n., from starry spangled banners. Def.: When you come to the anthem part that says "rockets' red glare," the high note is beyond you, and you have to shift octaves.

Revising Ezekiel

Yesterday I got cornered by The Home's history buff, Feelgood Haines.

"Hoss," says Mr. Haines, "knowin' you're such an irreligious nut, I thought it my bounden duty to square you away on that Ezekiel fella who had such a big role in the Old Testimony." My eyes got gauze over 'em, which Feelgood took as a sign to continue. This is the story he told:

All this business about seeing stuff took place when Ezekiel was camped out in Tornado Alley, probably in Kansas. Kansas has been flattened so often by tornados that it is the only completely flat state in the world. Their corn is bigger than their highest mountain.

One day this powerful wind and lightning storm hit right above old Zeke, and lo the behold he saw these weirdos coming out of the sky. There were four of them and they looked sorta human but they had four faces -- the faces of a man, an eagle, an ox and a lion. Hoo boy, talk about eyes in the back of your head!

Zeke says to himself, well, this makes sense: you got the face of a man representing intelligence, the face of an eagle for vision, the face of an ox for strength, and the face of a lion for....well, hell....maybe you don't need that one. I don't know what it's for.

Zeke said he also saw a wheel within a wheel, and they was both turnin'. He described this to some Japanese later on and they made a fortune on toy gyroscopes.

What were those guys up to? Zeke asked one, whose name was Chester.

"Chester," Zeke said, "what in thunder and tarnation are you cats doin'?"

"Well," Chester replied, "somebody told us to get into the wheatfields and make some crop circles, but we're all squares. Maybe we'll just do a few swastikas, sacrifice some cows, and head on in to Wichita for breakfast."

"Well," Ezekiel said, "amen to that."

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Yesterday I wrote how some people would walk into Oxygen Holes and die for lack of air. Then I said, Scientists put this in the category of "too bad."

Nobody laughed. I guess I should have said: Scientists put this in the category of "unlucky."

I don't know if that's any funnier. Maybe you people need to get the knots outta your funny bone.

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My favorite word today is evidence. n., from Old Greek word for "play." Def.: The abrasions on knees and elbows formed from the compulsion to make love on cheap sheets.