Harvest Moon, or Moon the Harvest?*

Seeing as how I am in An Old Folks' Home and therefore almost dead, all the people with annuities in mind suddenly got my name.

"Hoss, leave your money with us, NOW, and you will be happy living off the principal while we harvest the interest to pay for saving the Wily Coyote of North Hollywood."

"Hoss, your estate can do us both a lot of good. Sign it over and we will keep you in beer while we save the Everglades from your buddy Laura."

Well, I think the coyote is a fig newton of the imagination, and I doubt my buddy Laura is going to screw with the Everglades. And, anyway, I ain't interested in anything to do with money unless it helps me Make My Pile.

And right here is how it's going to go down. I have invented the leprosy detector. You see, when you are armed with one of these here dudes, you are protected from lepers.

Let's say you're in a restaurant, and you're not wanting to get infected with leprosy again. So you grab your leprosy detector and go around gettin' ever'body to stick their finger into the hole, there. If their finger comes off, you have caught one of the suckers, and you can banish 'em to the smoking section. Or someplace else where losing face is still in style.

These will be on sale until Labor Day, half off (hee). After that, expect to pay full price.

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My favorite word today is whoops. Adj., why me? Def. A minor spill of water in your genital area makes it less appealing for you to arise and go to the restroom.

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(*How many times do I have to tell you: The title of these pieces seldom has anything to do with the content. But they is damn good titles. J. K. Rowling is always after me to do titles for her books, so I guess it's okay to tell you that No. 7 in the Potter series will be "Harry, Harry, Quite Contrary, the Half-Crazed Spook.")

It's Always Just Right in 'The Home'

It has turned out that there is no place in the United States that is "just right" when it comes to weather. Except here in My Old Folks' Home where we have heat registers and air conditioning and so, of course, it is perfect all the time.

But for you people who have to Go Outside, there is no perfect. Hawaii comes pretty close, but they get rain and tsunamis and lava belches, so there's some demerits right there.

No place in the William Penn and Lewis and Clark country is worth shit year-around. Lots of people from the northern climes go to Arizona in the winter. And they get the hell out of there along about April when the temperature goes up to 120 or so. So there's your Arizona demerits.

Lots of people leave Florida in the summer to go up to Chicago and Dyersburg, Tennesee*, so they can get in on the high humidity. So Florida. chock full of people and alligators, is no paradise, especially when it comes to items like Andrew, Ivan and Charley. Huge demerits for those boys.

You got your people living in Maine in the rain. And the snow. Screw that.

People live in North Dakota and South Dakota where it's either hotter than hell or colder than hell. (How this works is beyond me, but that's the way it is.) People live in Tornado Alley -- Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois -- and get their shit blown around regularly. No thanks.

Ice fishing up in Minnesota and Wisconsin and Michigan. Think of it. It has to be damn cold for those lakes to freeze over. Who needs it? Those people could be in Arizona waiting for a chance to get out of there when it gets hot. Then they could go back to Michigan and enjoy that stupid humidity.

You see how this works? People bounce around to get comfy and first thing they know it's all gone to hell and their balls are sweating or freezing. There is just no happy middle ground for balls.

Pretty soon everybody will be living in an Old Folks' Home where we got as little or as much heat as we need, and all the air conditioning anybody could want so our balls don't sweat.

It would be nice, though, if they could put up a ice fishing pond that we could use in the summer. That would be about perfect.

(* This is for my buddy who has nothing to mow but dead grass, seed pods, dirt and molehills, Poopsie at Poop Happens.)

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My favorite phrase today is never again. Adj., my poor head. Def.: The lie you tell yourself the next morning after a heavy bout of drinking.

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Speaking of balls...

A Birthday Is Followed by Pestilence

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MILLIE GARFIELD

Millie Garfield was born Aug. 18, 1925. She is one of the oldest known writers on the Internet.

Go wish Millie Happy 80th Birthday at My Mom's Blog.

I read somewhere about a b**gger in Canada who is older than Millie, but I can't find the source. Scientists put this in the category of "too bad." All I know for sure is that Millie has me beat by five years.

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About all a person in a Used Up Folks' Home has to do is watch television, read, and think. Sometimes you can think while watching TV or reading, if you can multi-task like I can. So I was reading an Internet piece by a lady who got Lyme disease and at the same time I was thinking about pestilence.

You don't hear a lot about pestilence these days. The word has sort of gone passe' in favor of "crisis" or "disaster" or "epidemic". But it is wise to be warned of pestilence, since it might get popular again. In case it does, here are the Top 10 things to worry about:

1. Having an A branded on your chest, a la Hester Prynne.
2. 666 or 616. There is some debate, now, about Satan's number. Stay tuned.
3. Kudzu. It has eaten the South and it is coming your way, Yankee.
4. West Nile virus. It is unfortunate that a lovely place like the Nile gets associated with a terrible disease. But then I guess we wouldn't have Cock peculiar tumor, named for Edward Cock.
5. The aforementioned Lyme disease. This is caused by a tiny tick that leaves a bulls-eye mark on your skin. This is so its cousin, the yellow jacket, knows where to sting.
6. AIDS. You don't want to get this. A lot of people already have it and they seem to want to share. Don't accept the offer.
7. Chlamydia. This is sexually transmitted, so the best thing to do is not have any sex. Doctors like this disease because there is a lot of money in curing chlamydia.
8. Texans.
9. Bacon fat. This artery clogger was invented by Francis Bacon who wanted to be remembered for something after everybody quit crediting him with writing Shakespeare's plays.
10. (Tie) Congress, Dubya, gout.

Notice that this is only the Top 10. You also need to worry about No. 11, zebra mussels, and No. 12, bombs.

Do not worry about global warming. It either will, or it won't.

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My favorite word today is huh? N., something missing. Def.: The word used when in examining your notes for your next Internet piece you come across a cryptic abbreviation.

10 Commandments and Amendments

Ol' Hoss is infamous. I am mentioned in a story about eldlerly b**ggers written for General Media, which owns a bunch of newspapers in North and South Carolina, Virginia, Florida and Alabama. If'n you wanna see it you can click hereabouts: General Media.

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"Exodus" is a damn good word. It don't get used much, though. People got so used to sayin' "migrate" and "emigrate" that "exodate" just went out of style. It would be good down on the Mexican border: "Hey, amigos, let's swim across the Rio Grande exodus to the U.S.A."

It was Moses what invented the word "exodus" when he was over there wading in water afflicted with the red tide disease and talkin' to God 'n' stuff. It was while he was on that long vacation that he got some good ideas from God on how people oughta act. Before this, people didn't have any rules, which scientists have put in the category of "too bad." Politicians especially need rules for other people to live by so they can screw the people who are living by the rules.

It has been a long time since the Ten Commandments has been updated, so I'm gonna take care of that. Cripes, I have to do everything.

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me except during the 13 weeks of "American Idol."

2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images except for the Oscar Awards, which during times of metal shortages, like during World War II, shalt be made out of wood.

3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. If you are going to say goddam, no capitals, please. HE kind of likes the nickname "Big Ernie."

4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Most popular holidays shalt fall on Monday (except for My Boy's birthday) so as to give the faithful a three-day weekend.

5. Honor thy father and mother. It is especially bad form to add the word "fucker" to the word "mother." In Big Ernie's eyes, this is a major no-no.

6. Thou shalt not kill, except for kudzu, mosquitoes, blow flies and people who have the misfortune of living in Red states.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. (This Commandment is presently on hold while the states sort out the definition. Most everybody agrees that adultery can only be committed by adults, given the root derivation of the word, which is Hebrew for "diddle.")

8. Thou shalt not be caught stealing.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor unless he's rich and living in Neverland.

10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass...

There's more, but I am knocked out by the image of a guy chiseling into stone something about grabbing ass.

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My favorite word today is bizarre. Adj., the stars at night. Def.: Description of the dress at least one New York designer will provide for an actress at the Academy Awards ceremony.

Where Do Jersey Cows Come From?

I have this buddy, named Debi, who lives over there in Jersey. Only this isn't Jersey as in New Joisey, but Jersey as in a Channel Island just off France (but is part of the United Kingdom). Jersey is so little (46 sq. mi.) that it would fit inside my home county, but then it wouldn't have ocean all around it.

Jersey is where Jersey cows were invented. There is a littler island just north named Guernsey, which is where Guernsey cows were invented. I have been thinking about inventing a cow, but a cow named Horse probably wouldn't sell too well. "A Man Called Horse" was a good movie, though.

Debi has "tagged" Ol' Hoss with one a them "meme" thingies. So I'll get right on it.

What I was doing 10 years ago:

I was golfing at the Salem Golf Club. I did that every day, back then. I wish she had asked "What were you doing 25 years ago?" Then I could have said I was making a hole-in-one on No. 8 at the Salem Golf Club. But, no, she asked about 10 years ago, so you'll not get to read about my hole-in-one on No. 8 at the Salem Golf Club 25 years ago.

What I was doing 5 years ago:

I was playing gin rummy at the Salem Golf Club. When I got bummed out playing golf I shifted to gin rummy as I am a good card player, as you would expect. But a lot of cripples who quit playin' golf before I did had studied up on the gin nuance and I lost a lot of money. Most of those guys have died. I hope they rot. They probably will.

What I was doing 1 year ago:

I was playing on-line bridge and I had for a partner this dimwitted lady from France who did not understand that an electronic knee-nudge was the signal for 6 spades. She probably thought it was an invitation to whip up a menage a trois or some of that other salacious creepy French stuff.

What I was doing yesterday:

It was the day here in the Home for Us Golden Agers that we get our apartment cleaned. The cleaner is the former night manager, who is hot hot hot. If I could get a picture of some flames on here you could see just how hot she is. I could hardly bring myself to look at the big tatoo on her back when she leaned over to clean the shower. And so she wouldn't be embarrassed I stood there with my hands at the ready in case her titties fell out of her T-shirt when she vacuumed under my chair and I would be able to tuck 'em right back in. They didn't fall out, so I guess all in all it was a pretty dull day. Oh, I read some pieces written by my Internet buddies. They were all pretty lame.

Five snacks that I like:

Did you know that Corn Dogs are also known as Pronto Pups? Also: Glenfiddich Scotch, Fried Twinkies, Uno bars and whatever Angie thinks would be good for me. Angie is the queen of the Internet recipe, trust me.

Five things I would do with $100,000:

I would probably get 5 x $20,000 worth of lottery tickets. And then I would say, "Easy come, easy go."

Five locations I would run away to:

This is easy. A lot of my readers is hot women. I wish I had a picture of some flames somewhere on this page so I could show you how hot they are. There are at least five I want to get next to (*wink wink*). I would name names if it were required, but it isn't. (Women who want to know if they're on my hot list can eMail me at nowayamitellingyou@bugspot.com. But save yourself some time. If you are a female, you are on it. If you are a male, you might not be.)

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My favorite word today is silly. Adj., that's so lame. Def.: How you look when trying to imitate Gene Wilder in "Young Frankenstein" when he is told by Igor to "walk this way."

I'm in Connecticut Today

My buddy Whizzer has got all my stuff today on accounta I promised I would guest post for her. This is not like me, but I am doing this for free. So if you want to visit with Ol' Hoss, kindly click on Where's Whizzer? She lives in Connecticut, so that's where Hoss will be today. (I like Whizzer a lot, so I'm even giving her my favorite word of the day. Don't tell her. She gets the big head real easy.)

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The older you get the better you realize you were. --Anon.

Tenting Tonight on the Old Campground

I remember going to Camp. And today, Camp is still a big deal for little kids. Even big kids. You got your basic skills camp, your swimming camp, your tennis camp, your basketball camp, church camp, Campfire camp, Girl Scout/Boy Scout camp.

Usually these camps have a cute name, like Builders, Pioneers, Hoopers, Boy-Meets-Girl-Under-Close-Supervision. Then all the kids learn the lingo where everything that's said is followed by "between the sheets" and all the campers laugh and laugh but it isn't that funny. ("We're going to play footsie ping-pong today, gang," says the counselor. "Between the sheets!" respond the campers. Like I said, it isn't funny.)

Ol' Hoss is thinking about developing a Camp for kids somewhere up in the Cascade Mountains to get a leg up on Making My Pile. If we get up there far enough we will be pretty safe from the pedophiles down here on the flatlands, so that's a plus that will appear prominently in my advertising campaign.

I am not sure at this point if Camp Hoss will need a theme. Bowling for Dollars comes to mind. If I had to choose one right now it would be to teach the kids how to cook, at which I am very good. See, what you do is you heat up a flat rock with some fire made by rubbin' some sticks together. You tear the center out of a piece of Wonder bread and put the bread on the rock. Then you crack an egg open and deposit it in the hole in the bread on the rock.

Fried egg! Listen, if I can teach a bunch of kids how to fry eggs, they can make their Momma and Poppa plenty happy on Mother's Day and Father's Day. Moms and Pops ought to pay me plenty to get fried egg in bed once a year.

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My favorite phrase today is how nice. Adj., lying through your teeth. Def.: One of the stock phrases to be used when shown the child's latest feeble effort to draw anything.

How to Make a Root Beer Float

The headline of this piece has nothing to do with its content, as usual. I'm just checking to see if there is anybody in the world who does not know how to make a root beer float.

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This is "short-shrift Saturday," where I do my worst work because nobody comes to visit on Saturday because they're not at work. People only surf the Internet when they're at work.

Ho ho har de har har. One of the finest tongue-in-cheek stories of the year comes, of course, from Great Britain, where a newspaper is reporting on sales of women's thongs:

"Sales of thongs remain firm among women aged 25 and under....But demand from older women continues to sag."

The headline? "Bottom Falling Out of Thong Market."

For this I am indebted to my buddy Shane. The whole story is here.

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My buddy Laura recently axed a guy from her b**groll on account of he was excessively nasty about Chelsea Clinton. Excessively. Good for her.

This reminds me of something. I am going to axe from my Geriatric Ward anybody who has the temerity to demean pay toilets. There is a lot of money in pay toilets. So don't be pissing on pay toilets and you'll be okay in my book.

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My favorite word today is collection. N., cleaning up. Def.: The tiny bottles of shampoo and the cheap shower caps that you have brought home from motels and keep forgetting to use.

Sister Makes Leaving Pay Off

I don't know if I told you this, but I have to tell you this because I know how much you'll miss Carolina Sister. She is moving to Portland, Oregon. Here's a picture of her son giving their car a fill-up.

Sister says she's moving to Portland to be closer to.... well, I can't remember what she'll be closer to. Salem, where I live, is closer to the ocean. The Willamette River goes through Portland but it goes right through the middle of Salem and is only three-four stones' throws from where we live. Five stones into the wind.

It could be that she wants to be closer to Japan. I give Portland that. Japan is a lot closer to Portland than it is to Salem. So is Russia and some other places, but Salem is closer to San Francisco, which may be a bad thing because of all the homos down there. I bet the homos in San Francisco wished they lived in Salem because they'd be closer to Canada where they could get married. Well, that'd be all right. I got nothing against homos. Some of my best friends aren't homos.

So Carolina is having this "garage" sale in her room here in The Home on the Deranged. I go in and see she has 21 rolls of toilet paper that look suspiciously like the t.p. that The Home puts in the public restrooms.

Hoss: "That looks like the t.p. they put in the public restrooms."

Carolina Sister: "Well, they just keep putting that paper in there and a lot of it doesn't get used right away so I bring it in here for safekeeping. Take some, it's only 40 cents a roll."

Hoss: "Uh, what about this stuff in the corner, the sheets, and pillow cases and cotton dresses. Won't you need that stuff in Portland?"

Sister: "Oh, no. All that stuff is from the lost and found here. There's lots of good stuff in the lost and found. You have to get there early, though."

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Ol' Hoss knows no foreign languages but has a vast appreciation for any mother tongue that gifts me with such truths as:

Para todo mal, mezcal, y para todo bien, tambien. ("As a remedy for everything bad, mezcal; and to celebrate everything good, mezcal too.")

(Mezcal is the one that comes with the worm in it. Believe it or not, the worm was put in originally to give the booze a better taste.)

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My favorite word today is leavings. Vb., possibly borscht. Def.: Placing in the refrigerator a leftover that is too small to make a meal but cannot be thrown out until it is sufficiently moldy.

But You're Probably Clueless

Several of my Internet buddies lately have asked their readers questions about themselves. See, they want to figure out if anybody's been paying attention. So Ol' Hoss has figured this is a game two can play, so here are some questions about me. Let's see how well you have committed my previous pieces to memory.

The top prize in this contest is you get to respect me in the morning.

1. How old am I?

A. Real old
B. Older than that
C. One foot in the grave
D. 74 314/365ths

2. What is my chief aim in life?

A. Bedding Hulk Hogan
B. To get through the "10 items" line with 11
C. To shit on a seagull
D. To Make My Pile

3. Where was I born?

A. In the Maudlin family outhouse
B. In Abe Lincoln's outhouse
C. In the Greyhound Bus Station shitter
D. In a house in Bend, Oregon, that soon will be on the Historic Homes list

4. What is my whole name?

A. Asshole

5. What was my main occupation?

A. Shoeing the fisherman
B. Gutting transients
C. Learning to spell opthalmology
D. Scribbler of little repute

6. What is my favorite drink?

A. Boilermaker, with Ovaltine chaser
B. Ovaltine, with Boilermaker chaser

7. Why do I b**g?

A. Because it was there
B. Because it was you
C. To teach little children how to swear
D. Aesop, Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain and George Carlin were in need of replacement.

That's it. Keep your answers to yourself. Nobody got hurt. Just move along.

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My favorite word today is nirvana. Adj., sweet tooth. Def.: Finding in the back of your child's closet an overlooked Halloween candy bar.

Cerebral Is as Cerebral Does

Yesterday I allowed as how I was gonna bail out Internet b**ggers who got writer's cramp from goin' brain dead. Part of my plot to Make My Pile is to secretly substitute for these people with some topical topics. For a price.

Some Internet writers find they got nothin' interesting to say so they rely on formula pap, like "Uninteresting Things in My Junk Drawer," or "What We Had at Burger King." Instead of that, they can hire Ol' Hoss, the Master Internet Double. They give me their user name and password and I will tap into their site and post some spellbinding stuff in their name. Nobody will be the wiser, except me and the poor sap who is payin' me.

Here are the categories in which I am offering services:

Gardening: Types of Fish to Use in the Corn Row
Child Rearing: The Kids Were So Cute Today
Child Rearing: Did I Really Give Birth to These Monsters?
Comedy: Bad Jokes and Good ($5 off if permitted to use the F-bomb)
Vacations: Without Gnats, $30; With Gnats, Free
Rants: Any Subject Except George Bush, who needs no help making himself look like an asshole
Walmart: That Bitch in Aisle 3 Never Watches Where She's Going
Weird Science: Which Came First, the Opossum or Lois Lane
Man-Eating Sharks: List of Stomach Contents, Alphabetical Order
Movie Reviews: (This piece will be free, because Ol' Hoss does not go to the movies. All movie reviews will say: "This stinks. Don't go to the movies and you'll never see another bad one.")

The cheapest standard pot-boiler I got is "Blogger Ate My Piece Again Today."

The line forms to the left.

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My favorite word today is suckered. Adj., doilies abound. Def.: How the person feels who has patterned her life after Martha Stewart.

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(You know, I better rethink this Master Internet Double idear. It sounds a lot like work, and if I have to work to Make My Pile, I ain't very interested.)

I Can Do It For You Wholesale

There's a lotta Bible study here in The Old Folks' Home. Some people is naturally worried about the hereinafter; they get kind of morose, really, which is too bad. It is especially bad because if they read the Bible atall they would know they's supposed to be happy.

In the fourth chapter of Philippians, Ol' Paul* says, "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation."

Don't that sound just like your buddy Ol' Hoss? "Happy as a clam." "Oh Happy Day." "Happier than a two-peckered billy goat."

The problem is that this might work to my disadvantage in my new occupation. If you're happy all the time how can you rant effectively about bumble-dick government, bad porn, taxes, and impertinent children? But I guess I gotta do it because there's such a need: I am gonna be writing Internet pieces for people whose wells have run dry.

I probably haven't told you about this before. See, what I went and done is incorporate myself as "Master Internet Double." People are gonna hire me as secret agent to write their Internet pieces when they got nothing to say but don't want their readers to know they has run out of material. There is no greater shame than to run out of material and be left b**gging on such topics as:

"The various colors of puke"
"I guess I'll go to bed now"
"Even coffee isn't helping this morning"
"Here's another one from the archives"
"Maybe I'll have something tomorrow"

Maybe I'll have something tomorrow on my categories of service, with a price list. Well, actually, there's no maybe about it. Hoss always has something tomorrow.

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My favorite word today is guess. Vb., that's odd. Def.: What you do when you see in the midriff of a sunbather what is either an "outie" belly button or a large piece of lint.

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* Paul, also known as Saul, was a tent-maker in real life. You thought all tent-makers were named Omar, didn't you?

The Color of Hoss

I really think I am onto something this time. There could be big bucks in this one. In which case Making My Pile will be assured.

For anybody who hasn't been here afore, Ol' Hoss desperately needs to make a pile of money before he gets figuratively buried on the Lone Prairie because he don't plan to be buried but to be cremated. And it is expensive to take care of these particular cremains, which is funeral director-speak for ashes and bone splinters.

See, what I been thinking is to have my ashes attached to Halley's Comet so you can see me coming your way every 76 years or so. I also have contemplated having these cremains attached to a gray whale so I would get to go south every winter. Cold weather kind of conflicts with my idea of happiness.

Well, I don't need to decide this today because my doctor said I have two years left. Now that was in March, so I guess now I have 1 and 2/3rds years left. Plenty of time to make life or death decisions about wise use of cremains. One thing I have decided is that I want my cremains remaining all together so that when the medicos figure out how to cure what killed me they'll be able to reconstitute me, sorta like they do with freeze-dried food.

So the bottom line is I gotta make some money to pay for all this, and what better way than to invent a new color? I have spent a lot of time on this. I don't have a kitchen, so I've had to do my scientific work in the bathtub, which is okay because I am not making bathtub beer.

I have been in touch with the Crayola people and, naturally, they is intrigued, because as any fool knows, 120 colors is not enough. People everywhere are demanding new colors for their shirts, ties, shoestrings and footballs. And if there is one thing Ol' Hoss is good at (and there is), it is meeting pent-up demand. Remember how I invented the Budweiser bottles made out of bacon cracklings? "Meal in a Bottle", I called it. Unfortunately I didn't make any money on it because the Chinese can make bottles out of imitation bacon cracklings a lot cheaper than I can.

Bein's as I am a nice guy, I am going to tell you what color this new color is. It's frobitzer. Don't that sing? You got that in your mind's eye, what a swell color frobitzer is?

Well, maybe you don't. It's kind of hard to describe. It's sorta red but more like bronze with seafoam green and maybe some wood lavender. You'll know it when you see it.

I hope Crayola doesn't take more than a year and two-thirds to pay me.

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My favorite word today is red-faced. Adj., sorry about that. Def.: In brushing a fly off a lady in the bar you discover it's a wart.

The Well Runneth Dry

I can only say, in self-defense, that I posted 11 times yesterday at Wisconsin Chris's Blogathon charity deal, and I have not had time to patrol the halls here at the Old Folks' Home. Consequently, I don't know who has died recently, or how funny it was. Some people die off better than others; I only report on the most interesting ones.

I guess all I can tell you today is about this guy, www.thenonist.com, who has written a piece about Internet writers and suggested we go all introspective. He asks, for instance, "Why do we b**g? Is it really still fun?"

Here's the summation of his little pamphlet:

B**gging "need not ruin lives or waste perfectly good URLs."

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My favorite word today is depilatory. N., pretty hairy. Def.: What you'd like to buy for the girl with great legs, but don't dare.

I'm Not Here This Morning

I am not here today. I am posting a bunch of times over at the blogathon page of Wisconsin Chris, who has promised to post every half hour for 24 hours in a campaign to raise money for the Elton John Aids Foundation. So I will be at this place at mid-day Wisconsin time, and then again later on.

However, since you're here, you might as well get in on the latest pro-environment hobby, slug training. If I can get slugs to find their way through this salt maze I don't know what good it will be but it's gotta be good for something. For instance, this is a lot better than clubbing harp seal pups. And it sure beats training pigeons to shit on people who are downtown shopping, which is what was happening in this space yesterday.

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From my buddy Oz of Australia:

This Easterner is explaining to the Westerner how he finally achieved the life of his dream, owning a cattle ranch.

Easterner: "The hard part was coming up with a name for the ranch. We finally settled on 'Double R Lazy L Triple Horseshoe Bar-7 Lucky Diamond Ranch.'"
Westerner: "How many cattle you got?"
Easterner: "None of them survived the branding."

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My favorite word today is open. Adj., at the ready. Def.: The shape of a mouth waiting to spew its two-bits worth while somebody else is carrying on.

Once More Unto the Breach

There are about 500,000 words in the English language, according to my dictionary freak, of which penis is only one. The average educated person knows about 20,000 words and uses 2,000 in a week, this know-it-all tells me.

It seems to me that at that rate, this average educated person would run out of words in ten days. So then he shifts to French? Which has only 160,000 words, and that's when you count such strange ones as le hit parade and le Starbuck's.

I don't know. Maybe it doesn't work that way. It would be pretty hard for me to switch to French, on accounta all I know is pinot noir, au revoir, and hunchback of Notre Dame.

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Here are the last of the 96,422 things about me, maybe:

98. When I worked on a "throwaway" newspaper in Walnut Creek, Calif., we didn't have a wire service. So anything we printed had to be written by the staff. Some days we didn't have enough news to fill the space dedicated to news. That is when I figured out that we needed to use longer words, like predicated, perspicacity and parsimonious because they take up a lot of space. It didn't matter if nobody knew what they meant because nobody was reading the damn thing anyway.

99. When I went to Willamette University, my fraternity played host one day to a member of a touring German college choir, named Peter Feiersinger. (I remember that name because it was such a good one.) At the time, I had a crewcut. Feiersinger had never seen one before. Which I found strange, since all the war movies showed the "heinies" (Germans) as blond guys with a crewcut. So I always vote against getting your education from movies.

100. Also at Willamette, I had to take American Literature. This is when I discovered, through force feeding by the instructor, that books have "messages," like slyly telling you the condition of mankind ("dire") while peddling you a Gothic romance. It wasn't good enough to read "Moby Dick" for the action; no, you also had to understand the subliminal message, which was that Darwin never saw an albino whale but would have liked to. I have always voted against American Literature professors and messages carried by pigeons who shit on people who are shopping downtown.

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My favorite word today is dope. N., braided hemp. Def.: The Boy Scout instructor whose every effort results in a granny knot.

The Good, the Bad and the Indifferent

Quite a many of you have probably noticed the dearth of poetry on this site. That is because Ol' Hoss don't cotton to poetry. The last good poetry written was "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," and that was good only because it gave us a famous saying about albatrosses hanging around our necks. But the guy would not have been much of a shortstop:

"It is an ancient Mariner,
"And he stoppeth one of three."

He makes a clean play on only one of three balls hit to him? Sounds suspiciously like a Seattle Mariner to me.

The only other good poem was "The Rime of the Ancient Raven" by Edgar Poe, and it was good only because it warned us about getting shit on by seagulls while we're at the coast.

The problem with a lot of today's poetry is that it don't "rime." Now here is some pretty fair poetry, handwritten by Ol' Hoss:

A lot of guide dogs for the blind,
Have never seen the Golden Hind.

You see that? That's actually got prize-winning potential. And it's sort of classic because it make sense. Also, it rhymes good. A guy could start there and segue right into some iambic pentameter and maybe spew out a sonnet or two. But no; modern poetry writers like to piss around with words that sorta rhyme but by God do not rhyme. For instance:

The weather was quite cold and bitter,
About which Mark Twain often nattered.

No way on God's green earth does "bitter" rhyme with "nattered." Never happen. You might as well say that "gargantuan" rhymes with "huge mother sucker." Hoo boy, that kind of writing pisses me off.

There is only one kind of poetry that really ought to be pandered to. That's the kind that has a message, sort of like a Sunday serrmon. Here's what I mean:

"Time and tide wait for no man, and then kick ass, man."

"One fish, two fish, three fish, go fish,
"Be real careful when you're trimmin' blowfish."

"You ought to eat an apple a day,
"Unless you're really interested in buyin' your doctor another goddam Cadillac, and that ain't hay."

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My favorite word of the day is rube. N., dumbass. Def.: A guy who goes around inventing phrases we've heard a hundred times, like "Life is just a bowl of cherry bombs."

Slug Bait for Dinner*

I regret to report that I have no idea who sent this to me. I don't get stalked a lot, so it probably wasn't one of those. I am publishing it here because I want you to know what I think of me.

It was smart of me to quit smoking. I have gained 400,000 dollars.

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I had occasion to go back into my archives and I found something that needs to be re-stated but rewritten. It is key to evolutionary theory. Here it is, in the form of a question to you:

"If it were up to you, would you populate the world with more people like you, or more people like me?" Take your time. I got all day.

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To help you out, here are some more of the 38,477 things about me:

96. The way I got to be speechwriter for Oregon Governor Tom McCall was this: His administrative assistant offered the job, and said, "Think about it." And I said, "I don't need to think about it. I'll do it. You see, just the other day I got a Fortune Cookie message that said 'Opportunity is coming your way.' This must be it." Boy howdy, that was a good job. All the good advice I ever got came from psychotherapists Fortune Cookies.

97. In 1970 I had a bit part in a locally produced play, "The Andersonville Trial." It was based on the story of a guy who presided over a prison built by the Confederacy to house Union soldiers. I had one line, spoken to the chief prosecutor: "You make me feel old." And then the first thing I knew, I actually got to be old. I have always voted for The Old Days, when I was young.

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Terrorists who are trying to kill our people resent being called "towel heads." What they wear on their heads is not actually a towel but a small folded sheet. "Please," they urge, "call us sheet heads."

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My favorite word today is creeps. N., insecurity. Def.: The feeling, as you begin your trip, that you have left something behind but you can't remember what it is except that it will be whatever the Target store in the next town is out of.

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(* Some people can't wait and have it for lunch.)

Truckin' on Down to Shantytown*

From the minutes of the Resident Council of my Old Folks' Home:

"Residents have a concern about other residents pushing residents in wheelchairs. It was discussed if they can or not. It was noted it depends on the situation." In other words, yesno.

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This lady is on a bus behind two Italian guys, and she overhears one say to the other:

"Emma come first. Den I come. Den two asses come together. I come once-a-more. Two asses, they come together again. I come again and pee twice. Then I come one lasta time."

The lady says, "Please don't discuss your sex life in public."

He says, "Hey, calma down, lady. Who talkin' 'bout sexa? I'm just tellin' my friend how to spell Mississippi."

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You know about "coprolalia"? It's what afflicts victims of Tourette Syndrome. These people occasionally burst into loud fits of swearing "damn-hell-piss-shit" and the like. One treatment is an injection of botulinin toxin in the vocal cords, which tones down the volume of the outburst. That's the same stuff as Botox, so I guess if you got any wrinkles in your vocal cords it will smooth them right out. And the toned-down swearer can only say "damn-hell-piss-shit."

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Well, I think I'm all set with my next book. I have sent it to J.K. Rowling because I know she'll want to write a review. But see what you think:

"Johnny Reb and the Half-Breed Prince"

Call me Ishmaelstrom. I am the narrator of this tale. I'm going to let you in on something:

On Page 1 Johnny Reb gets some action in the local red light district. On Page 586 the Half-Breed Prince, an Indian named Sometimes Standing Bull, is killed, which pretty much kisses off the story. Everything in between is pretty sappy."

Finis.

(Let me know if you think 586 pages is too many.)

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My favorite word today is quiver. N., of lard butts. Def.: The flab hanging from the upper arm of fat old people that wobbles uncontrollably when they gesture.

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(* The title of this piece has nothing to do with anything. I get pretty bummed out writing titles.)

Salem History and Then Some

I think I should tell you something about where Ol' Hoss lives, which is in Salem, Oregon. Salem was probably settled in 1840 by a preacher named Jason Lee. Nobody living today was there, so this is just a wild guess. "Salem" is an anglicized version of the Hebrew word "shalom," which means "up yours."

Salem is the capital of Oregon. This Capitol Building was built in 1937 because we had trouble keepin' our previous capitols out of harm's way. One of them burned up in 1855 out of sympathy for Sherman's impending march through Georgia. Another of them burned up in 1935 out of sympathy for Clark Gable's mad dash through Atlanta as it went up in smoke.

Salem is about 23 miles north of Scio, which is a small... Or maybe that's Albany. Whichever is on the freeway. Then about 20 miles over to the west is Falls City. That's where the brother-marrying-the-sister jokes go after people are done with them in West Virginia. If you averaged the kids in Falls City they would be pretty close to average, except like everybody else they send their Christmas cards to North Pole, Alaska, to get a cool postmark.

Up north a little ways is Portland, which was named for some burg in Maine. If Hoss had been there it probably would have been named for a little town in Montana by the name of Maudlin, which is what I am one of. Maudlin, Mont., doesn't exist anymore but I guess Butte is still goin' strong.

The Maudlins got their start in England or Scotland or one of them foreigner countries that don't use good English like we got today. Before that the Maudlins lived in France but their name was Cro-Maggot or something like that. From England we came to Virginia but there are a lot of Maudlins in Ohio so I guess that just goes to show you.

There are some in Missouri too but I don't know if we ever traded at Harry Truman's haberdashery. Probably we would have if we had known he was gonna turn out to be such a famous bomb thrower. But I suppose the people in Hiroshima today don't even know who did it.

I guess that's about all I know about Salem.

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My favorite word today is religion. N., old testimonial. Def.: Something not meant to be understood which permits a bunch of people in pulpits to explain all over again the mystery of Easter and The Rolling Stones.