My TDC vote for Best Song of the Decade

I posted the following, before realizing that this song is 17 years old!

My bad.

To wit;

"Those are great, they were catchy, they were very popular, and I also found myself enthralled by them, singing horribly along to them in the passing lane at eighty mph when they came on.

Musical Greatness, in our democratic republic, is assigned by popularity, and of course, record sales. But perhaps true Musical Greatness can be evaluated another way.

Here's an idea: by What Has Withstood the Test Of Time.

I propose "One" by U2, in my humble opinion.

Tidbit: The name U2 was once considered to have been a reference to Uranium, as in an ingredient in the construction of an atomic bomb, back when we were still living under that Cold War umbrella.

But it actually may have been meant to be inclusive of each of us to stand up to the powers that be, as in "You, Too."

"One" is their union of "You, Too," (us all); a culmination of their 30 years of making music about political stuff and trying to get the young involved.



My 2 cents."

Oh well. I then gave my next fave.

CARS Part 3

The Sunday Sideshow is a catchbag. WYSIWYG. Sometimes there is a Carnival Sideshow. Sometimes there is a blog written as if by a Mighty TDC Forum member. (Be worried, you'll each get your own turn, you TDCers.) Sometimes there is pron. Sometimes it's all about robots. Today, there is only a true story, so bail now, if ya don't like a lot of text. Or stay awhile.

Pour, pack, or puff, or whatever you do in your spare time while surfing the alleys of the internet.

Cars Part 3



One thing about the type of person who taps on your car window with a tire iron: they probably don't go to the police station all that much unless they are dragged there in handcuffs. My little steaming rice burner was about to seize up into a solid block of aluminum and steel, and then I'd be looking for my teef on the floor boards shortly thereafter, if I was lucky, that was. But now I was sputtering through the streets of Clovis in a car about to die, and this was a place whose streets I knew quite well, having toured everywhere on my ten speed, which I wished I'd had in the back seat for a clandestine get away that night (front wheel had those nifty quick release nutjobs for easy stowage).

Instead, I had a nutjob after me.

Clovis once was all farming land, but as the city of Fuckno California began to grow exponentially larger in the 80’s, it moved northward like a slug, leaving a trail of slime and crack houses in its once-lovely southern district, where everything had been built in the forties and fifties during a post-war utopian era of prosperity and dreams and hope, couple with an obsession for Art Deco styled homes.

Fuckno ate Clovis.

The huge farms of Clovis had once been situated above the north-east of Fuckno, but not for long when I lived in Fuckno. The owners of these stately farms, whose work had contributed to the greening of this high desert into the world’s largest fruit-growing valley suddenly were being asked by real-estate developers to sell their hundreds of acres for millions of dollars.

Developers razed these farms, then built neighborhoods in gaudy eighties-style ranches and McMansions, complete with black with pink floor carpeting, and strips of chrome on the walls inside, and cheaply constructed but pretty stucco on the outside. At the same time, the civil engineers came upon an unique idea, and it was this:

Do away with roads that are straight and gridded, unless they were the major avenues. This would cut down on traffic through residential zones. Put cul-de-sacs everywhere, to stop speeders. Paint everything various shades of pastel, so that in the orange mercury-arc streetlights at night, every home looked the same. You had to know where you were going, or you were fucked.

These side streets were where I took Tire Iron for a spin. He couldn’t catch up to me due to the twisty roads and the deep drainage ditches that crossed each intersection on every side. I blew through stop signs when I came upon them, and so did he. Although it was a desert, when it rained in the winter months, if fucking poured. Millions of gallons of water always need someway to escape. There were no under ground drainage systems, you see. This high desert valley had a floor of hard-pan, which is like cement. Too expensive to drill very deep into. The whole valley farming soil had been trucked in a dumper at a time, to about a foot deep.

So, this guy was blatting through quiet residential streets on his motorcycle, getting god-damned lost. I kind of figured that he'd never toured around in these picturesque and expensive residential areas on his dirty hog.

My ace in the hole would be the Clovis Police Department. I was just hoping that he either hadn’t been hauled there too many times to remember how to get home from it, or else, if he had gone there, been so fucked up that he'd never remember anyway.

Had to give him credit for his perseverance, but not for his focus. He should have been thinking about his cheating bitch instead of me. You know, he could speed quite the hell up, maybe even getting close enough to read my license plate, if he could read, that is. But one must always slow down when riding a heavy two-wheeler just as quickly if one didn't want to become airborn from a deep, cement drain-way on a curved road lined with cheaply built and expensively sold stuccoed ranch style monstrosities and McMansions.

Think of these cement waterways as three-foot wide speed bumps that went down into the hard-pan a good ten inches instead of up into the air. You would go up into the air if you weren't careful. Many car's oil pan was shredded on these short-sightedly built things. Luckily, the oil from such an impact wouldn't seep into the har-pan beneath the asphalt all that quickly.

If only it had, indeed, been the rainy season. He'd be slipping all around in that case, and my engine would get some cooling. But it wasn't.

My heart was pumping faster than the three-cylinder car I was now driving. Steam blew out from under the hood, which was good in this case because once the steam stopped, so would the engine.

I stayed away from the major streets for one obvious reason, and also the cul-de-sacs, for another obvious reason.

Just when steam began to sputter out in deadening wafts, I turned a corner and found myself on a side street by the Clovis Police Station. I jumped out to run to it, but I think he must have given up and tried to go back the way he’d come. I don't know if he dumped his bike, or crashed into a house, but I couldn't hear his pipes anymore. If only he'd followed me, he would have found that this police station was situated, up at the other end, on a major thoroughfare.

Some people say that they can still hear the ghost of the lone, lost scuzzbag with the tire iron, blatting through the side streets of Clovis, CA, looking for his way back to his cheating, big-tittied bitch.

Well, she never went back to work at that high-end burger joint, but I did. The ground their own beef for their 1/2 lb burgers in their own butcher shop. The first thing you saw on the way in the big place was a big, double glass window of the butcher workshop, so you could see that, yes, your hamburger was freshly cut off a carcass and then ground up.

They had their own bakery, on the right side of the entry, past the cash registers, so that they could bake their own special-sized buns, and also desserts for the ice cream shoppe directly ahead. Next was a 20 foot long salad-and-condiments bar for toppings. But these were meant solely for the burger. You put these ingredients on your burger yourself. They even had a cauldron of melted cheese sauce for your next heart attack and fries. Now I'm all hungry.

Soon, I had enough money to go in halves on one of the best rides I'd ever owned. Me and my bud bought a 1972 Ford LTD Brahman with a V-8 that had checkered racing flags on both sides of the number “429” on the engine block. This big bitch had doors almost four feet long (she was a coupe, you see) and bench seats big enough to hold eight large people. Forest green paint with a black rag covered hardtop (not a convertible), and my favorite part: whitewalls. All I needed were some white penny loafers and a matching white belt, just like uncle Gus from Augusta, godamma chummy.

When you stomped on the accelerator while in Park, the engine torqued to your left, and the whole car rolled to your right. Yes, I crashed her. Too much engine, not enough brakes or brains.

To be continued next week, ayuh.

Imagine this bitch in forest green with a black top, and you get the idea.




God Help You.

God Help Us All.


---willies out.

CARS Part 2

Promenade, you TDC forum member.



Yes, the Holiday Season is over. We adults have a mighty fine boozing holiday in less than a week, but this whole abrupt ending thing kinda sucks for the little ones. It drops like a friggin lump of coal: all done, gone, see ya next year. Be good until then.

Do you do anything for them? If so, tell us in the forum.


The following 3 links are some gift ideas you should be glad that you haven't received or even known about except one. Figure it out.


Back in the day, these are the sort of advertisements we 'Mericans were exposed to. Says a lot about how far we've come from then, to now hiding overt racism and other forms of political incorrectness, hmmmm...

The ultimate in modern day creepy gifts.

Can you imagine getting this as a stocking stuffer?




Now for some links of the sort that you might expect from the mind of your TDC Forum friend "the willies."

My buds the Rustic Overtones won’t even allow me to pre-post their new tune here. It drops in a week from now. Yes, they are from Maine. They have an interesting sound you might find favorable. If you are interested, Click this. Listen to The Downside Of Looking Up, if ya please. Or not.


Antidote, odd pics of a mandarin orange from someone with too much time on her hands.


Fucking with the Japanese. Dude just wants an ice cream cone, for crying out loud.


Funny signs.


Dude loves his lions. Do not try this at home, if you live in the Serengeti, that is.




Some off beat news headlines.


If you like short vids of (alleged) comedy, check out these. 14 seconds of quick mental weirdness in each. Scroll down to the videos.


Remember this game in this cartoon?
Here's why you never get the straight block.


Fake or real, big dog, big as a small horse.


You decide if you like this site. Conservatively, that is.

_______________________________________________

Now for some more of my true tales for you, dear TDC Forum Citizen.

CARS part 2



The original idea for this series of posts came from TDC forum member chico. (His non-caps, not mine. He's like e e cummings.)

The newly bored out straight four began to steam at over a hundred miles and hour, but I'm pretty sure that I'd blown the head gasket moments before while red-lining in third gear. She lost major compression and began to cough. Luckily, the girl in the other car signaled the oncoming exit up ahead, and I followed her off the freeway. In her driveway, I asked her for a jug of hot water for the radiator. There was butter on the dipstick. I might be able to get her home if I had a bunch of gallons of hot water.

I just needed to let her cool down for a bit after I'd been riding her hot and hard. This chick was a co-worker at the new restaurant I was working in, my first real, legit job, after working in that pukey shit hole known as the Silver Dollar Saloon. She was a cute Latina, with seriously huge boobs, and she liked cars too. I was sixteen and paying taxes out of my paycheck.

She came back out with a jug of hot water and a rack of beers. What a sight she was. We ended up listening to music and making out in the back of my car, windows up when the sun goes down in the desert, and when we started to get down to the real business, there was a tap at the window, driver side.

Now I must first tell you; I'd filled the radiator with hot water after the radiator cap got cooled off enough to not sputter under the rag, but didn't have any more coolant than what she'd brought out in the one jug. You see, the sky was dark, the interior of the car was dark, and this was why he didn't just bust out the window, reach in and grab my 16 year old spindly body off his 18 year old girl.

Big, older biker dude with a tire iron tapped on the window, "Shelly, you in there?" To me he simply said, "get out." Shelley pushed the passenger seat forward and climbed out of the passenger door, other side away. "Sorry, I should have told you," she said to me.

"Is he your dad?" I asked, to which he turned back to me and reiterated his command though the glass. "Get the fuck out, you bastard."

I locked the door and cranked the engine, which thankfully, hadn't seized up. Butter in the oil pan, but she wasn't dry. The head gasket was blown on the inside, and coolant had steamed into one of the pistons.

"It's my boyfriend."

Nice of her to let me know that I could be taking a risk, in her driveway, my back to the world, with the likelihood that her angry biker father-figure would be coming by after work. Big tittied muthafuckin Bitch.

I grunted out in reverse, sputtering along on only three piston, and didn't even wait to see if he would follow me.

I got up to about forty, my rebuilt engine shuddering and beginning to steam quite badly, and soon I saw him coming up behind me on his ride. I took the next exit, and ran down some side and cross streets in Old Clovis. I was still ten miles from home, but this car was good for another two.

Dude wasn't giving up.

To Be Continued, as a Sunday Sideshow.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.


---willies out.

About the Sunday SideShow for the Super Shopper

I forgot to put this up here last week. It was meant for the Sunday before Christmas, but I thought you should know.

The opening image is from the intarwebnethingy, and it's been around awhile. Some guy who is big over in BritLand and who's name sounds like Meat Doughy and is in a band with Amy Wino, or doing some kind of professional works with her, was shambling around London like a baby. Dude looks wasted. But it also looks like he went to the mall, that's all I needed. After a bit of text over this pic, I went to grab some links for the TDCers. Nuff said.




Well, hey there, intrepid shopper. Happy Sunday to you, fellow TDCer.

Did you venture out into the malls for some shopping this weekend? God Help You, you poor bastard. Have a seat and grab a cup o’ joe, and let’s take a stroll down the Sunday Sideshow back alley, shall we? We need to have some time to ourselves, because we deserve it.


What the hell is this thing flying over the Kremlin, in Moscow? Looks like it should be in Egypt, on the ground, in the sand.




OK, enough with the World Will End In 2012. Every few years, a nutso group makes a claim like this, and then the deadline passes, and they recalculate.

Here is some bullshit that your teens are worried about:



Or this, much longer.



Here is the antidote. Of course 2012 is a fucked up conspiracy theory. Truth right here.



Now for some fun. Press play and kick back awhile here in Sunday SideShow Land.




Here are some links to places that will take some time to explore. Pron will follow, below. Enjoy, good TDC bud.




A nice place to visit. Here's a good post about what truly matters. It's all Peanuts, if you think about it. Check out their site.


If you have something to do in your place where you rest your bones and put the tired dogs up, and if you would like to hear 24 Radiohead songs, one after another on autoplay, click on this link and go to town. Enjoy.


Optical illusion. Boing Boing rocks well. Explore their site, if you haven't already heard of this shit.


I wish I was this fucking cool. Who can go by a single name like the "Edge" or "Bono" and still be smooth after being in a rock band for over 28 years, and not tread into "Madonna" or "Moby" or "Cher" waters?




Big Creatures that shouldn't be so big. Other things to see here as well.

Color saturation picture. Inteereesting. Other things here to see as well.


Computorrrr. Muppets fun. Yup yup yup yup yup...


Brainy cartoon pic for nerds.


In response to Richie's Ninja Monkeys here's the Henchman Monkey.


Fixing shit the cheap way.

From your TDC bud ‘Tucky and his emails. How come no one else helps a brutha out? Bastawds.

_________________________________

No Pun In Tended.

1. Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony
wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.

2. A dyslexic man walked into a bra.

3. Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other: "Does this
taste funny to you?"

4. "Doc, I can't stop singing The Green, Green Grass of Home."
"That sounds like Tom Jones Syndrome."
"Is it common?"
"Well, It's Not Unusual."

5. Two cows are standing next to each other in a field.
Daisy says to Dolly, "I was artificially inseminated this morning.."
"I don't believe you," says Dolly.
"It's true, no bull!" exclaims Daisy.

6. An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to
look at either.

7. I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day, but I couldn't
find any.

8. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the
craft. Not surprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have
your kayak and heat it too.

9. A woman has twins, and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a
family in Egypt , and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his
birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she
wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're
twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."

10. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which
produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very
little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from
bad breath. This made him a super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by
halitosis.

11. A dwarf, who was a mystic, escaped from jail. The call went out that
there was a small medium at large.

12. And finally, there was the person who sent 11 different puns to his
friends, with the hope that at least 10 of the puns would make them laugh.
No pun in 10 did.
_____________________________________________________


Pron.

Here’s a song for ya.




Start with soft. Yum.


305 baby. Big butts.

Some puffy nips.

Tan lines.

Last link. Get you in trouble.

Have a good Sunday, TDCer.




God Help You. God Help Us All.

---willies out.

Cars Part I

Well hey there you enjoyer of the "Behind The Scenes" blog about what it takes to construct a weekend post by your bud, "the willies."

These are my own true stories. I have always and will always own exclusive rights to them. Enjoy, my friend. I told you, if Richie allowed me back after my hiatus, I'd give you a good ride. Let's go.

I've had a life-long obsession with cars. Haven't you?

These machines are quite marvelous creations. Would you care to read about some fucked-up experiences I've had with these lovely monsters?

If so, please go forward, why don'tcha?

Here's a Beta Version of the First Part.
__________________________________________



Thank you Richie for outing me in yesterday's TDC column. The rest of you, get your weekend game on. Pour, sip, pack, and spark this mutha fucka up.

Below are some links to enjoy on your weekend day off. You deserve some good time to yourself, in between all the shopping and other Holiday madness we find ourselves enduring.

There will be some Fuckno, CA exploits after these links, if you care to partake. These involve cars that your weekend guide has rebuilt and inadvertently destroyed, or has been lucky enough to survive in crashes. These are true stories. Part I of this shit begins after the song.

But before we venture, here are some links for you Inglourious Basterds.

Here we go.

Here's what it takes to post a column on TheDailyColumn.com.


Now I have to tell you, I truly appreciate the work of our fellow citizens hired by Public safety to serve and protect us. But, when a police officer is run over by another police officer after putting down a spike strip (nails for tires), and the dude is away from the road, on the right shoulder when he gets plowed, can you truly put the blame for his death on the dumbass speeding chick who took the previous exit and got away? What do YOU think? Why not accept the responsibility for killing another officer?

Generations and their hallmarks. I'm Gen X. How about you?

Thank goodness we have these folks protecting the marriage thing.

I miss Saturday cartoons. And, the ads, like for HoneyComb Hideout and KoolAid.

This is the time of best of lists. End of year, end of decade, start of second shift in new millenium. But I offer only one. Here ya go. Auto Tune up.



It's all in what words you choose to use to ask a question.

Thanks Richie and Hoot for not stealing my thunder by posting something about my favorite subject: robots.

________________________________________


OK, we good?

Welcome back to the reality of willies.

Play this song, why don’t you? Do it now. Get yourself in a sort of mood for the true story that follows.



You may need coffee, or a beer, or something to puff on. It’s up to you, and no one here will ever judge you.

No, this song isn’t the Stones. It’s Spoon.

You see, I am writing this whole Fuckno CA in reverse. Call up Fat Jerry's Hearse for a ride. He didn't end up so well. But you will, good bud, when this four part story ends, in the weekends that follow.


______________________________________________

Fuckno, CA., 1980’s: Cars. Part I

Have you ever rebuilt a car engine? By yourself? Without any help at all, except for a Chilton’s guide? Without any formal training in auto shop at the high school? And, when you were fifteen?

I should have afforded myself the luxury of auto shop. That would have been a blast. I may have not mashed my knuckle to the pink bone and got all dizzy if I'd been taught to pull on the socket wrench instead of push. Lotta blood there, chummy. I saw bone.

You should have seen my room. Chronological order of parts removed, each labeled, clockwise around my bedroom in Fuckno, in section 8 housing, north of the reservoir just below Shields Avenue. Chestnut Street. A duplex in a housing project. That was where I’d met the young man who’d made fun of my brown (dark orange) squared-toed boots with the zipper up the half rise, with big heels.

That first day of school would later happen in a couple months from when this true story begins.

I had saved up cash money by working at a biker bar, (mopping up spilled beer, broken teefs and glass, vomit, blood, rings and watches, cumshot, and wet money in that shithole, The Silver Horse Saloon) and bought a ten speed, and then saved up for my first metal bitch. My first love, (automobile-wise, that is).

Here is how my first experience of owning and then rebuilding a car went down. (Mind you, I blew the newly-bored engine trying to impress a big-tittied-bitch, and ended up in her driveway with butter on my dipstick, just when her boyfriend showed up. He was a biker.) BTW, butter on your dipstick means that you have blown a head gasket and water has been churned with the oil to make emulsion. But I quite like the sexual innuendo. I just didn’t, that night, with the jilted biker dude, tapping on my car window with a tire iron and all. But more on that later.

First part of this story: My mom showed me a car that her lover’s daughter’s boyfriend wanted to get rid of. This piece of shit was a 1972 Toyota Celica, 2.2 Liter 4 banger Special Ed, and when he started it up, it smoked like a bar-lit hooker. It drank too: a quart of oil every day. I swear she blew blue smoke rings from her tailpipe.

When I look back, from an Air Quality viewpoint, that hurts.

Anyway, for $500, that daughter-fucking rip-off artist towed it to the front parking space of my duplex. It couldn't even pass inspection.

Who sells a kid a piece of shit like that? OK, he made $480 more than he’s have gotten at a junkyard. Kudos to him, the bastard.

But when I started to clean her out, I began to own her. You see, the ideals and dreams of the young will always ignore the deep scratches and fabric tears of the current situation, and this is a sort of magic. Or illusion. But you imagine what could be, and then you try to make that happen.

You see, she didn’t have any dents or rust at all, just oxidized paint. This was California, after all. Shit gets oxidized from the sun. Not much else happens to a vehicle, other than car crashes. More on that later.

Oxidized paint? Yes, you guessed it. It took many coats of Turtle Wax and 2.733 shitloads (metric) of elbow grease to rub that oxidation off, and one day, she gleamed like the smile your grampa got on his teef when grandma took her own teef out.

My bitch was very cute. I named her Matilda. Now you may ask yourself, "Why would a young man name his vehicle such an old woman's name?"

_____________________________________

You would be right to ask yourself such a question. That goes back to a comic book that had scared the shit out of me and gave me nightmares when I was nine. It had a story named, "Matilda And The Red Shoes." This chick stole shoes off her sister's corpse after the funeral because she liked 'em. Then the corpse came riding down the hill in her casket in the middle of a freaky hurricane, and smashed in her sister's door, at the bottom of the hill from the cemetery.

How cool is that? I stayed up for weeks, because I actually lived below a cemetery, on the Maine coast, for a number of years when I was nine. After that, I read "The Shining." Now you see why I am the way I am.

_________________________________________

So I asked around and found out that it was possible to make a car stop smoking and drinking if you took her to AA. OK, if you bought a Chilton’s guide to automotive repair. Every step is outlined with what they call exploded diagrams, which means that all the parts are separated, in order, according to removal and then recombining.

God bless those Chilton dudes. Truly. They do it for each automobile. And they show you, step by step.

Which works when you are tearing something apart, but wait until you try to put your shit back together.

God Help You.

I found out that there are machine shops that will bore out your block, and sell you the correct-sized piston heads, rings, arms, everything, at a pretty decent price. They even spun my crankshaft. That was nice of them.

You see, if you were a poor but also motor-hungry teen like I was, it was up to you to put it all back together again.

I used a soup can with giant plumbing clamps to squeeze the rings and a rubber mallet to get those piston heads back into the block. That is something you should never do. I was lucky. No scrapes.

I was fifteen. Chilton now recommends using "Piston Ringy Thingy Squeezer/Compressor Shit Or What Have You Apparatuses." PRTSCSOWHYA, for you uninitiated.

I wanted to have a good car to drive after I’d get my license in eight months. I wanted to make this piece of shit that good car I pictured in my head. I was going to get my permit and then license at each turn in the road, you betcha.

There is nothing like owning a machine that offers you the opportunity to drive off in any direction you like, for as long as you like, whenever you want. This is the taste of Freedom. I think this something that only we Americans can experience. You see, the European Union is not like these United States. We can drive from coast to coast, through each sovereign state without a passport at each border. We are quite a helluva country, you know.

I blew my newly restored 1978 Celica racing a big-tittied chick in, get this, her 1982 Celica. She had plastic. On the car, but those boobies were the real deal.

She protected her car,I didn't. I red-lined. Guess it was being proudful of having built the thing. When you are legal to drive your restored automobile, you feel empowered. Or maybe it is being sixteen, ten feet tall and invincible.

Yes, I was a punk. I would always be a punk, from then on. Still am. But that sucked that evening and night.

Wish I'd had the balls to match my bore, that night, fleeing from a dude and his Harley, chasing after me and my blown, steaming rice burner.

A bit o’ the Irish, a song for ya. You see, I am half Irish, half Indian. I am of two tribes. Lotta voices I'd like to quiet, don'tcha know, laddie? lol





To Be Continued Next Weekend, if ya like.

Next Weekend: Racing, Blowing an Engine, Getting Blowed, meeting a Pissed Off Biker, and How To Drive Away With A Blown Engine Being Chased By An Angry Biker.

God Help You. God Bless Us, Everyone. Merry Christmas to you and yours. Or whatever you believe in and/or sacrifice animals to.


---willies out.

chico got me thinking

In the TDC forums, a contributor known as "chico" spoke about how blinking lights at a certain crossroad should be programmed to stay on traffic control status 24/7.

This might have kept two young dudes in Connecticut alive today, when an allegedly asshole cop who was getting his alleged jollies off allegedly killed them, by allegedly racing through an alleged blinking light at 90 MPH, and, get this, not on a call.

Hey, some of my best buds are alleged police officers.

But now I will write about blinking lights versus full-stop traffic control lights, on all the time, next Saturday.

This idea could have saved my wife's eyes from getting busted glass in them from impact.

Ya know.

---willies out.

I Brake For DIYers

When you know how to work on an automobile, it really makes you itch to have someone else do it for you. If you have the tools, the patience, and the ability to figure things out, (or a Chilton's guide, if you are doing anything remotely "specificational," then you will get your hands dirty.

Just don't breathe in the dust from the brakes.

Here are some pics of what I did today, an hour before dark, (early off from work).

I swear by these guys.


I've been to one place that gave me the wrong parts twice. Perhaps to convince me to let their guys in the garage bays do it for me. Their company name consists of three letters similar to RIP. As in RIP-OFF. The last straw was when they put my SUV up on a lift for an inspection, which is normal, but wouldn't let it back down until I agreed to let them do all the things they found wrong with it. I told them to fuck off and went into the bay and told that guy out there to put it back down.

I haven't been back since.

But these guys promise to deliver your parts for free at your garage if you need them to. I've never gotten the wrong part from them, either.




Always buy the new hardware kit, in any job you do. $20 for peace of mind is cheap. Mechanical parts in a vehicle tend to be subjected to tremendous amounts of heat and stress, especially in the braking system.



It helps to leave one brake system together while you work on the other, for reference. Taking a digital picture can help you too.



Good luck!



(Don't breathe in the dust)

Constructing a Sunday side show

A buddy of mine whom I've never met sends me a bunch of links each week to use for the TDC column I contribute.

I know him by name, we've chatted on the phone quite a bit, but never had the face to face, or, beer to beer... but 'Tucky, as he is known at TDC is a good guy.

So I opted to construct a Sunday Sideshow and use all his links this time. Well, this week, he sent me a bunch of different pictorial slide shows. Only two links. I'd posted on the Saturday that I was going to do it, and now, I had some more work cut out for myself.

An idea occurred, so I took some Ibuprofen for the headache.

It was this: DO the column in Tucky's voice. Except, make him sound like a raunchy redneck. This could be fun! I went and trolled around for some links for TDCer's to check out, and then went on a pron hunt, which turned out decent.

Then I made a story out of some of the picture slide shows he'd gotten in his emails.

Judge for yourself, the result:



Well hey there ya gosh darned fist-fuckin cousin-kissin monkey-licker!
This here Sunday Sideshow is a look into the purty mouth of the Dirty South.

Go shoo the old lady and the brats off to the mall, call the cousin, close the blinds, lock the door, get out some napkins and your favorite lube. Bacon grease works just fine, but, butter is better.

Read this shit I done found in my email. It’s all true!

How many men does it take to open a beer?
None.... It should be opened when she brings it.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Why is a Laundromat a really bad place to pick up a woman?
Because a woman who can't even afford a washing machine will probably never be able to support you.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Why do women have smaller feet than men?
It's one of those “evolutionary things” that allows them to stand closer to the kitchen sink.
-----------------------------------------------------------
How do you know when a woman is about to say something intelligent?
When she starts a sentence with “A man once told me....”
-----------------------------------------------------------
How do you fix a woman's watch?
You don't. There is a clock on the oven.
----------------------------------------------------------
If your dog is barking at the back door and your wife is yelling at the front door, who do you let in first?
The dog of course. He'll shut up once you let him in.
-- --------------------------------------------------------
Scientists have discovered a food that diminishes a woman's sex drive by 90%.
It's called a Wedding Cake.
----------------------------------------------------
Why do men die before their wives?
To get some peace and quiet for once.
------------------------------------------------------
Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.

I got some fambly snapshots to show ya. Check ‘em out.

Here's what happens when you have a leak in an acetylene tank in yore van. Dresses up the neighborhood nicley, ya think?



We had to move to the lakeside whilst the trailer was gettin' repaired. Well, it got a bit chilly at night,



So we made like the Injuns and got us some teepees.



Can you see the outhouse? It's the second Teepee.



Acourse, had to get around in the snow. So I put this together.

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Our trailer sure is sorely missed. That makes me think of TIMT. Here's a ride I could build for him like his SilverStream just not silver.



Shoot, I could build one for you TDC folks, if ya like. Someone hated their driver enough in this one. Imagine if it was raining?






I get my skills from my gramps. Grammy wove him this cute basket for his bike. He and cousin uncle Eddy used to drive off to Charlottesville for some fun.





Here’s how we make punkin pie where I come from.



How we look in our innards, y’all.



Here’s Cousin Becky Sue Sarah reading Shartner on Conan O’Brien’s show.



Here’s something from up in Willie’s direction. Rent A Husband dude gets sued. Man, can’t a hubby get a break? Even a temporary one? Shoot.



Something Willie would like. He lives next door to that horror writin dude who wrote Carrie. Stephen King donates bucks, as long as it ain’t an unlucky number amount.




This story is in time for the Holidays. Two guys living in a damn cave suddenly inherit billions of cash money. Their Lawyer’s name is Zoltan. How cool is that?



Now for some pron. Here’s a song to get your stroke on, ya stink-fingered chicken-pluckin dingle-dangler.




Southern Pride, y’all. This is how we do it. Can anyone say “Family Re-union!” ‘Course, the word “Union” sticks in my craw a bit.




Jody by the pool, girl next door type that has a nice tan and big boobs. Wished I lived next door to her fine young thang…



Cousin luvvin, sister style. Yeehaw! That’s how ya do it!



Country style lady. All she’s missing is gravy on her biscuits. Man gravy.



Nekkid neighbor, get out your camera!



Here’s that hot chick everyone’s talking about in them motion pictures.




This girl’s got long legs, all the way up to her neck. “Ma’am, exactly how long are your legs?” “Why sir, they go all the way up.” I’d like to go all the way Up.



To my uncle Richard, we’d sometimes ask, “Got any gum on ya Dick?” Bubble yum, here.



Finally, here’s a site that will take you till Monday AM and late for work. Don’t fergit to clean up the keyboard when yerr done!


I hope ya liked the Southern Style Sunday Side Show, ya teeny-twiddlin one-clean-fingered gusher-luvvin biddie-banger!

Tucky is off to the henhouse, cuz.

Creepy Hotel Pics

The following story is about how I settled on a permanent icon or avatar for my weekly contributions to TheDailyColumn.com



The following are pictures of an old hotel where we had an Air Quality Conference. The rates were exceptionally cheap, in Champagne, Ill. due to the hotel being scheduled for demolition the week after.

Meet: The Chancellor.



This antiquated behemoth held surprises at every turn. Even doors that led to nowhere! For symmetrical aesthetics, I'm sure... (Pssst...No Door Knob!)



The roof top bar was closed. "The Continental." Classy, back in the seventies!



This art deco mirror should have been saved from the demolition. I woulda taken it. (Forgive the tweaked out gamma in this. It asked for it.)



Now for the stairwell where I got that pic of the piano next to the door that read, "Please Do Not Enter." More, later, about that curiously pleading, almost invitational, "daring you" sign...



Now I don't know about you, but I think that the architect or construction contractor should have been spanked for such waste. Doors to nowhere are one thing. But un-needed stair landings, rails, no door, when there should be one? WTF?





Here is your piano in the stairwell, outside the door that had the sign, "Please Do Not Enter."



I maxed out the contrast and gamma on this.



I removed the window (and piano silhouette) and inserted text. First attempt at text. Noticed that the global angle for lighting is way off. The lighting should come from the sign, ya think?

Thus, the correct version is at the top of this post. But look below. Yecch.



So who puts a sign like that on a door that is locked from the other side? I banged on it, and it was quite echoey and metallic, like the inside of a huge iron cavern on the other side.

Now its secret is gone. The building was demolished five or six years ago, and I'd been carrying these pics around all these years, and finally found a use for one of them.

Weekend At Willies Dec.12, 2009

Here's the latest Weekend At Willies column for TDC.

Did I ever tell you that my lady came up with that name, a year ago? It's true. I'd been dicking around with Weekend Willies, but she reminded me that one of the funniest movies I'd enjoyed a couple decades ago was the one with the dead guy tied to a motorboat, hitting sea buoys.

Here it is with the new avatar (opening picture).

I adjusted the blue willies to look a bit more creepy, kinda misty. I'll post the pictures of the hotel from where I snapped this pic.



Welcome. Pour, Pack, Puff and Put your Head Phones on.

Click one of these songs below. Warning: they are hard. But come get to know another side of willies.

God Help You.

(Hint: first one has whispers between the screaming. The second starts soft, but gets loud.)





Good for you.

You've opened the door. Let's continue.

Here are some links, something that TDC is known for doing quite well.

If you have some stainless steel balls on you, or can borrow one back from your bitch for a while, there will follow another installment of Fuckno, CA.

That shit follows below the links.

God help us all.


Links for you illiterate but clicky-happy bastawds:

Swine flu (H1N1) not working out for ya? Here's why.

Maybe you should be thinking about things in a new way like these folks have done this past year.

Money makes everyone happy, true?


How about getting your holiday drink on in a new way? Here are some recipes for your bitch to make you. Or for you, if you are your own bitch.


Just don't pass out in front of your Chinese buds. You won't be able to find your remote the next day.


Probably, your Chinese friends want to cash in on the Money for Pron links?


Now why would you be wanting to steal the body of a president? Poor old Tassos Papadopoulos. He deserved better than this.


Perhaps you need some help in erecting your own political member?


Tenacious D has something to say about it.



Tomorrow, Tucky has a buttload of links for your enjoyment, to be posted as a sideshow, by me.

There Will Be Pron.

For now, here's your next Fuckno, CA. installment, to be continued in the coming weeks.

_________________________________________

Fuckno, CA. 1986

In 1986, if you were 18 years old and resided in Fuckno, California, then you might have participated in the party scene.

But first, a bit of back story.

Hmongs had introduced the first drive-by shooting in Fuckno at your high school's front lawn while after you had been there fifteen minutes earlier, and four years previous to the true story I am about to tell you.

This was Roosevelt High School, on Cedar Street, and that shit is another story I will tell you soon. Hmongs and Laotians were re-located into Fuckno due to a promise that if they helped out in Vietnam, we'd help them carry on their fucking shooting craziness here in USA. WTF.

Soon, you young and scared student, you would be transferring out of that hell hole to another high school. You see, there were six in that city at the time, each with about 2,000 kids attending each year.

Bullock High on the upper west had the rich kids. Roosevelt in the southern east had the Mexicans. Edison in the lower west had the blacks. Clovis, high up on the east end, had the rich hicks: wealthy farmers and yuppies. No one ever speaks of the fifth school. No one must ever speak of it.

But my new school had the wannabe surfers; (Fast Times At Ridgemont High was big back then), poor rednecks (Oakies), the obligatory Jocks, potheads, and Punks. Yes, Punks were the underground. Amen.

That new school is where I met Joey, whom I still call each week. Last names will only harm those who haven't given their permission. Yet. He'll come around.

More stories remain, like the one where we discovered that the cops were actually capable of using nightvision. More on that next weekend.

But here, now, we are talking about "after graduation," which was before I got my head together and left the shit hole that is known as Fuckno, CA.


Here we go.


In 1986, one could purchase a sheet of 100 hits of purple dragon yellow blotter for $100, if you weren't a total dickwad. OK, maybe you needed to be a bit more shady than just a "non-dickwad." This blotter was actually quite potent: nice visuals like swaying buildings and wiggly streets (and between "swells," you saw chinese designs in the tree leaves.) But the sounds really rocked. Mucho Echo and slith-th-th-th-ers. Good times.

And, as always, you could drink like a motherfucker, which was fun, but you had to be mindful of the come-down, when those fucking birds started going off with their accusatory chirping at you.

Cigarettes? Holy fuck, best thing in the world when you were up on a swell. Fuckers would always bum off you, bastards.

But eventually, it would majorly suck to become wasted from all the beer you'd been chugging all evening, just when you were done grinding your teeth with the permanent grin you'd had on all night.

Come-downs were not all that good.

So, these hits were pre-perforated, but you never, ever handle this shit without plastic gloves. And you store it in the freezer, lest it turn into strychnine, which makes you ache the next day when your body turns it into that stuff after, anyways. We put five hits in tinfoil packs and sold these as $25 packs.

Anyways, after a night of doing our profits a little, it was Joey's idea to go hit the punk gig down at the abandoned Baptist church on Shields Ave. and make some cash. Some group covering the MisFits were in town.

Fat Jerry promised to take us there in his Hearse. He had the MisFits' skull spray painted on the back of his leather.

We were young and into the New Romantic scene, but Fat Jerry had spikes everywhere. Shoulders, wrist cuffs, ears, even in his fucking Doc Martins, and of course, he had his two-foot-tall red spiked hair. He had to drive with his head sideways, the big, fat fuck. He used krazy glue.

Now mind you, it has been said that the brain is depleted of serotonin and/or endorphins or whatever the hell, the day after dropping some of this shit.

Fuck that, we thought. Bullshit.

Two hours before Fat Jerry was to come by with his Hearse, (Quite a lux ride, actually, if you didn't mind the hand cuffs and rings in the back) we decided to test this theory.

Yes, It did not work. Yes, we continued to take more. Yes, we took eight hits apiece. Yes. This did not end well.

You will see.

Here's a song to elucidate this idea.



At the club, ex-church, we jumped in the mosh pit. This was back when folks used elbows and knees, but not fists. If you fell, someone would pick you up, not kick you.

Punks were quite hardcore, but not fuckwads back then. It was a community, you see.

Anyways, This guy's foot-tall hair spikes in his mowhawk started to wave around like fucking Medusa, and that was the first sign that I needed to get the hell out of there.

NOW.

I found Joey, but he was talking to this hot chick all dressed in white who spoke with a British accent.

"Hey, [willies] this is Charlese." Joey was flying well. Me, not so much.

"Nice ta meetcha, Shshshshareiisssssee" I sputtered, then pulled Joey aside.

"Get me the fuck outta here."


One thing about a battle buddy, they got your back. True that.

He helped me navigate out, through the fucking mosh pit, and we actually had to stagger back a couple of miles along the city streets, of Fuckno, always diving behind orange trees and shit.

We made it back without popo intervention. But what a fuck of a night.

Comedown:

A week later, Fat Jerry told us that night he had fucked an English chick and woke up with these words scrawled in lipstick on his bathroom mirror:

"Welcome to the wonderful world of aids."

True story.

God Rest Fat Jerry's Soul.