And people still laugh as much as they ever did, despite their shrunken brains. If a bunch of them are lying around on a beach, and one of them farts, everybody laughs and laughs, just as people would have done a million years ago.

- Kurt Vonnegut’s description of the evolved human race, a million years from now, from Galapagos.

I was reading Galapagos during dinner tonight, because I am a loser who reads books while he eats alone, when I came across this wonderful passage.  And it brought me great joy.  Because I think farts are very funny.  Does this make me immature?  God, I hope so.  But if it’s true that I am unsophisticated because I laugh at farts, then Vonnegut was as well, for he clearly also considered a good fart to be a work of pure comedy.  Sure, he also could have been using this as just another example of the absurdity of humanity, considering that this was kind of the premise of the book…  Fair enough. But he was, at the very least, acknowledging the well known fact that human beings think farts are always good for a laugh.  And if one of modern history’s great novelists can admit this, well damnit, I think we all can.
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Our public transportation system here in Atlanta is named MARTA, and MARTA’s not getting a lot of love these days.  And that’s a bummer, because Atlanta’s bar and restaurant scene is getting better and better.  This blasted recession is taking out stores left and right, yet new bars and restaurants are popping up like gangbusters.   But Atlanta isn’t a very walkable city.  There’s a bunch of wonderful neighborhoods scattered throughout the metro area, each with their own distinct vibe and their own wonderful pockets of pubs, but to get from one neighborhood to another, we’re limited to cars and cabs.  And driving from a bar in one part of town to a bar in another is pretty much a recipe for a cavity search.

Atlanta’s layout is really the perfect candidate for public transportation.

And despite its numerous negatives, our dear old MARTA rail actually does a pretty decent job of connecting these disparate towns, allowing one to safely engage in a cross-town beer bender, if one is sufficiently lubricated enough to endure the myriad of MARTA headaches.
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I just checked the messages on the old answering machine that sits alone and sad in the back room of the house.  I don’t know why I still have this thing.  I don’t know why I check the messages either.  It’s always nothing but a dial tone from some automated sales call that doesn’t realize it’s no longer the 90s and is probably so shocked when it actually gets an outgoing message that it panics and hangs up.  I assume that’s what happens anyway.  Or maybe it’s an automated call programmed to harrass idiots like me who don’t realize it’s no longer the 90s and still check their answering machine messages.   But this time when I punched the “messages” button I wasn’t greeted by the dial tone, but by an odd impersonal robotic voice that exclaimed, “You may qualify for a free burial…”

I think it continued on some sales pitch of some sort, but I was no longer listening.  A chill of terror ran down my spine and I quickly scanned the surrounding room, looking for humanoid-shaped shadows in the corners.  I may have just received a death threat from a robot!   I expected to hear the message again – “You may quality for a free burial…” -  but this time coming from somewhere other than the answering machine.   And then I’d hear the bang of metal against hardwood from behind me and turn to see a shovel now laying on the floor.

“You have qualified for a free burial, Bones.”

“NOW START DIGGING!”

At this point the shovel would slide across the floor at impossible speeds and stop suddenly at my feet.  I would feel an irresistible urge to bend over and pick it up.  I would do so. I would feel the urge to use it.  To dig a hole.  Out in my front yard.  A deep hole.  6 feet deep maybe.  A deep dark warm hole in which I could crawl down into and curl up and sleep the sleep of kings.  Somewhere in the back of my head reason would be fighting to pull itself back up to the forefront.  “Don’t do it, Bones!”  I would open my mouth to scream, but the only sound to come out would be a loud long yawn.  Ohhh, so sleepy.  Better start digging if I want to sleep.  Wouldn’t want to miss my opportunity for a free burial.   I would walk out my front door, my new shovel in hand, and carry it into the front yard.  Where I would stuff it into the grass, opening up the earth, and taking the first step towards the wonderful burial for which I am now qualified.

So concentrated on my hole would I be that I would fail to notice all my neighbors out in their own front yards, digging.   Digging under the moonlight.

Hmmm, nope. No shovel.  No disembodied robot voice coming from a corner of the room.  Guess it was just an automated sales pitch directed towards the wrong demographic.  Close call, though.  Cause this could quite possibly have been the beginning of the inevitable robot attack on humanity.  I had always assumed they’d use lasers.  But really, mass mind control which takes hold of the human consciousness and orders us all to bury ourselves is a much more efficient and much less messy solution, isn’t it?   Do I have any evil robots that read this blog?  If so, I’d be curious what you think.  Lasers or mass mind control?

Ahh, damnit.   This isn’t what I had intended to write about.  I wanted to write about a drunken merry train ride I took last week.  And now it’s getting late.  And I’ve got myself all creeped out thinking that I’m going to walk back into the back room with the answering machine and see that damn shovel laying on the floor.  Calling out to me.

“NOW START DIGGING!”

Oh well.  Guess I’ll try again later in the week.

Be wary, by the way. There’s a snake in your bed.

I’m sitting in the lobby of a car maintenance shop early on a Saturday morning.  I’m tired, zapped up on coffee, and since it’s the weekend, I smell like a cig.  Much to the chagrin of the lady sitting in the laptop booth next to me, presumably (and, kind of, hopefully).  While driving down the highway an hour earlier, listening to that nasty moan of metal on metal that indicates I’m about to spend a bunch of money  on new brakes, I spotted a car on the side of the highway.  It was in a ditch, its tail end pointed towards the woods, and the front of the car facing the highway, but also pointing slightly in the opposite direction than it would have been coming from. Damnit. Now seriously, how in the hell did it end up that way?  I shouldn’t have cared.  It has nothing to do with me.  But it sure pissed me off.  And it reminded me of how much I hate cars

Cars are kind of like humans.  They are much too complicated.  They require way too much ongoing maintenance.  And they allow too much opportunity for stupid people to find themselves in a ditch, sideways-facing, with their nose pointing at me as I drive by, tired, zapped up on coffee, and smelling like a cig.

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It’s been a stressful week of work so far, and I was looking forward to sitting down in front of the laptop and banging out some text in an effort to cool out a bit.  But here I am and, well, nothing’s coming.  I’m staring at the screen blankly, then reaching over to grab a drink of beer, then staring blankly, then stepping out for a smoke, then sitting back down, and, still… nothing.   Well, damnit.   You know, when you have a blog that consists of nothing but self-serving stories and insights about yourself,  there’s really no excuse to have writer’s block.  Surely I can think of something about me that I want to bore the internet with.   Hell, I guess there’s nothing to do but just keep typing and see what happens…
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It was one of the sadder moments in my life when I discovered that Dungeons and Dragons and beer drinking do not mix, and when it was time to continue my journey… only one of them could come with me.

Ahh, but let us put this unfortunate epiphany on the shelf for a moment, and reflect back upon the good memories.  The good memories of pretzels, Diet Rite, and hours and hours of totally awesome role-playing.

I was maybe eight years old or so when my older brother Dre came home with the Dungeons and Dragons Basic Rules Set 1, a wondrous red box topped with an immortal image of a brazen warrior battling a ferocious gold dragon with nothing but a broad sword, a shield, and his wits.  Immediately I was stricken, and I watched, fascinated, as he lifted the box top, pulled out the folded cardboard module, the paper character sheets, and the handful of peculiar dice.  The diamond shaped eight-sided (d8), the odd triangular four-sided (d4), and of course, the almighty twenty-sided (d20).   He set up shop, pulled out a pencil to scratch out some notes, and morphed into his newly acquired role of Dungeon Master.  Immediately I was transported into a new world as Dre began to speak…

“The crumbling stone stairs lead down into the shallow archway of the cavern, where darkness awaits…”
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I’ve always been interested in those theme-based bar crawls.  Organized events where dozens of dudes and ladies meet up  in a particular part of town, everyone dressed in a common costume, and parade from pub to pub, laughing, drinking, and generally engaging in good-hearted misbehavior.  Some local examples would be the Santa Pub Crawl, PiratePalooza, and Bar Golf.  I’ve always been interested in them, yet I’ve never participated.   Maybe because I’m too unmotivated to go track down the requisite costume, but more likely because my crippling narcissism prevents me from supporting someone else’s good idea when I could rather be organizing my own.  Course, I never have organized a themed bar crawl, nor will I likely ever do so, as it requires much more effort and promotional talent than I’ll ever possess to successfully pull one of these off.  And I’m pretty sure that if I were going to organize a bar crawl, it would consist of my emailing three or four of my friends at best,  and we’d probably spend the entire night at the first bar where we met up, our unworn costumes piled up on the empty stool next to us.

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Hey gang,  hope you are all having a wonderful Valentines Day!  Today is the perfect day for romantic dinners and … wait a minute…  Valentines Day was last week, wasn’t it?  Crap.   Oh man, my girlfriend must be pisssssed off that I missed it!  But then again, I don’t have a girlfriend, do I?  So I guess I’m ok…  But wait, if I don’t have a girlfriend, then who is this girl here in my bed?  Or, um, this isn’t my bed.   Where in the hell am I?  And… um… why is this girl wearing a wedding ring?  And why is there a man sleeping next to her, wearing a matching ring?   And why am I curled up in fetal position at the foot of the bed???

Where am I?!   What in the hell happened last night???

….and now they’re beginning to wake up.  Great.  Just great.

This is going to be awkward.

I’m just kidding, I’m actually sitting here alone in my office, and I’ve just posted a new short story.  What do you say about that?  Excited?  I know you are.  It’s my latest tale, and I think it’s a pretty decent read, and more importantly, a relatively short read.   It’s called Proposal.  Thus, the brilliant wedding ring-related intro to this post.  Oh wait, this story isn’t about weddings.  Damnit, this is going nowhere.

Anyway, you can find the story here, and the pdf version here.   And an unrelated picture of a delicious glass of milk here.

Cats,

Bones

The bartender had not expected the words to come out of my mouth, and he struggled to refrain from looking over at me as I sat there on my bar stool, friends on either side.   The gang laughed.  Not necessarily at me, but rather, at the unexpectedness of the statement.

“Sometimes when I’m hungover, I like to go antiquing,”  I had confessed.

It was a true statement.  I’m not ashamed.  I do, indeed, enjoy wandering through the quiet halls of an antique shop, browsing the dusty bric-a-brac as the prior night’s leftover alcohol crawls out through my pores.  It’s a wonderful bittersweet feeling to stumble upon a certain useless artifact that brings sudden pangs of nostalgia to the forefront of my currently over-sensitive consciousness.  Or to spot a piece of old unwanted retro furniture that induces that momentary brilliant epiphany of “Hey, maybe I could turn my empty guest room into an old 50s diner” or a tiki hut, or an old-time cinema, or a run-down side-of-the-highway motel room complete with creepy faded brown floral paintings and suspicious stains on the comforter.  There’s something about seeing all that old shit scattered about a room when your hangover has put your nerves on high alert and set your emotions to hyper-sensitive.  When the site of a battered alarm clock can make you pine for those innocent middle school days, or a box of cassette tapes invites you to revisit the simple memories of family car trips.  Or that creepy mannequin lurking in your peripheral stirs up another one those “Wouldn’t it be terrifying if…” inspirations.

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Hey gang, what’s the haps?  How’s 2010 treating you so far?  Are you as excited as I am that we’re now only 102 years away from year 2112?   That’s right, only 102 short years until we can finally toss out all those tired old New Years Party songs and ring in the new year with “The Priests of Syrinx.”   I can barely contain my excitement.   Other than that, I haven’t had time to write any posts as I’ve been furiously scribbling my memoirs for my new book, “Bones: Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin.”   I think the title has a certain ring to it.   Then again, having two colons in the title might be a bit awkward.   Maybe I’ll switch it around a bit.    Maybe “Going Rogue:  An American Life by Sarah Palin by Bones”.   Hmm, they’re both pretty strong titles.   But I’m still open for ideas – please let me know if you have any suggestions.

What else?  Oh yeah, I just cracked open my latest homebrew.   And I’m very pleased to say that it rules!  It was my seventh and last batch of 2009, and the best one so far.  Awesome.  Ladies and Gents, please welcome  The Kasinka Russian Imperial Stout.

Kasinka Russian Imperial Stout

Yesterday I started a new batch – a Nut Brown Ale made from ingredients that my friends Jaguar and Jamie gave me for Christmas.   Next weekend I’ll be transferring it to the secondary fermenter and tossing in a bunch of Georgia Pecans.   Delicious.

Oh, good news – my brother just started a new blog.  It’s awesome.  We used to write on the same blog a couple years ago, and I’m really excited that he’s picked up the pen again, cause the dude can write a hilarious damn story!  Check out Stuck Behind A Mini Van - you’ll be stoked!

Well, that’s it for me tonight.   Remember the tough girl from Facts of Life?  What was her name?  Joe, I think?  She was pretty cool.

Snakes,

Bones