Golly Gee!

I only wanted to show off my Palm Hat shaping skills but I figured a West Texas tune would serve two purposes. I wore my hat into the shower and shaped it there. I call this crease "The Oggy" and now the hat fits like a ball cap.
Buddy Holly recorded this song way back probably 1957...it was written by Paul Anka but Linda Ronstadt's version is my favorite. On my better days I can sing this song on the corner of Lyle Lovette and John Prine streets but today wasn't my better day. Or maybe I should say I can't get the hoarseness and broken spine sadness of Lovette unless it's immediately after a 2 hour wrestling match with a 300 pound trencher chain.

modern vs old

some mesquite country steel art

I had high hopes for this composition but the 1 pixel cell phone camera doesn't bring out the best.

collateral damage. engine was salvagable

It's springtime in Texas and I hadn't seen a green leaf in so long I thought south Texas looked like Florida. That's a sign it's time to move on.

brakes

I should've made the bend go up and not out.

I finished the brakes with Milk Cow's help. Really a pain in the ass doing this work from afar. I'm sick of the whole bullshit in the oil field. Trying to find work in New Mexico on solar farms....or maybe take a guitar class...or go south. I've got options now and the least attractive is sun stroke in Pecos. Bullshit job and the money isn't good and the hours are breaking my back. fuck all this. the van is running and I'm really done with it all. You want gas for your car then you can come slave in the 115 degree weather and then whine like bitches about foreign oil you fucking hypocrites. Sure, send the southerners whom you talk shit about as ignorant and dumb and racist, send all of them to plumb the depths of the earth in intolerable climates so your northern cities will hum along smoothly. disgusting Yankee motherfuckers who never get your fucking hands dirty. don't know the difference between fracking and fucking. Texas oil might as well be from Kuwait for all you've done to obtain it. All Americans should be required by law to work in the oil fields like mandatory Greek and Italian and Israeli military service. And also work at Walmart so you can get a good taste of modern day sharecropping. that would shut the mouths of elite fuckwads nice and tight. 50% of you would perish like worthless motherfuckers in this heat but I've done my two years in the oil field and y'all can fuck off and ride bicycles if your fat ass can sit on the seat.

humorous

I laughed and laughed when I watched this because it quickly got to the point of a lost in cyberspace generation. The onion has been hit or miss lately but this is a good one. The funniest part are the comments if you can pause the video and read them. It did blow my mind that this is actually feasible, that social network sites could be made irrelevant overnight. like having a birthday party in a funeral hall. It's ironic and also immediately gratifying...and there's no reason I couldn't hijack a random porn video comment section to post all my blog essays. God, that's the funniest idea I've had since chasing a wolf to Ellesmere Island.

The Awfulizza Shittyiza Fuckingiza Flatizza by Subway

I am so bored of tasteless food that I decided to try the Subway Flatizza. I feel like a fat man at the buffet as children in Somalia die for want of breast milk and I am surrounded by pork and cow fat burritos and complain because my mama left when I was 4 and nobody loves me. hahahaha. such a self pitying cunt I am.

I threw mine away so fast I never got a picture.

But back to the pizza, which is an insult to pizza.

I went into a convenient store to spend the last of my per diem...which I can not keep and must spend and prove with a receipt that I bought approved items...so I make a point of buying frivolous approved items and eating half of them because a company that treats me like an asshole deserves to get fucked. THAT"S THE WORLD WE LIVE IN AND I"M A BIG MONKEY DANCING ON THE GRAVES OF SOMALIANS!! SOMEBODY SHOOT ME AND PUT THE VIDEO ON FACEBOOK!

So, I ask the subway employee putting his single use food prep gloves on, "Hey, sir, you eat that flattiza yet? Any good?"
He's relieved I treat him like a human for a minute and not just ask for "footlong blah blah blah a little mustard blah blah."
His expression tells me everything I need to know about the flatizza.
"Yeah, but I don't like it. It's not pizza. The flatbread is like a ten year old mouse pad."
"Man, that's a horrible description. Can you make me a pepperoni one? I've had so many subs I wanna puke."
I'm actually oozing arrogance and pomposity from my obese pores.
"Ok," he shrugs and his tone of voice is like, "You asked for it."
He gets out a flatbread and actually tosses it like a frisbee onto the plastic prep platform and watches my expression, which turns from joyful anticipation to what I look like when I watch kittens beaten to death with boots.
"Man, that is the dough?"
"Yes, sir."
He meanly applies sauce like a hack Mexican painter with a hangover. Then he heats it up.
"Our pizza is actually pretty good," he says as the digital timer ticks away like minutes to an execution. I frown with puzzlement and confusion.
"Pizza? Didn't I just..."
He opens the freezer door and shows me real pizza dough.
"People say it's as good as Pizza Hut."
That's like saying you don't have AIDS but you have Hep C.

The timer dings and he throws some pepperoni and cheese on the sauce and then tosses it back in the oven. I ask, "Hey, where's the pizza on the menu?" because I'm ignorant that a sub shop sells pizza. The Flatizza, however, has huge promotional material all over the planet so that you'd have to be blind not to know about it.
He points at the backlit corporate nightmare, "Over there by the cookies and drinks."
I squint..."Pizza $4."
"Why would they put something as significant as pizza by the cookies and drinks in tiny font?"
"That's above my pay grade, sir." and my flatizza is done.
I almost ask him to throw the whole thing away and start fresh with a pizza because I can tell by the look of it that it will be awful. But I've already used all my per diem on the Flatizza and other snacks so I'm stuck with it.
The man slides it into a box and it's about as appetizing as a horse cock sandwich.
"Thank you. Next time I'll get the pizza."
The chef shrugs and returns to exchanging genital photos via text.
I pay with the company credit card and go toward the company truck. I take one bite and spit half out in disgust. It's not repulsive; a Somalian would eat it.; but it's awful and tastes like Donald Trump's farts. I try and try and try to find something to like about it but end up eating two little pieces of processed pepperoni. The flatbread does indeed taste like a ten year old mouse pad crossed with an antique wooden picture frame. Parts of it I would describe as inedible because it will not break no matter how hard I chew. It's like eating a hot cell phone with cheese on it. Fucking horrible. I throw the whole shitty adventure into a feces filled dumpster and almost call the "HOW ARE WE DOING?" Subway hotline on the receipt but I really don't care.
My tip is that if you want a Flatizza then get on your fucking horse and race down to Subway because these are not long for the world.
Grade-FUCKING NO WAY!

Mambo

Today was almost a bust except for a Latin jazz radio station that got my hips to move in ways that almost broke down the arthritis. I have a dream of leading a Latin Jazz trio (Guitar, bass, percussion) maybe on some island somewhere. Wear a long gray pony tail and smoke weed contentedly in mixolydian bliss.

Home Sweet Home

This songbook is music history

This is a famous song for being the closing song in the WLS Barn Dance out of Chicago back in 1934 when radio programs were authentic and fostered talent and good values. Everything today is poisoned by consumerism and I'll spare you my mandatory lecture outlining the Fall of Man. This is in the piano friendly key of F major.

" 'Mid pleasures and palaces tho' we may roam,
be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."

John Howard Payne wrote the lyrics in 1823 but the melody is an old Italian folk song. Payne lived a meteoric life that even dear old Oggy can not match. He acted in NY and London and then went off on a complete tangent as a kind of pacific representative of the doomed and embattled Cherokee Indian of the Southeast, and if that wasn't odd enough, he then became the American Consul to Tunis, Tunisia...because that's what happens when you write good lyrics...you become an American ambassador in Africa.

A toast to a man who had more than one life to live.

Default Living

As I flush a few more of my previous values down the toilet I inch closer to the level of revolting apathy I tried to avoid my whole life. Throwing away food, aluminum, wasting gas, frivolous shopping, all the things I was repulsed by are my life now...so I sort of blend in. I don't fit, obviously, because I'm arthritic and skeletal from chronic pain, but I blend in a little better. I mistakenly bought fruit juice instead of beer the other day and immediately felt the old shame of failure to belong, to not go along with the majority. So I bought a nice 25 oz Hurricane Category Five and spilled it all over the dinner table during a failed magic trick and everyone laughed and felt better that I was not an outcast, but inside I was ashamed and upset. When women are trained to act like Soap Opera characters with stripper alter egos to get the attention of men and that particular approach repulses me then I'd say I'm pretty much doomed. Culturally....I don't want to ...who gives a fuck?

Two week Brake Report

One wheel every two weeks means the job is going to take two months.

Fighting back against the rocks

two pictures

Boyfriend: Ok, Let's Talk About Period Related Bloating

Area boyfriend, Tom Singleton, announced to his menstruating girlfriend, "Ok, sure, let's talk about your period related bloating. Definitely!"
Julie Adams, his girlfriend, was startled as this topic generally fell into the realm of off limits or at best something that she could speak out loud about but not get a single indication Tom was listening. Today, however, Tom surprised Julie by announcing he "really wants to learn the details of how the bloating affects her mood and physical well-being."
"Specifically, Julie," continued Tom putting his magazine down and making direct and concerned eye contact with his girlfriend of one year, "I want to know exactly what the symptoms are, every detail, I want to know if you are cramping and where those cramps occur. I want to know if you are constipated, bleeding more or less than your normal period, if your breasts are tender, if you are retaining water, if you are grouchy and irritable, and if you don't feel like having sex right now but will probably be all over me in ten minutes. Whenever you're ready to talk, I will listen."
Tom crossed his legs and relaxed into a position that would indicate he was willing to take as long as possible to understand what his girlfriend was going through.
"Walk me through it step by step," said Tom. "You say you are bloating but that's kind of vague. Please elaborate. Where do you feel the bloating exactly, is it in your stomach or your spasming  uterus? Can you describe your feelings in terms I'll understand? Do you feel nauseous?  Are you vomiting? Light headed? Are you undergarments fitting tighter than usual and does that make you feel fat? And does your feeling fat lead you into a cycle of depression and self-loathing because you have linked your mood to your weight and body image?"
Tom asked Julie if she wanted a cup of green tea of how hot she wanted the bath water he would shortly run for her.
"Are you gassy?" he asked casually. "If you are gassy then maybe you'll want some licorice tea. I could call your mother and ask her what's the best remedy for gassy, bloated, period related discomfort. Are your feet swollen or is that only with pregnant or lactating women? There's so much to learn and I'm so happy to have you here to explain everything related to periods and the troubles they cause you. Wherever you want to begin will be fine with me. I've got all night."
At press time Julie wasn't speaking to Tom anymore.

Fort Cowboy

The Western porch: My favorite architecture feature

The shaded porch is essential when the sun feels like it's 300 yards away. Ranchers in 1867 were smarter than modern architects who build flat front houses with windows facing the sun so unless you run an air conditioner 100% of the time the building turns into an oven. A covered porch is like a cowboy hat for your house.