Many of the Usual Suspects will descend upon the Gator Sunshine State a week from today for seven days of excesses of all sorts contemplation and relaxation.  My friend Tammi sent me this horrible story today, not so much to scare me, but to warn me.

Suffice it to say, that when in Florida, I will take extreme measures (particularly during morning walks) to avoid even being anywhere near fresh water places.  Fortunately for my fraidy-cat ass, “The Usuals” convene in a place that’s on the Gulf, and the last time I checked, there ain’t no gators there.

There will, however, be lots of vodka.

Several of you (particularly the Jawja Bloggers) have met my friend and bodyguard, Ken.  Ken’s brother, Corky, is in the custom motorcycle building business, and as you can see, Corky does very nice work.  I have pictures of other bikes Corky has designed, which I will post in the coming days/weeks, depending on how long it takes me to master the image-thing in WordPress.

If you are of the mind to want to communicate with Corky about one of these machines, drop me an e-mail at jim[at]parkwayreststop[dot]com (you know how to figure that out)**, and I will provide you with the Corkster’s e-mail address.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am reasonably sure that if you buy one of Corky’s bikes, he’ll buy me a beer, which works just fine for me.

** I still am working on figuring out how to put my e-mial link back into Mr. Sidebar.

 

One of our PRS Operatives managed to obtain copies of tapes that were produced by the recording system that Hillary Clinton had installed on the telephones in her office.  The transcrpit of the calls appears below.  Note:  The person identified in the transcript as “Monica” is Monica Flowers, Senator Clinton’s Administrative Assistant.

RINNNNNGGGGG

Monica:  “Senator, it’s Howard Dean for you.”

Hillary:  “Damn, I hate when he calls.  OK.  Put him through.”

Howard:  “Hello, Hillary?”

Hillary:  “Hello, Howie.  How are you today?”

Howard:  “Super!  I’m absolutely super!  Feelin’ great!”

Hillary:  “That’s good.  What can I do for you, Howie?”

Howard:  “I was awake all night with this great idea I had, and I couldn’t wait to call you about it.”

Hillary:  “Really?  What was the idea?”

Howard:  “It’s fantastic!  I’m going to have a large letter “G” tattooed to the left cheek of my ass and a large letter “P” tattooed to the right cheek of my ass.  And, the next time I’m on television, you know — like ‘Meet the Press’ or some shit — I can whip off my pants and bend over in front of the camera, spread my cheeks, and I’ll spell “GOP”.  Get it?  The letter “O” will be formed by …”

Hillary:  “Christ, Howie.  Have you stopped taking your medication again?”

Howard:  “Medication?”

Hillary:  “The Thorazine, Howie.  You promised us you would take it every day.”

Howard:  “I don’t remember anything about that.  Listen, I gotta run.  I got an appointment with a tattoo parlor in ten minutes.  Bye bye.

click

Hillary: (on intercom)  “Monica, call Bill and tell him I want something done about Howard Dean sooner rather than later. Bill will know what to do.”
RINNNNNGGGGG

Monica:  “Senator, it’s David Gregory for you.”

Hillary:  “David, it’s good to hear from you.  You looked and sounded terrific last night on the news.  You do a wonderful job.  To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”

David:  “I was calling to thank you for the excellent French Wine.  I looked all over for that vintage, but I was unable to find it.  All the wine sellers told me that it is very rare and very expensive, and yet you managed to come up with four cases!”

Hillary:  “Nothing but the best for my friends, Dave.  You know that.”

David:  “Oh, I know, and don’t think I don’t appreciate it.  And, by the way, Helen Thomas wanted me to thank you for the year’s supply of Ensure.”

Hillary:  “You’re most welcome, Dave, and so is Helen.”

David:  “OK, then.  Bye …”

Hillary:  “Oh Dave, there’s one thing.”

David:  “Yes?”

Hillary:  “That new Press Secretary, Tony Snow . . .”

David:  “Don’t worry.  I’ve got your back, and so does Helen.”

Hillary:  “Have a nice day, Dave.”

David:  “You too, Hill.”

click
RINNNNNGGGGG

Hillary:  “Dammit, Monica.  Who is it?  I don’t want to spend all damned day on the phone.”

Monica:  “Senator, he says he’s a pastor of a Washington D.C. church, and he wants to speak with you.  I asked him what it was about, but he said that he is certain that you will be interested in speaking with him.”

Hillary:  “Oh, all right.  Put the pain in the ass through.”

Pastor:  “Hello.  Is this Senator Clinton?”

Hillary:  “Yes, this is Senator Clinton.”

Pastor:  “Senator, my name is Reverend Paul Armitage.  I am the Pastor at the First Presbyterian Church here in the City.  At the outset, I want to tell you what an honor it is to speak with you.”

Hillary:  “Thank you.  You’re very kind.  What can I do for you, Reverend?”

Pastor:  “I’d like to enlist your help in connection with a program we are running for homeless children in the area.  Every other week, we transport fifty or so homeless children to the church for lunch and an afternoon of fun.  The children and their parents love it.”

Hillary:  “That’s nice; and, what would you like me to do?”

Pastor:  “I thought it would be wonderful if you would stop by and read to the children.  They love story time, and I thought that, what with your history of concern for children’s issues and the wonderful book you wrote about raising children, you’re reading them a story would be just perfect.  I’m sure the children would be very pleased.”

Hillary:  “Sounds like a marvelous program.  Will there be press there?”

Pastor:  “No, Senator.  Our focus with this program is on the children.  It’s not a political event.”

Hillary:  “No press?  You’ve got to be shitting me.”

Pastor:  “Excuse me?”

Hillary:  “You must be out of your damned mind if you think I’m going to piss away an afternoon reading to a bunch of kids, if there won’t be any press there.”

Pastor:  “But Senator, it’s not a political event.”

Hillary:  “I think you’ve wasted enough of my damned time.”

Pastor:  “But what about the children?”

Hillary:  “They’re not my goddamned problem.  Get some-damned-body else to read to the little bastards.  Not me. There are plenty of saps in this town who would be happy to waste a half day in your goddamned church basement reading goddamned kiddy books.  Go bother them.”

Pastor:  “Senator, I am shocked and disappointed by your response.

Hillary:  “Oh, I’m crushed.  Now, piss off.”

click

Hillary:  “Monica, get the car here right away.  I’m late for my bikini wax.”

NOTE:  See the screwed up formatting above?  See how italics appear when they shouldn’t?  See the big space at the bottom?  All that is because WordPress randomly inserts, removes and changes tags.  When one tries to fix it, either directly or via the html page, things often become worse (e.g. repeating the same line twice).  When this happened with earlier posts, I thought it was because I was cutting and pasting from Word.  However, this post was composed on Notepad and then pasted in.  I wonder what surprises adding this note to the end of this post will bring.  I need a drink. 

 

 

 

 

Honestly.  Another day, another asshole.

I suppose that, in a perverse sort of way, this is the stuff that makes life an adventure.  The thing is, who needs an “adventure” on a weekday morning?

Here’s the story.

This morning, I showed up at the appointed time to have the 5,000-mile service done on my big, fat, black, capitalist car.  Like all Service Area Supplicants, I turned in my keys and headed into the dreaded “Customer Waiting Room”.  I was quite certain that it would be a short stay, as the only thing that was scheduled for the big, fat. black, capitalist car was an oil change.

Not surprisingly, when I climbed the three steps into the waiting room, I saw five or six people already seated, all staring at the television in the corner that was blaring Katie and Matt spewing their morning sugary bilge.  I found a seat as far away from the television as possible and immediately took out a pad and pen (you remember those things) and began outlining something I wanted to write for work.

It’s not easy filtering out Katie and Matt, but I was doing OK.

After a few minutes, a woman walked into the room, and, after surveying the assemblage, said, “Is anyone watching this?”

Mind you, she asked this question after seeing a half dozen people staring into the television screen.

I can only assume that the six people staring into the television screen were too busy breathing through their mouths to answer the woman’s stupid question, because no one said a word.

For a brief and shining moment, I thought she might — just might, suggest that the morning blather be turned off.  However, as often happens, what I perceived to be a  “brief and shining moment” turned out to have been a pathetic brain fart.

The woman followed the silence of the mouth breathers with, “I want to turn on Regis”, which she promptly did.

The change of stations didn’t seem to bother the hominids in the waiting room as they continued to stare at the television, now being treated to Kelly Whatshername’s version of the likelihood of extraterrestrial beings having visited earth.

I thought to myself, “What kind of person walks into a room relatively full of people watching a television program and asks whether anyone is watching the television?  And, what kind of person finds the thought of missing one minute of Regis to be worth the trouble of asking?”

It didn’t take but about three minutes for me to learn what kind of person would do such a thing.

It was the kind of person who would pluck a booger from her nose, then spend a half-minute rolling it.  Having satisfied herself that she turned the piece of nasal sludge into something resembling a sphere, she examined it as if she were appraising a fine diamond.  Once she was done admiring her work, she pretended to fold her arms, thereby permitting her to wipe the booger from her finger into her left armpit, and resume giving her full attention to Regis and Kelly.

My oil change was finished shortly after the booger appraisal, and I promptly left the mouth breathers and the nose-picker behind.

I spent the next several hours hoping that the booger-rolling woman is not someone’s mother.

Dude, I like, so totally had no idea that Montana had like, this kind of problem.

Via A Secular Franciscan Life

One night last week, I was at a fairly classy restaurant and cocktail lounge for a business dinner.  On my way back to the table from a trip to the men’s room, above all the background noise, I heard, “Hey Jim!!”

It was Rosie.

Rosie sang with my band for years, and I had not seen her for more years than I care to admit.  She was decked out in a very flattering black evening gown, and her smile and explosive energy was the same as it ever was.  She explained that she was singing in the restaurant that evening. It turns out that after the guys in my band went their separate ways – some continuing in the music business – some not, Rosie continued to sing, and she is still at it today.  Currently she is one-half of a duo called “Hourglass”, having kept the name of our band.

Rosie was and is a great person, a laugh riot, and one ass-kicking singer.  I don’t think I have ever bumped into a tune that Rosie could not nail.There are plenty of great singers around, but Rosie was special in that she knew how to work with a band and other singers.  Indeed, she can sing better with another person better than anyone I know.  She has a killer ear for harmony and an uncanny knack for quickly picking up on her partner’s phrasing of a lyric.  As a result, she can grab a harmony part and not let go.

Fortunately, you need not take my word for it, because you can go to her Duo’s website and hear for yourself.

Rosie is on her own in “Last Dance” and “I Will Survive”.  You can hear what I mean about her singing duets and harmony in “Unforgettable” and “The Way You Look Tonight”.

Quite simply, she sounds as good now as she did back then.It was great to see and hear her again.  

 

I took my morning walk today figuring that, along the way, I would think of something I wanted to write about.  That’s how it often happens.  Today, however, I spent the entire walk humming tunes in my head and enjoying the beautiful weather.  That’s OK; I don’t mind thinking about nothing, particularly there has been plenty of Life 101 going on at the House by the Parkway lately.

The plan is to read a while, then take the short ride to the Post to hang with the Usual Suspects.  I missed last Sunday’s gathering of the Usuals because I was enroute from the Austin blogmeet.  With the Usuals, if you miss a week, you miss a lot, so it will be good catching up.

A special treat:  My friend Paulie will be there after having had some big-time heart surgery a couple weeks ago.  I don’t think he’s gotten his doc’s permission to have a few of his beloved Budweisers, but he’ll be there, and that way more than a good thing.

After posting about my breakfast in Possum Breath, I realized the Eric has resumed control of the Starship Straight White Guy and will be Scotland blogging.

I’d like to thank him for giving me the keys to the place.  It was an honor and a pleasure to have the run of Eric’s most excellent blog for a few days.

We now return you to the regular installments of nonsense here at PRS.

I headed out from Eric’s place this morning for a bit of breakfast at a local eatery.

I spent the day at Eric’s digs again today, and I got to meet one of his neighbors.