You know, for all the clamoring for new reviews I got over the past 6 months ... by both of you ... the readership was somewhat underwhelming. d;-)

Yeah, I know the two of you can only read my drivel so many times before the urge to regurgitate becomes completely dibilitating. heh heh heh

So anyway, yeah! I'm done reviewing for the year! Whooohooooo!

I might even review something in January if you're not lucky. I just need to do 11 next year, if you remember, in order to meet my quota and stay "off the radar" so to speak by never attaining any status.

Contrary to popular belief, that's pretty hard work. All the calculations and applying the law of averages and the square root of 16,769,023.

<wipes sweat off brow>

Thanksgiving in the desert is not a thing to be missed. 3 days of stuffing excellent food down my gullet and washing it down with cold brewskis. Of course the occasional jam session with Krusty and Wing Nut were pretty good too.

By the end of the year I will have logged about 10,000 miles of travel since July. 

I have a feelin I may be doubling that next year ... I'm just sayin'... d;-)

Oh, yeah! At some point I may be writing my last review of 2009.

Or I might just save it for 2010.

How's that for "Slacker-In-Chief" huh?

Ok, I gotta confess, as much as I hate to do it. You know how much I hate cell phones. I don't think I've been shy about expressing my thoughts on those evil little gadgets that cause so many traffic accidents and are just plain rude in so many instances.

I now own one. :rollseyes:

Yes, I was dragged kicking and screaming the whole way into the land of the cell phone user.

It was a conspiracy.

And against 3 women, I really never stood a chance...

The worst part about it is I've actually been enjoying having it. Mainly because it keeps me in touch with my girlfriend at no extra cost... <grin>

How do these kindsa things happen?

Well then! Cap'n Krusty's B-day Bash was a rousing success and his present was admired by all. Atilla the Honey-Do was named "Coolest Wife Ever" by a unanimous vote. Pics available in the photo area.

Now I gotta get through a whole weekend without my honey, as she's off to Virginia to celebrate her sister's B-day. Might have to clean the garage or somethin to keep myself occupied. d;-)

I find it very difficult these days to uphold my crotchety old grumpy bastage image when I'm smiling all the time.

Who knew?

Well here it is, halfway through October already and I still haven't written that pesky review #24. I've had other things goin on in life ya know. Met a very beautiful and interesting lady and, well I've been kinda busy. What does that mean to my (2) adoring readers here?

Uhhhmmmm probably nothing.

Really, nothing. And a whole lot of it. That's what I'm gonna be writing for the next month or two...

Or three...

Four maybe. d;-)

Cheers!

Alrighty then! Put another 1,400 miles on the cruiser this past weekend. Whew! What a ride! Thursday we left out of Denver, my brother and his wife in the soccer mom mobile and me on the bike, and headed for Dodge City, KS en-route to Tulsa, OK for GeezerFest IV. It was a good test of the new Linbar Case guard/highway bars. I love em! I may even review em if it won't put me into the Writer I category.

Gotta keep my Slacker status ya know!

So Friday morning we got the hell outta Dodge and did the remaining 350 miles to Tulsa. I was glad to get off the bike once we got to the hotel! Surprisingly enough, aside from the normal fanny fatigue, nothing else really hurt. I love my Mustang seat! That backrest is a lifesaver!

GeezerFest was a roaring success. Friday was the meet and greet bar-b-que and impromptu acoustic jam in the park where stories were told and mass quantities of food and beer were consumed.

Saturday found us relaxin by the pool, visitin the local guitar shops and tryin out the local eateries. Then it was off to the bar for the main event. The Michael Vines Band of Tulsa opened things up and got the crowd in a partying mood. Those boys can sure play some mean blues! Then they turned the stage over to the Geezers.

The Taylor Harvey Band from San Diego got first shot and they rocked the place! Then the rest of the Geezers got up and did their things and a fantastic time was had by all. There were some dynamite musicians in the mix. I helped hold down the bottom end on bass for a bit, as did my brother.

Then on Sunday morning we loaded up for the long haul back to Colorado. After 200 miles or so I let my brother take a turn on the cruiser so I wouldn't be completely butt sore from a full 700 miler in 1 day. Wouldn't ya know it? The only traffic problem came 1 mile from the exit to my house where they're doin some paving work and we had to inch along for a bit to get to the exit.

I think it'll be a couple of weeks before I do another long road trip!

Well, here it is August already!

Yes, I'm a master of the obvious.

So, the trip down to Lake Powell on the bike went fairly smoothly. It got kinda hot out there in the desert on the way down and I was feelin' like I was bastin' in my own juices for the last 100 miles or so. The only problem with the bike was one of the passing lamps came loose and turned sideways. An easy fix, though. Then it was 7 days of fun in the sun, beer drinkin', music playin', and general good times until Sunday morning.

Here's where things went a wee bit awry.

It all started good. There was some cloud cover keepin' the desert from becoming the blast furnace that it normally would be around 10:00 A.M. I even caught a few raindrops, which felt kinda good, really. Then, about 15 miles east of Green River, UT things began to deteriorate rapidly.

Raindrops can be quite painful at 75 MPH when they're dropping at a rapid pace and large volume.

Windscreens are a good thing.

Luckily it was a short downpour and it was mostly dry for the last 30 miles into Grand Junction, CO. However, there was more in store. Coming out of Debeque canyon there was another massive cloudburst, this one lasting, on and off, until almost Eagle. That's about a 50 mile stretch of total wetness and soakage.

But I could see an end to the storm ahead! Blue skies! Whooooooo! I just had to get up the road another 20 miles and I was home free!

Heh, fat chance!

You see, there were, not 1, but 2 semi-truck mishaps on the road that day. I had already worked my way through the first: a trucker hauling a big tank who tried to kamakazi the Silt exit overpass. I'm sure most of you have seen the pictures of the truck stuck under the freeway overpass with the story of how he told the cop he was actually delivering the bridge and ran outta gas. Well, this was much the same except that when the top of the tank hit the bottom of the overpass it came off the trailer and wedged itself between the overpass and the freeway at about a 45 degree angle. Traffic was reduced to 1 lane and re-routed through the Silt exit/entrance and after about 10 minutes of stop/go I was cruisin at 75 again.

The 2nd truck mishap turned out to be somewhat more serious. Remember that patch of blue sky just past Eagle? So tantalizing! So beautiful! Just another 20 miles!

Well, 6 miles east of Eagle things came to an abrupt halt and stayed that way for.........hours! That rainstorm I had just ridden through? You guessed it! It caught up with me and I got rained on by the same storm twice: once coming and once going. The problem ahead? A tanker full of oil overturned up near the Edwards exit. We were stop/go for the next 10 miles, which translated into about 4 hours in real time.

Yeah, I rode the breakdown lane for awhile. Until the cop yelled at me and the other bikers and threatened tickets and fines and all kinds of mean, ugly, nasty things. Perhaps even a stint on the Group W bench.

So there I was, soaked to the bone, legs dog-tired from the 4 hour stop/go ordeal, when I finally got to the Wolcott exit and bailed. Now I had the sun lowering on the horizon behind me and 130 miles of 8,000 to 11,000 foot elevation ahead.

Sounds like fun huh?

Well, lemme tell ya: the fun factor had pretty much evaporated by the time I got to the summit of Vail Pass with total darkness and a multitude of irate motorists around me.

Not to mention rapidly dropping temperatures.

Did I mention that I was soaked?

I might have omitted that fact earlier.

To make a long story even longer.....

Nah! Just kidding! By the time I got home (11:00 P.M. - Should've been home by 6:30) I was burnt out and frozen at the same time. My legs felt like they had 500 pound weights tied to 'em and so did my eyelids.

I knew I shoulda left the lake on Saturday...

I'm in a huge quandary today.

I'm just not sure which direction to take.

You see, I just wrote review #23 and I've got a good idea of what #24 is gonna be.

"So what's the problem?" you ask....

The problem is: I'm torn between writing the review now and skating along until January, or writing it in November to make it look like I've been working hard on the review for 4 months.

I'm severely torn here.

Ok, this just struck me.

No it didn't draw blood, but it did leave a mark.

On the rare occasions that I actually log in here, occasionally I'll notice that my helpful dealies have increased.

Ok, so once every 3 months or so it will go up by 1 or so.

But what bothers me is that I have no idea what review got a vote. Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things.

Just one of those random flickers of cognizance that float through my brain now and again.

I have a cunning plan which cannot fail!

I will write hundreds of reviews but never reach Writer I. That's right, I plan on never gaining any kind of "status" no matter how hard I have to work at it. d;-)

Here's how it's gonna work: To get to Writer I you have to write 25 reviews, have some helpful votes, a picture, and maintain 12 reviews/year. Ok. Great! So I'm only gonna write 24 for this year, which means I gotta do 2 more. Then I'll constrain myself to 11 reviews per year after that. That's 1 review per month with a month of vacation as an added bonus! As "Slacker-In-Chief", I think I can handle that!

Meredith and Jolie'll probably come up with "Slacker" status and ruin my cunning plan. I can see it now....

"

• Slacker I
• Slacker II
• Slacker III
• Slacker IV
• Slacker's Sofa

Slacker Is are over-active contributors on the Viewpoints web site. They have contributed 25 reviews on the Viewpoints web site in under 2 years, have received 12 helpful votes from other slackers and they have posted a photo to their profile not less than 6 months after joining. They maintain a maximum of 12 reviews annually.

Slacker IIs are active contributors on the Viewpoints web site. They have contributed 20 reviews on the Viewpoints web site in no less than 2 and a half years and have received 9 helpful votes, mostly from other slackers. They maintain a maximum of 10 reviews annually and a photo on their profile page that was probably old when Bush got elected President.

That's Bush #1, by the way.

Slacker IIIs are Semi-active contributors on the Viewpoints web site. They have contributed 15 reviews on the Viewpoints web site in no less than 3 years and have received 6 helpful votes, mostly from morons who can't read. They maintain a maximum of 7 reviews annually and have a photo of their rusted out 1967 Camaro on their profile page.

Slacker IVs are among the least active contributors on the Viewpoints web site. They have contributed 10 reviews on the Viewpoints web site in 5 years and have received 1 or 2 helpful votes. They maintain a maximum of 5 reviews annually and have a photo of Christy Brinkley on their profile page.

Slacker's Sofa (SS) are the least active contributors on the Viewpoints web site. In fact, most of them are near-comatose. They have contributed 1 or 2 reviews on the Viewpoints web site and it only took them 10 years. They have received no helpful votes. They maintain a maximum of 0.01 reviews annually and may put a photo of the last varmint they shot n et on their profile page if they ever get around to it."

The only problem I can foresee is this: I don't know when the "year" begins and ends. Does the review count begin on the join date or is it by calendar year? I'll have to go carefully after July, tread lightly, so to speak, until I can figure out how they base their "12 reviews/year" timing and proceed accordingly. I'm hopin' it's by calendar year because that means I only need to write 2 reviews between now and December 31st.

Yes, this will work out nicely. I wonder how many reviews I can write and never gain status? Stay tuned..... or not, 'cause this could take awhile. 8 years to reach 100, if my math is correct. If that's not slackin', I don't know what is!

Yours truly,

Spark Fartin - Slacker In Chief

Well alrighty then! I just finished review #10 for the year. That means I can lay back and slack off until next January! Damn I'm good....

Now, without further...

Crazy little child never got to see
All the pretty things in life
They had him put away, nothing they could say
Could ever make the pieces fit

Well Daddy-O was rich, momma was a bitch
Livin' wasn't easy in between
Behind his silent scream, Jackson in his teens
Was plannin' his escape

He was a crazy little child
New Orleans alley playground
And grimy-faced he watched the hookers cry
The winos were his friends
But when he talked to them they said
"Jackson, boy, they'll get ya by 'n by."

Depression settin' in, desperate, cool and quick
Jackson learned the ropes out on the street
Little candy stores, just pickin' locks and doors
Was practice for a two-bit petty thief

So Jackson went to Ritz and everyone was hip
Ritz ran all the rackets there in town
"If you need another boy, a trigger or a blade
Well I'm the slickest cat around."

Well Ritz gave him the eye once over, then he smiled
"Yeah, I got somethin' here in mind.
If you meet me here at two I think you'll like the view
Of that long green when you crack that safe tonight!"

He was a crazy little child
New Orleans alley playground
And grimy-faced he watched the hookers cry
The winos were his friends
But when he talked to them they said
"Jackson, boy, they'll get ya by 'n by."

"Well I'll wait for you outside and I'll be your ears and your eyes.
Boy you just slip in there and bring out all that loot."
But Ritz was taken by surprise, coupla unsuspectin' guys
And they left poor Jackson inside

Questions; there were few. In fact there were none
When those sheriff's bullets started to fly
He lay dyin' on the floor with a smokin' .44, he said
"I must admit the winos were right."

Crazy little child never got to see
All the pretty things in life
We buried him today, nothin' we could say
Could ever make the pieces fit
Yeah I must admit the winos were right
Oh I must admit the winos were right
His last words were
I must admit the winos were right

It was too good to last, really.

But the only constant in the universe is change. So it was with the weather. From weeks on end of above 60 degrees (almost 80 for a few days), the spring snowstorm finally reared its ugly head. 6 inches of freezing cold, wet, sloppy, slushy snow.

And I had just gotten all the gutters, downspouts, soffets and facia torn off the house.

Figures!

I think I'll have a beer.

And listen to some tunes.

Don't know why, but this old Rory Gallagher tune keeps runnin through my head. I'll let it run through yours now! d;-) Here's a little "Pistol Slapper Blues"!

Well I'd know my dog
anywhere I hear him bark
Well, I'd know my rider if I see her in the dark

Ain't it cold for you, mother
when you say you don't love me?
Well that's alright woman, you gonna need my help someday

You didn't say you didn't love me
when you were stretched out across my bed
You're drinkin' moonshine whisky and talking all outta your head

Ain't but two kinda people
in this world that I can't stand
That's a lying woman and a cheatin', knockin' man

Well, I feel like slapping
my pistol in your face
I'm gonna let the graveyard be your resting place

Well I'd know my dog
anywhere I hear him bark
Well, I'd know my rider if I see her in the dark

Ah! February in the Rockies! Sunny and mid 60's, cruisin the scoot, pickin' a few tunes up in the hills with the mountain jam pickup band, grillin steaks and just generally havin a good time!

I'm kinda sittin on top of the standings over at good ol' DUI Racing too. d;-) Life is good and beer is cold.

So, what does all of this mean for you, my 2 adoring fans?

Well, it means a month between blog entries for starters. heh heh

Not to mention a serious lag in the NNtN thread.

But, hey! Life goes on until it doesn't, and at that point, who the hell cares anymore right?

So, with that in mind I'd like to direct your attention to the stage where Mr. David Bromberg will be performing a little acoustic blues number called "The Bullfrog Blues". You can find this song, and many others, on his double CD release entitled "How Late'll Ya Play 'Til".

Did you ever wake up
Bullfrogs on your mind, bullfrogs on your mind?
Hey did you ever wake up
With bullfrogs on your clean mind?
That's a sure sign, good people, you got
You got bullfrogs on your mind

You know it's hard
It's hard when the woman that you're in love with loves your best friend
But I want to tell ya it's harder still
When she moves in with the dude, that's alright
But it's extra special hard
When you and him are roommates
I mean to say you look over the pillow where your sweet darlin' used to lay, and still does
Well, there's only one thing for you to do
You go down to the local pawn shop and you speak to the man behind the knife counter
Some stilletoes, stolen Martin guitars, compasses and hairdriers
And you say "Mr. Pawnbroker
What do those three balls mean on your wall?
What do those three balls mean on your wall?"
And he says "That means it's 2 to 1, buddy
You'll never get your shit back outta here at all!"
You say "Mr. Pawnbroker
Hey, won't you sell me a .38?
Oh please! Just one little old .38
Yes, I used to take a .44
But lately I've been losing weight."

So you buy yourself a .38 calibre pearl handled revolver
And a double-breasted pin-striped suit so that you're dressed to kill, so to speak
You head back over to your best friend's house and you get a little high-chair, stool kinda thing
And you peek up over the transom into your best friend's room
And in that room you see:
A 100% mohair carpet
A lizard skin Barca-lounger with Magic Fingers
A Girard turntable with a Pickering cartridge, Bogen amplifier, Jensen speakers, Revox tape recorder and a Stromberg-Carlson AM/FM tuner
A 5 year, leather bound collection of Playboy Magazine featuring the entire Playboy philosophy by Hugh M. Hefner - schmuck
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran - autographed!
A copy of The Whole Earth Catalog
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, The Trilogy of the Rings
All 4 volumes of The Teachings of Don Juan and a 5th in manuscript
Some Spiderman and Fantastic Four comic books featuring Dr. Doom
Some Zap! comic books with the pages stuck together
Some extra wide cigarette papers featuring the visage of a former Vice President of the United States
Some very suspicious looking baggies
And a great big, Olympic size, thermally heated El Mondo Grosso waterbed
With satin sheets, pink pillow cases and a fur bedspread
And on that bed, twistin' and moanin, shoutin' and groanin', jumpin and pumpin', uttering wordless moans and unnameable exclamations
You see your baby and your best friend
And good people I wish to tell you, it's hard
No, no I mean it's HARD baby!
It's hard because you always thought of your roommate as kind of a square
But you see him in there doing things that'd make Dr. Kinsley want to cross his legs
So you get down off of that stool and you make a few quick notes
Stick diagrams depicting motion
And you knock at the door
Of course you don't get no answer
So you knock again, still get no answer
So you knock again, no answer so you charge at the door with all your might and main
Just at the moment that your roommate, dressed in a green and yellow polka-dotted Cannon towel, opens up the door
And you go flyin' across that 100% mohair rug
Tumble over the lizard skin Barca-lounger with the Magic Fingers
Rebound off of the Girard turntable with the Pickering cartridge, Bogen amplifier, Jensen speakers, Revox tape recorder and the Stromberg-Carlson AM/FM goddam tuner
You pass by the 5 year, leather bound collection of Playboy Magazine featuring the entire Playboy philosophy by Hugh M. Hefner - schmuck
Stumble past The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran with all the significant passages underlined
Every word in the book is underlined
You pass on by Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, The Trilogy of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The complete Teachings of Don Juan
You fly on past the Spiderman and Fantastic Four comic books featuring Dr. Doom
The Zap! comic books with the pages stuck together
You tumble past the extra wide cigarette papers featuring the visage of a former American Vice President
And those suspicious looking baggies, coppin' one or two as you go flyin by
Shouldn't be a total loss, right?
And you wind up in a little shapeless heap right beside that
Great big, Olympic size, thermally heated El Mondo Grosso waterbed
With the satin sheets, pink pillow cases and the fur bedspread
You start to pick yourself up off the floor and as you're picking yourself up off the floor
You look around you for the first time in the whole affair
And as you look around you start to wonder
I don't mean you just kinda wonder
I mean you Wuh! Uh! Uh! Under, baby!
You wonder how the hell he got enough money to pay for all that shit in the first place is what you're wonderin
And right about that time your sweetheart notices the gun in your hand
And she comes up to you and she says
"Don't do anything self-destructive now."
Bitch!
She says "Oh Johnny don't point that gun at me! Oh no Johnny! Oh please Johnny! Oh God Johnny! Oh Johnny! Johnny! Johnny!
She knows your name is David
And while she's talkin' to ya, you see a great big tear forming in the left hand corner of her right hand eye
For the 1st time in your whole relationship, a genuine salt water tear
You see that thing and it moves ya!
Moves ya heart and soul!
Mind and body!
Liver and spleen!
The Islands of Langerhans and Medulla Oblongata!
You see that tear and it moves...
Most of all it moves the hand holding the pistol so that you have a dead bead on that lousy little tear comin' out the left hand corner of her right hand eye
That's what it really moves!
And just as you're about to pull the trigger
Just as you're about to snuff out her life, the action and mechanism of that performance
Just as you're about to send her on to the Great Beyond, hereafter
From whence there is no return henceforth, hitherto, whyas, wherefor, et al
Just as you're about to do one thing you know that you can never, ever undo
Just as you're about to kill the broad
She looks up at you at that moment and she says something to you that stops you cold
She says something to you at that moment that freezes your finger on the trigger
Turns your brains to water and your knees to jelly
Your toes to cupcakes...
It's a pretty heavy thing she lays on ya
She looks up at you with those weird eyes and she says...
You gotta understand, this girl is so close to death, she knows she's gonna die
She looks up at you at that moment and she says...
She's so close to death that she can read the calibre number and brand of the bullet that's about to go through her brain
She looks up at you at that moment with those weird eyes and says...
And those are weird eyes too, I wanna tell ya
No, really! This girl's got weird eyes! One of em's red and the other one's green
I used to be goin' out with her and she'd be blinking at me: "Stop!" "Go!" "Go!" "Stop!" "Go!"
You know like that?
She looks up at you at that moment and she says...
I'll tell you what she says this time, she says...
Okay, next time I'll tell ya!
She looks up at you at that moment
She cocks an eye at you
You cock an eye at her
The two of you stand there cock-eyed for half an hour
And she says: "Hey!
Did you ever wake up
Bullfrogs on your mind?
Bullfrogs on your mind?"

Just thought I'd tell ya how nice it is not to have to share a bathroom with 2 girls anymore.

It's pretty damn nice.

Oh, and my back still hurts.

And now, without further blah blah blah. You know the drill! It's time for (insert drum roll here) "Interesting Lyrics by Unknown Artists"! (insert flare of trumpets here)

This week's artist is a band from right here in the 5280 called Hot Rod Steven and Dr. Watson. The musicians in this band have all gone their seperate ways since, but I still like to pop their CD in and give 'em a listen now n then. From their eponymous CD, this tune is called "Killin' Me" and it's a bit of a Jerry Lee Lewis boogie woogie sorta thing that goes like this right here:

I got the highway in my left hand
My suitcase in my right
This livin' on the 2-lane's gettin old
I've given up the sunshine
For artificial light
Surely time's gonna have to take its toll

It's been strange on the range
Since my old man died
Things have been becoming so insane
But what can one man do
When his hands are tied
I guess nobody ever really wants the blame

Makin' a livin's been killin' me
There's too many people keepin' score
Between the IRS and the local bar
Won't you tell me who'm I workin' for?
The landlord is knockin' on my door
He wants the rent
But he's outta luck today
Cause I don't know where all of my money went
It makes no sense in the land of the free
Makin' a livin's been killin' me

I've been livin' on them cheeseburgers
From the all-nite greasy spoon
Just to keep my golden body in tune
Between the ladies and that late night lovin
Up in my hotel room
Well I wonder will it all be over too soon, yeah

You know, makin' a livin's been killin' me
There's too many people keepin' score
Between the IRS and the local bar
Won't you tell me who'm I workin' for?
The landlord is bangin' on my door
He wants the rent
But he's shit outta luck today
Cause I don't know, no I don't know where all of my money went
It makes no sense in the land of the free
Makin' a livin's been killin' me
I don't like what it's doin' to me
Makin' a livin's been killin me
Killin' me
Killin' me
Aw come on now, kill me