rustypants speaks

the boa constrictor song was stuck in my head for several days last week.

it’s only fair to share it with you. (just click on the Audio MP3 button below to listen)

Download The Boa Constrictor Song - Peter, Paul and Mary

the old bald man scared me, mommy!!

he kept calling me his “friend” but

i can’t be friends with creepy strangers!!!

conversation with my dad at a vietnamese restaurant this past saturday:

*sign on counter: No Longer Accepting Checks*

Dad: That’ll disappoint Lech Walensa.
Me: The dude who coached Nadia Comaneci? He’s Romanian.

a conversation with a student today in one of my computer classes after a discussion about viruses:

me: are you having trouble answering that question?
student: yeah, the answer’s not in the book.
me: wait - are you telling me the book is asking you to answer a question it didn’t give the answer to in the first place?
student: yeah, it has a virus.

*outrageous laughter from me*
then the conversation continues after i show the student where in the book he can find the answer:

student: ohh! there it is!
me: no more virus?
student: no, you fixed it. the Rust Anti-Virus Program.

*more laughter*

i love teaching.

as a boy, our backyard contained a myriad of flowers and plants thanks to my parents’ green thumbs. one gorgeous flower we had is known as the 4 o’clock plant. it looks like this:

but the seeds were what were fun to my little brother and i. they looked like little hand grenades and to get to them you had to squeeze the pod of the plant and it would pop open! way cool! the seeds look like this:

we loved to go into the yard and frolic and play, popping 4 o’clock seed pods and pretending they were grenades, throwing them at each other and our friends.

it was all in good fun until the day one of the seeds blew up in poor ralph’s hand.

cruel mother nature.

while ordering treats for the dog today online

i almost ordered a bag of beef pizzle

but then i thought:

ow! ouch!! gaaah!!!

no, thanks.

an incredibly fun conversation with one of my girls who is super-smart, over-analytical, logical, gorgeous, who, at times, suppresses her “girlishness” as being illogical, and has at last found a boyfriend who is seemingly like-minded (after a… less than fitting relationship):

Adrienne: well I am writing a paper
and i was at the library
but I decided to pick another study place
so I could meet my bf when he gets out of class
:-)
rustypants: haha
wow
that was like, an OMG moment
sweet
Adrienne: why is that an OMG moment?
rustypants: because i have NEVER heard it from you before, and i’ve known you for…
4 years?
5 years?
Adrienne: heh
I LIKE MY BOYFRIEND
rustypants: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Adrienne: I THINK HE”S REALLY CUTE
rustypants: stop it!!
NIEFPOinhQP[W3ORA;owei”W{ISN
Adrienne: AND I WANT TO KISS HIM ALL NIGHT
rustypants: STOP STOP STOP!!!!
Adrienne: but I can’t
rustypants: NOOOOOOOOOOOO
Adrienne: :-/
rustypants: OMG
my equilibrium will never recover

when i was growing up, my family had a big above-ground swimming pool in the backyard. i don’t remember enjoying swimming a lot, but it was always fun getting into the pool. parties, family get togethers, saturday afternoons, hot and sticky summer days - i have a number of neat memories from this pool.

but the memory i have that sticks out the most is this:

i was young - maybe seven or eight years old.

we had early bedtime, even in the summer. this is difficult for kids, isn’t it? the sun is still up, and there you are - getting ready for bed. gah! it’s like being tortured! all that time lost sleeping when you could be pursuing treasure or beating up on your little brother in the backyard or any number of worthwhile adventures that have to be put on hold so you can go to sleep.

one night after we had already gone to sleep, my dad came in and woke us up. it was dark out and i remember being puzzled at the awakening. we were to put on our swimsuits and come out into the backyard! wha??

mom was in her suit already and we were excited, but concerned. it’s chilly out! isn’t this going to be too cold to swim in? dad told us that the water would still be warm from the sun beating down on it all day. i remember not believing him, but once we got outside and went to the pool…

the perimeter lights were on. as we walked into the pool area and stuck our hands in the water - hey! it IS warm! swimming at night, the stars out, the crickets chirping, family close-by.

we swam for a while and had a really good time. the fine details are long lost, but the emotional sensations remain - it was a really neat time together. after we swam, my dad asked me if i wanted to ride with him to baskin robbins in his ‘55 t-bird (with the top down - woo-hoo!) and pick up some ice cream.

this whole evening was so out of the ordinary and was so much fun - it surely wasn’t more than an hour or two in length but it has stuck with me ever since.

when lise and i were talking a few weeks ago about family memories, this one was a close second in cool things from my parents - this one with dad in particular.

my lovely is blogging regularly at www.mindrides.com about her ongoing 4+ year battle with bi-polar disorder. this took a lot of courage and balls to open up and tell all - she has been working through this illness largely alone due to pesky, ill-informed misconceptions of bi-polar disorder. it’s been a long and difficult time but she continues to amaze me! i’m quite proud of her!

you ought to go over and check it out!

teaching at the high school level proves to be exciting. and frustrating.

and after a particularly frustrating wednesday, i woke up thursday as cranky as i had left the day before.

so i got to my class and wrote “cantankerous” on the board, offered extra points to anyone who got onto dictionary.com and found the definition, found several synonyms for the word, and wrote them on their paper.

this led to a productive discussion on being cantankerous, cranky, pissy, peevish, and disagreeable.

it also served as a warning.

but still.

some students took my last nerve.

and stomped all over it.

grrr.

when we lived in the D.C. / Baltimore / Annapolis area we frequently asked others for suggestions on the local fare, hidden restaurants, hole-in-the-wall joints - places that you only get to know because you’ve lived in the area your whole life, right?

over dinner with friends one evening, we’re asked if we’ve ever had ann’s footlongs in glen burnie. we replied that we’d seen the place before but had not stopped to eat. oh my goodness, the litany that followed this was stunning: greatest hot dogs in the world, been there 50 years, we used to go there after school every day, they’re like hot dogs from God, when you go you HAVE to get the “double-dog” because those are the best, oh, remember that time when we went there, blah blah blah, 100% beef dogs that, if you get them done correctly, have chili, onions, mustard on them as well, and if you’re going to do it, you have to do it all the way, etc. etc.

well, it just so happened that i worked not a mile away from the mighty ann’s footlongs! oh, goodie!!

a plan of attack was devised and a week after this exchange i left school at lunchtime to grab an ann’s double-dog footlong.

i walk into the place and could tell it was a genuine greasy-spoon, hole-in-the-wall, been here forever kinda place. old-timers hanging around, folks behind the counter who look like they’ve been there since the eisenhower administration, grease that looks like IT’S been around since ike, too, old-timey seats and a standing-room-only lunch crowd waiting.

and the first red flag? instead of cooking their dogs on the griddle, they tossed them into this humongous pit of bubbling grease. i stood in awe (and disgust) at the sheer amount of grease and the huge number of dogs percolating therein.

i step up and boldly demand a double dog with chili, hold the onions. into the festering grease fly two more dogs.

red flag number two? they pull the dogs out, put them on a huge bun, slather chili on top, put the results in two sheets of aluminum foil, wrap several napkins around it, and put it into a paper bag. this wasn’t the red flag, though - the red flag came less than a minute later when, walking out to the car, the napkins and paper bag have soaked through with grease. and soaked through my clothes. and was about to soak through my seats in the car.

why, oh mercy, why didn’t i stop right then?

i ate the ann’s double-dog. it was a mess. it was a greasy delicious mess. it slid down my throat and began a toxic chemical reaction unparalleled in the anals (sic) of history.
it. was. disgusting. worst hot dog ever. period.

anyone with an iron gut would love it. otherwise, find another hole-in-the-wall place to eat (like the honey bee restaurant on rt. 2).

—————

edit: one of the best hot dogs ever? chicks drive-inn in west haven, CT - mark took us there one of the times we went up with him. there’s something about open-air dogs on the beach with good friends. 

the last two weeks have been interesting as recent transplants to pensacola.

first, tropical storm fay was supposed to blow into town and terrorize us with huge storms. this was exciting, right? i made plans to sit on the front porch all day and watch storms blow through one after another! we stocked up on water and food just in case, watched the beginnings of the storm move in on saturday and braced for the coup de grace on sunday. i went to sleep that night in childish anticipation of storm watching on sunday (and everyone was talking about how school would surely be closed monday, etc - not bad!)…

woke up sunday morning, ran to the window, threw open the blinds and…! AND!!!!

sunshine. big fluffy clouds. birds singing. flowers blooming.

what the frick? who took my storm??

by the next weekend, the news has hyped up hurricane gustav to the point that gas stations were literally OUT OF GAS from the frenzied rush. grocery store lines were ridiculous. windows were being boarded up on our street and generators were tested in driveways.

now, hurricanes are different than tropical storms. i wasn’t exactly looking forward to a hurricane, but by the weekend it looked like we would just get some nice big-ass storms. woo-hoo! storms! YES!! the following pics were taken on saturday on the beach - just before The Big Storms were supposed to move in. water like glass. incredible.

so monday comes and again, excitement is in my heart as i think about sitting and watching storms all day. the hype has worked its way into my brain and we’re fully vested in this. again, reports of schools closing on tuesday were rampant, so icing on the cake, right?

monday comes. some clouds. no rain. no big storms.

now, wait a minute!! WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY STORM???

we did go to the beach which was totally nutso. here’s the exact same spot 2 days after the above pics, and 20-30 feet of the beach has been washed away by 15-20 foot waves…

so now people are talking about hurricane ike, and my reply: i’ll believe it when i see it! it’s like cincinnati weather forecasters and snowstorms - until it hits land, i’ll reserve judgement.

gimme my storm back!!!

after three weeks of teaching at pine forest high school

i woke up from a nightmare last night

where i was back at my school from last year.

*whew*

cheech and chong are back together.

the only line from any of their movies that i can remember is:

“aren’t you jerry garcia from the grateful dead?”

given the change in society since their last act (30 years ago?), are these guys even relevant anymore?

heard about the new browser from google? it’s in beta right now and i’m giving it a run. it’s intriguing at this point and it gives me a couple reasons to consider it over firefox (my browser of choice for many years now).

here’s a good article about it in the washington post.

here’s the link to download the beta version.

here’s google’s cool comic book format explaining why you should switch (and the specifics on the technology behind the browser).

doing camp as a youth minister was almost always a hugely fun thing. a week of craziness, fun, fellowship, music, teaching, games, sloppy olympics, teams, competitions, points, one-upping, late nights, and fun relationships.

and vomit.

lise and i did senior high camp at west river in maryland every summer for 5 or 6 years. as camps go, this place was awesome. our fellow leaders were great. the camp leadership was great. the kids who showed up every summer were great. and we always had competitions. kids were broken into teams and points were given in an archaic manner for all sorts of things: winning games, singing songs, random acts of kindness, answering questions, being creative, bringing blow pops for the camp director, asking nicely, etc. the amount of points given were generally arbitrary making the system of awarding them all the more difficult to comprehend.

but at the end of the week, a trophy was given to the team with the most points, so to say there was fierce competition for them is an understatement.

but vomit - no, the first vomit - that was like, the holy grail of points.

we always said that if someone didn’t puke at camp, we weren’t doing our jobs very well.

the year was 2002. it was the third day of camp and we had yet to have any confirmed reports of hurling. tensions were running high as we put our heads together to come up with some gross sort of game that would surely produce the puke we so desired.

but it all proved unnecessary.

as the camp pastor and photographer, i was a popular guy. kids always want their pics taken, right? this particular morning, one young man, whose name is long forgotten, came up to me and said, “scott - you need to stay close by! i’m going to puke for you and i want you to get it on film!” “how are you planning on doing this?” i asked. “i’m drinking a dozen pints of white milk in about 15 minutes. that’s SURE to make me hurl good!” and who was i to argue? every camp-goer knows the rule about humans being unable to drink a gallon of milk in such a short amount of time without the body going into upheaval.

15 minutes later, this kid is looking green. the milk is having its effect and he’s about ready to blow. literally.

he jumps out of his seat, runs out of the dining hall in the middle of games and announcements, positions himself outside at a ninety degree angle, hands on knees, and checks to make sure i’m ready.

and as he puked his guts out, i snapped what must be the greatest camp picture of all time.

it was picture perfect: the solid stream, the intertwining tendrils, the light splatter and eventual pooling of regurgitated milk - of the hundreds of photos i’ve shot in the many years of senior high camp, i kid you not: this is the transcendent picture. pulitzer-worthy? you decide.

he got TONS of points for this, as well he should’ve. that level of dedication to pukedom and senior high camp is rarely found in today’s youth.

lise asked me this afternoon at lunch what the coolest thing my mom ever did for me when i was younger.

it surely wasn’t the coolest thing of all time, but the very first thing that popped into my mind was this:

when i was growing up and going to school K-4th grade, we lived under the 1 mile mark from school. this meant that we walked to school most days. not a big deal. i remember getting rides when weather was crummy and getting picked up, etc. but i remember walking to and from more often than not.

the one day that stands out took place back in 3rd grade - 1977. i remember leaving school and being surprised to see my mom’s car out front! she told me that she had a surprise and we had to get going… i smelled popcorn in the car and this was definitely strange.

we arrived at kenwood theater and mom bought tickets to see Oh, God! with george burns and john denver. she hid the paper bags of popcorn in her coat and in we went! i remember a couple of funny scenes from the movie but what i remember most was mom surprising me by picking me up from school and taking me to a movie in the middle of the day. it was exciting and fun - a real adventure and so out of the ordinary that it’s stuck with me ever since.

my mom is cool, what can i say?

it was almost 20 years ago when lise first invited me to her apartment and cooked me dinner.

i asked where the bathroom was. she told me it was down the hall.

she informed me that i was to put the seat down when finished or else.

and that has been the rule ever since.

i only broke it once. it only took once.

a year or so after we were married.

i was in the other room when i heard a short series of noises from the bathroom:

1. splash!
2. “arrrrgh!!”
3. *toilet lid slamming down*

as if the audio wasn’t convincing enough, the look on her face assured me that i’d not survive a second mistake.

driving was what we did. every weekend, sometimes both friday and saturday nights. pink floyd in the tape deck, a bag of chips, a couple cokes and the open road. we would intentionally go off and try to get lost on the backroads of clermont and adams counties in ohio. funny thing about that: when you do it for a couple years, it gets harder and harder to get truly lost.

but this post is about the day we got really stupid.

we were bored. it was summer. a saturday afternoon. the sun was out, it was warm, there was nothing to do. we hooked up early that day because we weren’t going to be able to go out that evening.

scott was driving that trusty old granada that had taken us so many miles down so many roads. we drove around for a while trying to think of something to do when he finally turned to me and said, “do you want to jump myrtle’s tit?”

well, this was a new one on me.

“myrtle’s tit? you get a girlfriend or something?”
“no, you dumbass,” he replied, using his hands to give a visual. “myrtle’s tit is a stretch of downhill road in anderson township that has a big bump halfway down it. you can jump it and go airborne!”
“woo-hoo! let’s do it!” was my response.

we arrive at the hill and sit at the top, making sure there’s no oncoming traffic before making the big run. coast is clear, we’re buckled in, tunes cranked, scott guns the engine, and we speed off.

now, i’ve heard of instances where people talk about life suddenly going in slow motion but it always sounded a bit fishy to me. this was the first time i ever experienced it myself and it was stunning.

we hit myrtle’s tit at a high rate of speed and the world slowed to a crawl. you feel the crunch of the road, see your knuckles white on the dashboard, feel the car going airborne as the back tires finally follow the front, severing contact with the pavement. time stretched and it felt like we must’ve been free falling for ten seconds or more. the adrenaline hits around this point, and you think you can do anything.

then the film speeds back up, the thud of 3156lbs of steel reestablishing ties to terra firma brings you back to your senses, and you let out a loud cry of victory and surprise - you left the full ashtray open, both of your cokes are uncapped, and your bag of doritos unsecured - all of these items now occupy space throughout the interior of the car.

we pulled off at the bottom to collect our wits, relive the excitement, and clean up our mess.

we drove a couple more hours that day, but we kept hearing this metallic ka-thunk-ing sound coming from the rear. we stopped to look several times but found nothing. it wasn’t until we got to east fork lake that scott finally realized what it was. we pulled over, walked to the back of the car, and took the hubcap off the passenger side rear tire.

the rattling ka-thunking? two of the lug bolts snapped off, the third one was stripped almost to the end, and the fourth one was quite loose. we’d been driving on essentially one lug bolt all day.

that was the beginning of the end of that sweet car. it didn’t last too much longer after that. but the memories of myrtle’s tit? they’ll last forever.

scott went into the air force right out of high school. that we kept in touch was pretty amazing, given both of our personalities and lack of letter-writing skills, but hey - we were best friends! (still are!)

so at some point, he’s stationed in okinawa, japan for the long haul. i was living in some crap apartment in mt. washington that had an annual fly problem that resulted in literally dozens and dozens of drunk flies that appear in the apartment, sit on the patio door for 2 days, and promptly die.

in a fit of brilliance, i scoop up a dozen or so dead flies, put them in a little tiny plastic baggie, stick it in an envelope with a note inside the baggie saying, “genuine ohio shitflies,” and send it off.

months later, i get a letter from scott telling me the reason it’s taken him so long to write was that he was imprisoned for introducing a foreign organic substance onto japanese soil, how this is illegal in that part of the world, and the consequences could have been worse.

and me - i stopped breathing for a minute and my heart skipped a couple beats. i was floored that i had gotten him into that much trouble sending him a baggie of joke shitflies.

at the end of the letter, knowing i’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, he tells me he’s “shitting” me and ha-ha-ha.

i’ve never been so relieved and so wanting to kill someone as at that exact moment.

we were seventeen years old. it was labor day weekend & scott’s parents were out of town. i “spent the night at scott’s house” and we, in turn, spent the night driving all over tarnation.

this was our usual routine on friday and saturday nights: scott comes and picks me up. we pick up a couple cokes, a bag of doritos, make sure one of us brought the pink floyd tapes, and hit the road, driving scott’s ‘77 ford granada through the backroads of clermont county, ohio and beyond until i had to be home.

but this night? it was the longest we’d been out driving ever. we took off around 7pm and drove all over clermont county, out to adams county, probably into brown county, and then decided to hit hamilton county. it’s probably 4 a.m. and we’re driving through delhi, where the hills are crazy big. we’re running on adrenaline and talking all kinds of silly crap.

we crest the hill and head down the steep ravine-like road when i spot a huge pile of trash sitting on the curb at the very bottom of this hill. the following conversation takes place:

me: …and you better watch out because if you hit that garbage at the bottom of the hill, it’ll be like, ‘BOOM!’ shit flies everywhere!!
him: shitflies? what are shitflies?
me: no, no - you hit that pile of garbage and shit… flies everywhere.
him: yeah, i heard you the first time, but what are shitflies? i’ve never heard of those.
me: no, dude - look… you’re driving down this hill and you run into that pile of trash. if you do that, shit will fly all over the place! shit - flies, not shitflies.

we give each other “the look” like the other is crazy, and bust out laughing. there are few times i can remember laughing so hard and re-telling it live is one of my favorite stories to share.

and the code word, to this day, is shit flies. or is it shitflies?

the wind was blowing like crazy that morning. the beach was deserted. the surf flag was red which means DANGER and DO NOT SWIM IN THE GULF. the sand was whipping around and stung my legs and most of the beach had been washed away by the storm the previous night. storm clouds were brewing still. it’s a rare sight to see pensacola beach emptied in early august.

i drove down to the dead-end just to watch the swirling & crashing waves for a while. on the way there, i passed a single vehicle. an SUV with Kansas plates was parked on the side of the road and an umbrella was in the middle of the beach, propped on it’s side against the onslaught of wind. driving slowly past, i see two folks huddled under the meager protection from the elements, a cooler between them and looking like they were having the time of their lives.

i smiled once as i crawled past because i realized that lise and i would have done the same crazy kind of thing.

i smiled twice because i could hear them saying to themselves, “dagnabbit, we drove all the way from kansas to sit on the beach, and come hell or high water, that’s what we’re doing!!”

we weren’t allowed to watch popeye…

 …but we had rock-em-sock-em robots.

when you’re the youth pastor at a predominantly african-american church, you come to appreciate the after-church lunches and potlucks more than you do in your traditional white churches.

white church potlucks are predictable affairs - lasagna, waldorf salad, baked beans, some kind of spaghetti cassarole, sandwich rollups bought at sam’s club, desserts bought at the local grocery store. it’s always good, but it’s rarely about the food and more about the company.

but when you hear that your local black baptist church is having a meal after morning service? oh, honey, you better be there! home-made fried chicken, hog maws, butter beans, cornbread, homemade macaroni and cheese, some kind of barbeque, home-cooked pies, cookies - oh, well, this is what i remember.

but my personal favorite dish at these meals was collard greens. the mouth waters at the thought.

my pastor, chris, thought he was The Man when it came to greens. and his greens were good, no doubt, but they just… well, they didn’t hit it. he’d make a bushel of greens each time, but i always hoped that one of the ladies would make theirs and bring it, too - there was something… missing from chris’ greens. he and i argued about this mystery ingredient, but having never made greens myself, i couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

about a year after being at New Creation, chris and i went to our semi-regular lunch at Millie’s over in madisonville. now look: if you want to have soul food done right, and you can’t make it to the church lunch? Millie’s is THE place.

so there we are, sitting in millie’s and i’m begging millie’s sister for a double helping of her greens (my FAVORITE greens of all time), when The Discussion about what’s lacking in chris’ greens comes up.

“my greens are better than this!”
“no, they ain’t - this is The Greens, man! you need to ask her how she does this so you can finally make a GOOD mess of greens some sunday morning!”
“psh, i soak those things 24 hours and add all these spices and cook them to a loving perfection…”
“dude, your greens are good but…”
“you need to stop talkin’ trash about my greens!”
“if you knew how to make ‘em right, i’d have less to talk about and more to eat!”

millie’s sister comes back out and i drag her into the argument. chris relents and they begin to share recipes. chris lists his ingredients and his methods for cleaning and soaking and preparing. she nods with approval every step of the way, until…

“how much lard do you put in them?”
“LARD? i don’t put ANY lard in my greens!” he replied.
“oh, honey, i see what the problem is now. i put two pounds of lard in for each bushel of greens.”

chris and i share a “look” - his look is one of astonishment. my look is one of epiphany.

chris never did make a great mess of greens even after hearing this. but i know now that the trick to good collard greens?

rendered hog fat. lots of it. and save some room for the collards!

after a year here in pensacola, we finally got rid of our ohio license plates and went full floridian. i’ve never seen a state with so many license plate choices, though, and lise had to spend some time figuring out which one she wanted.

i knew what i was after the first time i saw this plate a year ago. the colors! the sunset! the water! dolphins don’t hurt, either. (yes, i had to include my fish n chips logo, too. sorry. it goes with the motif, no?)

lise spent some time checking out the myriad of plate choices and finally went with this one:

what, exactly, is the message she is trying to send? on the surface, “save our seas” she would tell you. deep down? i think she wants to swim with sharks and take a bite outta something, just for fun. maybe it’s “tailgate me and you’ll sleep with fishes!”

florida definitely has the rockingest plates we’ve seen thus far - i will say that the john lennon plate is taking it a bit far, however… (it HAS raised almost $700,000 to combat hunger in the state - maybe i ought to back off, eh?). thank goodness we didn’t become the most embarrassing state in the union with the “I Believe” plate that was threatened earlier this year. whew! crisis averted!

how can i help??

www.worldbreastfeedingweek.org

if i can’t contribute can i…

oy vey. inappropriate.

we were young. 23 years old. we had been married a year and were moving from cincinnati to washington d.c. we lived in a third floor apartment in an old house (damn, that place was hot!) and had packed for days.

when i rented the u-haul and the tow-hitch for the car, i was wiped out. lise was famished.

but our friends - oh, they were the best friends in the world.

they showed up on moving day and as a collective, single-minded unit informed us that they, not us - THEY were going to pack the truck for us. we were so grateful and we stood by in the apartment while they climbed all those twisting, winding, creaky old stairs, grabbed another load, and took it down to the truck. they were the awesomest friends ever for packing the truck for us.

we went down, closed up the truck, put the lock on, hitched our hideous ‘81 datsun 310gx to the back, and had a tearful goodbye. our friends hugged us hard, cried, & promised to keep in touch. we thanked them profusely for making our day so much easier before we began the 550 mile trek to d.c. and swore we’d never forget what they meant to us.

our friends left. we got in the truck. we looked at each other with the kind of love that only newlyweds have for one another. we held hands, wiped away the last of the tears, and fired up the truck.

i lightly depressed the gas pedal to pull out when the most horrendous sound i’ve ever heard crunched into my ears from behind.

me: wtf?
lise: sounded like the truck.
me: i barely touched the gas!
lise: sounded like a wall fell somewhere.
me: we better check this out before we go.

we unlocked the padlock, flipped the handle, and pushed up on the door.

it was stuck. wedged. jammed. superglue of the gods held that door shut tight.

our friends, whom we loved, had truly packed the truck. and no one gave a second thought to placement of any items. they were just… chucked and tossed wherever they could find.

it was elementary physics. sadly, none of my friends were physicists.

ledger good but brad pitt did that character (better) in 12 monkeys. dark. two-face! too damn long. emotionally embroiled. gyllenhaal = hott. intense! edge of seat (wondering will it end).

i recently received a rather rude comment from an individual regarding the picture at right. more specifically, my hair coloring. or even more specifically, my lack of it.

the comment came on facebook where this unnamed individual had the unmitigated gall to say, “Uh….Scott….did you dye your hair BLONDE???!?!?!?!” and my response was along the lines of, “why are you picking on me? it’s gray - don’t be a meanie!”

i’ve had gray in my hair since the tender age of 16 when a quarter-size patch appeared near my hairline. it’s not a big deal, really.

but i’ll never forget the day ten or so years ago when i almost bought the farm because of gray hair.

lise and i were out together for the day. we were living in maryland and had driven up to lancaster, pennsylvania to drive around, get some lunch, shop amish, and enjoy the time with each other. it was approaching evening with the orange sun setting fire to the ground in the direction we’re heading. i was driving down the narrow road, shared with amish horse-and-buggy types in both directions, when, out of nowhere, lise swings her arm over and whacks me square in the chest, exclaiming, “Oh My Gosh!!!”

well, i about drove into a ditch, taking a couple bonnet-capped mennonites with us.

“what on earth’s going on?!? why are you hitting me and scaring me? What? WHAT??”

“you’ve got a gray hair in your beard!”

“WHA??? you almost get us KILLED because of a gray hair in my BEARD??”

we’ve laughed every time the story has been told in the intervening years, but at that point i was ready to open the passenger side door and leave her with electricity-less ones.  thankfully her response was redeeming and to the point: “well, i still love you, even if you are old and gray.”

and indeed, that gray hair mated with others and their ilk have spread throughout my facial hair.

it’s not a big deal. really.

i’ve been on a bit of a joe satriani kick the last few days. his technical proficiency aside, he makes some of the best put together songs out there and with such attention to melody. i almost forget that i’m listening to a completely instrumental guitar album. it’s not just “chops” - it’s musical poetry.

this video is of one of my favorite satriani songs, a love song written for his wife - “always with me, always with you” from his album surfing with the alien. this was recorded two years ago and is probably the best version of it that i’ve heard.

i can’t sing.

that’s not a whiny, self-pitying, boo-hoo statement. i just can’t sing. i DO sing, i simply don’t do it in a way that is humanly bearable to those around me.

but don chaffer - there’s no one i know who has a sweeter voice among male singers.

Download On A Night That Felt Outdated

his songwriting is fantastic. his production skills are over the top. his guitar work is wonderful and expansive.

but oh wow - he just has the sweetest and most expressive voice i’ve ever heard. the above song is called On A Night That Felt Outdated - it was captured live a couple years ago at a concert that has been posted online for download here.

chaffer’s band, waterdeep, has been an underground favorite for years with folks who like folksy, bluesy, jam-band, acoustic, electric, rock & funk - they’ve been consistent in their drive to put out solid, well-put-together music without compromising the music itself.

one thing i particularly appreciate about his music (oh, that voice) has been his ability to stay true to living life - chaffer is a christian who writes and sings about real life not the syrupy sappiness that gets played on mainstream christian radio stations. he writes about pain, about joy, about his family, his frustrations, despair, and contentment - all without becoming a caricature or a pretender. much of what passes for “christian” music today is a cartoon of life - it’s not real or even remotely realistic.

Download Bob Dylan’s Shelter From the Storm

the above song was recorded at the same concert as the first one - he and his wife lori do a cover of bob dylan’s shelter from the storm.

some of our favorite concerts have been waterdeep shows - they have a cohesiveness and fluidity that showcases not only their collective skill as a unit, but the individual skills of each member. being in the audience as they branch off into long, extended solos and improvisational songs is almost surreal.

but that voice. so sweet. so high.

oh, when i grow up, please let me be able to sing like don chaffer.

as a kid, i remember going through my dad’s record collection and playing a little of everything. he had a cool box that was big enough to hold a number of 45’s (or singles) - he had a card for each one and a short description included on the card - and he had a whole lot of stuff from when he was growing up (50’s and 60’s).

one in particular that will always remain lodged in my brain was called Delicious! and it featured Jim Backus, of Gilligan’s Island / Mr. Magoo fame.

it was the stupidest thing i’ve ever heard. lush, romantic piano background, corks popping, inebriated individuals laughing, carrying on and on and on…

i remember as a kid listening to this and laughing hysterically! dad would listen, too, and he would laugh as well and by the end we couldn’t stop!

and i still can’t help but laugh with them. it’s so damn funny. and stupid.

but it would be unfair of me to tell you about this and not share, so click below on the Audio MP3 button to hear the actual 45 of Delicious! but please listen responsibly - do not operate heavy machinery while under the influence of Backus and crew.

Download Delicious!

twelve hour drive back home
by end, minute measure lengthens
exponentially

i’m in cincinnati for a couple days hanging out with family, celebrating birthdays, driving to toledo to get lise, and having a good time in the cooler weather.

saturday was a birthday party over at my aunt diane’s house - my cousin chris and her astute, five-year-old offspring camden came in from south bend. cam and i had some interesting conversations about coinslots, cute girls, and tattoos. while creating artistically stunning designs using rubber stamps, cam and i gave each other some gnarly tats of our own.

i gave cam a snoopy tat, thinking that snoopy’s free-wheeling, fun disposition matched his and would make a definite statement to the world about what he’s all about.  i dropped, popped, and locked that sucker right on his face and we were both quite pleased with the result.

cam chose a flower tattoo for me. i can only imagine that he was thinking that my budding optimism, my flowery opinion of the human condition, my blooming love for all God’s creatures, the spring in my step, the buzz of creativity flying through my mind - i must match that flower and by golly i’m gonna wear it proudly!

the rest of the afternoon was spent showing off our sweet tats, having mini-food fights, teaching each other new tricks and phrases, and taking pictures. when we parted, cam and i agreed to never have laser surgery done to remove our gifts to each other, and would always proudly display them to all we encountered! it was a heartwarming, uplifting show of love and admiration for each other and the bond we had formed.

my hopes and dreams were dashed the following morning. my assumption that we had used permanent ink shows my naivete - my tat was last seen circling the drain in the shower. the memories are fading. my pride, collapsed.

cam - it’s time to come visit pensacola.

katie reider has died.

much sadness at her passing and prayers for her family.

i don’t go ga-ga over all musicians, but katie was special. incredible voice, great musician, and she was hott to boot. lise picks on me, but my favorite track of hers is “Show Your Love” off the No Retakes CD.

check her website out and buy some of her music - you’ll thank me later.

a tradition as old as civilization itself, the end of a meal at any chinese restaurant is always pure joy. how can you go wrong with those sometimes flaky, sometimes rock-hard, sometimes bland, sometimes sweet fortune cookies served after you’ve stuffed yourself silly?

who passed on the tradition to me? i’d be hard pressed to remember at my advanced age, but i will say that once it clicked, it’s never been forgotten.

the check comes.
the fortune cookies, individually wrapped, are placed before you.
the fight to get the one meant for you.
the crinkling of the cellophane.
the cracking of the cookie.
your fortune revealed!
BUT
incomplete!

much breath has been wasted arguing about the proper phrasing necessary to reveal one’s true fortune, but i have come to the conclusion that the only totally encompassing and acceptable phrase is “in your shorts” - it fits almost all situations and fortunes equally well.

many years and hundreds of fortunes later, i’ve whittled down to two the ones that truly reveal the power of chinese fortune-telling and the magic phrase needed for complete revelation.

fight with me if you must, but i will go to the grave standing by my fortune-unlocking, future-revealing phrase. you need to try it yourself - order some chinese tonight, crack that sucker open and give it a run. let me know how it ends. add your own phrase if you must, but at least give this one a shot.

and besides: what guy doesn’t want great physical powers and an iron constitution… in his shorts?

a gentleman in tennessee is suing his church for when he fell and hit his head after being slain in the Spirit last year.

the full article is here.

maybe that fall was supposed to help him achieve humility and show grace in the face of God-given pain?

when i was in middle school my family went to catholic church every sunday.

it was lame no matter how “cool” they tried to make it (the “guitar service” at st. theresa’s comes to mind…) and it always seemed to take forever - but i always loved staying overnight at my best friend’s house on saturdays - besides the fact that we had a great time being silly and staying up all night, ken’s family went to St. Simon’s church - NOTORIOUS for the 15 minute sunday morning mass!

wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, drop your dollar in the hat, dominus vobiscum, sit, kneel, stand, greet your neighbor, “body of christ” “amen,” Christianos ad leones, “great sermon, father!” *ken’s dad starts car up* back to the house you go.

surely our motivations were wrong, but doggone it - it’s middle school, dude! long live st. simon’s 15 minute mass!!

Download Great Blue Heron Burgers - It’s What’s for Dinner!

one painful aspect of having been subjected to catholic school education was the weekly grade-level church service we had to go to.

my school, st. antoninus, didn’t have a lot of good choices of priests at this point in my catholic school career. the old one was father hagedorn - he was probably 107 years old, shook uncontrollably, smacked his lips a lot, and paused too long and too often. father mick was no better - he was probably 21, a little too chummy with the guys and waaay too physical with the girls - we didn’t care for him and it was obvious that he was either on the lam or made too hasty a decision to enter the priesthood.

my best friends and i did our best to keep it as low key as possible but still eke some fun out of the experience. we sit together each week against better judgement but up to this point we’ve not gotten into too much trouble.

catholic church, in and of itself, has always been a boring thing for me. too pious, too organy, too… churchy, i guess. and when we had to go with our grade each week, oh, sheer torture! what’s worse: being in CLASS or being in CHURCH - haha, it’s a hard choice!

so picture this: four 14 year old guys: ken. brian. tony. scott. it’s spring. thursday morning. eighth grade church. front row. bored. hyms. father hagedorn. jesus hanging on the cross. robes. solemnity. holy water. communion. sit. stand. kneel. stand. sit.

and when the next hymn started up, my friend tony had apparently had enough.

we’re singing this hymn and this garbled noise starts coming from my left. it sounded like… a cat stuck in a washer? no. a record being played backwards! YES! that’s it!!

i and my other friends look at tony and he has his hymnal turned UPSIDE DOWN and is singing… backwards.

i’m not sure who started laughing first, but it was SO FUNNY. oh, we tried so hard to stop, but there was no place for the laughter to go. we grabbed our faces, nudged tony, laughed and hoped no one noticed. then, since we couldn’t stop, we started singing backwards, too. and laughed even harder.

we were lucky - no one came over and smacked us or told us to stop. we managed to get ourselves together enough that we got through the service and back to class in one piece. short bursts of laughter still plagued us during the day, but we were ok.

and then. at the end of the day. the very end of the day… we came back into our homerooms and sitting on our desks? THREE DETENTIONS EACH. signed by the director of catholic education for our school. he had been sitting in one of the wings of the church, hidden, and had seen everything.

and church, my friends, was NOT where we were to be goofing off and screwing around!

was it worth it? oh, when you can still laugh almost to the point of tears 26 years later - it’s definitely worth it.

i’ll admit it.

the first time i ever gave blood was to get out of work for a little while. i was 18 and working for a department store when an announcement was made that anyone who gave blood at the bloodmobile that afternoon would get an hour off with pay. after giving, there were cookies and pop! omg! an hour off AND cookies AND pop!!! WOO-HOO!!!!

so i gave. and continued to give, long after the benefit of an hour off expired. it was helping someone, didn’t take much time, and hey - cookies and pop!

so i finally went to the NW FL Blood Center last week to give. nice folks. free t-shirts. free pop. free little debbies. there was a lot of attention given and you felt like a minor celebrity.

and then yesterday i get a call.

“mr. rust, this is _______ at the NWFLBC and i wanted to call and talk to you about donating again.”
“so soon?” i asked.
“well, you donated whole blood last week, and of course you have to wait 8 weeks between those donations, but mr. rust, your platelet count (insert long explanation of how rustypants’ count is THREE TIMES the normal count)!!”
“uhh… wow. should i be worried?”
“oh, no! this is great! you can give platelets every three days!!!”
“hey, cool,” i said, blind to what was coming next.
“platelets are crucial for cancer patients, leukemia patients, and others who have blood diseases! and because of their short shelf-life, we’re in constant need of people like you who have extremely elevated levels in their blood. think about all the people you will be helping - your one donation will probably help three people! (insert continued unnecessary encouragement on the importance of donating)”

i felt like a rock star. no lie. i was being courted with facts, t-shirts, candy, drinks, bring a dvd to watch if you want, we’ll sign you up to win a new car, your platelets are so sexy, mr. rust, i wish i could be the technician who centrifuges your blood, everyone should be so lucky to have your platelet count, would you sign my shirt, let me stroke your arteries…

“ok. sign me up.”
“really?”
“umm.” now i’m confused.
“it will take up to two hours to complete when can you come in?”

and then the sun rose. the lightbulb turned on. the cold water of realization hit.

they will never stop calling now, will they? i’ll be their rock star until my platelets rebel and stop kicking it so hard. then, and only then, will my star fall. and i’ll just be another has-been. a washout.

hey! helping others! cookies! pop! it’ll be worth it.

a couple years ago, while attending a youth minister’s conference in atlanta, i got to see cannibal corpse in concert. they were playing at the masquerade. i knew i was in trouble when the lead singer said in a very soft-spoken, southern drawl, “this is a song i wrote about chopping my girlfriend’s head off with a rusty hacksaw and having sex with her neck. it goes something like this…”and then launched into the most aggressive and awful rock song i’ve ever heard. the crowd went(?) nuts and i was thinking i might be killed.

secretly, though, i was having fun. i mean, cannibal corpse!!!

i was once shushed by the librarian at the gallaudet university library for being too loud.

when i asked if that wasn’t a bit like a blind kid getting scolded for sticking his tongue out at another blind kid, i was warned & shushed again.

dang, the library police at those libraries for the deaf are tough!

or is benjamin linus really jon weatherly?

linus: the leader of The Others
weatherly: refers to the other CCU profs as “those othe