Erata, My Head Wound, Hash Browns, Football, Work etc...

Sooooo a lazy Sunday of a little church, a little football, a lot of food. Not a bad day. Looking forward to a pizza party tonight with some crappy charity pizza. Seriously, why does charity pizza that they get together and make have to suck so much? I don't know either.

Watching the Rams play an excellent but what looks to be futile game against the hated New Orleans Saints. They are not really hated. I like Drew Breese and I am impressed that Reggie Bush looks to have gotten his head out of the hookah and it is something watching him accelerate. The Mizzou Tigers won yesterday convincingly breaking a hex that K-State had on them for 5 years. If they can win another they are bowl bound I would think but winning out would do it for them and it is conceivable that they might do so. There are 5 teams rolling on unbeaten right noiw with Alabama, Florida, Texas, Cincinnati, Boise State and.... wait for it....wait for it.... THE TEXAS CHRISTIAN HORN FROGS. TCU, terror of the Mountain West have been dismantling opponents all year. It is hard to argue that they are as good as Texas, Alabama or Florida but I will. The Frogs beat Virginia and Clemson early, had a quality win against a good Air Force team and dismantled BYU 38-7. Absent a stumble they will go undefeated. Cincy has Illinois and Pittburgh which are possible losses, But Boise State should also win out. This is wear the BCS sucks it but it would appear that TCU and Boise might get in BCS bowls. The SEC will force the Gators to play The Crimson Tide so someone will have a loss and Texas is likely to roll but could still lose a game. We will see how it shakes out.

My head wound seems to be healing with the excellent stitches that Dr. Hurst put in. I am looking forward to wearing a big stupid bandage on my head all week and being an even larger objet of derision (it could happen). The Doctor yelled at me for quite some time about keeping it covered and not letting the stitches dry out....yuck. My dogs have enjoyed the oozing of the wound (for any of you who remember "Horrible Head Wound Harry" from the old Saturday Night Live skit. Probably not the best way to keep the wound moist.











My intense battle with depression have been well documented, clinically studied and yet remain untreated. More often then not recently these bouts with the morose are brought on by my inability to cook hash browns for my own taste at my home. I have failed well over 20 times...maybe 30 over the past 5 years. Totally a disaster every time. I am reasonably certain (and I do not mean to offend) that I am much more likely to find a cure for cancer or solve global warming or... figure out how to get my kids not to text other people when talking to me, then make decent hash browns at home. As you will recall I have...issues, possibly religious issues regarding hash browns. I LIKE THEM SHREDDED! I like to have them in a rough patty shape and be crispy on both sides. Currently only two places in town have hash browns that I find pleasing. Spencers Grill in Kirkwood (thin, greasy, delicious) and Pomme in Clayton (classic rough cut steak house hash browns). Sadly I have been unable to replicate them at home. With the whole family (and the Kukla's) coming over for PORKFEST on Thanksgiving morning (including the venerable Pat Kukla of the Quad Cities) there is going to be a lot pressure to produce quality hash browns. Today I bought some red boiling potatoes. I boiled them. I let the cool to room temperature. I shredded them, I soaked them in a little salt water. I drained them. I heated a beautiful cast iron skillet to medium. I coated it with a little PAM spray on. I dropped them in. They sizzled. They sucked. I ended with a brownish, black...goop. Thus...further depression and despondance. It is hard to type with this gun in my mouth. Pray for me.

Tomorrow I have to go back to work. Very sad. And they say winter is coming back. Over the weekend the area seemed to be flooded with birds and I saw 7 different flights of geese heading south. They know. The party is over and it is time to start the long hard slog through St. Louis winter. The thought of those hours working downtown and staring out at the gray St. Louis skyline...chilling.

Cutting Heads

This is NOTHING like my cut...but how cool is this?











Sooooo..... “The MOHS Surgery.... does anyone really care? I am not sure that I do. My wife accompanied me to the doctors office/surgery center. The process went exactly as promised. I showed up at 7:45 and by 8:15 they had a small chunk of my precious forehead out. Now I am sitting in the waiting room waiting for them to examine “the margins” before they go back in and cut some more away. Evidiently thse nasty little basal cells have tendrils or “legs” and so as to be least invasive as possible they follow these legs and excevate them rather then cutting the whole chunk of your head out. I guess it it is only head in my case since my basal cell is in the middle of my lower forehead. I say “lower” forehead because any of you who know me know that I have a vast expanse of forehead. People have often analogized my forehead as approximating that of a Beluga whale. The Bleuga is not a particularly graceful looking whale. Not to belabor the point but billboard companies have shown more then a casual interest in my head for advertising space..... so... lower fore head.

When they first took me in there they had to shove a couple of needles in my forehead as local anesthetic. It hurt. I never understand why they have to give you a shot in order to limit your pain. The shots seem painful... especially when they shove the needles into your head. The numb it pretty good and the funny nurse tells me they give me a “numb skull”. Ahahahhaahahaha. The doctor comes in and they put something over my eyes and then I feel pressure as she carves on me quickly and efficiently. The real reason they put something over your eyes is because they do MOHS surgery with a samurai sword. If you have ever seen Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill” you have some idea of what I am talking about. They cover your eyes because, according to my doctor, “bad shit happens when you flinch”. I believe her.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_surgery

I am a solid 20 years younger then any one else in the waiting room. They come back and tell me that I am “clear”. In MOHS parlance that means that they got it all and do not need to cut on me anymore. Clearly it is a relief because that means my basal cell didn’t have and “legs” or tendrils digging deep into my huge...huge skull. Still, I cannot help feeling cheated that didn’t have a better, more dangerous cancer or surgery. It is a disappointment, and a relief until they take me back in to sew me up. That means I have to get another bunch of shots in head to numb my head. The shots suck even worse the second time. She puts about a millionstitched into me head and explains she is going to do the stitches on one of the many “frown lines” that cover my head like waves of sand in the sahara.

I called my mom. She picked me up and took me home. Lets not discuss the fact that I am 48 and my mommy is still picking me up and taking me home. At least lets not talk about it now.

In Praise Of Breakfast, Diners, and My Son

It strikes me that once again I need to rally for the cause of breakfast. I have always thought it was the most important meal of the day but according to one James Carmody it is “the least important meal of the day”. All of the evidence is strongly in my favor.

http://www.amerymedicalcenter.org/amery2.nsf/View/breakfast

So the research and the facts back me up but I have noticed in all me reading that no one really envisions the type of breakfast I enjoy which is sausage, toast, iced tea, hash browns... oh yes, hash browns. Sometimes some sausage gravy. Sometimes a lot of sausage gravy. Sometimes some bacon, in addition to the sausage... on the side. Tiemann tells me it is a death wish but I like to think of it as a death crusade. That seems more noble.

There was a sweet article this last month by Pat Eby in Sauce Magazine.

http://www.saucemagazine.com/section/19

It is excellent and instead of focusing on the diet aspects she compares and contrasts the diner with the ubiquitous and frankly hated “coffe house”. Sure if you need a scone and a skinny lahte I guess it is OK, especially if you need Internet access. But if you are looking for a little solitude and some time with the depressing little rag that has become The St. Louis Post Dispatch you need a diner. She mentions something I had never noticed about that fabulous picture... “no entrance, no exit, no food on the counter”. Perfect. Give that article a read.

St. Louis really does not have any of the classic rail car diners that the east coast is blessed with. They are aging and decrepit but authentic never the less. The St. Louis classic diners at this point are The Eat Rite on Chouteau and the original Courtesy on Kingshighway. They are great. Classic even but I sometime would like one of my rich friends to have a classic rail car diner moved here. Is that too much to ask?

I guess what I am trying to say is... do the right thing. Eat breakfast and even more importantly, get out and eat breakfast locally. Do it for me.

*******

I had a nice weekend this last weekend. I remembered when my wife after much soul searching my wife and I purchased a nice new iPod for our then much troubled son. He took the iPod to camp (against our admonitions) and then did not leave the iPod in his room (as I had begged) and eventually waded into Lake Michigan with the 300 dollar toy in his pocket. It did not end well for the sad little iPod. Fortunately our children grow older, mature, we buy them different toys which they are now old enough to handle... or not.

http://mangosquash.tumblr.com/post/237230297/all-for-the-sake-of-music-so-i-was-at-duffys-on

Happy Monday Kids.

The REAL Tea Party

Last night I went to a place called "Lil' Mickey's" for Bar B Q. We didn't have any other place to go and thought it might be an adventure. The place was talked about a while ago in the Post when they were rating the areas best Bar b Q and it was suggested that this was the best Memphis style Bar B Q in town. It was out in St. Peters on mexico Road. That is a long way from Webster (37 Minutes according to Google Maps) and we headed out there when it was already dark. I am always amazed when I head out to St. Charles. Evidently quite a few people live out there. I had no idea. When we got there we found that Lil' Mickeys only is a carry out place. They have two small tables with stools but that is it. Thinking quickly we decided... to order carryout. We took it home and the Bar B Q was excellent. It might have been worth the drive but the bottom line was I ate a lot of Bar B Q.

To quote the great Reverend William Yonker "I told you that, so I can tell you THIS!"

It gave me nightmares. Bad nightmares. First of all they came in the form of a vicious squirrel attacking me... and then I was locked in a bank and there were some very violent people breaking in and the police would not come...but finally... the scariest dream of all came. I wish I had Daniel with me as I sit here to inturpret the dreams http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Daniel But the third one was the scary one. Those spicy ribs took me to Louis Carroll's "Alice In Wonderland" where I was at the tea party. I always found that tea party upsetting. The March Hare was such a compelling character... he was being played by Sean Hannity, Alice was played by Ann Coulter and the he was....Rush Limbaugh as The Mad Hatter. They were all sitting around and not drinking tea but dumping it into a lake, a river, a pond, a puddle or ANY water that was available to meet their metaphor analogizing themselves to early patriots risking their lives battling tyranny. Of course none of these people or even their fantasy characters had never risked a finger, a limb or a dollar for their cherished Democracy and although trumpeting the viirtues of free speech felt compelled to shout down all competing voices. I was cast in the position of the Dormouse and like anyone who disagrees was not allowed to speak. Alice appeared to be drunk and kept saying "dittos Rush". I spoke out of turn to opine that the original tea party participants were of course ruled by a despotic, unelected Monarch across an ocean while we had the virtue of election of politicians who were doing pretty much just what they said, and everyone new they would do. Couler kicked me in the nuts and called me a faggy little mouse.

All three of them were carrying guns. Limbaugh had a Glock, Hannity a vintage Colt 44 and Coulter of course had an AK-47... slung low. It went with her heels. Hannity was nattering on about the blood of the tree of Liberty needing to be watered by the blood of "Patriots". There was that word again. What of course they are implying with their guns at public meetings is that if called upon they will incite their minions to water the tree with the blood of anyone who dares to disagree.

I heard some screeching when a maniacal Glen Beck came running shouting OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! Fortunately at that point some of the pork had worked it's way through my colon and created an emergent need to wake up and take a rather large dump. It was a huge relief to realize it was only a dream but it did seem a little to weird and a little too true. The craziness according to these folks is in the White House. I cannot always argue but the fact that anyone is seriously listening to these folks is troubling indeed.

We need some sanity. We are not finding it on cable news. Maybe we can start finding it in the entrails of birds or from scattering chicken bones but we are not going to see anything of meaning from these folks other then screeds of hate.

"Off with their heads!" Indeed. No more Lil' Mickey's for me. But if you want to get some of their carry outs...
http://www.lilmickeysbbq.com/index2.html

CD REVIEW: THE MOUNTAIN GOATS: THE LIFE OF THE WORLD TO COME

Readers of these tepid pages who pay attention to my musical proclivities and total, atonal, lack of taste will have take prior note of my total obsession and drooling praise for John Darnielle and his band The Mountain Goats. His CD "Heretic Pride" was my runner up best of the year for 2008.

If I have not mentioned it before (but I think I have) I am a loather of "Christian Rock". The songs tend to a monotonous sameness that does not resonate in my secular world or frankly with my questioning and often confused "faith". I do love it though when pop stars explore some of their own faith issues for us. Darnielle carries an excellent recall of scripture with a secular Christian questioning and sometimes more then a little disdain for people who are so confident of their faith.

In this context I was REALLY excited to hear that the Mountain Goats new release would feature 12 songs with Bible verses as titles. Darnielle who has explored Christian themes before is cryptic about the CD's motivation and in Darnielle’s own words, “twelve hard lessons the Bible taught me, kind of.” Not that he’s suddenly had a conversion experience (Darnielle is still as religious as he ever was; that is, somewhat so, but unconventionally). The CD took a while to grab me but has now become one of those obsessive things that I listen to over and over agin and each time I pick another line that haunts or intrigues or just makes me think. Since it is in the context of faith and Bible verses it seems doubly deep and grave to me... which is really just silly but the fact is.... and you heard it here first.... this is some good shit. I have printed out each verse below not for anyone's benefit but my own as this might make for a somewhat amusing (to me) Bible study some time

Songs:

1 Samuel 15:23: King James Bible
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.

Psalms 40:2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet on a rock, and established my goings.

Genesis 3:23 23Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

Philippians 3:20-21 20For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:
21Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

Hebrews 11:40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.

Genesis 30:3 And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.

Romans 10:99That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

1 John 4:16 6And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

Matthew 25:21 21"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'

Deuteronomy 2:10 The Emims dwelled therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims;

Isaiah 45:23 23 By myself I have sworn,
my mouth has uttered in all integrity
a word that will not be revoked:
Before me every knee will bow;
by me every tongue will swear.


Ezekiel 7 And The Permanent Efficacy Of Grace (I picked the last verse...very heavy, all of Chapter 7)27 The king will mourn, the prince will be clothed with despair, and the hands of the people of the land will tremble. I will deal with them according to their conduct, and by their own standards I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the LORD."

This is an eclectic list of scripture borrowing heavily from old and new testament. Right now 1 John 4:16 is my favorite. The song is just beautiful, and mournful and so sad. The chorus comes through with this and I do not know what it has to do with that great Bible verse but:

"and someone leads the beast in on it's chain... and I know your thinking of me cause it's just about to rain".

Who thinks of words like that. Some of the themes become kind of monotonous. Getting your perfect body back..."I won't give up, someday I'll be free. I am not this body, that imprisons me". On the iTunes version he also includes Enoch 18:14 which I was not familiar with but was evidently pat of the dead sea scrolls. Apparently enoch was taken to heaven by God and did not see death. At least that what it says in Genesis. I did not know that.

Indeed.

Psalm 40:2 is the most anguished and reminds me most of last years "Heretic Pride". Be certain that the imagery he provides in the songs is troubling in most cases from this songs dark road trip through Missouri and Kansas to another trip across the country to sit at the deathbed of a cancer patient. Whether a lover or friend we don't know but... dark. And contemplative. And sometimes for those of us who believe but view what our Christian leaders tell us with a somewhat jaundiced eye... thinking is good... and the music is good with excellent percussion by John Wurster and occasionally my favorite mournful cello by Erik Vierlander.

Go give this one a listen. Listen 3 times.

Here are some pics from their Chicago show at the Metro from our intrepid reporter Jon Becker:

http://mangosquash.tumblr.com/post/234843531/the-mountain-goats-with-opener-final-fantasy-live

8 1/2 Slingers on the 10 scale.

The Rakers Lament

Fall is coming and going in a heartbeat and I am finding that once again I am thinking big, deep thoughts as I spend hours raking leaves. Very deep thoughts.

Sometimes a neighbors leaves blow onto my lawn.
Sometimes my leaves blow on to a neighbors lawn.
No big deal.

From the time spent raking I have contemplative time. Time to think on my life. Time to think about other people’s lives. Think about my marriage. Think anout my kids. Think.

Leaves fall every year.
They are God’s garbage.

Really I do not think about shit. I think about how much I hate raking. Last year when my kids (who were always useless rakers anyway) went away, or at least the boys went away I discovered something magical. I have a small patch of woods behind my house. Really just a bunch of over grown weeds with a few trees but hard to walk through and they provide a nice illusion of privacy in the summer. I also have a tarp back from 15 years ago when I thought it made sense to atach stuff to the top of the mini van and drive to Michigan (wrong). The magical thing was that instead of spending 5 bucks a bag for leaf bags and then stooping, stuffing and compacting leafs in these awful little bags that I could rake leaves onto the tarp, drag them back into the trees and dump them. I dumped so many last year that they were wase high and I went back there this fall with trepidation that there would be no room. But God had cleaned them up. There is something about leaf raking and knowing that I will wake up tomorrow and my lawn will be covered and there will be no evidence of my labor. Something Calvinistic. Something that speaks to the fleeting nature of all earthly achievement. Good Biblical stuff.

Insipidly Bad Leaf Poem With Worse Music: http://www.countrywhispers.com/autumnl/

So this year I am raking leaves again onto the tarp. Wet leaves because we had the rainiest October ever. The front yard got done yesterday. The Back today afyter the Ram’s game (and they are beating the horridly bad Detorit Lions). I wonder why one of America’s lions of poetry should write this bad of a poem that including the comparison of the leaf to being old.I guess it is just the typical fear of death that forces us to wax maudlin regarding the mundane.

And if I should live to be

The last leaf upon the tree

In the spring,
Let them smile,
as I do now,

At the old forsaken bough 
Where I cling.

The Last Leaf by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Seriously? I have to lean to Reagan on this one: "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do." -- Ronald Reagan, 1981 But wait, there is more from The Gipper: "A tree is a tree. How many more do you have to look at?" -- Ronald Reagan, 1966, opposing expansion of Redwood National Park as governor of California. I guess this is why Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck revere him as a gog (little g).

Thinking big thoughts like... "why is God angry with me?"

Fungus...Aong Us

Skin Cancer!
FUNGUS!










One of the many joys of being old, pale, bald and my fathers son is a genetic weakness for skin related cancers, fungises, maladies, parasites and other grotesqe things which in Biblical times would have relegated me to a colony somewhere away from people. Clearly there is a certain portion of the public which would applaud me taken and removed generally from society but this would have nothing to do with my skin condition.

In everything, in every facet of my life, every weakness, vice, failure or unhappiness, no matter how small or petty, I blame my father. It is such a simple catch all. By the time when he was my age and teaching Sunday School he had a whole raft of little Lutheran kids thinking he might or might not be the devil, because they had already carved out two chunks of his head with skin cancer problems. He is also hair impaired and evidently as a child my father was forced by my grandmother to play outside all the time (babrbaric). My father by the way might or might not be the devil but the point was that he told the children that the equidistant scars on his forehead were where they had removed his horns. That is my dad.

My mother tried to keep me out of the sun and being a rather effeminate kid with a total lack of motor skills it was not too hard. In high school and college I took to wearing bandanas and ball caps since the hair started to thin at about 18. Anyway... I have been through a number of skin doctors but have finally found one to stay with. Of the several others a few stand out in blessed memory. One who was freezing half a dozen things on my body every time I showed up and another who never got that close. Everytime I tried to show him something on my skin he would move away and tell me “it is a fungus, we all have them all over our bodies”, like he was sharing some mystical incantation. He was not. My wife has since excused he backing away from my disease as “nearsightedness”. I prefer to think of him as a quack. The other guy burnt off or froze every anomoly which was comforting in that he hurt me, so he showed me that he cared.

Now I have a gal who is supposed to be awesome. She only sees patients once a month. She is with Barnes, a "teaching" hospital so she send an intern in to talk to me, look me over and make initial recommendations. I have to strip. I have to turn slowly. I have to expose my deteriorating, flabby, hairy, old man body to this doctor. Then the boss comes in, looks at her notes and we start all over again. It is a fairly complete process. They gave me some ointments and creams for various maladies and then shaved something off my head which she said "might be a basal cell". It was like it was no big deal, very slow moving cancer. I left feeling like I had been well looked over and responsible about my bad genetics. A few days later she called me and said it is Basal Cell. I said "no big deal" and then she did her best to tell me it was serious and referred me to the surgeon. I called the surgeon immediately and she was so concerned that she set an appointment to consult with me.... a month from then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_cell_carcinoma

So this week I go see the cutter. For your knowledge and care I have posted photos of a few of the things I have cut off my head and thrown into the yard. The message here is simple... wear a hat.