From the toilet in the

>From the toilet in the majestic Settle Inn, Your Packing SUCKS!!

From smack dab in the

>From smack dab in the middle of a Toby Tours tour bus, having just viewed a Mel Tillis DVD, Your Packaging Sucks!

UPDATED: A "Private" Conversation Produces These Questions

"Why if it weren't for "Hee Haw" and "Andy Griffith", where would "Larry The Cable Guy" be? Working for Adelphia and watching Mayberry RFD reruns?"


A second "private" conversation produces: "Did you sit at the Kid Table at Christmas? Or did you go the all-Metamucil-and-no-fruit-roll-up route?"

For our Canadian friends and boxing fans.

Recycled sentiments, because I couldn't possibly top the majestic beauty of it all.

James Brown (1933-2006)

Many a happy moment has been had while the YPS!! staff cruises around listening to the music of Mr. James Brown. While his passing is indeed a sad thing, the music and the happy moments will live on.

Camel Dreams on the Beach - Bloggy's Christmas Post

Merry Christmas you guys!! -Bloggy

Camel Dreams on the Beach

In my mind
I’m spending time
with you
my friends

We’ve got socks on the outside of our boots
And the Cheetos
they fly
with each gust of wind

Everyday
Is a bouncing balliday
That we employ
To amplify
and to justify
Our times we enjoy

We giggle about on the streets while we’re out
To our heated past we give a shout
We can’t decide if it’s too warm
to have our jackets on
But we know that denim
is where coolness is born


I could read a book
from the radiant glow
of our still-fourteen sheen
We pal around
in soft pastels
and rock n roll tees
(And our dimples still show)


Everything is funny
as we point and laugh
Imagine how that dead fish
ended up in the bird bath
As the evening sky lowers
like a pink-tinted casserole lid
we poke fun and we kid

We’re always quite merciless
We trip and stumble our
movement quite jerkiless


I saw this picture and I thought of you
all the silly things we do
But in my mind
is more than valentines
It’s the glue of friends
The brand that’s pliable not buyable
Sticks with you ‘til the end


We share the same mental landmarks
that pushed aside all the grit and the grime
We’ve left no room for the drab
and none for the non-divine

Never falling or scraping
just bumping into
Catching each other
as we’re longing to do

I reach in my pocket
as I’ve done before
I produce a book of matches
and shoot them to the stars
and to shore
The light they produce
reveals the concrete

Only in our minds is it sand
beneath our feet


This is the corner where a stop sign became yours
Over there is where the street sign once stood
that now lies on my floor


Our candid craftiness doesn’t seam to fade
in the nebulous state
As I somehow take note
before starting to wake

But know this
it won’t be long until I’ll be having camel dreams on the beach my friend
Times like these
and hopes like those
tie us and bind us with unraveled ends



-Mr. Bloggerific Himself 11262006

We've Been Converted!!

Bone has a new audio post over in the Gcast player AND we have new packaging!!

Hello? Anyone?


(and don't worry, I'll be getting rid of that damn annoying profile shot on the side there as soon as I can figure out how/where to do it...or at least force Bone to the front page too)

Another Day, Another Christmas Party

So, put on your best smile, Bloggy. :)


NO!! Not THAT one, jackass!!

Start Today!!

A YPS!!mas Carol.

It was the best of times. It was the not-so-best of times.

Ebeneezer Screwed greeted the morning with his usual level of piss and venom. It was cold and getting colder since the Russian mail order bride that he won on eBay was held up in customs. He figured since he was the high bidder on the old girl that the whole thing had to be on the level and legit. It was unfortunate that he thought that he could fly below the legal radar by having her smuggle in an endless supply of vodka and those fucked up hats that only Russians seem to wear. He got greedy and he knew it, so it was no big surprise when the shit hit the fan and it all caught up with him.

Screwed's semi-faithful employee, Bob Scratchit, awakened with the same level of morning dread at his flophouse bachelor pad. His wife left him for a packaging entrepreneur after he came home from a Shriner's convention with a raging case of crabs. Although he claimed to have gotten them from the bucket seats in one of the mini Shriner cars, the true story is that he took on the affliction from having a lengthy affair with a German Shepherd. He knew the true story would not go over well in the Scratchit household, but the bitch bailed before he had a chance to explain.

The Scratchit union truly went to hell when their golden child, Tiny Tim, ran off to be a cabaret singer on the county fair circuit. His career was in a shambles and he wasn't long for this Earth. It was Tim who had the initial idea of performing heavy metal on a ukelele with falsetto vocals. Deep down, everyone knew that it had bad news written all over it, but Tim was a dreamer. The dream bit him hard like a rusty bear trap clamped down on a drunken hunter's leg. Although he blazed a trail for falsetto wailing within the context of a rock band, the ukelele was a bit much for the hipper-than-thou rock crowd. As much as he tried to stifle the bitterness when bands like The Darkness took his schtick for a 7 minute bucking bronco ride of fame, it pushed his very existence onto the thin ice of life.

Truth be known, Scratchit didn't really miss his estranged wife or dream-seeking son. He'd accepted both of those situations and had moved on. His sole wish was that his crotch would stop itching. He generally made it through the work day in Screwed's Packaging Palace & Smut Emporium by scratching himself diligently as well as drinking lots of domestic beer.

Everyone has their vices and Ebeneezer Screwed was certainly no different. Even though he lived a charmed life, he still felt the need to smoke large amounts of weed. He found that it helped stifle the urge to choke the shit out of his lazy ass employees, because even the proprietor of the Smut Emporium has troubles. While the weed certainly didn't eliminate all of his problems, it did allow him to cope and maintain. It also tended to give him the giggles not to mention late-night indulgences on pork rinds, Funyuns, and beef jerky-esque products likely containing mechanically-separated chicken and beef lips.

It was during one of his evening smoke-outs that he heard a commotion down the hall. He wondered aloud "What in the hell can it possibly be at this hour?" Fearing that it was angry townspeople protesting his peddling of filth yet again, he pulled the covers over his head and silently quaked in fear. Perhaps it was just a common street thug trying to break into his home to steal his extensive collection of historical snack cakes and bondage gear.

Even under his winter blanket refuge, Screwed began to decipher the sounds of a plinka-plinka reggae guitar. The sound grew louder and smoke began to creep beneath his door as the subtle smell of ganja filled the room. As the music reached intense volumes, Screwed peeked out from beneath the covers to see the ghost of Bob Marley stepping through the cloud of smoke.

Marley's ghost had a glazed expression. Maybe it was the weed or maybe it was the fact that Bob Marley had been long dead and didn't get out much these days. It was hard to tell from the Rasta speak. Screwed waited in vain to understand the words, but it was next to impossible to get a vocal level when you're a dead reggae legend.

Since he was no doubt suffering from severe munchies himself, Marley suggested that they make a trip to the 7-11 for snacks and carbonated beverages. Maybe some rolling papers, too. Had he been visible to the rest of the world, Marley's ghost would have been a welcome sight to the guy with the white-boy dreadlocks working the counter. The white Rasta looked at the items that Screwed put on the counter and he knew the score, because he'd been there many times himself. Being helpful, the employee suggested a Sassy Pickle to go with the post-weed feed and he was right, because a sassy pickle is damn tasty.

As Screwed and the ghost of Marley wandered the streets, Screwed asked "Aren't we supposed to visit some places like in that Christmas Carol thing?" Marley laughed and said "I'm only here for the rolling papers and scoping out the chicks, but we can swing by Fezziwig's shop with the patented combination hat-hairpieces if you want." Since he was already tripping hard on the turn of events, Screwed declined and they walked on. Screwed wondered why a ghost would need rolling papers and how reliable the weed connection is in the after-life. He wondered a lot of things as they made their way through the empty streets.

The pair eventually made it back to Screwed's home after getting lost no less than eight times in their THC-induced stupor. As he unlocked the door and prepared to invite Marley in to check out his prized Peruvian bong purchased from a head shop in Alabama back in the late 70's, Screwed realized that the ghost had vanished.

He carried his sack of convenience store cuisine to the elaborately-furnished den and smoke room to settle down and reflect on the evening. He knew that he'd seen some seriously fucked up shit and definitely needed time to digest it all. He figured that it was all some kind of pipe dream encrusted with bong resin that would all disappear as soon as he allowed his mind to say "Fuck it."

The almost pleasant mood in his dimly-lit room was wrecked as he struggled diligently with the pseudo beef jerky's package. His eyes glazed over in a fit of rage as he yelled "YOUR PACKAGING SUCKS!!" to the vacuum-packed heavens above.

Nummy Images

OK, time to brag about some goodies!! I haven't taken photos of all my berfday goodies (partly because I have a gift card I have yet to spend and therefore don't have all my berfday goodies yet) BUT...of all the kickin' goodies..including 3 lovely meals from family, Bone Machine and work...multiple cards and email wishes...some wunnerful peanut butter cookies and a violent ass video game (no hints where those came from)...but today I got a well packaged box o' goodies. As you can see in the photos (with the kick ass black leather background) Miss Lushy was kind and generous and sent along some brownies (holy shit!), some Pocky straight from Japan (at least the packaging claims such) and...some fornicating monkeys.

I'm sure I left something out, and my apologies to those in need.

Remember: NOTHING says happy berfday like fornicating monkeys!!

One step forwarded, two evolutionary steps back.

This one has been a long time building and it's likely to contain some shits, fucks, damns, hells, and the occasional sonofabitch. Why I am now concerned with warnings and such? It's a pathetic stab at humor.

Perhaps this is just one of my personal annoyances in life, so this may simply confuse some folks in the audience and if they don't already think that I am a cold-hearted piece of shit, then they likely will before all is said, done, and typed.

Forwarded e-mail.

What is it about this shit that people find so damn entertaining that they feel forced to send it to people that they regard as friends? All I can figure is that my DNA code is lacking the strand that makes me go "Awwwwww, that's a fuckin' shame..." when some forwarded message arrives that discusses someone's grandma that fell off the back of a Harley en route to a Steppenwolf concert at Sunny Acres Retirement Home and desperately needs my personal prayer to speed her recovery. Nor do I laugh when I get the message that is supposed to make me laugh and since it's not likely to achieve that goal, the author feels it necessary to put either the word "Funny" or "Humor" in the subject. Otherwise, a person would read it and think "What the fuck was the point of that shit?" But given a choice, I think my personal favorite may be the forwarded offers that if you send it to ten of your friends, you will get a surprise. That surprise is that you've just pissed off ten of your friends who will likely retaliate by filling your inbox with this bullshit when the next wave of crap mail begins to make the rounds.

The beautiful thing about the Internet, e-mail, instant messengers and all of the technological bullshit is that it opened up lines for the exchange of information, communication, and of course my personal favorite, pornography. While it was certainly cool at first, the communication part has slowly ground to a halt and rather than typing actual messages from the mind and/or heart of the sender, now it's some lame ass message with an inspirational message that I don't find inspiring, a message with humor that fails to make me even crack the beginnings of a half-assed, forced smile, and general crap that fails to do anything more than make an abrupt trip to the e-shitcan.

Of course, it's always so rewarding when someone prefaces the gay ass shit with "I know that you hate forwarded messages, but..." Rather than trail off to oblivion, that sentence should likely conclude with "I really don't give a fuck, because some jackass sent it to me and therefore I am sending it on to you." I have to wonder if these folks greeted chain letters with this much enthusiasm back in the golden age of snail mail. I think not.

If anyone can shed any light and insight on this bullshit phenomenon, by all means do it. You have my undivided attention, which really isn't saying a lot since I have the attention span of a headless dead rat residing in a Nashville parking lot. However, I am fuckin' photogenic.

The Sponge Revolt

And the soft yet booming voice broke the silence and said with a caring smile, “Ahh, I remember the day you were born. Soft, and pink and while you had a few rough edges here and there, you were perfect in your own way.”

And a sea of creatures went on about its business, with one exception. A sponge looked up with tired, sadness-filled eyes and asked, “Me? Were you speaking to me?” The voice confirmed that indeed it was speaking to the tiny sponge.

“I’m tired and I’m weary.”, said Sponge. “Disgusted you might say. These humans seem to only to take advantage of me. They know I can absorb and that’s all I do. Knock over a beverage? Sponge. Dirty counter top? Sponge. But what about me?”

“Yes, what about you?”, boomed the voice.

“Well. Is this it? Soak up, discharge. Absorb, release? I won’t do it anymore. In fact, I don’t think my sponge friends will either.”

“You, and your friends, were brought into this world for a specific, a special and specific, reason. You are here, for others, for a selfless sole cause; to give and to take. It may seem as though others take you for granted, day in, day out, pushing all their problems onto you. But they are aware, they appreciate and they are grateful and realize how lucky they are to have you in their lives.”

“But some things that I take on, I’m unable to leave behind. All the clutter, it’s too much!”

“That is what can be called growth. And as you carry on the memories, carry them well, remembering the special moments just a little more than the others. Don’t look upon the absorption of each and every detail as spilled milk and bacteria. Look upon them as a whole, like paint. Paint YOUR picture with dabs and daubs and swirls. CREATE!”

And Sponge, defeated in a way, was filled anew. Filled again. Filled with pride, a sense of need and now wondering where his longevity will take him. Wondering what his first masterpiece will be.




Just then Sponge noticed a new puppy in the house, and an all-too-familiar hand was reaching for Sponge. He could say but one thing.

“Awe, PISS!”

The Unwelcome Guest.

A great honor has been bestowed upon me not once, but twice in recent days. I'm not sure what brought in the flurry of offers, but I wanted to thank both Lushy and Lynn for allowing me to infect other areas of the blogopolis. If you are so inclined to sneak a peek...

Toilet Humor and the Culinary Bastard.

Thank you kindly, ladies. Your packaging does not suck(!!) and if those posts lead to scabbing, don't scratch it and immediately seek medical attention.

In The Tradition Of Being Early

We're late.



Sorry Effie!!


It's been all whack lately and dang it, we just didn't get an early Berfday Greeting up for you.

Please accept this potted plant, the American Symbol for Oopsie, as a token of our, um, late-itude and forgive us our daily sins of late.

Happy birthday, from the bottom of our pots.

Work Christmas Party Right Smack-Dab In The Middle Of My Berfday

A good day in all. I woke the boy up this morning and he immediately sang the version of Happy Birthday that informs the Berfday Boy that he lives in a zoo. I’m pretty sure the vocalist in this case didn’t realize that he, too, lives in a zoo. After we got ready for school/work I took him to school and walked him, and his over-sized science project, to the classroom. He’d practiced his demonstration in the hall while I was brushing my teeth.

I went on to work and was greeted with a lovely smile, happy birthday wish and pay stub from Office Type. I turned down neither of the three. Then it was all downhill for a bit, for today was the day of the office Christmas Party #1. I’m not a big fan of large gatherings and especially one that promises to drag on starting at “11am and should be finished by 3pm”. Yikes. The food was good and luckily I got to make many corny jokes to Office Type who even laughed at one or two of them.

At one point during the Christmas shindig one of the employees in my office building was surprised to learn that one of the employees from another county was a hunter. The hunter is actually a grandmother, but to me, looks more of the mother age, and I was already aware that she hunted. I prodded her a little to get an even more shocked reaction from the stunned coworker. My prodding went something like this, “Tell them about the hogs!”

Delighted she went on to say, “OH! We used to have a hog farm!” After giving some details of what life on a hog farm was like, I mentioned that I would be scared shitless to work with hogs. Her eyes lit up and she went on to tell about the time one of the momma hogs was nesting out in the mud and they preferred her to have her young in the barn/stall/whatever she called it. So her husband asked her to stand in one spot and he’d come up behind Momma Hog and send her to his wife. Allegedly Momma Hog “Started sizing us both up. She looked at me, she looked at him, and then she looked back at me as if to say, ‘Yeah, I can take her!’ and she did! She came right at me. The next thing I knew, I was on my back, she was on top of me, and all I could see were her tits!!”

About that time, it got very quiet.

You see, we were only just beginning the Christmas party…in the middle of a church…and our boss (who happens to be a minister of some sort) had managed to catch our Hunter Hog Lady’s attention. She stopped the story just after “tits!!” and said, “Oh, we’re about to pray aren’t we?”

The expression on my boss’s face was priceless. All he said was, “Yes, we are.” But he gave the impression that he wanted to add on, “and it sounds as though we’re going to need it by the stories you’re telling.”

We prayed, ate, and Dirty Santa’ed our way to the end of the party and POOF the Berfday Boy was gone in a flash. I picked up my boy and we bought our traditional Birthday Hot Wheels (one each) and headed straight for Wendy’s. We were starved. We ordered our food and I handed the dollar bill I got in change to my boy. He looked at me with this big question mark expression and I whispered to him, “Sometimes, when it’s you’re birthday,y you get to GIVE gifts.” He smiled a thank you and I winked a you’re welcome.

As we sat there hogging out, and Hot Wheeling about, I noticed an older lady walking with a cane. She was headed in our direction and I could tell she was checking out the tables. The tables were about half taken and I could see her saying to herself, “I don’t want to sit right on top of anyone, and I don’t think I can make it to the back of the dining room and this table is just filthy.” And so, she just stood there, mulling over her lack of options. I was never a Boy Scout, but I played on my berfday. Even a crusty old bird like me can spend SECONDS cleaning a table and pulling a chair with such speed the woman never had the chance to feel she owed me a thing.

Now the boy is fast asleep, the Hot Wheels are awaiting another race, and the Berfday Boy? His ass is going to bed!!

Add another ring to the tree, because it's a geriatric birthday hootenanny!!

It's time to set fire to the birthday cake and set off the smoke detector all in honor of the birthday of the one, the only...Mr. Bloggerific Himself. He has joined the ranks of the tired, the old, the decrepit. It would be a hell of a lot funnier if I wasn't already a ranking member of that trifecta of old.

Even though I still do not understand the saying myself, it's become a part of the YPS!! tradition. 'round the table you must go, IT's...your birthday. I lift my morning bottle of diet carbonated and caffeinated beverage in your honor and say "Fuckin' hell, we're old," but damned if we ain't some charming bastards in our twilight years!!

I'm damn lucky to have called you a friend for many years and to you, I sincerely say HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Now bring on the dancing girls and the donuts...

The Return Of The Vulgar Chef.

It's that time of the year again when someone deems it necessary for our staff to bring baked goods to show our appreciation for...well hell, I don't know. I guess our instructors, students, vagrants, I have absolutely not a fuckin' clue. All I know is that I was baking a shitpot of cookies last night for someone and they damn well better enjoy it.

It's only a matter of time before I pitch my show idea to the Food Network. It shall be called The Vulgar Chef and it will basically be me cooking some shit in an obscene and vulgar fashion. I spill something and it's followed by profanity. I burn my hand and you get more vulgarities. It would be like the anti-Paula Deen and Rachel Ray. Emeril, too.

I guess this would be the ideal time to remind you good people that I'm mostly harmless.

Into The Sunset

It seems my post about the Windy Hollow Restaurant a few months ago has turned into a fond farewell. I heard on the evening news last night that a fire started in the kitchen around 11am today that destroyed the former “Mecca for hard-core country music fans.”

The stations that broadcast our “local” news are actually an hour away…in the neighboring state. I was surprised they mentioned the fire at all, frankly. Maybe it’s just me, but WFIE and WEHT don’t always seem as eager to discuss the Kentucky news as they are the Indiana news. Maybe they forget that Kentucky viewers have money to give their Hoosier advertisers.

While we hadn’t been for years, going to Windy Hollow was part of many fond memories and many happy gatherings. I hated to mention it to Dad when he called about Christmas gift ideas for Bloggy Jr. I could tell he felt the same way when he said he’d tell Mom.

Here are the in-depth details from WFIE. Note that “The restaurant was filled with antiques.” should read something like “The restaurant was filled with old western movie memorabilia from the likes of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and many other movie greats.”


Fire destroys the Windy Hollow Restaurant south of Owensboro. The owner, Hal Miller, says the fire started in the kitchen around 11 a.m. Tuesday. No one was hurt.

The restaurant was filled with antiques.

Another fire destroyed the restaurant in 1972 as the owner hosted old time western stars for the filming of the "Marshal of Windy Hollow."

Today...depending solely on when you read it.

It's one of those deceiving days where the sun is out and making its presence known, but there's a chill in the air that will bring out a person's undiagnosed Tourette's Syndrome as soon as the cold hits the skin. It also tends to promote me to what Henry Rollins once called a "power walking motherfucker." While I've never been accused of being a dynamo, the winter weather makes me walk a bit faster and there isn't a lot of time to linger in the shit. There's plenty of time for that when spring rolls around.

Looking out the window of Disgraceland, it almost looks pleasant except for the trees that are in a state of withered, leafless disrepair. Many a day, I've felt more like those trees than I care to admit. Someone once asked me how I felt on a particular day, the first thing that came to mind as I looked at the grape-vine arch on the wall behind her was "I feel like a brown, crusty rainbow."

I'm actually feeling better than said rainbow today in spite of the fact that I had a sausage biscuit breakfast courtesy of a vending machine. I got a bit of flack from the office workers who seemed to question the breakfast artistry of Rudy's Farm frozen sausage biscuits fresh from the vending machine. I've become quite the nutritional daredevil lately and while I may consume chicken salad sandwiches from various truck stops on my travels, I have yet to fall so far as actually consuming cheese. I don't see that happening anytime soon unless someone provides a substantial amount of money and a trash can to recycle the crap.

I type on like I've got something to say and it's clear that the well is dry on this day. Likely freeze-dried like old school coffee products before they got branded with artsy-ass names like cappucino, frappucino, crappucino, Al Pacino, and all kinds of fucked up shit like that. I'm not sure when the world got so damned complicated, but it makes me somewhat happy that I'm not hooked on the coffee bean. Although I will admit that the bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper lovingly presented to me from the machine a few doors down from the sausage biscuit distribution machine was damn tasty.

The simple process of acquiring vending machine cuisine reminded me of the days when I could simply sashay to another building without getting all duded up in my leather coat and gloves. It was as simple as picking a destination and aiming my tattered self in that general direction. Shaky steps that fall somewhere between a strut and a stagger until the goods are in hand and then it's a role reversal from origin to destination point. It's times like this when the office doesn't seem so bad. It's relatively tranquil with the louder occupants out of earshot today and the sounds of Patterson Hood's solo disc on the computer's hi-fi spinner. You may know him from his excellent work with the Drive-By Truckers and then again, you may not.

So this concludes the morning transmission of whatever day this may be. I'm still pretty sure that it's 2006 and it may very well be December, but I'm no expert in the field.


Here's some notebook fodder for no apparent reason whatsoever...

black scarecrow standing alone
guarding his watch like a condemned soul in the badlands of existence
nothing upon nothing in the never-changing landscape
vacated fields spread as far as button eyes can see
life left years ago searching for fertile pastures
no one knows if that dream was realized
or if it died somewhere on the road
questions unanswered give birth to more questions
likely to die as soon as they leave the lips

Visions For Your Weekend

Disintegrated tuna across the pavement scene
Candy apple raisins with a Cheese Whiz sheen
Telephone operator of a go-cart limousine
Geese soar through the air via feathered trampolines
Sucking on a soda and burnin’ the gasoline
Orange tater curls in a groovy cream
Standard equipment are metallic jelly beans

Go go go, Jonny B Goode!!