Wierd – Page 6 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

DÃa de los muertos (y viejos amigos)

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I received an e-mail from my old friend Rich Davis indicating that his mother was in town visiting from Seattle.

Rich and I go back easily 30 years or so. We were inseparable best friends for a good portion of our adolescence. I knew his whole family and even lived with the Davis’s at one point.

It was good to see Mary. It’s been at least 15 years or so since I have seen her. She’s looking great! She had bypass surgery and has lost over 150 lbs and seems to be full of energy and great humor.

When people my age and older get together to reminisce the conversation quickly turns to what I call the “Litany of the Dead” where the two parties pretty quickly catch each other up on who’s no longer with us. I gave up the gory details on my little brother, my mother and my father who had all passed since we saw each other last and she filled me in on her husband, her mother and her daughter.

A grim but necessary conversation and ever so appropriate on this, The Day of the Dead.

Mary shared with me the story of how when her husband had died she had to make the decision to take him off life support. She expressed some of the agony that comes with making that decision and the doubt surrounding whether or not to try prolonging the life.

After he had passed she collected family members to go out and get some dinner. They went to a burger place and order some food and the most amazing thing happened when she received her change. She got this dollar bill (which she later had laminated):

If you click it you will see a larger view and you can read the handwritten text which says:

“Today is the day that I died, a day that was one of the best”

It gave me chills just holding it. I call it the “Dollar of the Dead”. It’s not every day that the dead communicate so clearly. What a blessing!

Feliz DÃa de los muertos everyone!

Won’t somebody please think of the children?

Ripped from the Daily Mail in the UK.

For those interested, it’s still available online at Tesco Direct.

Tesco has been forced to remove a pole-dancing kit from the toys and games section of its website after it was accused of “destroying children’s innocence”.

The Tesco Direct site advertises the kit with the words, “Unleash the sex kitten inside…simply extend the Peekaboo pole inside the tube, slip on the sexy tunes and away you go!

“Soon you’ll be flaunting it to the world and earning a fortune in Peekaboo Dance Dollars”.

The Â£49.97 kit comprises a chrome pole extendible to 8ft 6ins, a ‘sexy dance garter’ and a DVD demonstrating suggestive dance moves.

The kit, condemned as ‘extremely dangerous’ by family campaigners yesterday, was discovered by mother of two Karen Gallimore who was searching for Christmas gifts for her two daughters, Laura 10, and Sarah, 11.

Mrs Gallimore, 33, of Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, said yesterday: “I’m no prude, but any children can go on there and see it. It’s just not on.”

Dr Adrian Rogers, of family campaigning group Family Focus said yesterday that the kit would “destroy children’s lives”.

He said: “Tesco is Britain’s number one chain, this is extremely dangerous. It is an open invitation to turn the youngest children on to sexual behaviour.

“This will be sold to four, five and six-year olds. This is a most dangerous toy that will contribute towards destroying children’s innocence.”

He added: “Children are being encouraged to dance round a pole which is interpreted in the adult world as a phallic symbol.

“It ought to be stopped, it really requires the intervention of members of Parliament. This should only be available to the most depraved people who want to corrupt their children.”

Tesco today agreed to remove the product from the Toy section of the site, but said it will remain on sale as a Fitness Accessory, despite the fact that the product description invites users to “unleash the sex kitten inside”.

Also on sale on the Tesco website is a strip poker game, “Peekaboo Poker” which is illustrated by a picture of a reclining woman in underwear.

The card game is is described as a game that “risks the risque and brings a whole lot of naughtiness to the table.

“Played with a unique pack of Peekaboo Boy and Girl playing cards, the aim of the game is to win as many Peekaboo chips as possible and turn them into outrageously naughty fun.”

The pole dance kit is the latest item to fuel allegations that major retailers increasingly sell products which “sexualise” young children such as T-shirts with suggestive messages.

In recent years Asda was forced to remove from sale pink and black lace lingerie, including a push-up bra to girls as young as nine.

Next had to remove t-shirts on sale for girls as young as six with the slogan “so many boys, so little time.”

And BHS and others came under fire for selling padded bras embellished with a “Little Miss Naughty” logo and t-shirts with a Playboy-style bunny that said “I love boys…They are stupid.”

Tesco last night denied the pole dancing kit was sexually oriented and said it was clearly marked for “adult use”.

A spokesman added: “Pole dancing is an increasing exercise craze. This item is for people who want to improve their fitness and have fun at the same time.”

On second thought, let’s not go to the Internet. It’s a silly place

and, apparently, a series of tubes.

Watch this:

Senator Ted Stevens, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, explains the Internet and Net Neutrality

Then this:

The Daily Show responds

And you’ll understand this:

DJ Techno Ted Stevens responds

Art Car Ball 2006

Another art car weekend has come and gone.
While I did not participate in all of the weekend activities I did take time to go to the Art Car Ball which is one of the most unusual parties of the year.

It’s a celebration of the artists and their works. This year’s theme was Ole Time Revival. The theme tends to be more of a suggestion than anything else. Some people participate but for the most part people just do what they want. Seeing Tom dressed as a TV minister, complete with TV, was probably my favorite.

The music was not so great this year but I did have the opportunity to catch up with some old friends and the weather was spectacular for being outside with the cars.

More fainting goat goodness

I don’t know whether to thank my friend Houston for this link or contemplate diabolical payback.

Force Goats

If you’ve never visited Your the man now, dog! before it’s worth a look around.

All creatures great and small

As I was riding in the elevator today a group of co-workers were discussing Fainting Goats.
I had never heard of them before so when I got back to my desk I did some research.

Yup, they exist. They are also referred to as Myotonic, Tennessee Fainting, Nervous, Stiff Legged and Scare goats. apparently they have a genetic condition called myotonia congenita, a condition in which the muscle cells experience prolonged contraction when the goat is startled.

The actual degree of stiffness may vary widely from goat to goat and is based on a number of factors, including age, species purity, and degree of fright.

There is even an International Fainting Goat Association.

check out this informative and ridiculously funny video of fainting goats

Of cannibals, renfairs, friends and family values

In the early days of my participation in the Texas Renaissance Festival, around 1988 I suppose, I met a man named Bill Sanders. I can recall walking up the slight slope which passed what once was the battle mound coming out of Sherwood Forest up to where the Wharfside Music Gazebo now stands.

At the crest of this small hill, standing alone and gazing at an astrolabe, was a curious looking man dressed in black leggings and a black doublet with red piping. His long black hair shooting wildly out from under the floppiest of hats, his wiry beard formed a fuzzy half-moon shape that reached from one ear to another.

I remember I was walking with my band-mate and friend, Joe Linbeck, and he knew this guy so we stopped to chat. That was when I met Bill Sanders.

Bill was at the festival and playing the role of Galileo. All the time we spoke with him he remained in character and was quite amusing. Joe and I wandered off to do whatever it was we on our way to do, but the memory of Bill lingered.

Back then we used to camp out at the festival and hang out with the other actors and musicians. Bill kept a pretty elaborate camp site and it was a gathering place for Rennies in the evenings. That year and the next my band-mates and I stuck up a pretty good friendship with Bill and we spent many evenings drinking and listening to Bill tell stories. You see, Bill was a history major (well out of college) and had a penchant for very esoteric historical events and had a way of telling stories that was quite amusing. Bill would cast those who listened to him tell his tale into the roles of those he was recounting the tale about. It was always engaging and always monstrously funny.

One year I recall I was wandering around the festival site late at night when my fiddle player Greg and Bill loomed up out of the darkness near the Globe Stage.

Greg was an expectant father at the time. His wife Deborah was pregnant with his unborn daughter Joanne. Bill was a father of two preadolescent girls and had spent some time “counseling” Greg on what to expect as a father. To this end he had told Greg the story of Sawny Bean, the cannibal of Scotland, as a cautionary tale of family values.

Let me give you a brief synopsis of Sawny Bean. The legend goes that a man named Sawny Bean lived in Scotland in the 12th or 13th century. Allegedly he took a wife and took up residence in some caves on the Road to Edinburgh and there he raised a family of over 40 inbred cannibals that preyed on the travelers to and from the city for over 20 years before they were captured and executed.

Bill postulated that the downfall of the Bean Clan most certainly resulted in a breakdown of family values. Sawny would have had rules about capturing the travelers and bringing them back to the caves to kill and eat. He might have warned against lighting any cooking fires and admonished his offspring to leave no survivors and no trace of their existence.

These simple rules allowed the clan to go undiscovered for over 20 years. It was only when some of the older children were on a hunt and decided to cook their prey and have sport with the women that a hapless traveler escaped and fled in a terrified panic back to Edinburgh with is tales of horror and cannibals.

You could just imagine those those kids saying “T’hell with dad and his rules!!!” followed by that adolscent “uh-oh” when the traveller escaped and they returned, sheepishly, to the caves to tell dad of their error.

Prior to this the people believed the road to be haunted to plagued by monsters. Now they knew what they were up against and it was a simple matter of tracking them down and capturing them, which they did in short order.

This story captured my imagination and Bill and I would spend countless hours pouring over the details and speculating about those events late into the evening and well into the wee hours of the following morning.

One night at the Globe Stage Bill and I were sitting and talking when Greg Taylor wandered by. Greg Taylor now plays the role of King Henry the VIII at the festival but back then he had a more humble calling. He was Gipepetto the Pickle Boy (or something similar), hawking pickles to the patrons. Neither Bill nor I really knew him but he seemed a nice enough fellow. In later years Greg Taylor confided that he was not really sure WHAT he had gotten himself into when decided to stop and “break bread” with Bill and Jay the Cannibals as we came to be known.

As we conversed Bill and I told him the story of Sawny Bean. As we told the story more people wandering by and stopped to listen.

In true Bill form he began to cast the audience into the roles of the characters in the story. I was Sawny Bean, Greg became the father of his bride that was killed before Sawny fled to the caves to start his family. The various passers by became the travelers on the road to Edinburgh who were set upon and devoured at which point they became members of the ever growing clan and so forth. It went on this way until everyone was a part of the story.

In the end everyone became the cheering town-folk as I, in the role of Sawny Bean, was executed.

There must have been 15 or so people who witnessed that. Bill and I discussed it after everyone had moved on and we thought it might be a good idea to try and tell this story in this manner on the Saturday of Halloween weekend.

We picked the stage that is now The Odeon as the site for our tale and invited anyone who would listen to meet us there at 9:00 pm for a Halloween story. There was a jack-o-lantern carving contest being judged at 8:00 and we figured when that was over people would trickle over to our stage and we would have some fun.

Bill and I staked out the stage with a few others, including Greg Taylor, and prepared ourselves.

As it approached 9:00 pm there was really nobody there and we began to think that our idea was a bust and were getting ready to move on when someone said “LOOK!”
We all turned to see what it was and there, in the distance, was a line of lit jack-o-lanterns being held aloft as a parade of people wound their way through the site headed right for our stage.

Each of the jack-o-lanterns was placed at the foot of the stage like a stage light and people began filling the benches. It must have been a hundred people or more.

We told the story and by the end most of the people were on the stage, cast in one role or another. It was magnificent.

The next year Bill and I worked together in the performance company and we told that story, in that way, to the patrons. In fact, that is when I met Cynthia who was a cannibal groupie back in the day.

To this day they still tell the tale of Sawny Bean on Halloween weekend at the festival. Bill Sanders passed away a few years ago and I haven’t attended the event in many, many years myself, but it makes me happy to know the tradition lives on.

Captive audience

One of the odder aspects of doing radio is the fact that prisoners in Huntsville tend to listen to the station.

In this fast paced, connected Internet world we live in it’s all instant messaging, cell phones and e-mail. Of course the inmates at the local correctional facility don’t have access to such amenities. When someone there wants to make contact they have to do it the old fashioned way and send a hand-written letter.

I tend to get about two or three letters a year from someone in the Wynne Unit. You can always tell it’s prisoner mail when you see it. The hand-written address on the envelope is dead giveaway. When you open the envelope to remove the letter a small piece of paper usually falls out that says

GENERAL INMATE CORRESPONDENCE – TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE – INSTITUTIONAL DIVISION

It’s like one of those ‘Inspected by #42’ tags that you find in the pocket of a new pair of pants.

Most of the time the letter tends to be a question about what to study to get a computer job when the inmate is released or some other question about something we talked about weeks before.

Last night there was a letter in my station mailbox and it was immediately obvious it was another prison letter. I opened it up and read it. It was an unusual letter in that it asked nothing of me. No question to respond to or anything. It was just one prisoner’s observations on the show.

This is how it started off:

Jay and everyone else,

Greetings. Yes I’m writing from prison but before you start thinking I’m some tin-foil hat wearing weirdo stalker type person, let me assure you I have never even owned a tin-foil hat! Kudos on the show, I’ve even learned a thing or two but usually, though, I just tune in for all the jackassery so double kudos on that!

—

The rest of the letter went on to describe, quite humorously, some of his observations of the program. I read the whole thing on the air last night. I hope he got to hear it.

It made me think how much I miss hand-written letters. There’s something about holding a piece of paper in your hand and reading the contents when it’s something crafted just for you in such a manner.

Oh, and it had the word jackassery in it! That is, certainly, an underutilized term that I think should be used much more. As you prowl the Interweb today you should drop it on your friends in casual comments and conversation.