Cool Beans . . . Beans Of Coolness

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Airbag Test In Russia

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This is the funniest damn thing that I have seen in quite awhile. I was pretty much in tears laughing.

Could "Russia's Funniest Home Videos" be coming soon to a TV near us?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGJApB6NxyI



NOTE: I sure am glad that the guy opted *not* to pick up that very large bottle of beer right before he sat down.

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Andrew & the Pretty Punchers CD Release Party and Final Show

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The day that everyone has been waiting for is upon me- uh, I mean - us.

The time has come to both celebrate and say "goodbye."

I am thrilled, and filled to the brim with pride, to announce that on Saturday, October 9th, Andrew and the Pretty Punchers will be hosting their CD release party. This will also be the band's final show.

The party will be held at Jimmie's Cornerstone at the corner of Brown and Wyoming streets.

The word on the street is that the first *50 people* admitted into the bar will receive a free copy of the new CD "No Longer A Lover" along with their cover charge. But of course, as you know, sometimes the street lies.

One of the opening bands will be Jesse Remnant & the Train Wrecks, a stellar local band that I strongly encourage you to check out. The third group is The Black Who's, a young bunch of energetic upstarts from Brookville.

Please contact me if you cannot make the show, but are interested in a copy of the CD. I'm sure that we can work something out.

See everyone on Saturday, October 9th!













[Editor's note: not pictured in the photo at the top: Kevin Rogers, lead guitarist extraordinaire. Also . . . the guy in the middle isn't in the band. He's just one of these shady promoter-types. The fella goes by the name of Melton, I believe . . . Kyle Melton]
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"GOOD NEWS"

It is with considerable pride and excitement that I share with all of you a song that will be appearing on the new album "No Longer A Lover" by ANDREW AND THE PRETTY PUNCHERS.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Am I the only one peeing their pants with excitement right now?!]

Let's give a great big Dayton welcome to the world premiere of the song "Good News"

http://www.reverbnation.com/andysmith


BUT WAIT! . . . THERE'S MORE!


The 2nd song selection at the above link is a demo version of the lovely new song "The Lamps And Their Light."

The lyrics to "The Lamps And Their Light" are available at the April 27th blog entry directly below.

"The Stepford Candidates"

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Open mouth. Look surprised. Smile. Say "Take back America." Turn to side. Look surprised again. Say "Take back America" again. Raise thumbs (all four). Make eye contact with black person. Smile. Ignore cheek cramp. Look to other side (inclusively). [Oops, fart.] Say "Patriot!" loudly. Step to side. Lower thumbs (all four). Say "Hello" (with meaning). Smile.

[back to top]

Open mouth. Look surprised. Smile . . .



. . . "The Stepford Candidates" coming soon to a democracy near you.


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The Psychological Trauma Of Failed Multitasking

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Pictured above is actual photographic footage of what happens when the brain is unable to multitask "thinking" and "breathing."

Please note that the "reaching upward of the hands" is fairly typical. Many scientists believe that it is an instinctual response - as if the hands themselves wanted to physically "sort through" and correct the cerebral crisis.

After the failed multitasking event, the occasionally painful rehabilitation process begins.



This typically involves first re-learning the "breathing" task. Once that has been re-established, the considerably more difficult procedure of re-learning the "thinking" process begins.

In most cases - since the attempt to multitask both processes ("breathing" and "thinking") resulted in so much psychic pain (see first photo above) - a built-in "fail safe" activates within the central nervous system guaranteeing that "never the twain shall meet" again.


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The New Dark Ages

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"We have reached a puerile, even infantile stage of national discourse, and it's getting worse by the day ... I think we're moving into a new Dark Ages, and that bigotry, obscurantism, willful ignorance, hate, shallowness of discourse are taking over the culture."

Clay Jenkinson "Thomas Jefferson Hour" 9/12/10









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Things Have Changed

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Please listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9EKqQWPjyo

Things Have Changed (B. Dylan)

A worried man with a worried mind
No one in front of me and nothing behind
There’s a woman on my lap and she’s drinking champagne
Got white skin, got assassin’s eyes
I’m looking up into the sapphire-tinted skies
I’m well dressed, waiting on the last train

Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose
Any minute now I’m expecting all hell to break loose

People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

This place ain’t doing me any good
I’m in the wrong town, I should be in Hollywood
Just for a second there I thought I saw something move
Gonna take dancing lessons, do the jitterbug rag
Ain’t no shortcuts, gonna dress in drag
Only a fool in here would think he’s got anything to prove

Lot of water under the bridge, lot of other stuff too
Don’t get up gentlemen, I’m only passing through

People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

I’ve been walking forty miles of bad road
If the Bible is right, the world will explode
I’ve been trying to get as far away from myself as I can
Some things are too hot to touch
The human mind can only stand so much
You can’t win with a losing hand

Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet
Putting her in a wheelbarrow and wheeling her down the street

People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

I hurt easy, I just don’t show it
You can hurt someone and not even know it
The next sixty seconds could be like an eternity
Gonna get low down, gonna fly high
All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie
I’m in love with a woman who don’t even appeal to me

Mr. Jinx and Miss Lucy, they jumped in the lake
I’m not that eager to make a mistake

People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed.

(photos are stills from the video, taken and "lovingly f*cked with by me).

Mop & Gloat

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I just mopped my kitchen floor(?!)

Actually, in lieu of a mop, I got down on my hands and knees with a large sponge.

What the hell?!

I never mop my floor.

Marley is perched on the end table next to my recliner, staring at me like I am some kind of stranger.






"There's a stranger in the house no one will ever see
.But Marley the cat says he looks like me"
.(E. Costello/K. Smith)

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Good Morning, Penny

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. . . . . . . . . . . . Ready or not, here I come!





By the way . . . tell "Big Daddy" that he better have his "A" game ready because I'm "bringin' it."

. .Crunchy the Cruncher . . . . . . .vs . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Big Daddy


That's right, folks!

Crunchy the Cruncher vs. Big Daddy in a Highland County Cage Match!

"Two will walk into that metal cage . . . but only one will walk out"

It's Man vs. Rooster!

It's the . . .

Bainbridge Beat Down!


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Saturday, October 9th

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Keep Saturday, October 9th, free on your calendars.



Big announcement coming soon!


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"Big Daddy" The Bainbridge Bad Ass

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .. "Big Daddy"



"What keeps 'Big Daddy' happy?"
(R. Pollard)

If you are an attentive reader of this blog you will know that I gave Penny 26 baby chicks for her birthday back in March. We were assured by the hatchery that there would be at least three roosters in the collection of 26 balls o' fluff.



It would appear that Penny got lucky and is now the proud surrogate mother of at least five roosters.

As we had agreed earlier, Penny named what appeared to be the studliest of those five roosters, "Smitty," in my honor. As it turns out, Smitty may be the studliest of the roosters, but he is definitely not "ruling the roost."

That job has been claimed by the rooster Penny's 10-year-old grandson, Keegan, has aptly named "Big Daddy."

"Big Daddy" is one bad ass son of a bitch.

He has been kicking the other rooster's asses on a regular basis (including my namesake, poor "Smitty"). It has gotten so bad that Penny has had to remove "Big Daddy" from the pen. That alone was no easy task, as he has also come after Penny and other family members on several occasions. Penny was only about three feet away from "Big Daddy," and nervous as hell, when she snapped the great photo above.

So that is the story of "Big Daddy," the Bainbridge Bad Ass.

But wait . . . there's more!

They (i.e. the teeming masses) said that it couldn't be done, but I am about to segue (smoothly I might add) from a story about one of Penny's roosters to a Guided By Voices story!

[The teeming masses: "NO WAY!" Yours truly, snidely, yet calmly: "Way."]


It would appear that on Easter, a long, long time ago, in the small burg of Northridge, Ohio, one Robert Pollard bought a baby chick for his son.

This baby chick, much like "Big Daddy" above, grew into one ferocious bastard. Because of the rooster's very aggressive nature, Bob named him (you guessed it!) "Big Daddy."

Tired of being attacked everyday, Bob offered the rooster to his next door neighbor. That helped . . . to a degree.

Apparently, when Bob would get home from work (he was still teaching grade school at the time), "Big Daddy" would be in the neighbor's yard waiting for him. What ensued was a race between Bob and the rooster, with the finish line being the front door of Bob's house. Having been a three sport star at Northridge high school, Bob would almost always win the race, but not necessarily the battle. You see, there was occasionally a problem with the front door being locked.


Bob's "Big Daddy" ended up being immortalized on the cover of the first full-length album from Guided By Voices, released in 1987, titled "Devil Between My Toes."



However, that was not enough to fully honor Bob's "Big Daddy" and so his legacy was also captured in song. Specifically, in the anthemic "Don't Stop Now," a gorgeous paean to perseverance and fortitude, from the album "Under The Bushes, Under The Stars."

Please listen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u30i19DhXxc


Don't Stop Now
(R. Pollard)

Woke up one morning saw a rooster
struttin' by my house
6 pack ring round his neck
'Cock o' the Block'
Don't stop now
Don't stop now

What keeps 'Big Daddy' happy?
What makes the buzzard buzz?
A leaky quart of motor oil - 'head for the hills'
Don't stop now
Don't stop now

We pulled into economy island
'King Shit and the Golden Boys'
Plenty more where we come from - 'Top o' the line'
Don't stop now
Don't stop now

Don't stop now
Don't stop now



That concludes my story about the two roosters, "Big Daddy" and "Big Daddy."




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For The Last Time People - He *Wasn't* A Great President, OK? . . . Alright.

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Doors, Windows, and the Lord

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A former library colleague and friend, and current facebook friend of mine, posted this on her facebook wall today:

"When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window . . . "

That sounded nice and comforting, but something troubled me about this adage. Things just didn't add up.

I thought about it for awhile and then finally realized what was bothering me, and so I posted this comment on her facebook wall:

That sounds like a really nice thing for the Lord to be doing - opening a window after closing a door - but what if the window He opens is on the 2nd or 3rd floor? How is that going to help if I need a door?

And if He closes a door, but then opens an 18th floor window, is He trying to tell me something?

Oh yeah - and what if it's a window that faces west? Is He going to close it if it starts raining, or does He expect me to cover for Him and remember to close the window?

The reason I am asking is because I left a west window open once during a storm and the water damage to the wood floor from the rain was really bad.

Of course if the window that the Lord opens for me doesn't get closed, and my floors are damaged from rain, I could always file an insurance claim. But you know what they're going to say. They're going to say:

"I'm sorry, Mr. Smith, but this is not covered by your homeowner's insurance. It was an act of God. After all, He *did* open the window."

I suppose that I could argue that technically it was the Lord who opened the window, not God. But if I have learned anything in this life it's this: Never discuss theological issues - especially ones dealing with the Holy Trinity - with your insurance agent. It only leads to frustration and hard feelings.

I haven't heard back from my facebook friend, but she hasn't "de-friended" me either, so I guess that's a good sign. Actually I am not surprised. She always was a good sport.

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My God, My God, Why Hath Thou Forsaken Arizona?

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Pictured above is Arizona's Republican Governor Jan Brewer, the mastermind behind the much debated "Arizona Immigration" law.

Now, I realize that everyone loses their train of thought on occasion, but usually not during the opening prepared statement of a debate. And one other point: most people do not become *less* coherent after finding that elusive, runaway train of thought.

But of course, most people are not Governor Jan Brewer:

Please watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUPKKbmWMZ8


Please also note that Governor Brewer "bolted from a post-debate question-and-answer session with reporters after refusing to respond to queries about her past statement regarding bodies supposedly found beheaded in the Arizona desert."

[ED. NOTE: We are not making this up. No shit.]

Regarding those beheaded bodies that Governor Brewer alleges were found in the Arizona desert (and are somehow related to illegal immigrants, naturally), none of the nearby counties or morgues have any record of headless corpses.

I will let Governor Brewer have the final word:


"We have did what was right for Arizona"
(J. Brewer)

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God did not create the universe, says Stephen Hawking

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The eminent theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking (pictured above), has written in his new book that God did not create the universe and the "Big Bang" was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics.

For more on this story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100902/lf_nm_life/us_britain_hawking


Interestingly enough, a new poll was just released by Fox News this afternoon. It appears that 61% of registered Republicans now believe that Hawking is a Muslim. That's up from the 0.00716% who thought that Hawking was a Muslim prior to the release of the new book.

Hawking had no comment on the poll.

Well, actually he did have a comment, it's just really hard to spell.

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Area man says: "I know all I'm going to let myself know"

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Steve Gentries Already Knows Everything He Needs To Know About Muslims


Please read:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-already-knows-everything-he-needs-to-know-abou,17990/



Damn! Who does this Gentries fella remind me of . . .


Hmmm . . .


Oh yeah!


It's *that* guy!


OK - here's a hint . . .





That's right!


Steve Gentries is Glenn Beck without the chalkboard!






"If you don't believe me, wait until they put your wife in a rape camp. That's right: For reasons I am content being totally unable to articulate, I am choosing to associate Muslims with rape camps."
(Steve Gentries)


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Two Words: Music City

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