Friday Fun Time

First off, if you haven't pre-registered for All Hallows Cross... well, it's too late. But it's not too late to hustle your butt down to Waldorf for some Halloween Saturday racing fun. Nah, I didn't register either, but if this nasty case of the leprosy clears up by Saturday AM, I'm definitely racing. I'll probably race in costume - not sure if I want to go as Superman, or a nudist. That's probably a race day call.

I noticed a headline on my newscrawl today, "French Pedophile Trial Fuels Castration Debate." I'm not sure if it's really fueling debate, or just throwing another log on the fire.

Slate.com, the online mag for all Right Thinking People asks, and answers, the question: "How Bad Should I Feel About Taking Hot Showers?" The answer? Pretty fuckin' bad, as it turns out, you Earth-molesting sonovabitch. (Newscrawl: Stinky Bike Racer Taking Post-Cross Race Hot Shower Fuels Castration Debate.") In fact, the article makes it clear that if you wash your goat smelling ass using any sort of liquid materials at all, be they hot, cold, or lukewarm, that you are personally responsible for the death of multiple polar bears, who are tall white hairy people who famously get trapped on icebergs because as we all know polar bears cannot swim. In fact, here's a picture of a polar bear drowning, probably the result of some Earth-hater having washed his hands after having a poo. The proper way to shower, apparently, is to get a little damp, turn off the shower, then lather up and go get dressed and go to work. You should jog or take public trans to work so that your sweat will rinse off the suds. Um, make sure there's no cleansy phosphates in your soap either... they contribute to inappropriate algae growth.

You May Smell Good, But
She's Going to DIE Because of You!

If you don't have anything in your life that causes you to hate yourself, be needlessly worried and ultimately conclude every other living creature and perhaps some mineral deposits would be better off if you were dead, Slate's Green Lantern column provides plenty of arguments that will have you finding some self-hateworthy shortcomings in no time, providing a handy reason to lock yourself in a closed garage with the Prius running.

Oh wait a minute... that idling Prius isn't going to help you shuffle off this mortal coil now, is it? It doesn't actually idle so that old standby method of saving the earth by expending yourself won't work. Told you you shoulda gone with the BMW.

I shouldn't pick on people for trying to be green but when we're discussing how washing our Balzac in ice cold water is going to save the Erf, it's hard not to have a reaction in that direction. There once was a country where people said all sorts of crap about the necessity of taking cold baths and their public discourse centered on micromanaging private, small areas of one's personal life like how much sex to have or whether to have kids and how many were required for the health of the nation. We now think those people were insane, prudish, repressed, and obsessed with scientific and medical quackery and their social attitudes are, for the most part, a punchline to us. That country was Victorian England. We're acting just like them, but with a few different obsessions substituted in, plus our imperialism is a lot more half-assed and benevolent. Yet I've seen some articles this week from supposedly reputable publications that make me think we're heading back in that direction and perhaps I should counsel the Wife of Rouleur to cover the piano legs lest the dog become aroused, and when she has to see another Smiling Bob commercial, to lie back and think of England.

Should the Earth be culled of humans as the Guardian suggests? I dunno, maybe. But the question about whether we've gone stark raving nuts about this stuff is something to think about when you're strapping on your hemp chastity belt tonight before bed.

What? Lo, do I hear a complaint? Why yes I do. Some reader thinks I am being mean-spirited and obtuse. Maybe the Earth-cullers are going a little overboard, but their suggestion of genocide is well intended, not like my denialist hoots of derision.

Indeed I am being mean. I find it increasingly hard to be a responsible, non-insane, conservation-minded person. I believe in minimizing our impact to a reasonable extent, but the idea of ice cold and sub-minute showers is enough to turn me into The Deacon. This Erf saving stuff is turning into a contest about how much guilt we can make ourselves feel over imaginary sins. C'mon, people. Some of us have done that before and you don't want to go there. That's called "being raised Irish Catholic." Trust me, if you're going to be Conspicuously Green, the kind you want is the Authentic Green and not the ersatz secular emerald article. And if you have to go green, why not Irish Catholic? We who were raised Irish Catholic are permitted to eat meat (except on certain Fridays), drink beer that makes us belch all sorts of earth destroying methane (except on evenings when we've drunk all the beer and have resorted to Jamesons, which is methane emission, but not DWI free), and we are permitted to take long hot showers (longstanding British government propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding) (and no Bashing the Bishop while you're in there, Patrick...) Plus we get a promise of salvation in return for our guilty feelings, whereas all you get for making a donation to the Sierra Club is an annual membership and a flood of subsequent fundraising letters.

So you want to forget about that crap and have some straight up fun? How 'bout some NSFW fun? Check out the Whitest Kids U Know explaining how Abe Lincoln really died. Seriously NSFW (bad language). I mean really, really NSFW.



I have to give some mad props to Friend of the Rouleur James K. who recently turned me on to local band Clutch. They are kind of good. Check 'em out.

This first song, Electric Worry, is a good intro.



Before you hear the next one, check this out, by classic Chicago-style bluesman John Lee Hooker. Haw haw haw haw... Boom boom boom boom... And that looks like Donald "Duck" Dunn playing the base. Sweet.



Hey, did that John Lee Hooker song sound kind of familiar after Electric Worry? You can almost see the lineage. Now check out Neil Fallon of Clutch doing something similar with a classic sort of blues song, Regulator - puts me in mind of Sonny Boy Williamson.




And here's a song that I can only describe as an antidote to the Jonas Brothers. If you need to wash their filth out of your head, crank this to about 127 decibels, grab a bottle of Knob Creek, and... well... just sit there. It'll knock the Jonas Brothers right out of your head, along with algebra, memories of the ex-girlfriend who set fire to your concert T-shirts, and a lot of Metallica's newer stuff.



Thanks James K. Appreciate the tip.

And have a good Friday and a nice weekend, all y'all.