red-headed stranger

let's hear it for extended family.

i'm not talking about extended family like The Brown One has. they're all a bunch of savages, fighting each other with crude weapons for supremacy of the tribe, the right to eat the raw heart of the day's kill, or who's going to mate with the "magic pink-skin three-hole" that traveled with The Brown One from "the land beyond the sun". that's a very rare and extreme kind of danger that rarely exists outside the wastelands of southern california.

i'm also not talking about the extended family of someone i'm trying not to mention, whose conversation makes it possible to believe that narcolepsy is contagious. and airborne. "did i tell you about when i was raking leaves the other day?" "you will never believe how many different brands of tomato puree they have at the Albertson's back home!" "did you happen to be watching the TV Guide channel the other day when they did that interview with Male Nurse #3 from the last episode of ER?" sweet moses. you get the idea.

i'm talking about the kind of extended family that seems a little more like strangers every year. aunts and uncles and cousins whose names you sometimes kinda forget. you gradually share fewer and fewer inside jokes. you forget where they work before realizing that you don't care. everything gets a little more cordial, a little more professional, a little more sanitary. they all become a little more like "those really nice people that were at granny's house last year for christmas. remember? one of them had a baby and the other one was talking about quitting his job or something all the time".

then you think about it and realize that most of these people, at one point or another, had all laid eyes on your hairless nut sack (or whatever kind of weird equipment girls start with) way back in the day. they were doing you a major solid, getting you out of that urine/doody-soaked ass napkin that you used for pants before you knew how to "take the browns to the super bowl" and whatnot. and now? now it's all handshakes, half-ass hugs, polite conversation about current events, and generic, age-appropriate gifts because you don't give enough of a shit to know what they would really like.

god, that's depressing. i'm glad everyone's family is different.

let's get to some updates.


Cool New Stuff Update:

MF Doom Painting, by Seth Hudson - Seth is one of the most enigmatic people that i can imagine being friends with. we barely knew each other in high school, saw each other a few times during college, and have literally gone years without seeing/talking to him. that sonofabitch doesn't even respond to my text messages. yet, if i'm making a list, he's one of the ones i want to throw me into a random dumpster of medical waste when i die. he painted a portrait of my favorite hippity-hop rapper (MF Doom) and sent it to me for christmas. pretty cool MF yourself there, Seth.


Joe Pat Davis Update:

from what i understand (i did NOT fact-check this on webmd.com), the systems in your body briefly and painfully screech to a halt when you sneeze.

Joe Pat Davis has been my best friend since high school, so his trips to see me affect me much the same way. sleep patterns, meals, drinking, plans for the day, etc. - it all gets thrown out of whack while he's here, then resumes normally when he leaves, usually less than a day later.

he showed up last night about 10:30 or something. we were drunk beyond recognition by midnight. Sweet Tits drunk-dialed his de facto girlfriend around 1:30, yet was remarkably charming, polite and coherent, all qualities that generally elude her at such an hour, particularly at such a level of intoxication. exceptionally proud moment for me.

we dicked around for the better part of the morning (no homo) before not getting anything done around lunch time, and then burning through most of the afternoon lounging around. all in all, it was completely unproductive and pointless, and left me with a bit of a headache. just like a sneeze.

for the record, Joe Pat Davis owes me big. i followed his wishes and did not dub him "Sausage Hand" for the purposes of this blog. ha ha. Sausage Hand...


Bitter Little Lamb Update:

Bitter Little Lamb was mislabeled "Sullen Tangerine" in the previous post, with the xmas haikus. i was temporarily stunned and confused by the name of HER blog page, sullentangerine.wordpress.com, which you should visit if you care anything about poetry. she says it's bad poetry, but i'm far less judgemental than she is. however, i'm guessing if she hated it so much, she probably wouldn't post it at all. she's a good writer and her clients tell me she gives a hell of a hand job.

she also turned me on (no hetero) to a pretty funny blog that is worth checking out, if you aren't already aware of it. its fuckyoupenguin.blogspot.com, where the author claims that he/she "tells cute animals what's what". it's great. basically talking shit to the most adorable 5% of the animal population. perfect if you need something quick in the middle of the day to give you a laugh. gracias, Bitter Little Lamb. maybe Fuck You, Penguin will talk shit to you one day.

she also has provided me with a new reader! and she apparently shares all of your lukewarm feelings about the quality of my blog! hello to you, Beth, and merry christmas! someday, in ten years or so, i will have close to 20 readers, and i look forward to remembering this day. to commemorate, i dedicate the following haiku to you:

Beth
Hot Water Cornbread for this chick! read some quality blog? Beth says, "pbpbpbpththth!"


Currently on the white board behind the bar: I am the Future Cunt.

hopefully, i will have enough emails to do a mailbag edition soon. keep them trickling in to hotwatercornbreadblog@gmail.com!

i'm on it.

dave