Don't act like y'all don't know where we be neither.



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Thursday, March 14, 2013

New post

Turns out I'm not much better with stationary technology either. I posted something this morning that is stubbornly refusing to show up in my reader...even the bots and spammers haven't hit it yet.

Maybe by crook we can drag it out.



Saturday, March 9, 2013

IMBUBHISO!

"Roll to your rifle...blow out yer brains/And go to yer God like a soldier"

Last night, on the dinner table, there occurred one of those incidents that will surely be listed among the most glorious episodes in the annals of British Arms...an entire regiment of the Queen's finest were utterly destroyed by a Zulu impi.

I don't care what anybody tells you...parenting is a grind. Sometimes you have to take half a day off work just to watch a 30 minute school program (which may include a hip hop version of Happy Birthday...Jesus). You have to stand by and just watch as he gets old enough to take over your household chores....and, sometimes, grown man though you may be, you have to play with your son's toy soldiers. So with a six inch ruler and a random dice generator pulled up on the phone, I grudgingly set about doing my duty as a Daddy.


As is normally the case, things started out well for the British. A screen of Natal Native Cavalry got in several licks before being overrun and annihilated. The one artillery battery played hell on the Zulu center...knocking 'em down in clumps.

Soon the Zulus were in range of the British rifles. Between the steady marksmanship of the infantry and the crude carnage of the gun the Zulus were taking an awful beating. Still, they came. They're Zulu's after all.


Contact!*

It was a badly mauled, but determined and angry, bunch of Zulus that finally got their hands on the British infantry. Normally this is where things would go horribly wrong for anybody who wasn't a Zulu but, as we've seen, their numbers had been considerably reduced. The infantry were holding their own in hand to hand combat. There was an untouched British unit in the center as one group of Zulus had peeled off to attack the artillery.

The whole thing was in danger of being a British victory and therefore forgotten to history. It was at this point that umBlake, commander of the Zulu impi, decided that all of his forces had not yet been committed to battle. It was time for the second wave of Zulus. So we recycled some of the dead warriors to form a new unit. The question was...where would they appear? Would it be the loin or one of the horns. We turned to the dice...

Bloody &%*$!!!!

It was the Right Horn! All over but the shoutin', Col. Blake, commander of the British forces, did what he could. It wasn't much. He turned the uncommitted unit of infantry and the artillery to face the onslaught. They were slaughtered. The regiment disintegrated into small groups of soldiers gallantly resisting the inevitable...tiny red islands being swallowed by a relentless brown tide.

The Glorious End

Surprisingly, given the erzatz nature of the rules, we got a fairly historical result. 

Of course, the Boy wants to do it again. My work is never done. I'm gonna have to buy more soldiers for him...proper cavalry and naval ratings...and "23 hundred and 45 boxes of Zulus."

It's a hard row to hoe...being a Daddy.

*Ignore the large group of stetsoned tan fellas in the back...Native Contingent. Depending on who you ask, they hoofed it because they were cowards or, they figured being slaughtered for the white interlopers wasn't they way they wanted to end their day.



  

Friday, March 1, 2013

Is That All You Got?!?*

When I was in the 6th grade, I got a bicycle for Christmas...a ten speed bicycle. Yeah that turned out to be a disaster.

It's not because I was uncoordinated. Please. I played golf...played football, arm-wrastled grown men and entered my self into dog fights. I wore a cobra snake for a neck tie...My parents used me for alligator bait and I washed my face in a frying pan...OK?

Let's face it, I was a bad a**! Still am. Deal with it Haters!

But...but, as those of you who know me personally can attest, I was, and have always been, wholly unequipped to deal with any kind of machine or gadget. In this case, a gear box for a ten speed bike.

After a couple of passes through the neighborhood, I figured out that high gears were good for going up hill..it was easier to pedal. Then I discovered that the low gears could be used to gain traction going down hill...meaning I could go faster than gravity.

Can y'all see where I'm going with this?



I came up with a plan to break the Truck Route up-hill land speed record. I'd start on the top of one hill using the low gears to pick up maximum down hill speed. Once I reached the bottom of the bowl I'd shift into high gear and pick up a blinding rpm for the up turn. All very logical...how could it fail?

It failed at about 55 miles an hour, as I flipped the gear switch to first. The failure was almost immediate and it was complete. The pedals, now spinning without resistance, picked up enough speed to bust an atom. My feet were flung off the bike and for a second it vibrated but continued to pick up speed...then there was a wobble and a flash and piercing, head caving, pain.

I don't remember anything between that moment and opening my eyes onto the ceiling of our back deck. I'd been moved there by my mother and the Sister...who was about five at the time. Santy Clause had brought her a plastic doctor's kit for Christmas. Thankfully she was able to fit me into her schedule.




She wasn't nearly as busy back then.

I had ripped the skin on my right knee down to the cap, left a hunk of my shoulder on the asphalt and knocked halfa front tooth out. I still have big nasty scars on my knee and shoulder. For thirty years, up until last week, my broken tooth had been capped. That was before I had the temerity to bite into a soggy spring roll last Wednesday night.

Sexy? Like a mole on a super model maybe?

 So, it's off to the dentist for me where I will get high as Cooter Brown on gas and listen to Roxy Music. They'll give me some hillbilly heroin on the way out the door.
Unless y'all think I should leave it.
Up Next...The Special Needs Relationship: Part Two, Can't Get Back There From Here



*The title actually has nothing to do with this post...it was intended for another. Sue me.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Local News Break - Idiots with Flags

The Confederate Cemetery at Aberdeen.





Really Y'all?

The trash has been taken out and, will most likely, be disposed of on the next chilly night.

Just stop it.

Monday, February 18, 2013

The Special Needs Relationship - Interlude


You're Twistin' My Melon Man.
 
 


The Vaselines...the Raincoats....David Bowie....



It's fairly straight forward to start then...cucucucucumber. Ha.



Treepeople was Doug Martsch band before Built to Spill (it's perhaps an indictment against the lo-fi/indie/whatever scene of the 90's that Built to Spill was as popular as they were).



One for the careful readers. :)



As usual it's squal that matters with Dinosaur Jr.



Nice accent Harvard Yard.



Couldn't resist.
 

Friday, February 15, 2013

The Special Needs Relationship - Part One

What follows is C's fault...for posting the bit about Suede.

This is the Londoner Grill in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Sherwood Forest Blvd. across from the Celtic Center. I took this photo while I was staying in Denham Springs because I had business in Scotlandville.



Last night I found my self watching Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Britpop...for like the sixth time. It weren't any better this time than it was the other five. I'm just easily distracted...easily amused and obsessive. So there you are. I was trying to find a clip of Suede's performance at the Brit Awards in 93....Animal Nitrate. It's been blocked on You Tube by BPI but, I thought I had seen it in Live Forever. I was wrong. In fact, Suede are given pretty short shrift...reduced in significance to a magazine cover. The film ought to be called Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Oasis and Some Other Bands that Owe Their Existence to James Brown (the puffed up editor of Loaded magazine, not Macon, Georgia's own God Father of Soul).

They could just have easily called it How the Idea of America Manipulates the British Pop Psyche.

For our purposes the discussion begins with Jon Savage...

"The Pendulum (in the early 90's) had swung back to America. There's always this tic-toc, tic-toc, between the U.S. and the U.K. At least in the U.K. Often in America they don't give a toss about what's going on in the U.K."

And continues in part two...


(the usual warning about language when hearing from with these potty mouths)

The Elephant in the Room or How Americans Will Dance to Anything by Day-Pesh-Kamode
e.f. bartlam


To my mind, some obvious questions arise in those passages from Live Forever.  We're gonna get 'em sorted out...sussed if you like. None of them has to do with the sentiment of resentment toward American culture expressed by Jon Savage, James Brown, et al. as a matter of historical fact. Besides you can't argue with sentiment...sentiment just is. What we will try to do is address certain issues...one, what is American Culture? That might seem an impossible question to answer in a few paragraphs. It's not. Believe me it's doable. We'll talk about Budweiser.

Two, what does it actually mean to "Make it in America?" This seems to be a recurring issue with certain bands or elements of the British music papers. We may not be able to come up with a definitive answer to that question but, I think we can add emphasis to elements of it that are often overlooked. We'll listen to Band of Skulls do a Ford commercial (we may have to digress at this point and explain that Ford is not actually a British car maker).

Three, is it true that Americans don't normally give a toss about what goes on in British popular culture? I think by answering the first two question it will become obvious that Americans do...that Britain wields a tremendous influence in America. It's not exactly the same as wielding influence over the culture but, it's pretty hard to shape something that barely exists...and to the extent that it does exist, does so under extremely rigid parameters. /

Here is where I should say something about football...just to irritate Kibber but, one of the reasons I'm hiding this post in ridiculous, pretentious "fancy dress" is that there is no football right now and I'm bored out of my freaking mind.

Go Gators...six months from now.

I should also say a word about terminology. Those of you who read this blog know that I have no allegiance to this ridiculous notion of America (me and Spliff call it The Imperial Construct of America)...I'm a Southron and y'all know this. Making that distinction is not necessary, except where it is necessary, in the following discussion. So enjoy the rare instance where I will be including myself, and my people, among these other ragamuffins.

Also, also...we should get Canada out of the way before proceeding. We are honored to have, here at Flimsy Cups, Canada's greatest export..Spliff (aka Dread Pirate Jessica). You can read her thoughts and, if you're lucky, interact with her here on these pages. Nothing more need be said about that.

To be continued...

Cleveland, Mississippi

I know Adamparsons...red phone booths and double-decker buses. We're dealing, to a certain extent, in generalizations and stereotypes. Don't get your Bowler in a bunch. Go eat a crumpet and settle it down.

Friday, February 8, 2013

Swamp Rat


That's where I grew up y'all. 

I mean I lived in a house...went to school and church in buildings but, this is where I spent at least half of my childhood. It's Lake Cascade. We lived on Cascade Dr...a small neighborhood, that came off the truck route, made a loop along one shore of the lake and then back out.

This is where we played. When I was little, I got at least two whoppins for goin' down there without supervision. We found a dead gator down there one time...he'd been shot and hacked up. There was a baby gator that lived in one the pools around the lake. Seemed like he stayed on the same stump for a year. 

Of course, the place was the natural habitat of our arch enemy, Satan's charm bracelet...

.
I guess we just tried not to think about him.  There was a little island in the lake that was said to be so covered with Cotton Mouths that if you looked hard enough you could see it wriggling. Maybe it was a defensive mechanism...mentally we put them all out on the island. I did watch a fella kill one in the water with a bow. That was pretty cool...back to hell you go.

There were big, high banked ditches...like canals that would connect some of the pools with the lake...we never went in those. That was a strip of black water running between 6ft  walls of roots and holes. We did swim in the lake though. Out towards the middle of the lake there was a homemade diving platform built in group of cypress trees. One of my fondest memories is being out there with my brothers and their friends. I was still wearing the bubble (an egg shaped piece of styrofoam with canvas straps that chaffed and dug into my under arms)...so, I must have still been pretty little. They were trying to get me to jump off into the water. At my size it looked like were were 50ft in the air. They finally bribed me into it by promising that I could be the first to kiss Daddy when he got home from work. It was quite a race to meet him at his car in the evenings...with my tiny legs I didn't stand a chance.

One day, me and a buddy of mine come up on a fella that nearly drowned. His canoe had turned over and he couldn't swim. We helped him in the last few feet. It had to be a strange scene...two ten year olds draggin' a grown, gasping man out of a foot and a half of water. The most absurd part was that, except over sink holes, the water never really got that deep. He could have bounced off the lake bed from 100 ft out. 


It dried up every couple of years...or drained. Sink holes would drain it. The other side of the lake was near wilderness. It was crisscrossed with dirt roads...and pocked with sinkholes. Sink holes are just creepy. A perfect cone, about 150ft across and down to a pool of jet black water. Every once in a while they'll crack open in a populated area. Gainesville had a couple of big ones open up in the middle of town.


You can see the waterline on the cypress but, obviously this was taken after a long dry spell.

In its Glory.

The little cinder block house we lived in is gone now. In fact almost all the houses are gone now. The airport bought up most of the neighborhood years ago. It wasn't a fancy place to start with and now it's gone back to wilderness. 

Probably overrun with *&^^%% Cottonmouths.