DOG: A Day At The Pig Races!

Stilladog @ Pork Chop Downs

I could have titled this story several other things. Among them are, "A Weekend With The In-Laws" and "A Day At The Maryland State Un-fair." But I'm trying to focus on the positive here folks. The most fun I had all weekend was at the Pig Races (and pig swimming demonstration). So I'm going with that.

Yes I entertained my mother-in-law, brother-in-law, nephew, grandson, step-son, and daughter-in-law over the weekend. The only one missing was my sister-in-law (known on here as Dog-In-Law) but last I heard she was out in Kansas, or Oklahoma, or Little House on the Prairie somewhere. Their visit all went really well. But part of the entertainment was our trip to the Maryland State Un-fair.

I ain't a big Fair Person anyway, so why I thought it was a good idea to take everybody to the Maryland State Fair I don't know. If I ever suggest such a thing again, somebody just shoot me. I know why I thought it would be a good idea. I thought the kids, a pair of 3 year old boys, my nephew and grandson, would have a good time riding tractors and petting cows and riding rides and spending money on absolute stupid shit. And they did all that, and they did have fun.

The fair had a chainsaw carving demo, horse racing, and pig racing which were all things I knew I'd enjoy. So having a good time for everybody is what I thought we'd have. I am hearing my father's words in my head. "You know what Thought did, dontcha? He thought he had to fart and shit his pants!"

Soon as you come in they start hounding you to buy tickets to this and that and a subscription to the Baltimore Sun. The Sunpapers had gold and green mardi gras beads out so I grabbed one for each boy. Then the lady asked if I wasn't going to subscribe since I took her beads. I told her no I'm not going to subscribe. I went on to tell her that the Baltimore Sun sucks and I wait for the Carroll County Times to come out just so I can throw away my used crab shells because her paper is not worthy of the remnants of seafood. Then I added, "If you don't want people to take them, don't put them out!" I just got a couple for the little kids. It wasn't like I stashed them in my bag and was going to cruise the Midway asking women to show me their tits for a strand of beads like in New Orleans, geez. (Nice idea though!)

Next we went to the chainsaw carving. I was most interested in seeing this dude sculpt a pair of cowboy boots out of a chunk of a log using only about a dozen different chain saws. He was on a 3 foot elevated stage and had nylon mesh completely around his demo tent. Not many people were watching so I got up within about 5 feet of the stage and about 12 feet from where he actually was cutting. With nobody around that I could block anyone's view they asked me to step back from the demo area. I told them "Fuck you" and walked away.

So then we went over to the Pig Races where it was absolutely the highlight of the day. The Pigs had names like Nancy Piglosi, Brittney Spear-ribs, Brad Pigg, and Hillary RodHAM Clinton. It was funny as shit and the place was absolutely packed. The little pigs really run fast. The heavyweights just lumber out of the gate until one decides to take off and then the other pigs chase him. I bought pig noses for everyone. And knowing we were having boneless pork ribs for dinner, had a few jokes thrown in there too about whoever came in last place would be the first on my grill!

So after an hour of the pig races, I'm thinking it's time to go home and go "Whole Hog" on those pork ribs I had waiting in the fridge. But nope, we had to fish for toys first. Ok that's cool. So while the boys are fishing for plastic swords and stuffed animals I wander around. Just observing. Until I came to the basketball shoot. Lo and behold look what they have for prizes for making 3 baskets in a row. Limas Sweed and Willie Parker Steeler jerseys along with the excess inventory of Big Ben's (since I guess they're not the hot seller they once were). So I think, I'm going to take a picture of this, it'll make a great blog story. I shoot off the photo posted here and the dude tells me $2 to take a photo. Guess what? For the second time in two hours I told a complete stranger "Fuck you" and walked away.

Never take your in-laws to the state fair. In fact, if you ain't got prize livestock to show or the best rhubarb pie in the state, go someplace else for entertainment. The fair is just unfair... unless you want to see the Pig Races which I thoroughly endorse!

DOG: The End of Summer

Even though the ferocious 100 degree heat has gone into remission, I for one cannot wait for Summer to go away. I hate Summer. When it's blistering hot you can't do anything outside. So it's the same as in Winter... only worse. In Winter when it's cold you can bundle up with enough clothes to finally stay warm. In Summer when it's hot, there a finite amount of clothes you can take off to be cool. Once you're down to what God gave you to start with and you're still too hot, you're just fucked.

I know kids hate to see the end of Summer because it means going back to school. I used to feel that way too. But with the fall comes reasonable weather and best of all, football season!!

The above photograph is a picture of me and my cousins Doug & Rick (L to R) from the end of Summer circa 1963. Sitting on a swing at my Aunt's house eating banana popsicles. Man, life sure was simpler back in those days. Doug & Rick had come down from Connecticut to visit their grandmother in Western PA. When they came out to my neighborhood we most always played baseball in some form -wiffle ball, softball, baseball etc.- every day.

I'd venture to say this photo was taken on a break from baseball in the late afternoon in August. When Ice Cream Ike came by driving his modified '57 Chevy truck with no doors and a refrigerated cooler welded to the frame playing Little Brown Jug over his speakers on a continuous loop, we all ran for our nickles and pennies to get a popsicle. It was the equivalent of pressing the Pause button of life. No matter what you were doing, life was temporarily interrupted by the Ice Cream Man.

Once you finished your popsicle you could resume playing whatever game it was you were playing before. I've really never seen a phenomina like it anywhere else. I'd bet we didn't even age for that moment in time. Time did actually stand still!

Looking at that photo now I'm seeing my shorts cut off at the knee which is now the accepted style. The piece of rope I had for a belt, not so much. And you could tell I hated the heat even back then. I almost never wore a shirt in the summer.

Many thanks to whatever family member sent me this photograph. I can't remember who it was. But I certainly do appreciate receiving it. The memories it brought back prompted me to tell this story which apparently is where we're going with this blog at least until Fan makes up his mind what he's going to do with it. As for me, between all my geezing about the old days and more Satch stories, I think we can keep this thing rolling for a while longer for sure. Your comments really help though.

Oh yeah, almost forgot... if the year was indeed 1963, that's the year popsicles went from 5¢ to 6¢.

FAN: If A Tree Falls In The Woods....

The Fan Family is off to The Bahamas tomorrow morning via Manhattan Cruise Terminal.

I'll be doing a little thinking while I'm there. I'm thinking our little site here may have run it's course. Even though we get a decent number of hits every day, a certain percentage is for images (like this beautiful Bahamas Beach) and some people stop in multiple times a day if we haven't posted.

I'm tired. Still A Stroke swims both summer and winter competitively and it's time consuming and during the 3 month break between swim I coach her volleyball team. I don't know if Dog is as tired as I am, but if we're only slightly entertaining 15 people instead of 60, it might be time to hang 'em up and just comment the shit out of That's Church, Darwinfish2 and Carpetbaggery. Maybe I'll finally join Facebook. Who knows.

Dog, whatchoo think?

By reading the numbers we do really well some days with people who come and stay and found us from a google search for an article, not for the image, but they are far less than when we posted a few times a day.

Leave us a comment....what do you think? No mercy "bangs". And I'll look at the IP addresses to see if anybody is stuffing the ballot box! Still A While...are you still out there?

FAN: Moss at Ground Zero

There's been a ton of debate recently about potentially having moss at ground zero. Some folks are up in arms about it and some say that moss at ground zero proves how tolerant we can be. I thought it was time for Steel City Slant to weigh in on this subject.

I am firmly in the corner of Roberto "No Moss" Duran. I try to be an equal opportunist with horticulture but eff me moss is annoying. My yard has numerous mature trees providing plenty of summer shade, but it also provides optimal growing conditions for moss on my not so flat paver patio....and let me tell you something, moss is as slippery as owl shit when it's wet. Little patches of moss sprout up all the time on my patio. You know what I do to them? I kill those bastards. I don't use the wimpy "Round-Up" made for dandelions either. I use poison ivy and small brush killer. I don't use a single spray either. I apply the killing agent liberally. After I'm done with a round of moss killing, there's no doubt in my mind they'll dry up into a yellowish brown mess and turn to dust in a week which can easily be swept away.

I don't know why people think it's OK for moss to grow at ground zero. One summer I didn't keep the moss under control and it just spread and spread all over my property. I had a hell of a time beating it back once I realized what was going on. I think ground zero should be kept as sterile as possible. Heck, if moss starts growing there, you could have anti-moss types protesting every day. That would make it uncomfortable for folks who just want to go and pay their respects to the innocent people who lost their lives there that day. I used to walk to lunch down a street that had a Jewish business on one side and a Palestinian one on the other. For a year straight there were protesters on both sides of the street shouting and yelling insults back and forth at each other. We can't have that at ground zero.

The prediction I'll make is this, if moss starts growing there it won't be long before commercial weed control trucks start showing up trying to kill it. Is it idealistically wrong to not want moss at ground zero? Probably, yes. Do I want moss at ground zero? No. Hell no.

DOG: Duke's Album Art

The graphic on the lower left is Duke Robillard's new album, Passport To The Blues. The graphic on the top right is a photo taken by Stilladog that was posted on this blog in February.

I had to check to make sure Duke didn't use my photo of him as his album cover. Not that it would have mattered to me. I'd have given him the rights to use it for free if he'd asked me. But maybe the dude standing next to me was being paid to shoot pictures for the album on the Blues Cruise.

Whoever the photographer was we were seconds apart and likely standing next to each other! And Duke was tearing up the house (ship) that night too. I think Duke pretty much brought the house down every time he played on the cruise.

So much to my surprise when I ran across Duke's new album I found a picture almost identical to one of the three I shot of him that evening in January. I thought it was cool and wanted to share it with Bluzdude and whoever else bothers to actually read our posts. Here are the other two pics. Not quite as good of quality so it's obvious why I chose the one above to post originally.

FAN: Thankless Volunteer Work

So if you remember from last year, I coach my daughter's volleyball team. I was
asked by our Athletic Director to send out an email to get a hard 'Yes' or 'No'
for each player about asthma. Apparently one of the other sports had an incident
and a new rule was put in place that we needed to make parents aware of. Our
practice schedule is confusing because so many teams need gym time. We don't
have set nights or times. I mentioned that in my welcome to the team email. Our
AD also emailed me our practice schedule through September 9th.

If I happen to email the team on another subject, I'll throw a reminder at the
bottom about the upcoming practice. I emailed the team yesterday about asthma
and I tagged at the bottom 'REMINDER - Practice Tonight 6-7:30'.

This is an email I received in my inbox:

"Hi Coach. As I had previously asked can you give me alittle notice prior to vb
practice. I have two babies at home. Is practice a set night? I
apologize SNOWFLAKE missed again however I got the email the day of....I don't
want her missing anymore because of our communication. She is getting upset that
she has missed two...please let me know how we can expedite this. Email or
calling is fine.

MOTHER SNOWFLAKE"

Um, well, first off - you missed THREE practices so far. Second, I emailed the
complete schedule last Thursday and your name is first in the email list. Short
of calling your unorganized ass an hour prior to practice, I don't know what
else I can do. Stop having babies and start paying attention to your 11 year
old.

-Coach Fan XoXo

PS - If you ever cop an attitude with me again without checking your facts, your
kid will be running laps in your honor at the first practice you can actually
get her to.

FAN: Juke Joint Duo

That's me with Cedric Burnside and Lightnin' Malcolm. Yes, the picture is shitty because the guy I went with is a technophobe. Just as the Droid was flashing he yanked it away to say "it's not working". Thanks. I think you can tell it's me. We were having some beers on a patio when Cedric came out of the place and walked right past us. We were having an Arrogant Bastard 22 oz. (not me) and a Voodoo White Magick Of The Sun (me).

These small venues are awesome for meeting the artists after the show. The opening band was Beaucoup Blue. I would almost classify them as roots, but they ended the set with a really good double dip of blues. They are kind of folksy but still kick it a little in places even though they are a 2-piece guitar father and son duo. I guess the drummer left after recording the videos on YouTube. The dad has an intresting style that you probably cant appreciate unless you listen to every song link to hear all the different solos. He plucks, slides and bangs his many guitars. They were entertaining to say the least.

As for Cedric and Lightnin'? Wow. I read a review of Lightnin's playing and it was spot on....they called him a raggedy ass virtuoso, lol. At times he seemed like he wasn't even playing yet there was a wall of guitar coming out of the amps. I found it impressive that he mixes the different guitar parts into one contorted layered buzzy mess. Some longer numbers with few lyrics almost left me feeling like I was in a trance. I was in row F and there wasn't a person sitting in rows D or E. They have a few tables in front of the theater seats and my buddy and I counted about 25 people for the opening act and about 75 for Cedric and Malcolm.

Dog, how do you make a living playing to 75 people when tickets are $20 and you have to pay an opening band and everything else? Do radio stations subsidize this stuff?

On to Cedric and then off to bed.... Cedric is a hard nut to crack for me since I'm a drummer. I could describe him in many ways. I could say I've never seen anyone live - EVER - beat the shit out of the drums like Cedric did last night. Ever. Even on film I'm certain Bonzo never hit that hard. To me, it seems like a waste of motion, but when I reflect on it, I see that it's part of him and the show. What he lacks in precision, he more than makes up for in tenacity. He's been playing for years I guess but he seems very raw to me as a drummer. In one instance he would play a repeated fill of quarter note triplets without alternating hands which seems very clumsy visually and a little behind in timing....and then in the next bar he would rip something out of his ass that was so clean you could eat off of it. He's an enigma back there. After hearing him just play while Malcolm tuned up for the first song, I thought to myself that he wasn't that good. However, as the night went on, he did play some impressive stuff. He's loud as hell, but that's the style. I had a headache when I left but I think I was supposed to. I can see how a Juke Joint would stay rockin' all night with grooves like that. I found myself thinking "how am I going to describe Cedric when I write about this". Imagine James Harrison hungry. Don't feed him for 24 hours. Then, give him drumsticks that resemble tree trunks and turn him loose with no formal training behind an unsuspecting drum kit. Add guitars.

Well, well, well.....Cedric Burnside, I love your grand daddy's music. Now I love yours. I'm all about high energy music. I haven;t listened to the CD yet that I bought last night - but I'm hoping it's as sushi raw as the live show.

FAN: 102 and Sticky

I left work around 4 today and this is what my car was resistering as the outdoor temperature. It's the highest I've seen that fature of my car report since owning it which is about 2 years now. Did I use the AC? No, which is weird as I'm an AC whore keeping it on at the house between Easter and Halloween...lol. I opened the windows and the sunroof and kicked some Jay-Z most of the way home.

FAN: Music at The Mart

A friend and I drove to Quakertown Farmer's Market today in search of music. There are usually a lot of cheap CDs floating around there and I had a hankering for some "new to me" stuff that I can rip and then resell to secondspin.com.

Off the top of my head I bought System of a Down's Mezmerize, The Essence of Dave Brubeck which is not listed in his discogography so it's a cheapy compilation by an old record company most likely, Melissa Ethridge's Your Little Secret, Kiss Psycho Circus, Everlast's Whitey Ford Sings The Blues, They Might Be Giants John Henry and Otis Redding Live In Europe for $11. Later I picked up Sheryl Crow's The Globe Sessions (the Australian version which contains Sweet Child O' Mine) for $1.

What's crazy is, after going through 4 or 5 vendor's CDs, we were spent. It was hot and sunny and you can only look through so many. I was happy with my take and shut it down. I'll go back in the fall and check out the other vendors. I'd much rather find a family selling their collection than go through a dealer's stuff, but some dealers price extremely well starting at $1 and going to $3. It makes going to a used CD store worthless. I passed on a few I maybe should have bought but I also had Homer's Iliad and Odyssey in a bag which were getting heavy to lug around at this huge venue. The hardbacks were printed in 1961 and had a nice look to them so I thought I'd buy them for the bookshelf, even if I never get around to reading them. I paid $4 for the set.

If you can put up with body odor and 75% of the crowd not speaking English, it's a good way to waste 2-3 hours on a Sunday morning.

DOG: Stilladog, The Real Early Years

I chanced to receive this photo from relatives sympathetic to my loss of family photographs so I wanted to take a little walk down "I Can't Remember Lane" too.

First thing you'll notice is these are the real early years. I began life in a monochrome world. Whereas most of Fan's posts on this topic are, while not necessarily cinemascope technicolor, in color at least.

Yeah, that's our backyard. With Uncle Orville's chicken coop in the background. I figure this picture was taken circa 1956. I have no recollection of what kind of stuffed toy I'm holding. But I remember that hat. I hated that God-damned thing. It was 100% wool and the scratchiest son of a bitch you ever had next to your skin. My mother made me wear it at all times during cold weather and I used to tear it off my head. Did I say I hated it? My dad finally came to my rescue and didn't make her put it on me after it became apparent I refused to keep it on my head.

I'm a bit surprised there's no evidence pit fire smoke in this picture. Typically I was not allowed off the concrete walk (seen behind me) for fear of falling into one of several pit fires that were in the backyard. If you fell into one (and my cousin Eddie did in 1964) you'd fall straight through into a burning shaft of the coal mine directly beneath the property. Eddie lived though. He landed on a rock shelf 15 feet down and the fire company was able to save him. Burned up his hands real bad though. But he's alive and still tells the story.