I might could bless your heart

Every southerner is familiar with the phrase bless your heart. Traditionally we use it when some tragedy has befallen you and we feel sorry for you but at the same time we're glad we're not in your shoes. If for instance you tell someone who was raised south of the Mason-Dixon line about how you were buying groceries for your ailing grandmother that person might answer back bless your heart. Likewise if you go on to talk about how when you got to Grandma's she was hunched over the toilet puking from a Jack Daniels hangover they might answer back well, bless her heart.

See how it works?

It also sometimes has a more backhanded connotation especially when referring to someone in the third person. In a coffee clatch one woman might say to another something like Did you see how homely that girl was? She'll never get a husband, bless her heart. This is an especially useful turn of phrase in this circumstance because it works like a linguistic washcloth, rinsing away any negativity someone might have otherwise taken as insulting. You can say just about anything bad about a person, and as long as you follow it up with bless their heart, you're in the clear. Kinda like the way some people use the follow-up phrase I don't mean that in a bad way, Southerners will sometimes use Bless their heart.

Still another way to use the phrase, and frankly this is the most condoling, is to bless someone's little heart. It works for adults and children alike; anyone's heart can be qualified as little. Saying something like well, bless her little heart means you honestly feel sorry for her and you want to convey that to the person you're talking to. When you say this, you leave no question as to how sincere you are.

Heart blessing is particularly southern much like grits and bible thumping. That's why I was caught offguard the other day when after telling my yankee mother-in-law over the phone that my daughter was sick, she responded with bless her little heart. Now, truth be told my wife's family is from Ohio, and they think that because they're not from the New England area that they're not yankees, bless their hearts, but in the South anyone who's not from the South is pretty much a yankee. I'm sorry, y'all, that's just the way it is.

Anyway, my mother-in-law who's only lived in Georgia for less than a year said bless her little heart. She not only used a phrase that up until recently I'd guess really wasn't a part of her vocabulary, she used it just like a native would. In fact, it didn't dawn on me that she said bless her little heart until afer I hung up the phone with her. The woman's just that good.

It's beneficial to add a few regionalisms to one's speech when visiting a new part of the country I think. Also learning some courtesy phrases in a foreign language can come in handy both abroad and here at home. I'm no Rosetta stone, but I can say hello, goodbye and thank you in several languages. I don't use them to show off, but I do find that native speakers are more polite to me if I mutilate their language by trying out the occasional friendly phrase on them. This is especially true for Asian languages. If you say hola to a Spanish speaker they just think you let Dora the Explorer babysit your kid for hours at a time. But if you say to a Korean speaker, their eyes light up like a winter holiday tree.

I have to hand it to my wife's mom. Whether she did it on purpose or just unconsciously adopted the phrase after hearing it around town she fooled me into thinking she sounded local. Once her granddaughter is feeling better, I'll call to let her know. As quick a study as I reckon she is, when I call she'll probably tell me that she was fixin' to carry my father-in-law up to the store so he can pick up a possum and some sweet potato pie. When I ask her if I can ride along, she'll say you might could.

Outside Big Canoe: a story of Christmas trees and non-criminal trespass

I love adventure. I used to make a weekend habit of charting unknown territories around me, often just getting in the car by myself and heading down a main road to see where it would lead. This was especially rewarding if doing so got me to some podunk town I had never heard of before. From my neck of the woods for instance a mere 20-mile ride will get you to either Struggleville, Rebelville, or Shakerag. Further out in one direction or the other will get you to Ball Ground, Whistleville, or Normaltown, the latter of which is referenced in the B-52's song Deadbeat Club.

Dirt roads, though diminishing in number, are especially intriguing to me, and left to my own devices I will go out of my way to drive down one no matter how rough and tumbled or overgrown it is. That's why this holiday weekend when I was schlepping my in-laws around in the back seat to go look for a Christmas tree, I jumped at the opportunity when my wife's mother leaned over the back of the driver's seat and said to me, "Let's just go a little farther and see where this leads."

She was talking about a tree-lined dirt road leading into the woods just past a sign for a Christmas tree farm, the very Christmas tree farm we were looking for. This dirt road wasn't just any dirt road. It was one of those trails consisting of two tire tracks and grass in the middle. The trees and the grass were beautifully manicured, so it looked like it might be an entrance to a tree farm. There was only one way to find out, so with wife, in-laws, and baby in tow, we started the journey down what was labeled Gibbs Dr.

The way leading into this place was beautiful. Plane trees planted at equal intervals along both sides of the path stood like model soldiers welcoming us to Toyland and when we ran out of those, we drove slowly along a leafy path through meticulously manicured shrubs and plants. Although we didn't see anything that resembled Christmas trees, we did see out in the middle of otherwise undisturbed forest, large livingroom-sized patches of the greenest grass you've ever seen. There were pagodas and stone walls with moss growing in them. As we rounded one curve on the path we passed a small flower garden surrounding a statue of St. Francis. This place was just one magical surprise after another.

Then it dawned on us.

"I think we're driving through someone's yard," my father-in-law said.

There was a small debate as to whether he was right. Only a few minutes earlier someone in the car suggested the place was a Sanitarium. I still wanted to believe it was the entrance to a Chrsitmas tree farm so that I could keep driving around. Backing up after all was a near impossibility and finding a place to turn around wasn't as easy as it sounds either, so we continued driving until we found the huge English manor-style home at the end of the driveway. Before I barely had the chance to wonder what kind of people lived here, my curiosity was satisifed soon after we spotted a truck that was also snaking it's way along the path in the oncoming direction.

I think the driver was probably the owner, and my father-in-law who had already hopped out of the car to help navigate asked for directions to get us out. The man in the truck happily obliged and we promptly made our way out of there a little more hastily than when we came in.

The internet is a wonderful thing, and when we got home after buying a Christmas tree at the farm which incidentally was right across the street, I made a beeline for my father-in-;aw's computer to dig up the scoop as to where we had been. With the help of Google, Mapblast and the Realtor tax database (yes, membership and a real estate license do have their privileges) I learned that the property belonged to a family that owned a large landscaping business whose customers include several major Atlanta corporations and a few hospitals. Mapblast provided a satellite image of the house and some orchards that we were unable to spot before we were caught trespassing on private property.

The North Georgia mountains are the birthplace of bootlegging corn liquor, and I'm sure it likely wasn't very long ago that stumbling onto someone else's property without their permission could have gotten me shot. To tell the truth, there are probably places today in the area where this is still the case. After all, Dawsonville hosts an annual Moonshine Festival and while there are no free samples (or pay samples for that matter), rumor has it one doesn't have to wander far to find the real stuff. Wander in without being invited and you might have to hobble out.

Oh well, these people were nice enough to point us the way out without gunfire.

Tune in next week when I report from the Koresh compound in Marblehill, Georgia.

Thanksgiving Macy's Day Parade

I was well into my second glass of champagne this morning as my wife and I were watching the Umpteenth Annual Macy's Day Parade. Actually my wife was in the kitchen preparing my daughter's first Thanksgiving dinner (Similac with Iron and water) when the star of the parade flashed across the screen.

It was Helen whose last name I don't recall even though it was announced just a commercial break ago, but apparently Helen's claim to fame is that she is over 100 years old.

"You just missed Helen!" I shouted into the kitchen.

"What?" my wife shouted back.

"Helen," I said, "you just missed her."

"Who's Helen?" my wife shouted.

"She's 101 years old," I said.

"I can't hear a word you're saying with this water running," she said.

As I take another sip of my California Chandon and watch Maria, Luis and Gordon dance with a slew of kids and some muppets under a Big Bird balloon, I can't help but think to myself that this is what Thanksgiving is all about.

Let's all raise our glasses to Helen, shall we?

770-452-0544 (Who is this?)

Has anyone else in the Atlanta area heard from this number? On my caller ID it shows up as FW Services, and whoever these people are they've called me on more than one occasion and left no message.

What does the FW stand for in FW Services? Feral wombats? Fancy wolverines? Frank women? Funny wigs? Funky whigs? Fisting wankers? First Wesleyans? Fisting Wesleyans? Fanny Wigginbotham? Fine wines?

If it's fine wines, tell them to call back. Ditto for Fanny Wigginbotham.

Incidentally what do pyjama-clad pillow-wielding teenage girls do during spend-the-nights now that we have caller ID?

Adult novelties vs. frozen treats

I was pushing a cart through the grocery store this afternoon when it dawned on me that we use the same term for ice cream that we do for sex toys. Hanging over the last aisle of the grocery store is a placard that reads frozen novelties, and if you drive by any of the all-night porn emporiums across this great nation of ours you'll see that they sell adult movies and adult novelties. I only know from driving by of course.

Novelty is such a versatile word.

I think in the first instance the word denotes frozen treats that don't fall under the generic category of ice cream. Nutty Buddies, Eskimo Pies and rooty tooty bomb pops come to mind. In the case of adult novelties I'm thinking novelty is euphemistic for vibrator, inflatable partner and edible underwear. Come to think of it though rooty tooty bomb pop might fall under both categories as might edible underwear depending upon where your tastes lie. Please understand I'm not advocating any misuse of novelties, frozen, adult or otherwise, but what fellow shoppers do in the privacy of their home is none of my business.

When I say fellow shoppers I mean at the grocery store.

Napkin is another such word. For the most part it's something you wipe your face with, but this isn't the case with a sanitary napkin. You know, sanitary is also a word that you might think would only have one basic meaning, but actually has a couple. Sanitary napkins are in fact rather sanitary when they're in the box underneath the bathroom sink, but by the time they make it to the trash, they're anything but sanitary. Then they become unsanitary napkins. Adult novelties, if used correctly, also follow this same path of depurification.

What if toilet paper were referred to as adult wipes?

As a kid, I sometimes would bite the erasers off of pencils and chew on them. This was neither novel nor sanitary. When my grandmother saw me doing it one day she said, "Don't put your mouth on the rubber. It's nasty."

Isn't the English language a marvelous thing?

The unedited incomplete ramblings of kevin

For your reading enjoyment, here is a summary of epistles that I began over the past year yet never got the gumption to complete. They are preserved here in their original non-paragraphed stream-of-consciousness psychopathic format.


11/18/05

I used to think travel wasn't travel uinless people spoke another language when you got off the plane. San Francisco changed my mind. It was the first US destination I visited that offered enough variety in people, places and culture that convinced me it was significantly foreign compared to my native Atlanta. I don't mean to imply foreign in that weird backward way. True, San Francisco has a reputation for being a magnet for the eccentric, but for the most part, the people are just as mild as the climate. San Francisco even has a certain down-home feel about it. But it also has a surprise around every corner. Whether it's Ghiradelli Square or The Castro, SF is booming with


11/13/06

This past weekend my wife and I entertained some friends who had flown in from San Francisco to visit. After eating at our favorite Cuban place, our guests had asked if we could stroll across Peachtree Road to check out St. Philips Cathedral. The day was overcast and mildly chilly, so Elaine and I were quick to agree and the four of us took temporary refuge in what was an amazingly beautiful church. No service was going on, but we could hear the organist practicing for a concert that was to take place later that evening. The music was mystifying and tranquil. The main chapel smelled of incense and hymnals, and I imagined what it must look like filled with parishoners. After peering through stained glass out into a marvelous flagstone-laden courtyard I decided to step out and experience it firsthand. There was a tree in memoriam of someone and a few benches. Even with the whir of Atlanta traffic inching down Peachtree Road, I found this place to be quite serene and it reminded me of the peaceful courtyard gardens of the Dohány Synagogue in Budapest, another house of worship that I had once visited and found awe-inspiring. The thing is . . . as wonderful and magical as these places are to be, religion is something I just don't get. As cynical as I can sometimes be, I do try and have the utmost respect for people's religion, but in all honesty I'd have to say that religion is a bandwagon that I just let pass me by. Yes, I know that its various practitioners will attest to how it has changed their lives for the better, and -- let's face it -- if people didn't hold it so dear, there wouldn't have been so many wars fought over it for so long. The opinion of someone not religious probably doesn't and maybe shouldn't matter to those who are, but I can't help but see religion as something that divides people more than it brings them together. It just seems like many faiths don't define themselves by what they believe but by what they believe differently from another group.


11/18/06


I confess I titled this post simply so that other likeminded potty mouths who voiced their frustrations via Google would come across my site to share their tales of woe and perhaps give me some insight or maybe just share in my misery of not being aboe to get my new gadget to do my bidding. I recently purchased a Linksys MediaLink so that I can play MP3's on my home stereo system through my wireless network. If this all sounds like technological jabberwocky far above your level of comprehension, join the crowd. I'm a stoop; you're a stoop. Wouldn't you like to be a stoop too? The concept sounded simple enough: This mini-boombox sits is supposed to sit in my living room and magically searches through the air for tunes on my hard drive and plays them. What could be more amazing? You'd think I would have learned though after recently replacing my Linksys router and spending who knows how much time on the phone with their technical support department that the purchase of yet another Linksys product would necessitate an additional 24 to 48 hours of frustrating short-tempered conversations with people in New Delhi who frankly couldn't care less about me getting my new toy to work because they get paid the same pocket change regardless of whether or not they've helped me listen to a bootlegged copy of Barry Manilow's greatest hits. Deep breath. It is getting late and I want to go to bed and forget all this, so I'll make this brief. In my lifetime I have purchased three products from Linksys. On all three occastions, I had to phone their call center to get the things up and running, sometimes more than once. I'm no techno-wiz but I'm no dumb-ass either. I can point and click with the best of them. Sadly however the Linksys printed directions (what little there are) and Navjot Singh Sidhu's spoken directions aren't quite that simple.

Shattastic television

After only five minutes of over-the-shoulder television viewing this evening, I decided that any further time spent in front of the boob tube would be a total waste of my eyesight. Before I go any further, let me fill you, the beloved reader, in on some antiquated and useless backstory regarding my TV viewing habits as a youngster.

Enter Captain Exposition.

Until I was in my early twenties, I spent the largest portion of my day in front of the television. Indeed when I was a teenager during the summers, if I was awake at any time during a 24-hour day, I knew of a program that I could watch. To compensate for this sloth, I could exercise with Joanie Greggains back when she hosted Morning Stretch which came on at like 5:15 in the morning. Normally though I just sat on the couch and watched her do her squats while I inhaled a box of Smurfberry Crunch and a couple of Cokes.

After that I'd watch the morning news programs, then morning talk shows. This was back during the time when a person could get all the Hollywood gossip and self-help they needed within a few hours by watching Hour Magazine, Phil Donahue, and The Oprah Winfrey Show. That was when Oprah was fat and Phil had a career. Game shows came on after that, and let me tell you there were a couple of times where I could have easily won both showcases on The Price is Right. I watched soap operas, afternoon talk shows, evening news, primetime sitcoms, late-night talk shows, the USA up-all-night movie, Burns and Allen and The Jack Benny Show on CBN, and I would even watch Ron Popeil paint his bald spot with spray-on hair. Those were the days, my friend.

Tonight however when my wife was waiting for the last episode of Lost to come on, I was treated to the final few minutes of Dance With the Stars.

Dance with the stars?

Could there possibly be a stupider idea for a show than this? If you haven't seen this drivel, first of all count yourself among the lucky. Secondly, these people aren't really stars. Joey from Gimme a Break's post-shark-jumping years and Slater from Saved by the Bell used to be stars. Now they are has-beens This is like when back in the mid-80s Family Feud had "celebrities" on the show from Dukes of Hazzard, and the only characters to show up were Bo and Luke's stand-in cousins Coy and Vance, Boss Hog's wife and a couple of other tertiary peeps I can't recall off hand. Or remember Circus of the Stars? Those stoops were usually out-of-work actors hard up for a paying gig too.

I would love to have seen The Facts of Life's Jeri Jewell juggling plates though.

Remember Cousin Oliver from The Brady Bunch? What's with all these cousins on TV shows anyway?

But back to Dance with the Stars . . . I really got sick of hearing Joey Lawrence say over and over about his dance partner "she's a blessing." The show is cheezoid. Don't watch.

During commercial breaks they played some promo for a show William Shatner's going to be on soon. They claim the show is "SHAT-TASTIC" (capitalization theirs; not mine). Excuse me? Shat-tastic? Has no one told these producers what shat means? Even UrbanDictionary.com defines shattastic as "something incredibly shitty." I'm not saying the program's not going to be shitty, but shouldn't there at least be some pretense of quality about the show? To me this is like saying This stuff is nasty. Here, taste it.

No, thank you. In my day-to-day life, I try and avoid crap. I don't wish to invite more into my home via the television. If I wanted to watch something shattastic, I'd turn on CSI- Sandusky or whatever city they're up to these days.

If television caters to the average American, that really doesn't say much for our country or culture. Maybe now that Democrats have taken control of the House and Senate, there can be some new programming in the upcoming Spring line-up.

Don't miss it. It's sure to be Bush-tastic.

Cancer cult resistor

When I began this blog a little over a year ago, one of the first things I chose to write about was something that irked me the most. I'm talking about our culture's unhealthy obsession with professing a favorite Nascar driver, political affiliation or noteworthy cause via our vehicles. Lurking at the base of this compulsion is an ever-growing social movement that I like to call the Awareness Cult. These ribbon followers top the charts, but there are several other people out there who think you should care as much about their cause as they do, and they will focus all their missionary-like zeal into promoting it and perhaps at the very least guilt you in to donating by making a purchase, a portion of the proceeds from which will go to help fight XYZ.

I remember the day that I walked into my oncologist's office to have my blood drawn and saw that they too had fallen prey to the breast cancer ribbon gurus and were selling their magnetic and plush fetishes at the receptionist's window. When I made some snide comment during that visit about accepting the pink ribbon as one's lord and savior I was met with a stern look from the nurse. She then scolded me and told me that the cancer movement serves as a healthy outlet for the energies of the families who've lost someone to breast cancer.

I am not coldhearted. I empathize with the pain and hardships of other cancer sufferers. During chemotherapy I sat next to and befriended women with breast cancer and I have heard the stories as to what it does to one's body and spirit. Beyond the individual it also eats away at family, and it can truly test the vow, in sickness and in health. Cancer itself is deadly and, trust me, undergoing the treatment sometimes makes one wish he were head. Some breast cancer sufferers have to undergo the treatment for so long that the chemicals pumped into their bodies make their fingernails and toenails fall out, not to mention the hair loss, fatigue, endless nausea, phlebitis and so on. It is this very ugliness that makes me upset at the whole cutesy kitchy cancer cult.

I hesitate to be so forthright because my intent honestly isn't to piss people off or step on feelings, but if you're experiencing either of those things after reading this, let me point out that I'm not alone. Barbara Ehrenreich, a columnist and breast cancer sufferer herself, has written an article entitled "Welcome to Cancerland" about her own experiences and why she dislikes this whole momement. She writes:

"Culture" is too weak a word to describe all this. What has grown up around breast cancer in just the last fifteen years more nearly resembles a cult—or, given that it numbers more than two million women, their families, and friends-perhaps we should say a full-fledged religion.

I have to agree. She also brings up an interesting point about how there's a certain infantilizing to the whole thing what with the teddy bears and all. I've had testicular cancer. No one gave me a matchbox car.

But on the eight day Lance created the yellow bracelet.

Lance Armstrong falls into the same category as Martin Luther, Joseph Smith and David Koresh as far as I'm concerned. He wasn't content to just join the trendy religious movement of his time, so he had to go and piggyback on it, put his twist on it and start his own. So as to maximize the number of followers, he proclaims that his livestrong bracelets aren't just in support of one particular cancer (after all, who wants to wear a piece of jelly jewelry to support ball cancer?) but instead all cancers.

Splinter sects are already forming. I once found an internet sight dedicated to testicular cancer and the graphic in the upper left corner was a bicyclist complete with yellow jersey and helmet. It wasn't Lance Armstrong nor did it have any affiliation with him other than the fact that these people were obviously trying to ride his coattails (or whatever professional bicyclists have in lieu of coattails.)

I think most people who wear those cheesy bracelets have no clue what they're for. Though does it really matter? If you're really wanting to make your "non-profit" charity take off, you may as well aim for some bauble that will eventually be looked at as trendy and au courrant.

As soon as I start my own religion, Kevin Black and the Church of the Latter Day Miscreants, I'm going to come up with a fad that will sweep the nation.

Nay, the globe.