Arrant Knaves, All

Mixed Emotion about Area Gaseous Man's Departure

2005-06-27T22:04:00.000-07:00

HYDE PARK, USA (AP)--When an area man told people that he was packing up and moving to rolling hills of San Francisco, one guy at the laundrymat expressed mixed feelings.

"Really happy for that dude named Eman. I mean, he is going out to San Fran to study the Magna Carte and such--that is pretty cool," said a 20-something guy who wants to be known only as "Viper."

As "Viper" watched his collection of late 90s heavy metal concert tee-shirts tumble in the adjacent dryer, he added: "but the dude named Eman has a gas problem."

Although Viper only met and talked with "the dude named Eman" for seven minutes as both waited for the spin cycle to reach climax on aisle three of the 45 Street Washeteria, Viper initimated that you learn a lot about a man when he is washing clothes.

"Hey man, it is Sunday evening, and I want be watching Survivor down at the trailer with Tixie, but man my gear was getting kind of ripe in the back of the Escort. So, I gathered some quarters I been hiding in a White Snake shirt...anyway, the dude named Eman--he needed to talk about things."

Viper paused in a thoughtful moment that was rare for him. "I hate to say it, but some people they wear out their welcome--well, the dude named Eman, he...man this harsh...he farted away his welcome."

Apparently, the dude named Eman scorched several couches, one lazyboy, and one monkey suit in his long gaseous history. Things got especially bad when he ate primarily an organic vegetable diet comprised of sprouts and beans and hummus--leading to what Viper called "the literary explosive mixture" that produced flames reaching 30 feet.

Editor's Note: We are going to miss you, Eman and Brenna--save a pallet for us in SF.

A Blue Moon Party

2004-08-09T12:07:00.000-07:00

Felix carrying a mushroom stool
On the road to Meca's
With Koenig Lane's wide deep browns pointing the way
For the attorney adorned in his patented burgundy button-down
And the two silly Ptons in toothy anticipation of

Entering the secret garden at the end of a street that
Only a few know about, brushing against the bordering
Crape Myrtle blossoms when Feeling became king
Like a Leo lion feeling king returning from a long
July air-conditioned trip through a jungle of introspection

Through the blossoms into the garden
We had arrived at Meca's
Where her name is really Meca, all poetic metaphor aside,
She the gracious host of this mid-summer night's dream
Complete with wood nymphs and freaks and dudes named Bob

And all was right in the electro-chemical realm as the
Zen-like Sufi master danced in the permagrin moment
At peace, at one, at one peace, deep
At the bottomless Live Oak root
With a splash of Lone Star for good measure

Out of the corner of this new found perception
A delicious sight in a flowing ethereal form
To which I floated past the grilled sausages to say
My name is the Knave and me lady what name such beauty?
Bathed in blue moon light her voice tingled the Knavery core

When my heels could feel the grass through my sandals
And my head hair bristled the electric sky
When for a delightful evening Fear of the Day did not predominate
Only thoughts of Siddhartha riding with the ferryman
And listening to the eternal cicada-filled summer evening

________________
Footnotes:

Felix, who at that point wasn't Felix Ruiz but just Felix, really found a mushroom-shaped stool on the way to the party.
My attorney, who advises me in all matters, is really partial to burgundy button-downs
Meca is really her name, honest. And she throws great parties
Live Oak is the name of a tree that thrives in Central Texas and also the name of an Austin beer
31 July 04 really was a blue moon
Felix really wore a Who Farted? tee-shirt

KUT: Stop Playing the Ira Glass Promo

2004-07-12T21:35:00.000-07:00

If the Knave hears the Ira Glass promo on KUT one more time--just one more time--he is going to do something drastic.

One of the huge reasons I listen to Public Radio: no annoying, repetitive ads with jizmatic voices exhorting you to "...come on DOWN to the MOTOR mile." Although, recently, the Ira fucking Glass promo airs 60 times a day on KUT. It has the Knave screaming from a fitful sleep with a nightmarish narrator saying "Hi this is Ira Glass..."

OK, I realize that not everyone listens to KUT 24/7 like me, or knows who Ira Glass is. KUT is the best public radio station in the nation: it's on my car radio, my home radio, and my main streaming station on the web. And Ira Glass hosts an incredibly innovative and highly entertaining show that airs on Sunday mornings at 9 am called "This American Life," with quirky stories about, guess what, living in America. Great show, but the host has a fucking annoying voice. Ira has an irritating New Yorker voice, sorta a Woody Allen whine with a tinge of William F. Buckley elitism.

Recently, KUT has been bombarding this ad: "Hi, this is Ira Glass from This American Life. And I want to tell you about a show with one of the worst names ever..." Even writing his words makes me cringe--anyway its a promo about a show that airs at 6 am Sunday morning. Yeah, I love public radio, but I ain't leaving the cool side of the Sunday morning pillow to listen to some radio show. So, Ira Glass, shut the fuck up talking about this show.

Toob-N-Ation, Part III

2004-06-28T18:38:00.000-07:00

SPRING BRANCH, TX -- After the sight of Vernon the Sufi toobmaster and the sign-song of the well-wishers on the bank drifted away, the first stretch of the Guadalupe flowed placidly. Like the quiet before the storm.

We were seemingly alone on a river in middle of the Texas countryside--which would normally pour fear into our hearts with images of shotgun-toting, Redman-chewing cityboy hunters who can recite whole chunks of Deliverance. Instead, we quietly observed the lack of sound.

The Seer broke the silence with "Dude, the cookie monster cometh," as he suddenly realized he'd been transported to a pleasant land where the operative word is "Dude." When a large bird landed on a cypress branch, the Seer reflected on his tumultuous collegian years.

In college, the Seer gained wide acclaim in certain campus circles for his uncanny ability to mimic the call of a castrated turkey, called a hokie. At first, his new found gift seemed like a dream--as a freshman, his castrated turkey calls gave him unprecedented access to all the big bashes and even a ticket to the Chancellor's ball. As result, he started dating a senior hottie majoring in animal husbandry. People he didn't know bought him beer. And his pictures often graced the pages of the Daily Hokian with the caption Best Hokie Caller Ever.

But the novelty simply didn't wear off, and the Seer soon found the high-spirited and incessant requests for him to constantly perform quite bothersome. And the pressure became unnerving. On his walk to class or in the dark recesses of the library, everywhere he turned he was confronted with yells of "Come on, boy, let me hear the turkey." Or "Hokie caller, come on, give me one."

And then in November, a head cold shattered The Seer's fame. As thousands gathered in front of the steps of Founders Hall on the day of a football game, the Seer's excess mucus filled his upper sinus cavity. Rendered unable to hit the high notes, the Seer's rendition that day in front of the thronged thousands before the colonnades of Founders Hall sounded like a pig with a bad case of gastritis.

Now a pariah, Mary Rae Sue broke up with him and the Daily Hokian ran his picture with the caption Worst Traitor Ever.

But the Seer took this all in good stride--the right attitude as his tube floated on the river.

Toob-N-Ation, Part II

2004-06-14T20:24:00.000-07:00

SPRING BRANCH, TX --A perfect day to float down a cold river: temps in the mid 90s with the occasional smattering of merciful clouds and a lilt of a breeze carried on the wings of dragon flies.

When Vernon handed us the toobs, the left corner of his mouth curled as he said "ya'll already weathered the storm this morning...now the good journey will begin." As a toobmaster Sufi and erstwhile cul-de-sacian, Vernon had witnessed how the river affected others. He could look into our eyes and see the river. As he spoke in an untraceable accent, his plain words carried a certain oracular weight as if to tell us that we were embarking on a mystical journey. Just as a precaution, the toobmaster Sufi made us sign the at-your-risk disclosure.

On the path to the river, Felix Ruiz (who still at this point was just Felix) pointed the way through the live oaks as the Seer and the Knave carried the cooler toob full of an assortment of canned Tecate, Lone Star, bottled water, and a plastic liter of Ruiz's wine, but he hadn't tipped the cheap wine yet so it was only Felix's wine, at that point. A processional of carrying contained liquids to the river--a peace offering, a homage to the mighty one.

At the end of the ramp, well-wishers--like trailer-park Penelope and Telemachus--sat on the limestone banks as we pushed off from terra firma. They had all-knowing smiles, you know the kind, like hucksters amid a hard sell or wait staff serving the table of fleeting love. We heard: "Pleasant trip, dudes" (with inaudible mutters of "city folk idiots").

And then we begin to float past the basking, foot-soaking cypress and the ancient stone worn by the babble. Ah, the river.

In stark contrast to this idyllic setting of the flowing Guadalupe, I should first describe what we were fleeing: cube walls that acoustically serve only to amplify the grating cackles emanating from sector G-3... Days and weeks of rushing from one place to another; cruising at 80mph on the freeway before approaching a clusterfuck/slowdown/on/the/flyover...Vanishing days and weeks of starting/stopping but mostly waiting; waiting for others to respond, waiting at red lights, waiting for the check-writer in the grocery line, waiting for the next moment of outrage and bewilderment--mostly waiting between sighs.

Ahhh, but on the river, (it is worth repeating), but on the river, life runs its own course. As Huck and Jim discovered seemingly eons ago, the answer to all modernity's consternation is just to float on the river. Head back, shades on, feet splashing, spinning and floating, ass vulnerable to the knife-encrusted rocks--life as it truely is.
------------------
In the next installment: adventures on the river, the birth of TurboToob2000, moments of chaos, moments of collectiveness.

Toob-N-Ation, Part I

2004-06-08T18:55:00.000-07:00

SPRING BRANCH, TX -- By the time the cookies kicked in, the three friends started hashing out the details for the complete empire, including what shade of purple to adorn the TurboToob2000.

Only three hours prior, the relentless rain made them crestfallen as the Infiniti and Beyond motored through the Texas hill country and the windshield wipers cried "this sucks, this sucks." Hope seemed lost as they peered at the clouds for any slight indications of the sun. "Oh, oh, is that...no its headlights."

At several points, the Seer, Felix Ruiz (who at that point in the day was just Felix), and the Knave discussed turning back and cutting their losses. "Yeah, we'll rent some trippy movie and grill some steaks in the backyard." You see, the rain was testing their will and their moral wherewithal to weather the voices of complacence. In a defining moment that will undoubtible change the course of humanity, their collective faith enabled the three unwisemen to gut out the rain for three hours while securely butted in the leather seats of a luxury auto. Without such sacrifice--like the men braving the beaches of Normandy--the world would be cold, unimaginative place because the concept of Toob-N-Ation would have ended up like sperm swimming in vain on a wet dream bed sheet.

Now connoisseurs of the tubing adventure -- with countless trips down the Comal, the San Marcos, and several sections of the Guadalupe -- the three toobers are well-versed in the essentials: how to properly secure the cooler in the cooler tube and how to throw and catch cold cans of beer. (By the way, our periodical, "Toob-N-Ation Weekly" will have in-depth articles on many informative topics, including "Proper Beer Can Hurlage" an "Peeing in Public with Impunity.")

For this toobing trip on Memorial Day weekend -- which will go down in Toob-N-Ation lore as the seminal moment for the founding toob fathers -- the toobers decided to explore the upper Guadalupe at Spring Branch. This stretch of waterway is lined by enormous cypresses that, like creased corpulent men dangling their tremendous leg roots in the water, are sort of scary if your brain is really fried.

Yet, I digress: before the first rapids impaled the three toobers on the switch-blade infested limestone, the fathers drafted the mission statement: "Toob-N-Ation is not just a life style, it is a way of life."

In the next installment: the TurboToob2000 and tenuously dangling lynched tree.

Notes from Midnight

2004-06-03T22:03:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the lapse. Where are the days in which the only complication involved debating whether to use the urinal before or after pouring another cup of coffee? Calculating the price per ounce difference between the generic Hill Country Fare cheese and Kraft? Wondering if Rumsfeld is human?

Instead of these eternal questions, it's a scrapple for the apple where I have fallen into the slippery slope of verbified marketing hell. Man, it is sad, but when writing content to convince people to buy stuff, I think of the beautifully crafted dialog of Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost, the ultimate marketing collateral. Imagine the next Superbowl ad:

"Eve, you fine looking babe, you know that apple is some good shit. Sweet, a tad tangy, crisp, and oh, so refreshing. Just what a nude, supple hottie needs when gallivanting around paradise."

Voice over in rapid-fire disclaimer mode: "Eating apples from the tree of knowledge may impair judgment, reduce your life expectancy by 900 years, cause an irreparable relationship with God, and severely piss off your mate even although he is also 'apple curious.' "

Notes from 2am

2004-05-28T00:06:00.000-07:00

Damn, I forgot what it was like to work into the wee hours. Just finished a collateral piece full of inaccuracies, half-truths, and fallacies--in other words, an effective form of marketing writing. Found that five Warsteiners lubricates the flow of marketingese.

Sorry to disappoint you: no calls for Margie or J.R. Maybe Ashcroft is too busy today and decided to call off his alcoholic attack dogs.

Voice Mail from Pie-Eyed Vajpayee

2004-05-26T20:46:00.000-07:00

Alright, one of you needs to fess up--which one of you is muttering incoherent babble on my voice mail about Margie and frequenting the E-G-O?

If it isn't one of you, maybe some other band of drunken freaks has mistakenly obtained my phone number.

You may recall Sunday's post "Wrong Number" about a bewildering 3am phone call from agent Eric. While I vehemently argued otherwise, agent Eric was convinced that my name is J.R. With remonstration, Eric claimed I'm in denial of some unspecified revelation...possibly involving humanity's tenuous grasp of the bridge between the conscious and the collective unconscious, a quandary leading us to continually ponder the meaning of self and the interconnectivity of existence. While I may be in denial of the latter, my name is not fucking J.R.

Tonight, after the Knave struggled through a gym workout that consisted of three arduous trips to the water fountain, extended reps of eye exercises, that I've coined "blinking," and 15 minutes in the steam room, where my sweat tasted like coffee--man, that is sad--I checked my voice mail.

Here is a transcript of the message:
"Margie, where are you? (Extended pause with traffic noise--as if this loser is calling from a pay phone on a busy street--I can distinctly hear a '72 Chevelle SS rumble by, which leads me to think of South Lamar). Margie, we need to talk about this--it can't end like... (I might add that this dude is a tad intoxicated, as in he is totally plowed, shitfaced, pie-eyed, swacked, polluted, soshed, besotted, sozzled, stewed to the gills, full as a tick, looped--in other words, he is completely fucked up) Why don't you pick up? Well, I am heading down to the E-G-O.(Did I mention that this guy is pie-eyed?) I'll be at the E-G-O for a while if you need to...maybe...things." (Click)

Questions About This Essay
Does he mean Ego's Bar--is that what the kids, or pie-eyes, are calling that place now: E-G-O? Or are one you guys Vajpayeeing around? Who in the hell is Margie? Does Margie know J.R. and in turn know agent Eric.

Game Marred By Friend Falling Asleep on Couch

2004-05-25T20:02:00.000-07:00

SUBURBIA, TX (KP) - In preparation for hosting a party for “the big game,” he had extra bags of chips and gallons of his famous queso.

But area NFL fanatic Dipu Bhattacharya was not prepared for the rude behavior of one of his friends, Tom Chamberlain. In the middle of the game’s third quarter, Chamberlain drifted off into slumber.

“Man, everytime he comes over, the pattern repeats itself: Tom drinks all my beer, eats all my queso, and proceeds to fall asleep on my couch,” said a distraught Bhattacharya.

Chamberlain, who stayed up all night dialed into his favorite website, Youngest Allowed By Law.Com, claims the game bored him.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if Tom didn’t drool all over the couch. I spend hours cleaning his drool stains,” said Dipu.

Chamberlain, an unemployed Mens Room Attendant, is also known to talk in his sleep.

“It’s very disconcerting--you are trying to watch the game and Tom is muttering about his perverted fantasies involving getting tied up and being slathered with Pickapeppa sauce,” said Dipu.

Covert Action Unfoiled

2004-05-24T16:15:00.000-07:00

First thing Sunday morning and agent Eric's message of "Catalina 95, the mission has yet to start" (see last post, "Wrong Number) reverberates throughout the Knavery. I replay the message again to dismiss any suspicions that my dream muse, Hans Blix, created the whole charade.

In attempts to escape the paranoia that I am under Ashcroftian surveillance, I go about my typical Sunday morning. At the coffee shop by 10, Marcel has my cup with two biscotti (plain) on the saucer ready. He is impressed that I pay with crisp bills instead of nickels. (Oh, the luxuries of employment)

Nice morning for patio sitting--cool temp, babeage viewage factor high, balance of clouds and sun, but some bastard has the front page of the New York Times, sending my whole morning into chaos.

Granted, I am too cheap to actually buy the paper--but can you imagine the grimace when all I find in the newspaper bin is the pristine pulp innards: the International, Business, and the Book Review sections...yet no front page. Quickly, I survey the inside tables, the covered patio, and the outside patio, but this guy is so stealth-like that maybe Rummy should enlist him for a covert mission. All I can think is: Bastard Vajpayee. You can't just delve straight into the Week in Review without knowing about all the latest in Iraq or Bush gaff de jour? (Maybe Jenna had a Girls Gone Wild graduation party). Reading the Style section before the front page is like initiating a first date with questions about the last person you slept with.

Somehow, in between my seventh and eighth cups, he cat-like slipped the front page into the pile. Of course it is totally disheveled, turned inside out to page A8, coffee stained, possible remnants of smeared bugger, and had a cream cheese thumbprint. (Note to Rummy: your man drives a forest-green Range Rover and we have his fat thumbprint encased in cream cheese).

Wrong Number

2004-05-23T20:58:00.000-07:00

Special agent Eric isn't helping my paranoia.

Digression: I loath SBC, or what use to be called Southwestern Bell, for crossing my phone line for 10 days with my hyper-social neighbor where we had a party line (meaning that my phone rang each time her line did and we both could hear each other's calls, including an incredibly ribald conversation at 4 am involving foot fetishes--but the details are kinda hazy). After that frightening experience four years ago, I've had only a cell phone. No phonebook listing. No telemarketers. No freaks randomly picking my number and calling me.

All was fine until Thursday when some dude called me asking for J.R. "Guess you have a wrong number," I said, thinking all was settled. When the same number rang again, and then for a second time, I let it go voicemail, figuring that when he heard my message of "Earl Knavage, get a life" and realize my name ain't J.R.

At 3am Sunday morning in the dead of sleep--I am having that flying dream with Hans Blix again--the phone rings.

"Hello"
"J.R. talk to me, I am your friend"
"I am not J.R. You got the wrong number."
"Come on J.R., let's talk about your problem, I am your friend."
"Who are you and why are you calling my number?"
"I am Eric, man, we met in the van to Laredo with Lydia."
"Never been to Laredo and don't know anybody named Lydia."
"See J.R. you are in denial."

Still in a dreamlike state, I wonder briefly if Hans Blix had put me in a van with a woman named Lydia. Then I hang up.

Further confounding, Eric calls back and leaves this cryptic message:

"Catalina 95, the mission has yet to start."

Wild Onion Saturday at Town Commons

2004-05-20T21:47:00.000-07:00

You may sense a trend in the last post and this one: just like underwear, when you ain't got time, just recycle.

The following is one of my columns for The Independent, a newspaper edited and published by my good friend Matt Jones, now Matt Duffy (but that's a whole post in itself), in the Emerald City of Greenville, North Carolina.

What amazes me is that I am reliving what I wrote a decade ago.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally published in the 07 March 1994 edition of The Independent
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Last Saturday, we took a frisbee, a blanket, and the dog down to the Town Commons and laid our heads in the sprouting wild onions while looking at the swollen Mighty Tar River.

As the Town Commons comes alive again with activity — kites, bikes, RayBanned sun bathers, and dogs — I think of the people who once lived here on the river bank.
Until the early ’60s, the plot of sloped land was home to 500 impoverished Greenvillians. Accounts of the neighborhood identify the cry of squalor: crumbling tenements, inadequate plumping, crime, and drugs. As was the case in thousands of cities in 1960s America, the white knight of Urban Renewal charged in with bulldozers and dump trucks, displacing the 500 black residents of what was called “Ripple City.”

The landscaping and the addition of an amphitheatre hid any remnants of the slums. And to further the romantic notion of the Old South — a twisted romance — the white knight of Urban Renewal placed Confederate canons in the heart of old Ripple City where the blues once cried.

Why such a melancholy retrospective amidst this glorious spring Saturday of winging plastic discs, sunning skin, and highflying kites? I thought that Hampton boy always writes funny stuff, you say.

Laying on this monument of Progress and Beautification, I watch the people who frequent Town Commons. Most are from Generation X, or post baby boomers, or the pejorative baby busters, or 13th Gen, or coin your own term and write a book about it. I am talking ’bout my generation, people born after 1960.

Unlike our parents, GenXers weren’t apportioned the same American dream of buying into ever-expanding consumerism. The sweet, all-perks jobs ain’t there, along with the subdivided placidity of manicured front yards and two-car garages. For the first generation since the turn of the century, this generation can’t claim “I got it better than Mama and Deddee.”

Greenville is a haven for GenXers. Look at the demographics. With a population of 50,000, this town has 14,224 people of ages 19 to 34, according to the 1990 Census statistics. There are several reasons for Greenville’s claim to being a GenX refuge. First, it is, although the old money still refuses to believe it, a college town. College students enthralled with Town Commons and the happennin’ scene tend to stick around. Some 4,791 residents aged 22 to 24 — the largest subgroup in the largest chunk.

This propensity to stay around, or as some say "linger like a bad stench," stems from an inability to deal with the real world. Newly graduated with degrees in Industrial Hygiene, some kids have difficulty finding that 28K job. Still other college graduates dive head first into the real world and find it’s full of shit.

I am in this latter category. To borrow a few terms from Douglas Coupland, I had a job in a Sick Office with no windows, buzzing lights, and bad ventilation. There I sat in my Lamb-Slaughtering Stall — a partitioned cubicle with an ancient computer, a smiley-faced sticker saying “Have a Nice Day,” and a coffee mug imprinted with “Tim.”

After two years of perpetual and chronic abhorrence of the Sick Office, I, like many other Xers, left the signed-in-triplicate, 8-to-5 lifestyle in search of something else. For many of us, that something else is mystifying.

Time for some more demographics: of the 14,000 Greenvillians aged 18 to 34, 10,221 live in poverty. This is an ideal town to live in poverty. With a low standard of living, a median rent of $374, and the state’s lowest draft beer prices (I have researched the latter extensively), Greenville is a town in which GenXers can get by. Moreover, the profusion of service-oriented jobs allows for a perpetuation of minimum-waged part-timers; the retail trade alone has 5,000 jobs.

Greenville GenXers are, on the whole, displaced people living as inexpensively as we can. We find solace from the legions of our peers living here and share in the balloon-head creed In Limbo We Float. We no longer laugh at the veterans who say: “We live in a Pitt.” (Note: Greenville is in Pitt County).

After a big week of working 20 hours, paying the utilities on the very last possible day, and restocking the cupboard with macaroni and cheese, GenXers come together to regale in the sunshine on Town Commons. This is the city park that Mama and Deedee made for us, just as their Mamas and Deedees made for them, by forcing marginalized people to move.

But not in their wildest dreams did they think we would become displaced ourselves. Sometimes, on sun-filled Saturdays, when I lay my head deep in the wild onions on the Commons, I feel the cry of the blues.

From 25 Nov 03

2004-05-19T22:16:00.000-07:00

Before I start: thoughts to Elvin Jones now in the ultimate band.
__________________________

25Nov03

By the time Antony ceased talking like his Yankee headmaster and resumed saying 'Ya'll," the afternoon summer showers had rendered Catawba sufficiently steamy as the two brothers and Antony veered they bikes into Sherwood Forest, a spanking-new neighborhood, one later called a "subdivision." Speeding down Robin Hood Way, past the treeless lots carved out of the once prosperous Mosier's Farm, they raced in stand-up pedal stance. As they flew by house after house, they thought of Baxter Mosier, the 15th generation of Mosier born to the hand-honed wood farm house, the only child of the tobacco-drippled chin of Julian Moiser and the disappointed face of Maggie Mosier. Although Baxter had learned the land well and had could recite the ancestral secrets of planting, breeding, harvesting, and slaughtering, dirt under his fingernails appalled him as if he were allergic to the earth. Instead, he preferred to plow and feed fertile imaginations; he knew their viseral desires and wanton needs. (Here I stopped for some unknown reason, probably to piss.)

Just Vajpayeeing Around

2004-05-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

Admit one thing: you giggled like a school girl upon hearing the last name of the ousted Prime Minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee (pronounced "Vag-pie"). When listening to the news, it seems like the broadcast journalists gratuitously invoked his name at every turn:

"Now that Sonia Gandhi's party upset Vajpayee in Tuesday's elections, Vajpayee intends on rallying the Vajpayee supporters to stage another Vajpayee election run."

What a Vajpayee!

Starting at this moment, let's make a concerted effort to incorporate Vajpayee into our vernacular. Free feel to use the word as any part of speech. It can be a great intensifier, as in the stern phrase: "Look Vajpayeer, what you fail to Vajpayeeing understand is that I am not Vajpayeeing around here." Or the emphatic: "Vajpayee, Ratt is such a Vajpayeeing awesome band."

Now, I know what you are thinking: the Knave, in his sophomoric glory, utters "Vajpayee" gleefully because of certain anatomical parts that it sort of sounds like and because the last part sounds like "pie." Well, you would be Vajpayeeing wrong. What do you take me for, some depraved individual? The kind who trolls the grocery store when his cupboard lacks no victuals just to leer at supple college girls with their exposed bellies and hip huggers, especially on aisle 9 where the stacks of Romin noodles are on the low shelves? Come on now. Honestly, I love the word Vajpayee for the way it rolls off the tongue, just as I love the words Onomatopoeia and Jumblees.

Later Vajpayees

Personals Profile Hell

2004-05-17T21:35:00.000-07:00

A good segue from the "1001 Things to Put in a Post-Paid Envelop" is “101 Ways to Write an Effective Personals Profile.”

This may seem highly irregular and I am ambivalent about releasing this post, but I have to admit a dark secret first. Although I've written my share through the years, the prospects of writing a profile for the online personals sends me cowering. So, I thought it be entertaining to post my most recent online profile with parenthetical information for your eyes only.

----------------------------------------

In total violation of the top 10 list of Don’ts in the book “101 Ways to Write an Effective Personals Profile,” I can’t resist from beginning with a sob story: I miss you. I miss your grace, your style, the way you say certain words, your insightful observations, and the way you walk. (Total bunch of crap)

Other areas of my life are very well: loving family (true), good friends (total lie), good career (fudging the truth), two pets who kiss me (when I smear my face with peanut butter), awesome water pressure (ohhh,true), big gas grill (partial true-one of the jets is out), bottle of Shiraz (which has made me write this drivel), huge oak in the front, clean gym shorts for weeks (once I recycle), refinished hardwoods, computer that never crashes (knock on simulated wood), good book on the night stand (Penthouse forum), clean car with no dings, and uncluttered coffee table. Yet, life ain’t perfect, and it is a lot less so without that special someone to share intimate thoughts and dreams. (Sentimental load of shit)

During the week, I am cube-tethered and showered by fluorescence.(so true that I shudder) On the weekends—especially this amazing Austin spring—I feel compelled to be outside for every waking moment, from a morning coffee (nine cups) on the patio to an evening toddy on the porch. In between, you’ll find me jogging (really slow) around Town Lake, jumping in Barton Springs (shrinkage), and floating down the Guadalupe on an occasion tubing trip (with my idiot friends). I find inactivity inexcusable.(unless its March Madness)

As far as telling you much more, I am much more enigmatic than 2000 characters can describe (War and Peace wouldn't scratch the surface) and would prefer the discovery process to beginning more naturally, with just you and me finding out about each other (like what kind of bed linens do you favor).

Thanks for reading my thoughts.

Red-Letter Day: a Cold Plate of Revenge in a Return Envelop

2004-05-16T01:36:00.000-07:00

A productive Saturday for a change: woke up early, excavated the filth from my home and car, mowed the backyard weeds, voted in the city elections, drank a bunch of coffee, and got my hippie hair sheered. Stress-levels were minimal... until the mail came.

After an evening jog through the tree-lined avenues, which are particularly lush this year from the frequent spring showers, the return home finds the mailbox stuffed with the typical crap like pizza coupons, and Have You Seen These People Possibly With These People That May Look Like This cards. Buried in the circulars for Dave's Colonic Barn and Sonic Shot Bar and Tattoo Parlor was a letter from Patriot Mortgage Association. It was a white envelop with an address window displaying a reddish-pink letter. The envelop screams "Urgent: Final Notice, Please Respond." At this point, I am think have I've lost it and forgot to make a payment? Red letters are red for a reason, mostly to scare fluids out of the addressee. I rip it open and read:

"Mr. Earl Knavage, upon careful review of your account, we have determined that you are in serious jeopardy of losing your home that you have worked so hard for. What would happen if you couldn't make your mortgage payment? What if you suffered a debilitating accident, like losing both your arms in a wheat thresher, or became disfigured from a common office hazard, the exploding computer monitor? Have you thought about sleeping under a highway overpass, with a witty cardboard sign, like "Work for Moonpies," your only means of obtaining sustenance? Now, Patriot Mortgage Association has the solution: mortgage insurance..."

Neck veins bulged, expletives hurled--I was a bit irate. The nerve of these parasites--mortgage insurance is a scam. Fortunately, they included a post-paid return envelop. With a devilish grin, I stuffed the envelop with everything I could find: wads of newspaper scrawled with words questioning these people's parentage, some mossy pebbles, and a sprinkling of cat litter, soiled. A red-letter day for you, Patriot Mortgage Association.

Special thanks to Dogman Sierer and Lamberlain for their helpful book "1001 Things to Put in a Post-Paid Envelop."

Postal Service Delivers Letter 37 Years Later

2004-05-13T20:42:00.000-07:00

DIME BOX, TX -- The US Postmaster General today personally delivered a letter sent 37 years ago and addressed only to "Man, Dime Box TX."

With the national media in tow, Postmaster Marvin T. Runyon descended on the brambly front yard in Dime Box's bohemian section with the yellowed, dog-eared letter firmly in his claw.

When Junius Boliver Oliphant answered the door and admitted to being known as "Man" in the 1960s, Runyon handed the letter to its rightful owner. Oliphant, a retired vegetarian restaurant dishwasher, looked bewildering at the letter and the man delivering it.

"Dude, are you John Ashcroft or Captain Kangaroo?," Oliphant, 57, said as he looked suspiciously at Runyon's uniform before his glassy eyes returned to the letter.

Postmarked April, 12 1967, the letter confounded postmasters for decades. In a major break through in the case, a team of WADAFU analysts at the national postal forensic lab in Spokane, Washington developed a recipient profile: a tofu-eating grey beard with a bent for Japanese anime.

The problem: of the 313 aging Dime Boxians, 95 percent eat tofu and 92 percent rent Japanese anime on a regular basis from Big Jim's Anime Corral. Undeterred, WADAFU specialist Judson Quiffenhosen yielded the big break: a woman admitting to writing the letter to her then boyfriend--no other than Junius Oliphant.

With the Postmaster looking on, Oliphant opened the letter and read its contents:

Pick up Cling Peaches on way back
From whatever reality you're in.

-030-

Flight of the Cottonwood Seed

2004-05-12T20:54:00.000-07:00

Seven months of living on the dole: a period of Prometheus Unbound when my only daily duty was to stumble my un-caffeinated sandals the half block to the coffee shop, drop two bucks on the counter in dimes and nickels for a bottomless cup, sit on the patio for three hours with a pilfered New York Times, and write an outlandishly abstruse fictional account of an unemployed writer who sits at a coffee shop all day reading a stolen newspaper. But such unabashed freedom is unAmerican, so when a recruiter waved enough green and with the Texas Workforce funds about to dry up, I took a contract job. Currently, I am back in a cube in a well flourescienated office full of busy people wearing their winkle-free professional personae. The first day, I was given the grand tour and introduced as "This is Earl Knavage, he is a short-term contractor."

At first, the transition from the coffee shop to the cube was a tad difficult. I tried to quell the need for smoke breaks, but on the second day I caved with the justification that I needed to stretch my legs and went out to the designated and well-posted smoking area that is rimmed by several cottonwood trees. On these May days, the trees spew relentless clouds of cottonwood seed. "Ahh, the fecundity." Can you imagine what seeds from a cottonwood tree look like? Just to make sure you are with me here. For a whole smoke, I locked in on one seed floating about, high above the Explorers and Suburbans in the parking lot. As if it had wings, this dude knew that it didn't want to land on the asphalt and live a futile short seed life in a Reserved space, no this seed was destine for the rich earth miles, maybe 10 miles, away. Flipping the smoke in the sand receptacle and trudging back to the cube where my coffee was cold but I drank it anyway, I had a warm, cottony feeling shortly before the numbness reappeared.

Still pissed about the Bob Edwards Situation

2004-05-11T21:58:00.000-07:00

The one voice that eased the suckness of waking up is now silent. And as much as I've tried to embrace Steve Inskeep and Renée Montagne, the morning shower ain't the same; Steve and Renée don't ease me into the world like the magic of Bob Edwards. Two weeks ago, Bob Edwards--a radio voice with more listeners than Rush Drugbaugh--was given the royal shaft after 24 and half years as host of NPR's Morning Edition. He is now on special assignment.

For the demise of Edwards, I blame Karl Rove, Bush, Chaney, and all the other neo-Neidermeyers. I have no evidence, but I speculate that Edwards was a victim of a vast Right-wing conspiracy that includes that fakely perky Continental ticket agent in Greensboro, NC, who in the wee light of Sunday morning while wearing a painfully plasticine smile that bespoke of utter bitchery, sent a lad still reeling from copious amounts of a wine called 47 and half Rooster (btw, not bad for $7/bottle) instead of through his intended connection destination hub jetway concourse of Houston George Herbert Walker Bush Intergallatic Car Hole, she took special torturous pleasure in rerouting the liberal NPR listener through Newark, NJ which is a long distance from the Knavery where the Knave has his bed that he really needed at this point--all just because she knew he hadn't had a quality shower in weeks because he can no longer listen to Bob Edwards.

Road trip to the mystical KFC Buffet

2004-05-10T21:11:00.000-07:00

All started two years ago when our friend, who we'll call Bob mostly because his name is Bob, relayed what was first considered a tale verging on the fantastical. Bob's travels had taken him to the exotic land of Georgetown, TX, where on the I-35 Frontage Road, he espied what he thought an error in signage, or at least the devious work of a disgruntled Chief Marquee Letter Placer. (Digression: Frontage Roads are what Texans call Access Roads. When my cousin from back home visited, he asked: "Was this Frontage guy a general at the Alamo, because seems like every town has a road named after him?"). Ever the curious one, Bob pulled over and as he opened the doors of the sparkling new building, the intoxicating 11 herbs and spices smacked him dead in the primal eye of his gut. After a seemingly interminable search, he had found the mecca: the ultra rare KFC All-You-Care-to-Eat Buffet.

For two years, Felix Ruiz, a KFC freak from way back, was incredulous about the existence of the KFC Buffet and often prodded Bob for details: "So, what you are telling me is that you can eat all you want, both original and crispy, and that they replenish the tray with yet more chicken?" Bob: "Honest to God, but you need to understand it is just a KFC." Ruiz: "So, it's like a normal KFC but it has a buffet line with chicken--both original and crispy--,biscuits, mash potatoes--ohh, important question: do they have gravy, like with a ladle and I can use as much gravy as I want?"

When we got outside of Austin, we had to admit to Gupton, who had been duped into driving, that the mystical KFC lay just north of Round Rock, a town otherwise known as The Epicenter of Society's Downfall. At that point, I recall Gupton calling us "Fuckers." Forty-minutes into the trip, we pull into a parking lot big enough for 50 SUVs full of corpulent suburbanites who just shopped for plastic lawn accoutrements at the Super WalMart. The anticipation is welling as we individually pay the $7.53 entry fee into the chicken wonderland. Now, I realize you are expecting some great finish with culinary experiences approaching the orgasmic, but this a tale of a band of idiots driving 40 miles to eat at a KFC Buffet, just because such a place exists. So what do you expect? Ruiz used the gravy ladle. We ate enough chicken to feed a small town and we had bad gas for a week. On the way back to civilization, like the first explorers to discover Shreveport, we seriously questioned what the fuck we were thinking.