Happy B-Day George!

Grab a cup of mud once again, sit back and enjoy yourself for a few minutes before you get involved
with your duties as a responsible worker bee on this crazy spinning basketball we call "Earth"
(Some credit must be given to Eddie Van Halen for that heavy basketball/Earth metaphor ).

Welcome Back My Friends to the Scroll That Never Ends
Welcome to the 2nd installment of "Monday Mud," I can almost bet that a few of you were thinking "Whoa, I can't believe Gather T. actually hit his first real deadline!" while the rest of you are thinking, "Hey ... this ain't Pamela Lee." Well folks, one thing I've learned this week is that my first deadline (last week's debut) wasn't really a deadline, it was just the day I randomly decided to post the first Monday Mud (which reminds me, I'm not all that thrilled with the name but since I'm not redoing the graphic, I'm sticking with it).

Here I sit, typing, late on a Sunday night knowing damned well I've had a full week to prepare. Instead, I've found a new commitment for my least favorite part of the week, that Sunday Night feeling, or as John Prine called it "The Late John Garfield Blues." I never would have known what that song was really about had I not bought the "Great Days" boxed set and read the liner notes. I've never been too good with picking up on lyrics because I'm too busy listening to guitar chords, which on that piece, are, I believe, G, C & D. Of course sometimes John will throw a curve at you and use a capo, then it takes me a couple more years to nail it.

Anyway, the song refers to staying up late on Sunday night (probably with an Illegal Smile) and watching some old John Garfield movie on the late show (this was before cable, kids) with the impending work week looming over you ... ok, we're getting away from the uplifting nature of "Morning Mud" ... let's move on.

"Wagner's Music isn't as Bad as at Sounds" -- Mark Twain
It wasn't till recently that I figured out the stories that are described in REO Speedwagon's "Ridin' the Storm Out" and Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" and when I did finally figure them out, I sez to myself "Man, those songs are even worse than I thought!" I think my mistake was being drawn into the Wagnerian operatic melodrama and the bombastic pelvic thrusting dynamics of the music; they tricked me into thinking that the stories were of the utmost importance and maybe involved some sex. It turns out, the guys from REO Speedwagon drove through a storm in the mountains .......... like, yeah, I've done that too and it's scary but it didn't inspire me to shriek about it 3 octaves above middle C and hire a damn synthesizer player just to make a siren sound.

Pretty much the same slam for "Smoke on the Water" except it's near the Swiss Alps instead of the Rockies, is about a fire instead of a storm, and it involves "some stupid with a flare gun."

Should I Use Quotes or Italics?
After publishing a bandzine for 8 years and never getting the Vol / Issue deal right I figure this is my chance to get some things straightened out. I'm pretty sure that if I mention a person, like Billy Ocean, I would put his name in boldface type the first time he's mentioned but not if he were mentioned again, and the odds are pretty good that he wouldn't be (although I do have a Billy Ocean story in the works).

If I mention a title (magazine, movie, song, album etc.) I'm thinking that it should be in italics. But, the problem is, italics seem hard to read on a web browser so I'm thinking I'll go with quotes. If anyone knows these basic rules please e-mail me, Gather T. Swanson at the following e-mail address carp18@aol.com. You may be wondering, "Who the hell is Carp 18 and why would I send e-mail to Carp 18?" Well, it's a long story but I'll try to streamline it for you ...

Carp 18 is a band that is, kind of on the skids, but they're still hanging together because they've buried themselves pretty deep financially and also, well, they just don't really know how to break up very well, especially since they're writing some great music and the band members don't really have any friends other than each other.

Anyway, in order to help ends meet financially for them, I've rented out some of their office space and share their America Online account with them. It's a pretty good deal for me because I searched for months to try to get an account with AOL and I just can't find any information on how to do it. I've heard good things about their company but they really seem to be lagging in their marketing techniques, I think I might send them an e-mail and suggest that they send out Free Trial memberships or something, I think it would be good for business. I don't think I could afford my own account anyway because Carp 18 told me that right now they're paying almost $700 a month for their service and they cut me a sweet deal for $300 so I'm actually getting it for LESS than half, no math majors in that group I tell ya. There was also an additional "one-time" hookup fee of an "even grand" just to add me to the account and a password fee of $600. They said they'd give me my own screen name and e-mail address eventually but it's pretty expensive and I'm pretty tapped out. Luckily one of the Carp guys has set up an appointment for me to get a business loan so I should be set after I get my Grandmother to cosign on the loan since her house is paid for (in case they need to do a lien against her property).

Still Bitching About My New Commitment
The fact that, last week, I said "... see you next Monday" locked me into a situation which I'm already beginning to regret, to tell you the truth. After the dramatic buildup I actually have to think up stuff during the week and it's starting to annoy people that I interact with. It's like, my sensors for the "oh so charming" slices of life are working overtime and as soon as anyone shows any interest in any of my verbal ponderings I get all excited and start seeing headlines like these...

Have You Ever Eaten Lunch at Target?

How Do You Tell The Best of the KQ Morning Show From a Regular Show?

I Couldn't Decide Which CD to Listen to on the Way to Work, but, as it Turned Out, the Batteries in My CD Player Were Dead Anyway

Well, these headlines may sound quite mundane but after several months of real headlines like ...

Most Powerful Leader on the Planet Spills Baby Batter on Intern's Dress

... maybe it's time to step back a little bit, put Sam Kinison's voice chip in your personal "thought bubble" and say to yourself "WHO THE FUCK CARES????????????????????????"

Damn, I was doing good on the profanity thing and I just lost it ...

Back to the Pressures of Doing This Column
So getting back to the pressures of doing this column ... the decision has to be made, and should have been made a couple weeks ago, as to finding a focal point for "Monday Mud." I mean, do I go with the 2nd rate George Carlin ponderings "ssssfffffffffffff ... Yuh ever take the milk carton outta the fridge and there's only a few drops left in it?" Or a little Jerry Seinfeld "What, is the deal with pylons, I mean, who invented these things?" And the local celebrity beat is already being covered by Budd Rugg which is good because I don't even know who the fuck half these people are, even though I watch local news when there's a need to, which of course, there are only 2: baseball scores in the summer and basketball scores in the winter. If I see one more "Before We Go" feature about some fuckin' "Good Samaritan" I think I'm gonna run out and shoot some baby ducks. Or, how about those "Investigative Reports" about inaccurate parking meters, microscopic pictures of parameciums on hotel room bedspreads or hidden camera shots of refrigerator repairmen whizzing in a kitchen sink. A friend of mine worked for Maytag and he said that he got so tired of seeing those signs in the kitchen that said "We don't wash dishes in your toilet, don't piss in our sink!" that he quit the business. Besides, he said that in all the years he repaired refrigerators he didn't know anybody that whizzed in anyone's kitchen sink ... they almost always used the bathroom sink.

An Esteemed Colleague of Mine Sez...
So anyway, a colleague of mine ... you ever hear people say that? Most people probably say "This guy/girl at work sez ..." or "This dude/chick that produces useless crap with me" but no ... "colleague" ... so fancy. To be honest, I've only met a couple people who speak of their coworkers as "colleagues" and when they do, they, first, clear their throat, adjust their horn-rimmed glasses and then utter the above mentioned phrase with a flair in their voice and eyebrows raised high. And I'm thinking, "What is this, a fuckin' George Plimpton impersonation?"

So this esteemed colleague of mine has become addicted to EBay, the online blah blah blah trading something or other. He merely went to www.ebay.com (I'm only providing the address, not the actual link, I'll give you the syringe but you have to find your own heroin) to find a deal on a guitar, or was it a MiniDisc player? I can't recall, but now he's hooked. At first it was electronics, then it was first edition books, then he started doing all his grocery shopping by auction, bidding on meat & produce items from around the globe; then it started getting weird. He started buying things that you would normally get at a convenience store ...

We were enjoying a few drinks the other night and having an in depth discussion of the formula for Pi and I ran out of smokes. I was gonna run down to SA and he sez "Gather, hold on, there's a better way!" He logs onto Ebay and does a search for Camel Lights, and he finds a guy in Portland who's selling a pack and the bidding's only at $1.73; but there's a reserve not yet met so it could be trouble. We have no idea what the reserve price is and if it's not met he can shut down our offer. The trick to bidding is to wait till the last minute before you make a move. There's 3 minutes left on this auction and we watch with beads of sweat dripping down our foreheads. As it goes into the last minute, bids come flying in left and right $1.74, $1.75, $1.76, $1.77, $1.78, $1.79, $1.80, $1.81, $1.82 ... with seconds left we bid $1.83 ... silence ... sold, to the bid from Minnesota. We jump up and hi-five, we don't know what the reserve was but it had been met. We work out the payment and shipping agreement and just as we're shutting down the computer, the doorbell rings, the Fed Ex guy is already there with a mint condition pack of Camel Lights. I carefully take the cellophane off the top, rip off that little piece of foil, tap the pack against my left hand (that's when 3 cigarettes ease out of the pack, their beautifully brown speckled filters revealing themselves to the world for the first time since they were packaged by automation out in North Carolina) remove one slender cig from the pack, light the end without the filter and inhale the sweetest hit of tobacco plant laced with 2,347 chemicals that I've ever had the pleasure of tarring my lungs with.

As I'm waiting to exhale, I see my colleague doing the thumbs up accompanied by the question mark eyebrows. As I exhale, the room fills with the finest Carolina cloud I've seen since they pulled Winchesters off the shelves in '73. Not only is my addiction to nicotine confirmed at this moment but to online auctioning as well. I look at my esteemed colleague and say "Yeah, Ebay has been very good to me."

It's Now 2:07 AM Monday Morning And Now I'm Remembering More Stuff...
• Guitar Shopping at Lunchtime
• The Grizzlies Vs The Timberwolves & The NBA Gives the Fans the Foam Finger
• The 60's, The TV Mini Series Subtitled "The Power of the Pigskin"
• Does Anybody Really Have an Interesting Job?
• Morning Commute Music ... Astral Weeks or Hang Time?
... Oh Well, Maybe Next Week.

So, that's it for this week, see you next Monday!

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Monday Mud 02/15/99 Orientation

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Please send any questions, concerns or comments to carp18@aol.com