No more blinking text

"Generals & Majors always
seem so unhappy 'less they got a war"
--XTC "Generals & Majors" ©1980
lyrics reprinted with permission from a guy who had the Black Sea album

There certainly has been a surplus of military brass oozing out of the woodwork and into our daily planet since the latest episode of "never heard of it, so let's bomb it" madcap antics has kicked in. Shit, I can barely remember Monica Lewinsky's name right now!

I'll spare you any political sermons or opinions because I don't know jack about the subject and/or any other foreign policy situation. I remember sitting at Thanksgiving dinner way back when Charlie Daniels was actually on the charts and announcing that the whole hostage thing in Teheran shouldn't last more than a few weeks. Within a year I owned all the "Ayatollah on a target" menswear that I could get my hands on plus the entire back-catalogue of the Atlanta Rhythm Section.

Any knowledge from those Political Science classes back in college has been vacuumed out of my head by the more exciting tales of debauchery from the White House and the downward spiral of great sports figures and their coke ho's. So, without warning, you're supposed to drop all that and suddenly form an opinion about something important?

It seemed like only yesterday that I was attempting to sneak through Yugoslavia on an expired Eurail pass desperately trying to retrieve my confiscated passport from some angry authority figures and today I'm thinking "Kosovo? Where the hell is that?" We've been so busy with Slick Willy and his coke ho, OJ's newly cut hand, Jenny Jones ... "and the rest" that the government/media conspiracy consortium forgot to release their upcoming propaganda previews of who we're supposed to hate on the global scene.

I blame myself of course because I've insulated myself from the real world with four-wheel drive, surround-sound and the automatic ice maker in my freezer. If I had to hit the road as a refugee I'd be totally screwed, I can tell you that! With the Balkans, I just can't get a visual on some "out of control" tyrannical despot the way I could cozy up to the cute, punchable Saddam Hussein. I mean, there was some great marketing on that guy, you just wanted him to blow up real good by the time he came out the gate. Shit, to this day I put him up there with The Penguin and the Riddler.

So, the point is (other than the name of a station that plays all-Dave Matthews) that I've been seeing a lot of Majors & Generals on the Today Show and it's kind of strange. It's like, you know they exist but naturally you don't see them till we send out the Imperial Forces to kick some hot-spot booty. As a kid in Alabammer it was different, my neighborhood was full of families whose loving wives called their husbands by their rank rather than their name. "What would the Colonel like for dinner?" "Billy, you tell the Colonel that I'm back from the commissary with his carton of Lucky Strikes." Or the time we got busted by Mrs. Tucker in our makeshift lean-to in the woods with a carton of commissary smokes "Now you listen here you young foot-soldiers, you just wait till the Colonel gets home!" and there was that sleepover when I accidentally overheard the Colonel and the Coloness making love, not war, "Oh Colonel, YES, Oh Colonel, OH COLONEL, YES, YES, YES, (pulls bugle out and plays "Charge") OHHHHHHHH COLONEL, (more bugle playing) COLONEL-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-LL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear God, when will I purge these memories?

So here they are on the air talking with great excitement about the military strategies not unlike blushing debutantes heading off to the Spring cotillion ...

... okay, I've got 2 options here, write myself out of this corner or just move on to the next inane topic ...

Gather T. Goes to the Dentist

I'd put off getting the heavy-duty work done for years for as many years as I could and it was time to get that crown, or I could put it off and "come in later for a root canal" the good DDS cleverly put before me. He explained the procedure and it sounded no worse than tactics used by the Spanish Inquisition so I was dying to ask him one more question but I was too ashamed.

"Any last questions before we schedule your appointments Gather T.?

It was now or never and I tried to play it cool.

"Do you guys use that, that gas or whatever you call it?"

"Oh Nitrous? Sure we can use that if you think it would help."

I was trying not to appear too eager but I knew I looked like a dog that'd been locked up in a kennel all day and was asked to go outside.

"Yes, I think that would be very helpful Dr. Roberts." I said in my most polite Eddie Haskell voice.

I couldn't stop my head from nodding and I could see saliva tracers flying in every direction and I knew it was time to calm down. He looked a bit concerned.

"Now, Gather T., I just want to let you know that some people don't enjoy the nitrous, it makes them feel a little funny so give it some careful thought."

As I do from time to time I answered a little too fast.

"No, Dude, really, I 'll be cool with it .. I mean ... I've been doing some research about the side-effects and I think I'll be fine."

I'd been doing some research all right, I think if I buy one more canister of Ready-Whip down at Lunds they're gonna be making a couple calls to the DEA. I set up my appointments and headed home to pick out some CDs for the big day.

Back in college I'd landed a good student job in the Health Sciences building as a Building & Grounds Worker which really meant "janitor" but it was a little classier since I was disposing hazardous waste from virus research labs and cool stuff like that. After the "Project-X" mishap when I accidentally introduced a new strain of a powerful virus by mixing hazardous waste with some cafeteria garbage the supervisors transferred me over to the dental school for a while.

The dental school was an easy gig because it was always clean so I had idle hands and it wasn't long before I found the Devil's workshop. I was kicking back in a dental chair reading a pretty good installment of Goofus & Gallant in the latest issue of "Highlights" when I first noticed the mask and the tanks. I did a quick double-take and checked the corridors for any stragglers and the coast was clear. I tried on the mask and mucked around with the valves till I found a nice blend and went back to my reading.

Soon I was feeling the effects and it become obvious that Gallant was supposed to be role model yet, Goofus looked like he lead the better lifestyle. By the time I heard the footsteps it was too late to unhook myself from this contraption. There in the doorway was Yolanda, one of the full-time B&G workers.

"Gather T.! We've been looking all over for you, what the hell are you doing?"

"Umm, just taking a break, reading Goofus & Gallant."

"Oh really, which one? Is it the one where Goofus shoots birds with a bb gun?"

"Yeah! And Gallant mends birds' wings down at the volunteer pet hospital!"

"Well, I was looking for you because we're having a party in the supply closet, Jack just brought the beer, come on down!"

There was nothing like a Building & Grounds party in the supply closet, the 900 sq foot closet was decorated with "borrowed" furniture from all over the campus and only the "le chic" of the B&G Workers were invited to the soirees so it was a real honor. It wasn't long before Yolanda was telling everyone about the new find in the dental school. Jack jumped on it right away.

"Gather T., you've been Bogarting the nitrous on us?"

"Well, no, I just found it tonight so its ..."

Jack lead the whole party over there and soon it became the big rage, on a nightly basis, all the chairs were full, the Highlights magazine pages were a turnin' and the corridors were filled with laughter, does anyone remember laughter? Pretty soon the whole scene lost some its appeal for me and I was later transferred back to the gig on the virus squad.

Then, as all good things must do, the nitrous parties came to a crashing halt when a dental student came back to pick up some papers and found 30 B&G gas guzzlers strapped into the chairs and totally freaked out.

(to be continued depending on response)

The "Dock"-umentary

It seems I just get rolling and I hit the 1,500 word limit. It was just getting to the part where I explain how wiped out I am after several nights of partying but I was really hoping to set the groundwork for my first real assignment.

I just rolled in from my first out of town assignment, covering a 26 hour non-stop party-your-ass-off trip to go put in a dock at the exclusive private resort "Aquavit Acres". It was very exciting for me to cover this Minnesota slice of life and they even arranged a professional race car driver with a radar detector to haul me to and from this annual event.

The entire event was professionally photographed and as soon as we get the Fuji-disposable camera film back I can begin my work on this testosteroperatic tale of tradition.

Monday Mud Soon to be Available in PDF Format

It's been brought to the attention of our customer service department that some of our readers are trying to read the Mud using antique computers and can't see the graphics (that would really put a damper on features like Barley n' Anos!) so we'll be experimenting with Adobe Acrobat and might come up with an option to email the issues which you, the readers, can access by using Acrobat Reader (which is free) instead of going to the Internet.

If anyone has any tips on how to do this, give us, as a colleague of mine sez, a shout.

See you next Monday!

Hey! Now We Have Archives!
02/15/99 Orientation
02/22/99 Smoke on the Water, Billy Ocean & EBay
03/01/99 Dream Weavin', Sgt Snorkel's Secret Code, Ruby Tuesday's
03/08/99 Styrofoam Circles, Exchanging Coffee At Lunds, Somewhere on the East Coast
03/15/99 The Never Ending Story Part 1, Corrections and Influences
03/22/99 The Never Ending Story "Part Deux"
03/29/99 Summer Movie Preview Contest
04/05/99 "Hey, It's a Cult!", Amateur Theology, An Unused Cartoon From the Early 80's, Contest Answer
04/12/99 Reverting to Old Ways, Going Off on Commercials, The Masters Tournament

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