M o n d a y M u d
Volume Uno Issue 24, September 20th, 1999
Please bear with me as I make the transition to a weed-free writing environment. As some of you may know, my goal is to purge the weed references out of the Mud and make it a more safe and mainstream haven. In doing so, the quality of the Mud may dip temporarily until the transition is complete.
Here's the good news/bad news. I am down to my last couple pinches of weed in my stash. You know, that real fine stuff that's in the corner of the bag and you treat it like it's the elusive spice from Dune (okay, I've had a couple hits) I mean like gold or something?
Yeah, this is the same bag, that when full, was treated like a casual responsibility. You were careless when rolling joints, spilling more at one sitting than the pittance that you treasure now, which waits anxiously in the corner of the bag for the most special of occasions. Sure, you try to retrace your steps, vaguely remembering a rather large roach that you stashed somewhere for a rainy day. I've been able to do it before and checked all the hot spots:
So in other words, I was forced to write most of this week's issue without any enhancement so I'm just not sure about the yucks per minute factor. I swear I am ready for the transition and am looking forward to writing in a more mainstream fashion that the weedless lifestyle will ensure. Really, I think I will enjoy it. I'm not kidding, I can hardly wait till those last few precious pinches of weed are history. The worst thing that any of you readers could do would be to send me some more weed in care of:
Carp 18
PO Box 21066
Mpls, MN 55421
Really, don't. All that would do is bring the Mud back to its early form of obscure references and loose structure. Plus, I wouldn't want any of my faithful readers taking a chance of getting into any kind of trouble, although I've heard that you're pretty safe if you don't put a return address on. Or else (an old army trick I learned from my brother) just put Joe Walsh, Records On the Wall, Hollywood CA for the return address. I guess it worked fine everytime.
But no, that would be too risky in these modern days. I don't know where the Post Office is at for drug-sniffing dogs, I don't know, maybe they don't use them. But just FYI, here's a little trick that I learned from a chum who wanted to mail himself a personal supply of hash from Amsterdam. He bought a big scented candle, hollowed it out, filled it like a frickin' stoner's piñata, then sealed it by melting the wax that he had scooped out. Then he sent it to his house in the good ol' USA and when he got home he had a package waiting for him and had a little piñata party. The sad ending to that story is that he got so stoned he forgot the entire stash at a party somewhere. It's a true story but it sounds like a collaborative piece of fiction by O. Henry and Cheech Marin.
The point is, although it sounds pretty fool proof, is don't try this just for my sake. I wouldn't want you to take the risk and I'm really looking forward to putting that lifestyle behind me once and for all. Really, I am. But if you do, and I swear I don't want you to, just send an invoice to Carp 18. They'll pay you after they get their royalty checks from Rough Fish Music.
I was racing with the rats the other day down 94W into downtown when I started noticing the peculiar names of cars on the road.
There was a Mazda Protege that came flying past me, swerving erratically, like the driver was having trouble steering. There was another car trying to side up to it in the next lane and this driver was signaling and pointing down to his own hands which were in the "10-2" position. It looked like the young driver of the Protege got the idea and was soon steering the vehicle with meticulous precision. As the helpful phantom car blew out of there I couldn't help noticing the name of the vehicle, it was a Mazda Mentor.
"Hmmm, that's pretty interesting." I said into my Sony microcassette recorder as I hit the switch to record that profound revelation onto my portable Minidisc recorder which I then downloaded to my Powerbook, converted to an MP3 file, dialed up America Online using my cell phone and sent it as an email attachment to my desktop computer at Mud Central.
As I was flipping my radio from the All ZZ Top station to the All Violent Femmes station I noticed a geeky looking dude in a Ford Minion exiting onto Dowling Avenue. He was forced to the shoulder of the exit ramp by a red-faced, cigar-chomping jerk in a big Ford Exploiter, it was the Type-A Edition.
Pure coincidence I thought, pure coincidence. I was down by Broadway when I noticed an Oldsmobile Achieva a couple car lengths ahead of me. Trailing it was an Olds Unda-Achieva and leading the pack was an Olds Ova-Achieva.
It never dawned on me before but the car models seemed to correlate with their drivers. I began to take note of these names, the Lexus Administrator, the Buick Clerical, the Volkswagen Promotable, the Mercedes Inheritor, the Subaru Estrogen, the Masarati Testosterone, and the Porsche PhD (Poppa has Dough).
Now heading west through Golden Valley (shaving 10 minutes off my drive by executing the little-known Dunwoody Maneuver) I passed Wally McCarthy's Caste-System Auto Sales next to Menards.
Things had changed in the auto world since my vehicle, the Plymouth Volare, was produced (here we go, an excuse to get back to the 70s and light up again). Car names in the 70s were more about romance and romantic destinations (Volare, Granada, New Yorker, Vega, Aspen) adventure & social defiance (Torino, Barracuda, Javelin, Roadrunner, Triumph, Rebel) and innocent mischief (Scamp, Gremlin, Pinto, Dart, Duster, Super Bee, Dasher, Rabbit, Pacer etc.) then there was the Monza but I'm not sure what that name means.
Since I inherited my Plymouth Volare wagon from Spence a few years back, I hadn't bothered to keep up with cars that much other than being overwhelmed with the sheer speed in which the Dodge pitchman can fold down the backseat of a Durango and still have time to rock on his heels and check his watch.
When my folksy guardian angel, Spence, disappeared from the face of the Earth and left me his coffee mug and Volare, he also left me with a piece of wisdom that I think about everyday.
"Kid, those slant-sixes'll run forever."
I think about that a lot as other parts of this piece-of-shit car fail on me during rush hour. Turns out that, while an engine is an important part of the car, there are many other important parts that make up a car as well.
Here are a few things that Spence didn't tell me about when he so unselfishly left me with this miraculous ride:
Drive Shaft: I've found this to be an essential part because it distributes power from that spectacular slant-six to the rear differential which is that thing that makes the rear wheels spin, a real plus for people who need to go in forward or reverse. I was in the left turn lane near Brookdale when the drive shaft simply fell onto the blacktop. You would think folks would cut you some slack when they see some Big Lebowski-type guy waiting for the green arrow and then pushing a 3,300 lb. vehicle through the intersection by himself, but some asshole always has to honk his horn.
U-Joints: Actually, I found out later that the drive shaft was in excellent shape, I remember the mechanic saying "That drive shaft is one bad motherf..." "Shut your mouth!" said his chick backup singer (I don't know why but my mechanic likes to work with sexy female backup singers). So U-joints turn out to be parts that connect the drive shaft to the transmission and the differential. And all this time I thought it was the kind of weed you could buy in Dinkytown.
Radiator: Unlike the jam band from Louisiana, a car radiator doesn't go on forever.
Speedometer: An essential feature for the cop-paranoid stoner. Under normal circumstances, judging relative driving speed isn't much different than judging the song tempo during a jam session. If, by chance, your senses have been altered or enhanced in any way, you may need the assistance of a working speedometer or a metronome. Somewhere along the line my speedometer went haywire and started spinning like a fan. That works out all right because the air conditioner only holds about 3 days worth of freon at a time and I just fill it up for special occasions (like romantic get-aways or when I'm entertaining clients).
The Frame: Have you ever given much thought to the frame of a car? I hadn't either until mine rusted so bad that the rear wheels began steering independently of the front. Similar to a hook-and-ladder fire truck but without somebody steering in the back.
Timing Belt (or chain): I don't want to go into detail but let's just say: 35W during the morning rush hour, an expired AAA card and a lot of hiking and cussing through the the scenic fields of Roseville.
Crankshaft Sensor: A sophisticated computer chip that lets the engine know that it has a crankshaft. Pretty much useless because when it fails, the engine refuses to run, fearing that it has no crankshaft.
Well, I could go on but I'll just wrap it up with a passage from "Lemons, the World's Worst Cars" by Timothy Jacobs:
"Volares had chronic stalling problems and the brakes were faulty on many of them (oh yeah, I forgot that story). The front suspension pivot bar was prone to break (oh yeah, Going to the Sun Highway Glacier National Park, 1992) and power steering failures occurred with some frequency (Dan Ryan Expressway, Chicago, 1987). Not least of all, the hood latch was known to fail, allowing the hood to pop up unexpectedly--a blinding and potentially deadly flaw (tell me about it, 94E after the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty concert). The catalytic convertor was prone to crack (sounds like a buddy of mine), and the carburetor lean/rich computer was prone to error (after all that other shit, this one was no biggie). In addition (there's more?) electrical system failures, unreliable differentials, wheel bearing seizures and a tendency for both front doors to jam in 35-mph crash tests (yeah but that slant six is still running, correct?).
All-in-all the car has had a few problems but I think I'll take it through one more winter. Once you get the 10-disc changer in a car, those little problems seem pretty incidental, nothing cures an undefined mechanical grinding sound better than a thumping subwoofer and an Afghan Whigs CD. Like Deano used to sing:
Sometimes the world is a valley of
heartaches and tears,
and in the hustle and bustle, no sunshine appears,
but you and I have our love always there to remind us
there is a way we can leave all the shadows behind us
Volare, whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa
Cantare, whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa
let's fly way up in the clouds
away from the maddening crowds
we can sing in the glow of a star that I know of
where lovers enjoy peace of mind
let us leave the confusion and all disillusion behind
just like birds of a feather, a rainbow together we'll find
According to the calendar it looks like summer is officially over but why let "The Man" dictate when a season ends? I've decided to extend summer a few weeks just so I can catch up on a few things.
First order of business, was there a summer movie that just did it for you? I think I need closure on this one, sure Phantom Menace should have done the job but it didn't quite do it. Austin Powers was a good getaway but it wasn't enough.
I think I've figured out the problem, a couple players were missing in action this year, come to think of it, the last couple years. Whatever happened to Arnold & Sly? Did Will Smith scare them off or what?
Yes, what was missing from the summer of '99 was a good catch phrase from a movie.....
Here's a chance to try an experimental interactive piece. Even if you're no Harry Shearer when it comes to impressions, I'm sure you could muster up Arnold Shwarzenegger's (German for Black Plowman) Teutonic-Monosyllabic tone in your head as you read some randomly chosen phrases from our daily lives. If you feel confident with your impersonation, feel free to try it out at your Bunn-o-matic station at work. Let me know how it goes:
Thank God that the new television season has arrived, here are a few shows that look like they might be good:
The Insane Lane: Dabney Coleman stars as Lt. Milt Padachowski, a State Trooper assigned to bust car pool lane violators but instead finds hilarious highway hijinks, valuable life lessons and occasionally, true love. Bronson Pinchot costars as a hilarious foreigner who travels with a mannequin in the never-ending hopes of tricking Lt. Padachowski.
2 Gals, a Trendy Bistro & a Flaming Homosexual: Three young entrepreneurial hopefuls try to make their bistro succeed by keeping up with weekly bistro trends.
The Fag & I: The hilarious antics of 2 car-poolers, one gay, the other not, and their adventures as they carpool to work. Part of a "character sharing" (see Green Acres/Petticoat Junction) series with "The Insane Lane."
Cheers, The Next Generation: The offspring of the original series' characters reach legal drinking age and belly up to the bar.
Everybody REALLY Loves Raymond's Wife: In this spin-off, Raymond's wife entertains various gentlemen callers while he's at work.
Edina Vice: Undercover vice cops patrol the Vernon Avenue strip in hopes of finding seedy "goings on."
The Governor of Fun: Featuring a theme song by Dylan Hicks, this hilarious adventure-sitcom features an ex-pro wrestler with a heart of gold who, by some fluke, ends up winning the gubernatorial race in the State of Minnesota. Now, in control of the pardoning powers of the office, he frees all his crazy buddies from various state prisons, assigns them as commanders of the state militia and proceeds to invade Wisconsin as "an act of war."
Day Trader: A high-strung day trader trades by day, plays splat ball by night.
O2-: Woody Harrelson portrays Woody O' Twoshooz, a fairly creepy proprietor of a trendy LA oxygen bar.
The Making of Becker: A weekly "behind the scenes" profile on the series "Becker." In the first installment, actor Ted Danson describes in great detail, the development of his character.
Jane Pauley's Favorite Bits From SNL: In this weekly in-depth series, Jane Pauley shows clips and rare interviews from the last 25 years of Saturday Night Live.
Looking At the World Through a Windshield (Alternate title: Corporal Punishment): George Corporal makes his network debut in a series of vignettes which revolve around regular people and their experiences with windshields. Reminiscent of Peter Sellers, George takes on all the major roles in this series. In the premiere, George portrays Humphrey Bogart who hitches a ride in rural Morocco with an old hippie (also played by George) who has just taken four hits of Green Pyramid and is now trying to catch up with the Grateful Dead at a rock festival in upstate New York. The only way he can get to the festival is to meet up with Sigmund Freud (also played by George) in Vienna and beat him in a game of nude badminton in order to win passage on the Titanic (guess who plays the captain?) which sails from England in the morning! The kicker is, his windshield is so wavy from a poor installation that he can barely see the road! Will he make it????????
Milivitz & Associates: Compelling drama of a law firm specializing in personal injury cases. Starring Danny Bonaduce as a hot shot ambulance chaser with a weakness for drugs, handguns and transvestite hookers.
Tom Arnold Presents "Canceled by October": New series features Tom Arnold as an obnoxious loser who latches on to famous people.
When Animals Hump People's Legs: Viewers send in rare video footage of their excitable pets and their unwitting guests. Hosted by Randy Quaid and his Mississippi Leg Hound, Snot.
Füssball: Vanilla Ice stars as hotshot füssball player who competes for beer and the attention of sexy Füssball Annies.
HMO: Kick back and enjoy the antics of the impatient patients as they wait to get clearance from a sardonic triage nurse played by Rhea Pearlman.
Drivers Wanted: Follow the exploits of the fascinating characters from the Volkswagen commercials. Premier episode features the shenanigans of the two guys who lip-sync to Mr. Roboto. Soundtrack includes familiar songs by Ben Neill, Styx, Charles Mingus, Hector Varela, Master Cylinder, Spiritualized, Fluke & Stereolab.
I gotta run! Hope to see you soon!
Be sure and check out the archives in case you
feel you've missed any important stuff!
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
04/19/99 Special Piece of Crap Issue: Life
During Wartime, It's a Gas! Dock-umentary Preview
04/26/99 Previous Issue Apology, No More Horny
Hillbillies for Prez, Aging Rock Stars, MP3 Files
05/03/99 Guest Writer Gus Grimstone Simplifies
the Mysteries of the Universe With A Gut Punch
05/10/99 Writer's Block, Television vs TV,
Stamping Out Crime with Sporks & Scotch Tape
05/24/99 Star Wars, nothin' but Star Wars,
if they should bar wars, don't let them end.
06/07/99 Amnesia & Other Excuses, Film
Critics on Weed, Last Random Notes
06/14/99 Surly Rantings; Yes Virginia, there
is a Rastler Governor; The Clipboard Gauntlet
06/28/99 Is Dave Matthews Cool?; Surfin' Safari;
Safety Trip Tips; Patch Adams & Other Random Notes
07/12/99 Summertime Blues, Unemployment Fantasy
#1, Still on Dave Matthews Case, Catholic Rock Festivals
07/26/99 Shakespeare in Lust; Reddi, Wip GO!
What the Puck? A Rare Moment of Reflection
08/02/99 The Sun Was in My Eyes; The Perfect
Circle; Previews for What Was Supposed to be This Week
08/09/99 Has the Mud Changed the World?;Talkin'
FBI Paranoia Blues; Classic Rock, Have We Had Enough?
08/16/99 Too tired to write a description,
I'll hit it next week (still can't think of one)
09/06/99 Looking forward to Y2K; The Family
Banjo; New Religion: Buddh-Lite; Did I Miss a Meeting?;Urgent Care, Classic
Rock
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