...and the living is easy

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that low'r'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Ah, summer. Shakespeare understood the psychological value of summer. To his readers it meant warmth and light and freedom. To Richard the third it meant the pall of the previous king was lifted and his family (namely, his brother) restored to greatness.

For me, Autumn is the best season and stripper name. But Summer is nice. I think, given that the vast majority of my DNA comes ancestors who lived in places where the sun was absent for long cold miserable stretches of time, that I have a predisposition to not be in love with high heat and humidity. But I do enjoy gentle warmth and sunlight.

Given that, there are things about the summer that are just so, well, summery, that they elicit memories of just pure joy. Take a drive-in movie for example (any one under the age of 25 need not apply; these cinematic dinosaurs are now likely condominimums): A tinny speaker attached to your car window or, alternatively, your am radio tuned to some obscure and unused radio station. Mosquitoes and beer, and mutually accepted pubescent experimental fondling. 80 people in a car trying to cross the border that had no political implications. really, a completely crappy cinematic experience and one that I want to re-create. I saw Star Wars at the drive in. On a gigantic screen. I remember hoping as a kid that the late movie would have boobies. Youngsters will say "what's so special about that? We live in an age where movies can be downloaded from Pirate Bay at will and boobies have their own informercials. You seem quaint." Go F- urself.

But seriously, drive-ins scream summer. So does baseball. The whites of the Red Sox home unis and the green of the infield grass never look whiter or greener than in the light of the July sun. And cotton candy. Try it in January, you'll feel stupid and sticky, like an illiterate hooker. Fireworks in march seem juvenile; who wants to lose a finger in spring? A few other things that scream summer:

• Corn chowder
• Hot dogs
• Fried Dough
• Roller Coasters
• Concerts 
• Jimmy Buffet (have you ever listened to his Christmas Album? me either)

I like the passge from summer into autumn, from intensity to mildness, from solstice to equinox: a constant reminder that all things, good and bad, must pass. Autumn is soon upon us, along with football and apple cider and the smell of fallen leaves. Life is good. But summer is a lovely season, and a perfectly serviceable stripper name.

Fat ass nation

Hold on, hold on. Before I get a thousand letters from the PMRC or NOW or something, let's not go jumping to conclusions. This is not about the buttocks, although for some on the list, they are a substantial part of the equation. No, this is about placing Americans into neat little categories. I believe that many Americans fall into the following categories: Fat Ass, Lazy Ass, Smart Ass Wise Ass and Dumb Ass.

Fat Ass: Here are the facts. America is the fattest nation on earth. No one denies it. No one seems to take it as a national insult, it's like saying the the nose guard is the fattest guy on the football team, everybody knows it, but nobody's gonna tell him. This is a national problem however. We have a generation of young folks who would rather play in a virtual world than venture out into the majesty of the real one. We are still animals, one with massive intellectual ability, but still an animal comprised of organs and muscles and bones, and those things need to be used in a healthy way in order to maintain the sanctity and overall health of our brains. We need to make healthy living a national priority, because the first nation to fall is the slovenly one.
This leads me to...

Lazy  Ass: Partly perpetuated by being a nation of Fat asses, we have become lazy. The remote has to work from all angles so I don't have to point it directly at the TV, the microwave needs to be stronger, the internet needs to be faster...I need instant this and automatic that. Technology is great, it makes life easier and our quality of life increases. But it shouldn't be at the cost of, when the power goes out, becoming infants. Unable to cope with the silence of nothingness, we call the power company every five minutes to see when the power will return. We go crazy in the serenity. Think back 200 years ago. The power was always out. Our technology should serve us, not the other way around.

Smart Ass- This category can contain folks from all of the other categories. An existential society creates the cynicism this category. In older times, kings and queens and religions meant something.  Traditions were created to pay tribute to these old belief systems and a sense of duty attached to a belief in the hereafter. Along the way, science and philosophy whittled away at these belief systems until they were rendered meaningless; in fact, some believed that life itself was rendered meaningless, so adherence to hierarchy of any sort was rejected in favor of a "me first" attitude viewing the world through an ironic lens. So respect for teachers or police officers or other "order keepers" is viewed with disdain. Sometimes, I can feel myself creeping into this category, and I remind myself that life has meaning. there may or may not be something beyond what is; I do know this: what is, is. And conducting yourself in a way that is humble and compassionate and true has value.

Wise ass: These are merry mirthful folks who take a good-natured view of the silliness of the world and sarcastically view the world as silly, just silly. They are quick to point out the absurdity of, well, just about any pretenses or contrived emotions and usually accurately so. They do have trouble maintaining focus, and once labelled as such, is hard to shed. However, I understand Eeyore was a Wise Ass until he discovered the Tao of Pooh and became a wise ass.

Dumbass. I don't need to explain this one, do I? Look around.

Feel Like Bacon Love

Thurg stood over the dying beast, keeping his distance as the animal thrashed. Finally drawing its last breath, Thurg looked to the sky to thank the yellow god for providing him with such sustenance. His family would eat for weeks. He withdrew his cutting stone, and began to carve the flesh from the beast. As he carved the stomach of the great beast, he was preparing to cook up the entrails for his trusty dogs that helped him track the beast. The fire raged. Slicing through the belly, a thin slice of the belly meat landed on a hot rock next to the fire. The smell hit him almost as instantly as the sizzle reached his ears. His neanderthal brain's pleasure center was aroused. Gingerly he picked up the hot slice of meat, pinched between two fingers, and greedily consumed it. A ring of grease around Thurg's lips framed his smile. He threw the cooked entrails to his dogs and sliced more belly and placed it on the stone.

Bacon is one of those foods that just by the mere preparation people stop and smell and just for a second, the pre-historic, primitive part of their brain is activated. They sniff the air; they salivate just ever so slightly. Even vegans and veggies stop and instantly recognize the majesty of the smell. For those of us who utilize their canines, we don't just stop and say "Hey Bacon's frying." We immediately want the bacon. We become that commercial of the dog searching for  bacon bacon bacon. 

Bacon is indeed the belly of the beast, at least in the States. This is superior to other types of "bacon" found around the world. Other "bacon" is only ham. The bacon, as we state-siders know it, is an almost perfect balance of fat and sinew, whereas "Canadian bacon" is mostly lean. There is no taste comparison. I like ham, but I've never craved ham and I've never wrapped scallops in ham.

A researcher has determined that Bacon has a particular chemical make-up of the fat chains found with-in it. These chains possess several qualities of umami and are highly addictive in nature. Poor little piggies, an actual drug for the human brain.

It can come in apple smoked, hickory smoked, cured, uncured, maple cured, apple cider cured or just plain. I have memories of my grandmother's house, bacon wafting through the kitchen, a stack of thin pancakes with butter and a side of bacon and the smell of bacon brings me there. The aroma transports me to a simpler place, where a boy could dip his bacon in his maple syrup and enjoy his cousins' company while his uncle cooked for him and then sat down to share in the feast. A place where my grandfather was still alive and my grandmother lovingly made her coffee bread to dip in strong coffee or to butter heavily.

Bacon, you wonderfully crunchy time machine! Bringing me back to a time when I didn't have a care in the world.

Thurg smiled, and finished the belly meat before telling of his discovery with his family.

Rhymes with Pistachio

There's a lot of talk about mustaches these days. What? There's not? Oh, well indulge me a little bit. First of all, I love the fact that the word "mustachioed" even exists. Etymologically speaking, that is one of the most efficient uses of language. Bearded, goateed, soul patched and mutton chopped are cool and everything, but for cool words, Mustachioed is king.

The word Moustache (Mustache is the American version, so I will use that here) is a derivative of several older European language words meaning, well, mustache. It is so perfect, that it is itself. Like a divine revelation, it just simply was. Some cave dweller looked at his reflection in a deep pool of water and uttered "Glorg has good mustache" right before he was eaten by a pre-historic alligator the size of a Hummer H3, not the real hummer; that would be so large as to strain credulity. Luckily his hunting partner heard his grunts. And thus, the first polysyllabic word, Mustache, was uttered. It's only a theory.

Hurtling through the ages, I assume mustaches were prevalent universally as a lack of cutting tools encouraged their growth. Man discovered fire, fire led to stone and iron tools and eventually, shaving started.  This was especially good for the bearded ladies who could now be distinguished from their brothers. According to http://www.moderngent.com/history_of_shaving/history_of_shaving.php, at first, regular shaving was utilized as a way to prevent opponents from grabbing the beard in battle. Then, as this practice continued, Barbarians (the unbarbered)  were the warriors with facial hair. It spread from the warrior ranks and shaving became, historically, a common practice with the ladies and gents.

Beau Brummel and Victorian fashion sense made shaving more commonplace and almost a necessity for men to be accepted in Europe. Think of pictures of the founding fathers  Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, Franklin: all dandies with powdered wigs and no hint of facial hair. In fact, the portraits of these great men suggest that their skin was pink with the hue of razor burn and hard cider.  

Then came the civil war and there was facial hair everywhere. Lincoln, Grant, Lee, Hooker, Burnside (where sideburns comes from), these warriors brought facial hair back into the mainstream. Certain styles of facial hair became fashionable. Think about it. All our presidents with mustaches were filled to the brim with badassery. Lincoln, Grant, Roosevelt (Teddy). Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter? No mustache. But Carter's breath always smelled like peanuts and he legalized home brewing, so that was good.

Now the mustache, and the beard and almost all facial hair is commonplace and accepted. Even Frida Kahlo rocked a mustache. I am going to rate my top five mustaches.

5. The Magnum: Nuff Said.

4.  The Zapata: Banditos with no Mustache are no threat at all.

3.  The Ear to Ear highway: This look brought back together the ears in a furry landmass across the face. That's General Burnside in the picture.

 2. The Tickler: One caveat with this stache: You must be crazy. Look at his eyes. Loopy.

1.The Handlebar:  the awesomeness of this Mustache is so unmatched that only a select few can pull it off, and only a percentage of those won't be tying damsels to railroad tracks.

There are of course, the porn mustache, the pencil thin and, infamously the Hitler (shoulda been the Charlie Chaplin, but that bastard Adolph ruined it). Men from all walks of life sport the mustache, from Jesus to Buddha, Martin Luther King to Evander Holyfield, John Waters to Johnny Depp, Clarence Thomas and even Superman.

Me? My mustache looks like crap. A cross between a Mongolian raider and a 12 year old boy. But to the other mustachioed fellas, i say keep the Barbarian tradition alive.

*Note. there is a great Mustache piece found here. http://artofmanliness.com/2009/09/08/a-treatise-on-the-mustache/  ;it's funny comprehensive and well written.