Sluggo's Irrelevancy Tunnel

HOT HOT HOT!

sluggo_von_hoth — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 21:10:55 GMT

Is your love life currently residing at the bottom of a cat box? Are you feeling that something's missing in the boudoir? Do you crave excitement and a night of sensuous fun? Want a good time with Sluggo? Meet me this Tuesday night at Luxuria Music ( http://www.luxuriamusic.com ) and we'll see where the evening takes us! The fun will begin on Tuesday, September 18, at 8 PM PST (that's 10 pm for you Midwestern studs and stud-ettes, 11 PM for you East Coast hotsters) during the "Love Hour" at Luxuria, hosted by none other than Ron Sures, whose velvet voice will enliven your evening and raise your...spirits. Join us in the Make-Out Room for an evening of sprightly conversation and wicked fun! And for all you voyeurs ("I like to watch") there's a live studio webcam and videocam chat--so you can view the DJ in all his sexitude AND see what the other Luxurians are doing during the show! To access the Make-Out Room, just log in to Luxuria...you will need to join but it's a painless process (OK, we'll make it painful if that's your bag, we have a whip and some spurs) and then click "Chat" on the main page. If you want MORE MORE MORE, go to the Peepshow at http://www.stickam.com/profile/luxuriamusic and click on the large Luxuria image to the right of the screen. If you already have the equipment and aren't afraid to use it, become part of the show by joining Stickam! The first Tribe friends of Sluggo who show up in the Make-Out Room or the Peepshow will receive a three-pack of special-edition Luxuria Music condoms AND a limited-edition Tiki pin from yours truly, who hopes to meet each and every one of you for a polymorphously perverse evening of musical hotness! When at Luxuria, be sure to go to http://www.luxuriamusic.com/Article226.phtml and share your favorite three songs for knocking boots! Then tune in to the special edition of "Let's Get It On" with the Lovemeister himself, the Millionaire, to see if your choices made the cut! "Let's Get it On" will air Saturday, September 22 and 29, at 7 PM PST (9 PM central, 10 PM eastern). Hope to see you there! Bring your favorite beverage and we'll play.

one word

sluggo_von_hoth — Sat, 17 Jun 2006 02:50:27 GMT

OK, OK, Sluggo is also stepping on to the trolley. Please leave a one-word comment that you think best describes me -- it can only be one word long. Then copy and paste this in your journal so that I may leave a word about you.

It ain't insulation.

sluggo_von_hoth — Wed, 17 May 2006 18:44:44 GMT

For the individual who said "What's the problem? It's just a little poop in the attic." This is what you call "a little poop in the attic"? The entire attic looks like this.

I hate raccoons.

sluggo_von_hoth — Mon, 15 May 2006 19:26:16 GMT

I just wanted to give a shout out to my burgeoning horde of Constant Readers, all three of them, and let everybody know there is news on the home front. And man oh man, the news ain't good. Apparently, the attic of Casa de Crockett was being used as a veritable Shit Amusement Park for a ravenous clan of angry raccoons with intestinal problems, to the tune of an estimated $7,500 in extra cleanup costs, and a week of rehabbing and hazmat suits. The attic is completely trashed and is loaded with piles of raccoon shit and, I'm told, worse...what could be worse than raccoon shit?...I can't imagine. Well, maybe I can imagine. It's not something I want to imagine, though. We are mulling over our options at this point. These options include going to the sellers in a Righteous Fury and asking them to split the costs of attic rehab, because there's no damn way they didn't know what was up in that attic. I am moderately sanguine about our chances at this point because I think these people just want to get rid of the property. It's a drug on the market. Sure, they cut the costs tremendously, but you have to wonder how much further they will go. I think the fact that they were selling what amounted to a toxic waste hazard with no disclosure of said fact may be in our favor, since we are more than willing to correct this defect if we can get a little help in doing so. This is eating into our comfortable profit margin to the extent of putting us into red-line territory. Another option is to put our stuff in storage and get an apartment in Merrillville and just go shopping all day until we find a place. This is tempting but it sure ain't Casa de Crockett. We kind of have our faces fixed for Casa de Crockett. Plus, the idea of going round and round again, looking at shitholes and hiring inspectors and placing offers, is not very appealing to yours truly. I'm not seeing any good-looking houses, not even with the most current listings available. Some of you have heard about the Crazy House and the Hoosier Daddy. There was also the Cape Cod Almighty, which was priced at about $130,000, stank of raw sewage, had no appliances, had plastic pipes that wobbled if you sneezed on them, had 70-year-old wiring and an oil tank in the basement, not to mention an angry ghost lurking in an attic closet. I say "angry" because it had majorly bad vibes and it tried to push my daughter down the stairs. I saw it. Did I mention that we close on our house (and have to be out) a week from Wednesday? And is Casa de Crockett worth all this Sturm und Drang? Yeah, it is. It's a veritable mansion. I guess the question is how far are we willing to go and how much chutzpah do we have? I have beaucoup chutzpah (sorry for the mixed languages) but poisonous raccoon shit is enough to disturb anybody's sangrfroid. I don't have any photos of raccoons so here is a photo of my grandfather and great-grandfather going fishing. I sure wish I was fishing. I wish I was anywhere else except packing all these fucking boxes and worrying about where the fuck we're going to live next week.

A good reason to move.

sluggo_von_hoth — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 18:51:20 GMT

We had a neighbor here who was Bad Juju. She was in her late forties and she looked like the end of a very bad road indeed. She was flabby and tired and kind of sad and her husband weighed 400 lbs., wore jumbo overalls, and looked like that guy who chases Pee-Wee Herman around with a dinosaur bone in the movie "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure." Anyhow she had the hots for old Chucko and expressed her longing by sitting on her front steps every single fricking morning, drinking her coffee, wearing an old chenille bathrobe and nothing else. When Chuck walked past the patio door, something that he tried to avoid doing whenever possible, she would expose her Piazza di Espagna and bat her eyes at him (and unfortunately, at anybody else who was in the line of fire). Then she would go inside and just disappear for the rest of the day, sometimes even leaving her coffee cup behind. We never saw much of the husband except once in a while he'd be walking up and down a road several blocks away, leading a very tiny poodle on a five-foot leash. These neighbors had kids, two sad-looking little girls, and everyone was very quiet and kept to themselves except the mom who had "issues." Then it all stopped. It gradually dawned on us that nobody had really seen the entire family, including old Hotpants and her fuzzy, for at least a month. They were living there but only coming out under cover of darkness, if at all. It was like Willy Wonka's factory: nobody goes in, nobody comes out. People came and went and rang the doorbell and sometimes pounded on the door, but nobody answered and we suspected murder had taken place. But the real reason was revealed when one day the police came, banged the door down, hauled everything out of the house, dumped some of it on the front lawn, took a lot of it away, then shut the door and padlocked it. After all the goods and chattels had been piled on the lawn, it started to rain like blazes and the entire thing was the saddest situation I have ever witnessed, though I was glad in a way, because it meant I didn't have to look at that woman's tired old fuzzy any more. It turned out that the family hadn't paid any of their bills for almost a year and the people at the door were various collection agencies and representatives of the association, and finally the place and much of what was inside it had been repossessed. And when new owners moved in, they said the interior looked like a hobo encampment because all the water and heat and electricity had been turned off and they had been living like nomads in the basement for quite a while. This situation still haunts me and it could happen to any of us, except for the tired old fuzzy part. Eviction is probably preferable to having to look at THAT every morning.

Real real estate.

sluggo_von_hoth — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 19:59:52 GMT

As some of you know, Chez Sluggo is in the process of relocating our swanky establishment to another site, and this means playing a crafty game of (business) cards which goes something like this: 1. Clean and fix up your old house, and then ask for top dollar; 2. Find somebody else's house that has also been cleaned and fixed up, and then offer them way, WAY less than top dollar. I say "cleaned and fixed up" but this is not always the case with some prospective homes, which often appear to have been slathered with buckets of paint atop anything which doesn't move, including household pets that were too slow to get out of the way of the paint roller. Another gambit is to make sure the electricity is turned off so you can't look at inconvenient details like that hole in the bathroom wall, or the four-foot crack in the basement floor, or the scorch marks in the bedroom closet. There have been many "humorous" looks at real estate jargon, of which we have seen a lot these days, so I offer up to you yet another "humorous" look at what that jargon actually means in Real Life, judging from what I have seen this past few weeks. For example, let's imagine you're looking at a listing which runs as follows: "Pride of ownership shows in this charming three bedroom home. Open concept LR/DR and kitchen, 4 fireplaces, fenced back yard for enjoyable evenings, loads of features, 3 baths, can be nice with a little TLC, bath in basement totally remodeled, great view, seller motivated, make offer." When you look at the place, this is what is actually meant: --"Pride of ownership": The outside looks marginally better than the inside even though this means they stuck plastic cemetery flowers in the dirt by the front door. --"Charming": Not charming. --"Three bedrooms": One fairly large bedroom, one miniscule bedroom, and a dank, dark cubbyhole in the basement with a closet nailed on. --"Open concept LR/DR and kitchen": It's one big room with a fridge and a stove at the end of it. --"4 fireplaces": One wood box fitted with a gas fireplace system and three electric space heaters (no, I am not making this up, I saw it). --"Fenced back yard for enjoyable evenings": There's a four-foot high chain-link fence surrounding a bare plot of dirt, which still looks better than the inside of that house. --"Loads of features": It features all the requisite doors and windows. It also features atrocious wallpaper, pink shag carpeting mottled with stains, and "DAD" plaque stapled to the basement wall which features purple wood paneling. The house also features holes drilled in the kitchen floor for no apparent reason, and it features an odd smell running through the house that you cannot quite identify, it is either that of lizards or an incontinent dog, but it does not smell good. --"3 baths": There is one bathroom upstairs with an old tub; there is a sink and toilet in the palatial "master bedroom suite"; there is a toilet in the basement which is just sitting there in the middle of the room. --"Can be nice with a little TLC": You will need to remove wallpaper from every room, tear up all carpeting throughout the house, replace all the rotted kitchen cabinets, tear out all the flooring, pull out all the hideous paneling in every room, repaint everything, install a new sidewalk, replace three cracked windows, retile all the bathrooms, replace all plumbing, replace all appliances, redrywall the ceiling where somebody put his foot through while installing a ceiling fan, and hire somebody to remove the enormous half-dead tree in the front yard before it comes crashing through the roof. Oh, and you will also need to replace the roof. --"Great view": Of the neighbors' really nice-looking houses. --"Seller motivated": Please, please buy this house, it has been on the market for a year and nobody wants it. --"Make offer": Please, please buy this house, it has been on the market for a year and nobody wants it. In the meantime, I have also found that when a listing contains the following term, DON'T GO ANYWHERE NEAR IT. --"Sold As Is" with no further descriptions whatsoever: Oh, dear Lord. Run away. Call an exorcist. Do what it takes, but don't go in that house.

Family matters.

sluggo_von_hoth — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 03:04:41 GMT

Reading Tremain's great blogs about his family has moved me to submit one about my own folks. A favorite family story and one of my daughters' favorite childhood bedtime tales has always been a story about my fourth great-grandmother, Jane Marshall Daviess. I grew up hearing a very truncated version of the story: "And then there was the time your great-great-grandma was captured by Injuns," with not much other detail. So I had already planned on writing this, but imagine my excitement when just now, while looking for a photo or map to augment the blog, I found an even more detailed account of the story, which I now submit for your approval. "Mrs. Daviess was another of these women who, like Mrs. Williamson, was a born heroine, of whom there were many who acted a conspicuous part in the territorial history of Kentucky. Large and splendidly formed, she possessed the strength of a man with the gentle loveliness of the true woman. In the hour of peril, and such hours were frequent with her, she was firm, cool, and fertile of resource; her whole life, of which we give only a few episodes, was one continuous succession of brave and noble deeds. Both she and Mrs. Williamson appear to have been real instances of the poet's ideal: 'A perfect woman nobly planned To warn, to comfort, and command.' "Her husband, Samuel Daviess, was an early settler at Gilmer's Lick, in Lincoln County, Kentucky. In the month of August, 1782, while a few rods from his house, he was attacked early one morning by an Indian, and attempting to get within doors he found that his house was already occupied by the other Indians. He succeeded in making his escape to his brother's station, five miles off, and giving the alarm was soon on his way back to his cabin in company with five stout, well armed men. "Meanwhile, the Indians, four in number, who had entered the house while the fifth was in pursuit of Mr. Daviess, roused Mrs. Daviess and the children from their beds and gave them to understand that they must go with them as prisoners. Mrs. Daviess occupied as long a time as possible in dressing, hoping that some relief would come. She also delayed the Indians nearly two hours by showing them one article of clothing and then another, explaining their uses and expatiating on their value. "While this was going on the Indian who had been in pursuit of her husband returned with his hands stained with pokeberries, waving his tomahawk with violent gestures as if to convey the belief that he had killed Mr. Daviess. The keen-eyed wife soon discovered the deception, and was satisfied that her husband had escaped uninjured. "After plundering the house, the savages started to depart, taking Mrs. Daviess and her seven children with them. As some of the children were too young to travel as rapidly as the Indians wished, and discovering, as she believed, their intention to kill them, she made the two oldest boys carry the two youngest on their backs. "In order to leave no trail behind them, the Indians traveled with the greatest caution, not permitting their captives to break a twig or weed as they passed along, and to expedite Mrs. Daviess' movements one of them reached down and cut off with his knife a few inches of her dress. "Mrs. Daviess was accustomed to handle a gun and was a good shot, like many other women on the frontier. She contemplated as a last resort that, if not rescued in the course of the day, when night came and the Indians had fallen asleep, she would deliver herself and her children by killing as many of the Indians as she could, believing that in a night attack the rest would fly panic-stricken. "Mr. Daviess and his companions reaching the house and finding it empty, succeeded in striking the trail of the Indians and hastened in pursuit. They had gone but a few miles before they overtook them. Two Indian spies in the rear first discovered the pursuers, and running on overtook the others and knocked down and scalped the oldest boy, but did not kill him. The pursuers fired at the Indians but missed. The latter became alarmed and confused, and Mrs. Daviess taking advantage of this circumstance jumped into a sink-hole with her infant in her arms. The Indians fled and every child was saved. "Kentucky in its early days, like most new countries, was occasionally troubled with men of abandoned character, who lived by stealing the property of others, and after committing their depredations, retired to their hiding-places, thereby eluding the operation of the law. One of these marauders, a man of desperate character, who had committed extensive thefts from Mr. Daviess, as well as from his neighbors, was pursued by Daviess and a party whose property he had taken, in order to bring him to justice. "While the party were in pursuit, the suspected individual, not knowing that any one was pursuing him, came to the house of Daviess, armed with his gun and tomahawk,—no person being at home but Mrs. Daviess and her children. After he had stepped into the house, Mrs. Daviess asked him if he would drink something; and having set a bottle of whiskey upon the table, requested him to help himself. The fellow not suspecting any danger, set his gun by the door, and while he was drinking Mrs. Daviess picked it up, and placing herself in the doorway had the weapon cocked and leveled upon him by the time he turned around, and in a peremptory manner ordered him to take a seat or she would shoot him. Struck with terror and alarm, he asked what he had done. She told him he had stolen her husband's property, and that she intended to take care of him herself. In that condition she held him prisoner until the party of men returned and took him into their possession. "These are only a few out of many similar acts which show the character of Mrs. Daviess. She became noted all through the frontier settlements of that region during the troublous times in which she lived, not only for her courage and daring, but for her shrewdness in circumventing the stratagems of the wily savages by whom her family were surrounded. Her oldest boy inherited his mother's character, and promised to be one of the most famous Indian fighters of his day, when he met his death at the hands of his savage foes in early manhood." Chapter 9, "Some Remarkable Women," from "Women on the American Frontier," by William W. Fowler http://historicaltextarchive.com/books.php?op=viewbook&bookid=46&cid=9 To me, one of the best parts about this story is the fact (not mentioned here) that Jane Marshall Davies was only just out of childbed, having delivered a baby only a few days before the Indian attack. I can't imagine what it was like, going through childbirth at all whilst living past the very edge of civilization, let alone being dragged through the woods by Indians, so it boggles my mind.

Hoosier daddy?

sluggo_von_hoth — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 17:12:02 GMT

Well, boys and girls, we just got back from our first look at the real estate market. It was a loud, honking wake-up call and no mistake. Trying to spend as little as possible for a new residence is not a very good idea, unless we are extremely lucky, and...no, not even if we are extremely lucky are we going to be able to find anything for as little as we had hoped to spend. We did a walk-through at two places and it was not very good, but the real-estate agent is wonderful, I like her a lot, and I place my trust in her capable hands. This agency comes well-recommended, the people are nice, and they take care of you, which is important. But let's cut to the chase. We are rather taken with what is called a "Hoosier home" design, an example (though by no means not the best example) of which can be seen in the photo here. Hoosiers have this great retro look. Built in the early 50's, they all have the same original layout: long triangular line, carport, picture window with 12 panes, L-shaped brickwork, fireplace, basement, and (theoretically at least) a nice amount of space inside: three bedrooms, an extra bathroom, large living/dining area, and so on. But here the similarity ends. Some have been rehabbed and remodeled and look like va-va-voom, while others...well, others are kind of sad and lonely and bereft. On our budget, we just looked at the latter kind of Hoosier and it didn't ring any bells. However, hope springs eternal. The idea of having a neat little '50s pad is a fine one and these homes have got style. The first house was a Hoosier, as I said, and our walk-through revealed that the entire thing was in such a state of disrepair we would have to replace everything--so we just shook our heads "no" and went to the second house, thinking (since it was for a lot more money than the first) that things would be different. And things were different, indeed. Oh, dear Lord, were they different. The house was literally two blocks away from the lake and the exterior led us to believe it was a sweet little 40's brick home, very gemutlich, but closer inspection from the outside didn't exactly raise our hopes any. And then we went inside. I have never seen anything like it in my life, nor had my family, nor had the real estate agent. Words almost fail me but I will try to give my impressions. There was no electricity in the house. Living room in mirrored tile with orange sunburst motif, with 12-inch black wallpaper borders on top of it; dining room in contrasting smoky-webbed mirrored tile, more wallpaper borders; kitchen a big empty hole with only original cabinets under many coats of paint and contact paper, counter original Formica with burns and belt-sander marks, crumbling linoleum, and the biggest damn silverfish I have ever seen: trophy size, mounting size, probably eating size for all I know. The back porch was literally caulked shut and three different layers of tile flooring in various states of undress gave a nice Mondrian effect to the dirt and cracked glass and peeling paint theme. Hot-pink bedroom with handpainted "murals" of cartoon land: Grumpy dwarf head on Popeye's body, a raddled Snow White, more contact paper, lime-green splashes of paint. Lime-green and sky-blue bedroom with strange handwritten notes on the walls, and "Number One Mommy" ribbon stapled to doorframe. Bathroom deep blue, more contact paper, black toilet, I got scared in there because it was dark and murky, and ran out before I could get any more impressions. Then we went upstairs. Oh, sweet Jesus on a handcart, we went upstairs. The "bedroom" turned out to be the entire length of the attic, which was swathed in no less than five layers of contrasting wallpaper, the top layer of which had been painted in more hot pink, lime green, sky-blue in random slabs of color. The ceiling tiles were collapsing and, no doubt, emitting many pestilential wisps of toxic asbestos, as were the random peeks of insulation gasping out of holes in the wallpaper. We beat a quick retreat down the stairs and went to the basement. They saved the best for last. It was all black and red and very dark but we could it was clean as a whistle. We could also see there were chains suspended from the ceiling in various locations, one with a wrist strap. On one of the chains, somebody had impaled a Troll doll that appeared to have blood on it oozing from the nails attaching it to the chain. There was a toilet against the wall, reminiscent of visits to the ladies' room at O'Banion's, and next to it was a crude cartoon drawing with a Bible verse and a mention of cutting throats and disembowelment. We noted, however, that the furnace was new. When we tried to leave the house, the door refused to lock, and I don't know how the agent and my husband managed to get it shut again, but they did. While they were fussing with the lock, I looked up at the street address: 6615, or 6 - 6 - (1+5=) 6. We have since determined that we can afford way more house than we thought. It was not just a real estate ploy to get us to buy higher, either. It's the truth. We spent the rest of the day looking at other houses from the street and I can see that while money goes farther in our future neighborhood, it doesn't go as far as we previously believed.

But who got the checkered flag?

sluggo_von_hoth — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 04:29:59 GMT

All right kiddies, gather round for another happy funtime tale from Sluggo's Bedtime Story Book. Everybody comfy? Good. Here we go. Many years ago, after my parents got divorced, my mom was engaged to a very nice Italian guy from the South Side of Chicago. His official occupation was in the field of newspaper printing, but his actual occupation was working for a large group of Italian guys who have no fixed business address and do a lot of interesting things that are generally outside the limits of the law. His name was...we'll, let's call him Dave because that was not his actual name. Dave was a really neat guy and I liked him a lot. He was always bringing us nice little gifts, I don't quite remember most of them, except for the time he showed up with a purebred miniature poodle for us to keep. We went to dinner at his house and his parents, Mama and Papa S (who were, of course, also Italian) would make a big dinner and we'd eat in the kitchen and listen to Mama and Papa shouting in Italian, and Papa would have a little glass of wine that he'd let you sneak a taste of, and if you looked out the kitchen window you could watch the White Sox game (or at least hear it) because they lived practically across the street from the old Comiskey Park. Dave eventually became enamoured of stock car racing and then Demolition Derby, and spent a lot of time at Raceway Park in Blue Island, where we used to live. He got an old car and he painted my sister's name on it, and my name on it, and we would go to see him drive it around. One night after the race he came home with us and we had pizza, and it was fun, and then my sister and I went to bed. At some point in the middle of the night I heard the most horrendous noise I ever heard. I can still hear that noise. It sounded like a gorilla had escaped from the zoo. So I tiptoed out of bed and ran to my mom's room. There I found my mom and Dave, both stark naked and both wearing crash helmets. Since there wasn't much I could do about the situation, I went back to bed. They didn't even notice I had been there because it is very hard to see or hear out of a crash helmet in a darkened bedroom in the middle of the night. Not long after this, Dave disappeared from my mom's dating horizon and from ours. Nobody was sure what happened to him. The story I heard years later was that Dave ended up at the bottom of the Chicago River with a pair of cement overshoes. Whether this is true or not, I can't say. I was about seven years old and this experience confused me so much that it wasn't until I was about sixteen that I finally got it mentally straightened out. Now that I am older and wiser, I realize one thing: wearing crash helmets during sex is really not a bad idea and it just might save some lives, so go out and buy yourself a crash helmet today. Tell 'em Sluggo sent ya.

More edumacational woes.

sluggo_von_hoth — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 02:02:24 GMT

If I haven't been answering e-mails or being Out and About it's for a good reason. The crise du jour is now my older daughter, who has the same medical problems I have: rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis. She's missed an entire week due to her back being in a high state of OUCH. Since I am having a corresponding flareup and am similarly crippled at the moment, it's been like the blind leading the blind, except blind people generally have healthier spines. My daughter finally returned to school today, her back gave out, and I had no way of getting her back home...so I got a bunch of calls from the school nurse. The nurse wanted her OUT of the office and informed me she was sending my kid back to class. "Oh no you don't," I told her, "she's in there for a reason." The nurse also told me I need to rent or buy a wheelchair and they can have somebody push my daughter around from class to class. No, thank you. She also wanted yet ANOTHER copy of the physician's note exempting her from PE. The school tends to lose these notes, or they take exception to the wording. It's always something. So tomorrow I will have TWO students enrolled in Firesign Academy. Anyway, to my friends who sent e-mails, I will answer them within the next day or two, but this is why I've been uncommunicative over the weekend and today. I'm so tired of this structured corporate "educational" bullshit, I could just scream. The teachers at the high school are wonderful, I have no complaint with them, but I'm tired of going in there every month to discuss disability plans, only to find that nobody HAS a disability plan.

I'm for edumacation.

sluggo_von_hoth — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 22:32:36 GMT

For those of you who haven't yet heard the news--and this is pretty much everybody because I've kept a really low profile this past week--I removed my fourth-grader from public school on Monday and am now homeschooling (or rather, "unschooling") her. I had finally had enough of the "Skool Macht Frei" mentality that she'd been getting courtesy of her so-called teacher; enough of the bullying, the physical and mental abuse, the threats of death and dismemberment; enough of having to pay through the nose for a substandard education; enough of submitting to a process whereby the suburban cookie schoolteacher stamped her cookie cutter to make more little suburban cookies; and especially enough of seeing my daughter practically vomiting out of sheer panic every morning because she had to go back to THAT PLACE, then coming back home hours later with bruises, contusions, tears, and a 25-pound backpack. So on Monday I sent a note to the principal, which said (roughly): "I am removing my daughter from school and teaching her at home. Please get her personal belongings together so I can pick them up. I will be sending another letter shortly, requesting her transcripts." And that was all it took. That was it. I was shaking in my shoes until I received the first of two calls from the principal; she was supportive of the idea and extremely nice, all things considered. She talked to the superintendent of schools and then called me back again: I could borrow all her school textbooks for the rest of the year, free of charge. The superintendent was very supportive, too. I went there today to pick up the textbooks and the contents of my daughter's desk and everybody in the front office was as nice and as supportive as I ever could wish. So nice, and so supportive, that I'm almost frightened: this was just TOO EASY. The name of our little home school is Firesign Academy, and it's off to a flying start. My daughter figured on having a free ride--ho, ho, Mommy's playing school--but I jumped into the saddle right away, working on her math concepts and her science and so forth. She is starting to realize it: this isn't going to be easy. However, it is also bully-free and threat-free and awful-teacher-free, and so she's more than happy about everything. I certainly won't be screaming at her and ridiculing her in front of the class, the way her teacher did. I certainly won't be allowing her to get kicked in the head, the way her teacher did. And I won't be making her read picture books about the Berenstain Bears when she's at a ninth-grade reading level, the way her teacher did. Today we did all the required curriculum and she is reading more H.G. Wells and doing freshman-level reading and math. She's going to learn history and not the politically-correct pabulum that passes for "social studies" in her school. You can bet we won't be celebrating Columbus Day in THIS house any more. And science will be science, not a discourse about the little creatures of the rainforest (that's also science, true--in a way--but enough already!). Instead of getting her glasses broken in gym when some wretched bully (whose mom is a member of the SCO, so she doesn't get reprimanded EVER) repeatedly fires a ball at her head on a daily basis, we will do tai chi and yoga and aerobics, and take plenty of walks. Math won't be a witch with a stopwatch making her do fifty math problems in a minute OR ELSE. Lunch will be pleasant, because she won't have any kids spitting into her food while she's trying to eat it. And I no longer have to put up with bitchy, twee little missives from a substandard, boring, denizen-of-a-suburban-junior-college "teacher": notes in cutesy little handwriting which don't quite mask the total disregard she has for my daughter and for me. This woman has no business teaching, but I can't do anything about that. What I CAN do, and have done, is to get my daughter the hell away from her, and I fervently hope that others do the same. I registered my complaint with the school system, I said months ago that if things didn't improve I would take my daughter out of school--I drew the battle lines--and when things DIDN'T improve, I did exactly what I said I would do. When I withdrew my daughter from school, I made it very clear that it was because of the low quality of instruction she was receiving in her classroom from her teacher. I look forward to receiving a copy of my daughter's file, which by law I am entitled to receive--because then I will be able to truly view all the behind-the-scenes shit that this teacher tried to pull. But in the meantime, my daughter's out of that hellhole, and that is what's important.

Gov'ner is dead.

sluggo_von_hoth — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 19:19:23 GMT

I take pen in weeping hand to note the passing of Gov'ner, who apparently was done in by someone. Yep, someone is responsible. Probably some evil Yankee Republican internet murder army, or maybe those sneaky Regulators. My money's on the Regulators. I don't know if it was by gun or fire or knife, or a loaded cigar, or a poisoned hooker, but Gov'ner has passed from this vale of mortal tears and gone to the great Elks smoker in the sky. I suspect that Gov'ner was a distant relation via my Autry bloodline--the same noble line that gave the world Gene Autry, cowboy singer and franchise doodad, and Micajah Autrey, who died at the Alamo. If so, I will proudly add the name of Gov'ner to my list of illustrious distant relatives, a list which includes Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis, Charles Manson, George Washington, Jim Morrison, and George Patton, among many others. At 7 p.m. this evening (CST) I will be hoisting a shot of finest cheap Kentucky bourbon to his memory and I urge you all to join me in commemmorating a great, great man. Peace to your ashes, Gov'ner.

Be sharp! Be Luxuriant!

sluggo_von_hoth — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 02:12:37 GMT

Ladies and gentlemen, Luxuria Music now has a Yahoo widget that makes it easy to enjoy Real Music: http://widgets.yahoo.com/gallery/view.php?widget=38260 Or you can name your ear poison by going to: http://www.luxuriamusic.com and picking whatever system suits your computer best. Allow me to climb upon my soapbox and sing the praises of Luxuria Music, the best damn site on the World Wide Web. If you haven't heard of it, now's the time to give Lux a listen. Nobody plays the range and variety of music as can be heard upon Lux: anything from 1940s radio commercials to 60's TV theme songs to the most contemporary of J-tunes and Eurosounds. The weekly shows are fabulous. And a nicer bunch of people you'll never find. Unlike many other sites which are controlled by The Man, Luxuria Music is financed by listener donations, so if you like what you hear, drop a few bucks in the kitty and/or consider springing for the high-def version, which is a bargain for such a luscious experience. It's 3-D for your ears. For less than the cost of a cheap six-pack or a cup or two of fancy coffee, you can have an entire month of Luxuriance. Such a deal!

Christmas memories.

sluggo_von_hoth — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 01:15:12 GMT

OK, kiddies, everybody settle down and sit next to old Aunty Sluggo while she relates another warm family tale from the Sluggo Christmas Storybook. Everybody ready? Here we go. One magic Christmas, when I was six years old, it was time to decorate my grandparents' living room for the holidays, put up the aluminum tree (silver), all that jazz. This meant traipsing up to the attic and wrestling a couple of huge boxes down the attic stairs. Inside one box was an aluminum Christmas tree. Inside the other box was all the stuff that went on the aluminum Christmas tree, along with many other assorted deck-the-halls goodies: rotating four-light tree illuminator, big gaudy satin ornaments, tacky vinyl Santas, cardboard fireplace. When I say those boxes were huge, I mean huge, most particularly the box containing the aluminum tree. We are all warm and nostalgic about aluminum Christmas trees nowadays, and wish our aunts/grandmas/parents had saved those trees, but do you know WHY those trees weren't saved? In many cases, it had to do with storage space. Many of those gorgeous aluminum trees DIDN'T COME APART. I know ours didn't. So you needed a tree-sized box for the tree-sized tree. And after Christmas you needed a tree-sized space to store the tree-sized box. Another reason those trees bit the dust was that you couldn't hang lights on an aluminum tree. I don't know if it was an electrical hazard or a fire hazard, but...no lights. That was why you had a little plug-in device that you put at the bottom of the tree, to shine light on it. But I digress. Back to the decorating. After my dad got those boxes down from the attic, it was decided that my grandparents and youngest sister would run out and get groceries, while my dad and I would hold down the fort and get the tree going. So off they went and we started working. I was six years old, so there wasn't a lot I could do, but it was fun. We got the tree up, set up the rotating light, and I started to get out the ornaments. It was idyllic. It was the essence of Sixties Xmas gemutlichkeit. Until... My dad turned a funny color, then he turned dead white, then he started to stagger around the living room. There was no warning for what happened next. It just happened. HWARFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF! A two-foot geyser of blood shot out of my dad's mouth and hit the tree with a big SPLAT. URFarrgHWHARFFFFFF! Another geyser of blood out the mouth, followed by two smaller ones out the nose, all over the Christmas tree, all over the huge picture window behind the Christmas tree. The tree was dripping with blood and the lights just kept on going redgreenblueyellow, redgreenblueyellow. GACKhwarffffffff! This time he got it all over me. I started running to the kitchen. I had to call someone. I was going to call my aunt. He followed me: I was dripping blood, he was dripping blood, and HE WOULDN'T LET ME CALL ANYBODY. He was trying to get the phone out of my hand. He was talking total nonsense. Ladies and gentlemen: The Shining Christmas. Then he passed out on top of me, still holding the phone. And that was when my grandparents walked in. They must have thought we'd been murdered. I don't remember too much about what happened next, but somehow they got my dad to bed, got him cleaned off, got me cleaned off. Dad was in bed for a week. He should have been sent straight to the hospital but he refused to go. I never understood why he didn't go to the hospital. I realize now that he had some sort of horrific gastric hemorrhage, brought on by a serious drinking binge or his ulcer or a combination of both. My grandparents went out and got another tree. It was a turquoise aluminum Christmas tree and it was the coolest thing I ever saw in my life. I don't know what happened to the silver one. But Christmas was a bit subdued that year, I can tell you that. One year later I was out in California and doing my best to forget the entire thing ever happened, but this is not something you can forget. I didn't feel comfortable about decorating another Christmas tree until I was 25 years old. And ever since, when I do decorate a tree, I pick color schemes involving pink, turquoise, blue, black...anything but red. There are hardly any red ornaments on the Christmas tree.

Thanksgiving memories.

sluggo_von_hoth — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 23:19:49 GMT

Thanksgiving sucked wind. My mom and my nephew came into town from Branson and though they were here since Tuesday, the only way I get to see them is if I go over there. So I didn't see them until Thursday. My grandma was sick, my mom busy, the kids fighting. Chuck parked himself on the couch in the living room and only left its confines to eat. When he was on the couch he was either watching football games or snoring. Mom and Grandma once again burnt the damn turkey neck and its horrendous smell ensured that I could not eat dinner. I had a cell phone shoved in my face so I could have a NICE LONG CHAT with my sister and the timing was atrocious. Every time I poured myself a glass of wine (the only thing which would make the day bearable) someone either took it and drank it or dumped it out, so I didn't even have the consolation of alcohol to get me through the night. After dinner it was announced that my mom was taking the kids to the movies. They left and Grandma and I washed and dried and put away all the Thanksgiving accoutrements, then I cleaned up the children's mess, then we played Scrabble for two hours. Nana and kids came back and we had some pie and then Chuck announced it was time to leave. Before we left my mom said she was taking my nephew downtown on Friday, to the museums and then shopping on Michigan Avenue. My kids and I were of course not invited. Since she does this every year the poor girls are used to being snubbed and didn't say anything to her, and neither did I. We all understand that getting more than one adult and one child into a Bronco makes for a very tight fit. We went home and I got tanked and went to bed. I woke up today to a mountain of dishes and laundry and I still have the smell of that fucking burnt turkey neck in my nostrils. So I quilted all day and now it's night and I am going to start drinking. I sure hope my mom and nephew had a good time downtown. But now I can say with absolute heartfelt certainty what I am thankful for at Thanksgiving. I wasn't sure yesterday what I had to be thankful for, but now I know. I am thankful that I don't have to put up with this bullshit more than once a year. If I had to put up with it more than once a year, I would either jump off a bridge or take everybody out with an AK-47.

What's new, pussycat.

sluggo_von_hoth — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 14:47:50 GMT

I've been rather sick lately and when that happens, I pull out the binders and work on the family history. The past couple of weeks have been spent working on great-great-grandmother Molly Moore's family, which has many mysterious factors surrounding it. The lady in the picture is Molly, born 1845 in Shelby County, KY. Before he died, my grandfather told someone that his great-grandmother was a Cherokee who escaped from the Trail of Tears, gave herself a name to fit in with the locals, and married into a white family. The facts just might support this, but I need to get a copy of Molly's mother's death certificate. It should set me back one dollar. Such a deal! You have to know where to look. Fortunately, I know where she's buried and this will save a lot of time. The gentleman in the picture is her husband, James Riddle. He was born on my birthday back in 1836 in Rockcastle County, KY. There's a ton of family legends surrounding old James. To the best of my knowledge--gained from family stories, which are mostly backed by records--he was a Confederate scout who made trips down the Mississippi on a flatboat, carrying barrels of salt pork to sell in New Orleans. I think he used the flatboat as a cover for other activities. What is known is that he kept pigs on land up around the Ohio River, would herd them down to a specific location, butcher them, put up the salt pork, then take it downriver. An elderly cousin, Lloyd Riddle, got the story from another cousin, Chester Spencer, who was my grandfather's nephew: if a pig would persist in going astray while James was herding, he would SEW that pig's EYELIDS together so he wouldn't wander off! I keep threatening to write a book about the family or at least make copies of the history to send out, but every time I think I'm about to go to print I find something else that sends the research in a completely different direction. The latest tangent is due to my discovery that in a ten-year period (give or take a couple of years) something like 13 of Molly's family members died for one reason or another, and the family moved, and so on. What the hell happened? Death records are sketchy and there doesn't appear to be any cemetery records for most of these folks. Was it a smallpox or diphtheria epidemic? I'm starting to feel better again, which means the genealogy will once again go on the back burner, but I look forward to further discoveries...

Must See TV!!!

sluggo_von_hoth — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 02:48:55 GMT

So what's a gal to do now that "La Madrastra" has ended? The answer is simple: "Descendants of Darkness," a delicious little anime which is presently being aired on AZN-TV. Let me first qualify this statement by saying I do not like anime. However, DOD is a horse of a different color. I could give you a brief rundown, or an explanation of shonen-ai/Boys Love, but I'll just keep it even briefer by saying... "Descendants of Darkness" is gay. Very, very, very gay. If you want doe-eyed, moptop, gamin boy-on-boy action, this is your show. It's an absolute treasure, a thing of beauty and a joy forever. I cannot recommend this show highly enough and so I give it five Nekos! =^_^= =^_^= =^_^= =^_^= =^_^=

ouch

sluggo_von_hoth — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 02:20:06 GMT

I woke up Sunday morning with a dull and slightly painful ache in the area around my cheekbone. By nightfall it had turned into a monster. I got little sleep last night and by this morning it was sheer agony. I'm no doctor, but it would appear that I am having a severe flare-up of the ever-popular rheumatoid arthritis, and the RA is attacking my TMJ area. If you've never had problems with your TMJ (temporomandibular joint), it's that little spot on your face where your jawbone connects to your skull. Now and then, many of us have problems with TMJ: pops, clicks, pain. I've had problems with it all my life. But this is by far the worst thing I've encountered in thirty years of dealing with RA. Imagine having a killer migraine slicing across your face on one side. To that, add what feels like every tooth in your head is rotten and throbbing with toothache. It really does--it feels just like severe toothache, but in every single tooth. Then the vision starts to go. Finally, the whole pain party migrates, so both sides of the face are affected and then the entire head. At this point there isn't one spot above the area of my neck that doesn't hurt, and by hurt I mean HURT. I'm taking about three different meds for this and washing it down with alcohol, which is dangerous but the only thing that cuts the pain. At any rate, I'm going to be out to lunch, so to speak, for the next couple of days. I can barely see now, but I've got maybe a ten-minute window before it clamps down again. I spent most of the day supine on the couch and tomorrow I may not even get out of bed. I'll see you all later when things settle down.

RIP Mr. Tickles.

sluggo_von_hoth — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 03:53:37 GMT

Yes, he's gone. We came back from the bookstore today and he was as dead as...well, he was dead. After the sainted corpse of dearly departed Mr. Tickles was given a decent and emotional funeral, complete with triple flush, the guilty party 'fessed up. Yes, three hams DID kill him. Bye-bye, Mr. Tickles.

Ice cream truck!

sluggo_von_hoth — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 23:57:06 GMT

Ice cream truck! ICE CREAM TRUCK! It's the ice cream truck, it's coming down the street! ICE CREAM TRUCK!!!! ***********ICE CREAM!!!! TRUCK!!!!!!!!**************** Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey! Stop! It didn't stop! ICE CREAM TRUCK! It's going down the street! Bye!

Yee-haw! I'm getting a fish tank!

sluggo_von_hoth — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 18:59:17 GMT

And the best part of it is, there will be fish in it. Details to come on this exciting situation which is probably the highlight of my week. Oh, I can barely contain myself.

Shameless self-promotion.

sluggo_von_hoth — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 00:55:19 GMT

My online business venture just opened Friday: http://stores.ebay.com/the-lucky-monkey Response and support has been overwhelming. I have always relied on the kindness of strangers, but the kindness of friends has been amazing and surprising. I'm torn between wondering if I charged too much for my stuff, or not enough; if my work's good enough to sell online, or isn't; if my copywriting sucks, or it doesn't (current opinion: it sucks); and how much to charge for the fricking shipping/handling. Not to mention the fact that my spouse is calling/e-mailing his friends and family (and even worse, mine), and flat-out TELLING them to buy my stuff. This goes totally against my nature: I want people to buy because the merchandise is good, not because they feel compelled to do so. Life was easier when I sold my work in a gallery. Anyhow, check it out and let me know what you think.

The Brave New World...of BAGGO!

sluggo_von_hoth — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 18:52:05 GMT

Within the confines of Darkest Suburbia, the natives are in the throes of BAGGO Fever. You can't go one block, it seems, without seeing hot BAGGO action. One memorable afternoon, I saw a four-BAGGO daisy chain! It was too much. I have not seen such depravity, such soul-slaughtering hedonism, since my lost years in New Town, on the North Side of Chicago, back in the Seventies. Yes, everyone's BAGGO crazy. I can't imagine why. I believe this is one of the signs of the impending Apocalypse. Was it Spengler who wrote: "When the children of the bourgeoisie turn to BAGGO, the end is near"? No, maybe not. They're playing BAGGO in the schools as part of a well-rounded physical education program. My daughter was roundly criticized for throwing overhand: "If you throw it like that, it's not BAGGO." My grandma asked me to find her a BAGGO setup for her party. For the unfortunate few who don't know about BAGGO, here's the skinny from the official BAGGO website: "Baggo is exciting, challenging bean bag toss games the whole family can enjoy... indoors or outdoors! Played like horseshoes, this HIGHLY COMPETITIVE bean bag game is ideal for the back yard, the beach, company picnics, youth groups, active seniors, tailgate parties, and campouts... wherever you want to have FUN!" That's right. It's a fricking plywood or plastic box with a hole in it and a set of beanbags that you have to throw into the hole. BAGGO comes from Arkansas. It figures. http://www.baggo.com Now, I want to have FUN! as much as the next mindless suburbanite, but...In Casa de Sluggo, BAGGO has come to represent all that is mindless, stupid, ovine, and bovine in the suburbs. Just the sight of BAGGO causes me to swear and shake with furious annoyance. And the ever-increasing army of BAGGO devotees (aka "BAGGEES") do not, will not, hear any criticism of BAGGO Nation. BAGGEES don't take it kindly when you slam their new national pastime. The last time one of my small group of non-BAGGEES (aka "GODLESS COMMIE HEATHENS") tried to share a few choice thoughts about BAGGO, we were all accused of being Satan-worshipping misfits. I wish I was making this up. I am not. Karl Rove plays BAGGO, I bet. I think the next Supreme Court appointment--nay, the next presidential election--will hinge upon a candidate's BAGGO ability. E pluribus BAGGO. One nation under BAGGO. BAGGO Macht Frei. I miss lawn darts. Lawn darts were great because they thinned out the herd. How about lawn dart BAGGO? We could call it DAGGO! Ooh, I think I've got a hot one here. Catch you later, I have to go make a prototype and get it patented.

All sewed out.

sluggo_von_hoth — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 21:41:29 GMT

All I've been doing is sewing small things on to big things and then on to even bigger things. I'm covered with thread and lint. Isn't that exciting? It isn't? Well, I'm just not an exciting person and this is not an exciting neighborhood, so it will have to do for now.