The Jesus Nut

The term Jesus nut has to do with Helicopter maintenance and refers to the one piece of hardware that holds the entire rotor system in place. The term was coined by Mr. Dr. Igor Sikorsky, the inventor of the rotor wing aircraft and the implication was that, should this small bit of machined metal fail in flight, the crew and anyone else aboard would be meeting Jesus as a bonus for suffering a horrible death. Now Dr. Mr. Sikorsky was a deeply religious person, so he probably meant the whole deal about the Jesus Nut and wasn't being cute.
In fact the whole Jesus Nut issue might have stayed locked in inquiring minds had it not been for the Vietnam War; the first war fought by the helicopter. What this came to mean was where the old time cavalry trooper would know about the diamond hitch to tie a load on a mule his modern counterpart knew how and when to check the Jesus Nut and other various and sundry things that would keep the "bird" in the air doing it's important work of dropping off the Troop for a fight and coming back to get them. Funny thing is Sikorsky did not have a lot of copters in the war. Today, almost all the helicopters in the military i.e. The Black Hawk and Sea Hawk are made by Sikorsky, but when people think Vietnam, they think about The Huey which looks like a mini van with sliding doors and all. It is a turbine (jet) and only has two main rotor blades. That means it is not particularly good at flying straight up off the ground and likes to have a running start. A person might get in trouble because he could easily put the helicopter into a spot where he cannot get out without some fancy and dangerous trick flying. When I was in Vietnam, I always worried over the state of the helicopter and had this fear that I would be flying along and suddenly catch site of Jesus floating by tossing my. Jesus nut in the air and catching it. You see it's quite possible to land a helicopter with no power so long as the transmission is not seized and the rotor will spin. Of course if Jesus has the Jesus Nut, the rotors will come off and the craft will fall like a stone leaving you to meet your maker as Pancake People.

I know that this is not a very clever of funny post, but it does contain information you can use.

The House of Texino

OK, when I was young I wanted to design women's clothing. I didn't tell anyone, so it was assumed I would either join the Episcopal Clergy or become a medical doctor.
First off, went through the confirmation process and became an Acolyte and a Crucifer. Now it may sound like The Crucifer would get to crucify people and perform other useful duties here on earth , but his responsibility is simply to lead the procession into the church for the service. The procession includes the ministers and the choir. If there is a junior choir, there is also a Junior Crucifer. His job is to lead the junior choir out when it is time for Sunday School. The Crucifers are called that because they carry a cross on a long pole so there is no doubt that Christians are heading your way. The Juniors cross is made from wood while the real Crucifer Carries a fancy number made of a heavy gold metal affixed to a stout wooden pole . The Acolytes are the guys who lite the candles and put them out. You get to dress up in a priest outfit (more or less) and you do other stuff, like moving "The Book" The altar of the church is a holy place and you better respect it at all times or you are going to hell. It also has two sides to preach from; The Gospel and The Epistle. When the minister is preaching the Gospel and he's done he says so, like "Here endeth the Gospel" and then you must move the bible to the other side of the Altar. Isn't that strange?
You get to help out with the Holy Communion too. I learned a lot about religion working at that church. One thing that really struck me was that church was a huge social event, and a lot of folks who sang loud and tipped to collection plate heavy couldn't wait for the coffee hour that came after the service so they could gossip about other people and say really rude stuff, but then turn on the charm when that person showed up. I kept waiting for God or at least Karl the deacon ( and a former Nazi by all accounts) to set these parishioners right and when it did not come to pass, I had no choice but to assume that if the Lord let such stuff go on in His house, He either was not home or did not care. Later as studied various types of medicine, it became fairly clear that while the overall message put forth by the cult of Jesus Christ seemed OK, the man Himself was quite possibly nuts.

It may be possible by the amount of words put down thus far for you to infer that it took me some amount of time to conclude that the ministry would not be my calling. Well, yes and by the time I had figured out that my belief in God was ambiguous at best, a group of teachers had conspired to brand me as stupid, un-trainable, not college material, a hoodlum and worse. Of course while this made me the most popular kid in school, it really dampened my hopes of getting into med school or any other trade for that matter. I kept pushing, however; I was no match for the system and as punishment for my questioning nature, they kicked me out of school and right into the waiting maw of the US Army where they would either make a man out of me or kill me in the process. A real Win-Win for the old school.

So there I was, a combat happy GI. 19 years old and in charge of a village built to house refugees from an area called The Iron Triangle. The whole idea of this triangle was that somewhere within it's boundries was the southern terminus of The Ho Chi Minh Trail. The trouble was that this was also a populated area where peasents worked the land for meager rewards . The Army came up with the grand pan to make this a free fire zone (against the rules) and since this could seriously complicate winning the hearts and minds of the non communists, they developed the Chieu Hoi program. This consisted of pieces of paper called Chieu Hoi passes that were fired at the peasents from canons and dropped on them via special bombs. This is a picture of a Chieu Hoi Pass.





Well the program was a success and a lot of Vietnamese came to call. We needed some place to put them, so we set up a building program and built a village. A sort of Vietnamese Levittown
with a duck lake and a swinery. When I left RVN in 1968, I think we had about 200 homes.
While I was at the village I learned how to be a doctor. Every Tuesday, a real doctor would come to the village and people from all over the area would come in for a free exam and a ticket for an x-ray if they needed one. The Vietnamese were very keen for having pictures made and viewed a chest X-ray as just another type of portrait. Anyway, the doc liked me and taught me lots of skills. I started a new religion in Viet Nam; Made an altar from an adobe brick, burned a bunch of Joss, sacrificed a frog, ate it. Then I wrote a rambling manifesto about the Chaplain's
assistant, singed it "The New Religion" and posted it on the official bulletin board where it stayed for a long time.

Yes, when I was young I wanted to design womens clothes. Dresses and shoes in fact, but as you can see, I was side tracked by the expectations of others. Funny thing though, I was able fight off the perception of failure that high school tried to hang on me and over time I went on to be successful in both the medical and metaphysical fields; successful enough for me. I did design some jewelry, but it wasn't very good, and when I started doing web pages I realized that I really did not have a eye for color, plus I can neither draw nor sew. On the other hand, I happened to see a show on the TV last week where "Designers" were put against one another in a contest to make clothing from various stuff. Some were very clever and some were very not.
I found myself thinking, "Hey, I would have given that skirt a little more 'flow' . Now, just like that, I am in business.
I don't want to give away all my secrets, but for my Florida Fall Line, I'm planning rain wear for you gals that just screams "SEE ME!" with Daffodil Yellow and Lime Lime Slickers with those pelican hook closures done in stainless steel. (Tres Nautique) Topped with a matching Sou'wester (that rain hat with the long back and the turned up front) My ladies will stay safe and dry. In fact, you can think of the whole Texino line as Fun & Functional or the other way around if you like. Please keep an eye out for our creations. En Salon at Paris, Milan and Honolulu.

... but nobody wants to die.

That's part of a blues song. "Every one's talking about getting to Heaven, but nobody wants to die." Blues people tend to be realists and I try to emulate the best of them by laying around most of the day and staying up late at night waiting to be tempted by the devil in the form of a woman in a red or blue dress. Rarely does this occur, so I tend toward idleness and other sinful action certain to keep me out of God's good grace and it has finally come to my attention that when the boys at R&I in Heaven's precinct pull my jacket, I will not be allowed entrance to the supernal eternal lands beyond the pearly gates. Sort of cheeses me off that I might be at the cross roads of eternal damnation while the angel grandpa from Bil Keane's Family Circus cuts a deal with St. Peter so it will snow and his grand kids can try out their new sleds. I don't remember much about Gramps Keane before he died, but, since he did, he sure gets A1 service up there in Paradise. Like I said, it bugs me, so I went looking for some folks who seem to think Heaven is a lead pipe cinch at the end of the trail and after checking them out, I'm pretty sure Heaven may not be the place for me to bump around after I die. Please allow me to share;



Any question that these people doubt their place in the after life? None in my mind, so I'm not so blue about missing the golden rocket. No, I'll take my chances with that bunch who hang around after the the band stops playing. I've always had fine times with people who like music and been real happy with the friends I made because of it. Maybe that's been my heaven all along. If there is any other sort of after life left for me, I can only hope they have a nice selection of books and that it is not too cold or too hot. I need to think about this in hopes that there will be something forthcoming for the bits and pieces of good I have done over the years. Hope I can have a dog.

"... and Tits"

Yeah that guy Carlin. The dude with the obscenity riff. The thing with the seven deadly words you can't say on television. He died. What did he do? Was he really funny? Was he as important as Lenny Bruce? Lenny Bruce used all those dirty words in his act, but he wasn't a "Blue comic." Red Foxx was a Blue Comic! Belle Barth was a Blue Comic. They said Lenny was a genius. George Carlin was a regular stand up comedian. He came from the Bob Newhart and Shelly Berman School. Guys who didn't tell jokes so much as do bits. You know, little acts, plays, monologues. The things you expect from comedians now, but it was all new after Lenny made it hip and these other guys honed it cool. It's easy to understand if you look at Lenny Bruce as Jazz and Carlin as Folk Music, good folk music, but Folk Music.
So George went along and started growing his hair and opening for musical acts in the big clubs. Acts like the Kingston Trio Stuff that was very popular, and he sort of paved the way for comics and music to exist in the same formats. You wouldn't have seen that with your famous comics of the past like Bob Hope and Milton Berle. Those guys might have worked with a big band, but there was no question that the comic was the top banana and when you look back you see that Hope and Crosby and Berle were not particularly nice men and enjoyed humor at other peoples expense. Then came Lenny with his Jazzy ways and his way out hop head morals and things were never the same and even though Hope and George Burns lived to be 100 years old they could not change a thing. Lenny did not live very long, lots of junkies don't, but he lived long enough to give us the likes of Carlin and Newhart and Steve Martin and Richard Prior and comedy flourished. George was funny. He did comparative bits like Foot Ball vs Base Ball.
He would growl in a real tough voice that football was played on a gridiron and then gently murmur that baseball was played in a park. Funny. Obvious, but still funny. George was quite expressive. Well for some reason George felt a need to embrace the "counter culture" and he came out with some questionable choices like Al Sleet, "The Hippy Dippy Weatherman" Trouble there was he did this in the Summer 'O Luv ––sometimes known as 1966 ––and there were many movers and shakers about who took their status as Hippies quite seriously, so Carlin's portrayal, while humorous, cast him in the light of grownup from then on and when you measured the man against the competition he was a pretty goofy one at best. George didn't get it though, so he kept on, becoming involved with those dirty words, the seven words you could not say on TV. It wasn't that he cared about the words so much as he worried about the the bad thoughts underlying the nation. His point was not that we should use the seven words. It was on the order that there are not any bad words just bad ideas made by bad people using all sorts of words. Carlin pressed on that point through a period of self destructive drug abuse but he came out OK, and even though his late material was a tad scary in that he seemed to feel the human race had been given a fair chance but blown it beyond redemption, his sweet demeanor never left him. I think we loved George Carlin for that sweetness; his anger was more sadness than anything else. Carlin said religion was BS and I am apt to agree especially these days, however; to bang a dull gong of irony I could point out that in the gospel of Luke the last seven words spoken by Christ were " ... for they know not what they do." Because of George Carlin and those who came after we have a platform where those odd men and women who practice the art of social comedy can keep us well informed as to exactly what "They" might be up to at any given time. It is a good thing to be able to laugh as you take stock of those who would be your enemy on the basis of how you think. You probably don't think too much about comics operating behind the lines, but when you think about guys like Rush Limbaugh getting exposed as a pill head pervert, you can bet some funny person was behind it.
So, yes it is very important that we give George Carlin his due as an innovator of the 1st generation of social comics. More important still is the fact that he is far from the last

The Fridge.

I suppose that of all the people who deserve recognition in the world of refrigeration and air conditioning/cooling development, my vote would go to Dr. John Gorrie who, in 1850 or 51 demonstrated an ice maker and set experiments in motion that would led to the invention of the paradox of compressing a liquid so it got hot and then letting it turn into a cold gas that would be sucked back into the system through an expansion valve and turn back into a liquid and then the cycle starts over again. Works pretty well. I like Dr. Gorrie because he lived in Apalachicola Florida which is an OK spot. Also, the doc figured out that sick people might feel better if they were nice and cool. He was a humanitarian.

So what is all of this in aid of? Oh, I have bought a new refrigerator. So? So this. I have, through my efforts as a refrigerator whisperer kept my former appliance running ice cold for 25 years at a cost of .016 cents per day or roughly 1 penny per week. I know whats wrong with this appliance too and I could fix it. The thermostat relay is broke and I could just bypass it. Thing is the refrigerator is past it's life. It's out lasted several others on the block by 5 or 6 years and I guess a new one might be better on the power savings as well. got to be green. The new fridge is a Kenmore white standard freezer on top. It'll do. That old coolerator sure held some fancy champagne and nervous lobsters and more fine foods than I can recall. These days we just don't live like that. Nothing from the hunt, the river the sea. I cleaned out the old box tonight and realized I was dumping the condiments of a life style I am not ready to give up but may damn well lose anyway. The curse of being ill and gaining age. You will make no new friends with whom to share the old sauces. It is not that they are not worthy, it just seems that most older couples come with auto-blatheration machine which tends to operate through the wife but can run through either or both partners. I was tailing an A-B machine through the grocery just the other day. She was on a mobile phone and from the subject of her blatheration I gathered there was a plan a foot to kill a guy called Harry by depriving him of; red meats, whole grains, raw vegetables, fishes of all types, eggs and just about everything save boiled rice gruel. you ask Bill and Marge for dinner and say how about we do salmon on the grill? In the not so long ago Marge would say "Fine, we will bring some wine." Today, however, the Auto-Blab will cut in and start giving you the 3rd degree about is it wild salmon and this and that? To which I am sorely tempted to say. "Well Margie" "We took these two fish as they returned to the sea from the Fraser River in Canada and kept them for 5 years on a strict diet of hypo allergenic Salmon Chow." Then when the urge to spawn hit them we harnessed them to a dynamo where they produced many more kilowatts of power than it will take to cook them." "Meanwhile, the fish became in such a high state of sexuality during this f spawning run to nowhere that just a mere taste will cause you to desire sexual congress with your partner later in the evening, the intensity of which will surely surprise you both to the point that you may well conceive children!" "Yeah, it's wild salmon." I think I'm going to miss the old ice box. One more thing. I got up early and decommissioned the fridge. I dragged it outside, took the doors off and washed it out with water and bleach so it would not smell it the tropical sun and little kids would not lock themselves aboard whatever craft they dreamed it to be. Stinky salmon barge to Mars most likely.

For which it stands

Today I feel compelled to write about The Flag. It is, after all, Flag Day and me being a veteran who fought and some say died in a war sort of gives me the added push I need to get going, so let's go.

One thing about the US Flag that is a little disturbing is this. If you look at a picture of it––like the one included here––the only part that seems solid are the stars upon the field of blue. Otherwise, if you do not imagine that you have 7 red strips sewn equidistant on a white field or 6 white stripes sewn on a red field the whole flag will deconstruct before you eyes. In real life flag waving, this is not a problem and our flag snaps on it's pole, staff or jack with the best of them. I know one thing and that is from an early age I had a great sense of love and pride salted in my breast for the American Flag. How this came to be I can't say. My family was somewhat eccentric and we certainly did not go in for patriotic ceremony on any regular basis. Still from the time I entered real school I was quite content to spend my days staring out the classroom window at the flag. How did I learn? Well, strange as it may sound, I seemed to already know every thing they were teaching, so I just looked at the flag for two years my heart swelling with pride and happiness. Then came the dark days of 3rd grade and room 103 across the hall with no flag view! What to do? I took a reality check just to make certain there was nothing I needed to study or learn. (there was not)
Then I made a startling discovery. The school was a vast airship! It rose up each day and flew about the clouds and returned to earth around 2 o'clock. The very logistics of the machine kept me busy for the whole of third grade. The school was built like a big T with the cross bar having two stories and being the front while the single story primary wing was in the tail of the letter. Each class room there had a door leading to the main hallway and one to the outside.
The outside doors were painted different colors so that when the kids bailed out with their flying belts for recess in the clouds they could fly back to the correct cabin and not upset the ship's balance. #103 was orange. The next year I was back on the flag side again but now I had some stuff to learn and did not stare so much. I also joined the safety patrol and got to do some flag handling; raising, lowering and folding. The school stopped flying as well; budgetary matters I think. Anyway, I learned that you should take the flag dead serious at all times. For instance if a patrol let the smallest bit of flag matter touch the ground, the kid had to kiss each star while reciting the pledge of allegiance over and over while the rest of the crew stood at attention giving you the fish eye. (I heard it was much worse in the boy scouts)

Why did I love the flag so much? How come I just learned enough to be a soldier and never really grew up? Is it possible that with so many unfulfilled lives floating around in the post war baby boom period some of these poor lost souls were sucked into the over flow of mindless babies lying in hospital for many long days before they went home. Today a new babe goes to his or her mother's breast at birth and the bonded unit goes home pretty damn quick. Back in 46-47 babies lay around the nursery forever or at least enough time to present a target for a lost soul on the cruise. Who knows?

After all this weird conjecture, I'm still very proud of the flag, I do, however, have issues with the republic for which it stands and believe that it needs a very large adjustment. That's something you grown ups will have to handle. I seem to be stuck in a loop that covers the emotions an intellectual bounds from 6 to about 18 and then life makes little sense. How's about helping a vet out?

One of these days and it won't be long-

Hey Bo Diddly! Sorry sir but Mr McDaniel has cashed his final check and we will be taking his number from our directory pending recycling after a set period. Well damn, they took another player from our team and a good one too. Bo Diddly dead at 79. Elias McDaniel was a man of driven to perform and if he had an audience, so much the better. Part comedian, part performance artist, part blues man and full on innovator it's easy to fool yourself into thinking the the Bo Diddly Beat defined the man. Then you listen to some of his hits like "Can't tell a Book..." and "I'm a man" and find it missing then you got to admit the guy was a lot more than "Shave and a Hair Cut." No two bit flash. Nope you got to put Bo in there with Chuck Berry as a sort of proto- music gangster who just did what the hell he wanted and let the DJs and record companies sort it out. I remember big sister going to see Bo Diddly at Virginia Beach way back in the early 60s when concerts were not really the thing yet. I waited up to hear about it. "Well," she said "a bunch of colored men put up a whole lot of speakers and it was really loud" (Sister seemed a little dazed) "Well was it good?" I demanded "We all danced"- "I'm going to bed" I had the information I required. Really, were it not for my older sister and her friends who turned me on to people like Jimmy Reed, and Mose Alison and Yank Rachel, I might still be sitting on a stool framming on a folk guitar stuck in the theory of relative minor. But I was very lucky indeed to be propelled toward the type of music where one was required to say a lot by doing very little and if I did not develop a whole lot of soul, I sure learned to spot it.

Now the people who let me see what was good and worthy in music are dropping out as quietly as springs passing blooms and I'm sad from the stand point that before long I'll go too. We get older and pretend that life's end is just another bump in the road. Don't believe it. We are but a collection of clockwork, fast and slow and will go to great length to draw out the cosmic tic and tock until our walls fall in. It is man's great desire to live, so to have lived well should indeed make us complete. Oddly that doesn't always seem to work because for all the honors Bo Diddly received, at the end he chose to bitch and moan about people stealing his style when they were only flattering his memory. All I can advise is try to work those grudges out before your walls of time fall in on you, and seee that your grave is kept clean.

Oh Oh

I got this warning in the mail. I think you were supposed to pass it along to everyone in the world. I was called " The new First Family" or something along those lines but what it was really about was showing lots of pictures of "African Natives" of the stereotype typified by the graphic shown here and then identify them as relatives to the natural father of presidential hopeful Barack Obama. The fact that the senior Obama was an African is no secret nor is the fact that he abandoned his US family and went back to Africa where he had some more wives and kids. I think he's dead. Never the less there are no shortage of snap shots of the relatives of Barack's Dad goofing around the Dark Continent looking like natives.

What does this have to do with Sen. Obama's qualification to be President? Nothing, however; it does show that he may have a decent chance because these are the actions of a frightened opponent. I must say that I was distressed when I saw the Democrats were putting up what seemed to be two unelectable candidates in a year when they pretty much had a lock on the race. I think a woman is electable, just not Mrs. Clinton. Too much baggage with her husband; too much cold calculation on the spot. Now a Black person? I can dig it. BUT IMO, both JFK and RFK were assassinated because they allowed states rights to be set aside on the subject of race, and even with the possibility that the "illegal" is actually the "new Nigger" I still believe they are crumpled up old men who will not allow a black to succeed and since Obama has the charismatic power and forward shaped ideas to carry the nation and his racial group into a new thought pattern, it is a given that he will be taken out by untraceable means before he can institute a legacy for a successor to honor. Boy what a country!

What the Hell do I know?

Not much. I do know that I'm not like most other people and that has stood me up over the years. Now that I am reaching an old age, however, I see where I little more conformity might have come in handy. But, what the hell do I know? I have a few ideas. Your mortal soul for instance. People including science people have shown interest in the existence of this phenomenon even going to the trouble of weighing people on sophisticated scales right at the moment of death to determine the weight of the soul, while others have used the magic of photography to capture the essence of life waving goodbye as it wafts away from it's former host, now a useless shell. But wait! What about these dead people who come back to life?
People who have all the clinical signs of death, most often from immersion in cold water or sometimes purposely cooled down like those who have heart surgery. These people are technically dead, yet, when managed properly or else by a combination of very good luck suddenly fire up, and they are just fine. This kind of rubs against the soul thing because, if that ethereal bit of "self" actually did fly off to glory when the old body lay down, these lucky ducks who wake up after 17 hours of "death" should by all events be Zombies. Of course they are not. Far from it, in fact, for your average modern day Lazarus tends to declare that "God" has a little task for them and they are positive He will let them know real soon.

Now let me tell you a little something about God. There are exactly 1 zillion people on earth and you got to ask your self this: If God is in control of the whole banana, what is the use of Him bringing people back to life or allowing them to survive some terrible calamity when He might just as well put some people on the planet with the power and intellect to put things right? What I am saying is the people who "Know they have been saved for a special reason" are not given some Biblical task, such as moving a mountain or digging a hole to China. No, if they do anything, they are likely to get on the radio or TV and ask for money to do God's work. God's Work in this case would be making sure that the preacher has a fancy car. It would certainly do God a big favor were some TV minister to live in clean but modest circumstance, drive a 1993 van and distribute all the millions of dollars directly into a structured program to help the poor and homeless without being judgemental and forcing opinions on them in exchange for a bowl of soup. I think God would gain quite a bit of favor were that to happen. People might even believe in Him and as a favor He might save the planet. But what do I know?

Hank Snow Island killer (secret message to the Canadians)

At's right. Mr. Hank Snow, The Singing Ranger from The Maritimes. The man is responsible for literally driving good solid maritime provinces from the shores of Canada and leaving the remaining populations terribly high strung. The provinces of which I speak include Newport, RI.; Martha's Vineyard, MA; The Channel Islands of CA. and most of Hawaii as well as the Philippines. A lot of good real estate has left the Commonweal due to Snow's weird habits of making up strange songs about rocket ships and squids and Filipino Eskimos. We are talking about actual islands just drifting away to other countries. In my opinion Canadians should unite to bring these homelands home. Snow's dead, he cannot hurt you anymore. Just think the surge of pride that could come from bringing the Islands home could do wonders for the poor souls in the remaining connected maritime lands, people like my friend Dane who goes ballistic at the suggestion that Canadian Baseball rules allow 5 strikes and Metal bats. It's just a joke Dane! Personally, I think it is a damn shame that Canadians can't seem to recall when these Islands were a part of the great lands north of Buffalo. Trust me, they were as Canadian as Leonard Cohen ,and while putting the land back on the Canadian Coastline may not be plausible, I should think a person with the power of The Presidency of The USA could probably put the titles right back in your pocket. Oh, you didn't know I was running for office? Well I am and it's a write in deal, soooo anyone who drops over the border
around election time might just nip into a polling place and write Texino on a ballot; as often as you want actually. If things work out for me, I wont forget you. Know what I'm saying? I am saying if you border boys help me in this election, I'll cede a bunch of valuable islands to Canada on the premise that they were originally yours. American Sovereignty? Screw that, I'm from Panama. Hows about you guys help me in Florida and maybe I give you Long Island! I tell you I'm ready to deal and there are plenty of hot properties here in the US that I can easily live without and would fit right in to cosmopolitan Canada. Like New Orleans for instance. Or Tampa, FL. Tampa/Toronto see what I mean? I say take some of these spots an infuse a little Canadian common sense and we will have two very fine countries at work.

Think it over. OK? Fine.

Frog Power

Texino here and, yes, I am still interested in being your write-in candidate for President of the United States (cha cha cha-Ole') For my parties' mascot I have chosen the humble but extremely powerful, from the occult standpoint, Green Frog. (see image)  Powerful?  Well consider this.  In Tibet rumor has it that Chinese engineers attempting to build the world's highest railroad to Lhasa were thwarted in their efforts by the interference of a frog the size of a truck.

Now the rumor does not exactly spell out what the big frog did.  I suppose one day the Chinamen were laying track with the ant-like cooperation that comes from being a good commie and the uncanny precision which causes one to continue the Chinese-insect metaphor, when all of a sudden they came upon the large amphibian sunning itself in their path.  What to do?  Well, in every People's Project, there must be a political officer to make sure that, even though everyone is the same, workers take orders from their bosses who are not really their bosses in theory but are in practice which, BTW, is why Communism looks so cool on paper and attracts intelligent and wealthy British Homosexual

 men in such large numbers.  My point here is that this being a communist undertaking it is quite possible that a committee was gathered to discuss the options afforded and just as likely that this was done at the railhead in full site of "The Frog" and even more likely still that the insect metaphor was not lost on the giant jumper who may well have decided to sample several members of the hastily convened politburo.  At this juncture, I'm certain a consensus to just "Run a-way" was reached and and the project was abandoned.  Of course it is far more likely that simple economics played the role of giant frog here and the world''s highest railroad was a victim of the world wide slump.  Big Frog makes for a better story though and the government doesn't look too bad.  Rumor is big in China.  People don't read and write.  You ever see what passes for writing in China?  Riiiight! Those pictograms are supposed to be words?  Sez who?   Well I'm not here to discuss this.

It's Frog Power that's on my mind and I think I have demonstrated that The Frog is a symbol of mystical power and certainly a worthy campaign pet.  So come on out and jump on the Texino Bandwagon and, come election day, if my name's not on your ballot, please write it in. You will be helping your country and your self.     

                                                                                                                                                   

The Last Refuge of a Scoundrel

That's correct folks, Politics.  By now it is probably no secret that I have managed to alienate one of the hardest working acts in show biz simply by questioning the way they decreed things would go and then not exactly agreeing with it.  Well one thing led to another thing and now things sit at such a point that I have no choice but to run for President of The USA either by "Draft" or "Write in".  Now drafting works because I have been drafted before and things came out OK.  In fact, while Candidate McCain was sneaking around the skies blowing up whatever was down below like a bloody terrorist, Texino was fighting the "enemy" face to face and gaining respect for him as a person which is what allowed us to end the war and get guys like McCain turned loose with their heads still attached.  I mean it people, when Terrorist blew down some buildings in NYC with our own stuff.  We went crazy and started a war with the guy who did not do it and then rejoiced as he was hung by his opposition party.   Meanwhile back in the Vietnam years when war was just starting to be in color we were blasting the crap out of any damn thing there was to hit and then hauling ass out of town, it's no wonder that the locals were a little cheesed off when they caught a brave night pilot.  BUT?  Did they hack him to death? No.  Did they cut off his business and feed it to him? Nope.  Water Board?  Water Ski? Hardly.  No, they put them in a parade with the wreckage of their plane as evidence and people yelled at them because they were angry.  Angry, just as we would have been had, during our war between the states, the Canadians suddenly appeared in flying machines dropping flaming haystacks and overly ripe OX carcasses indiscriminately about the south.

See there are two sides to every conflict and the sooner you understand what's truly the matter

, the quicker you stop it and people get friendly and trade develops.  Everythings OK.  

Well, if I'm so smart, how come I'm fighting with this couple.  Glad you asked.  These folks are like and independent country; one of the good ones that showed up after the breakup of the Soviet Union and it's going to take "Politics" to put this one to bed.

My plan?  Well I think I'm pretty bright and I know where to find the muscle when it's needed.  Texino is a proud old name and easy to write.  Really a big T and a little x will get you by on a write in.  No way that will be misconstrued.

Now I would like to speak about my running mate V.P. Candidate Linda Lookadoo (rhymes with Mikado)  Not Only does Linda's name add some oriental mysticism that has long been missing from the American Body Politic but the concept of a president with no 1st Lady at hand (Mrs T is having none of this) and an attractive unmarried VEEP is certain to set tongues wagging from The Washing Post to the Nat'l Enquirer and getting right to the people who are crass enough to vote with their repressed libidos.  My Public!  Also just because I'm rhyming Lookadoo with a Japanese name doesn't mean she is one.  She's a hot red head who will do what's necessary to help our ticket.  You know,  "Win a date with The VP to the Black Keys Concert."  We are ready to run this fucking country right know what I'm saying? (Rap)  So start the ball you all-Tommy Texino -The Candid Candidate go to the Polls write it in, things be much better than what they been!  That's TEXINO   904-540-7869 call me early call me late We'll talk about your state. (End Rap)

See you...TT

The Terrible Truth or Won't you come home Mr. Talent

Hi, You know how it is when someone gets an awful disease and they say "don't worry, I'll beat this?" Then they never do. Well the bad part about all that is they really think they are going to beat the thing. It's human nature. Even me. Not only have I been losing my ability to play stringed instruments over the last six years or so, but the whole time I've been telling myself and everyone else how hard I have been working and how I was going to get a CD of my stuff out; maybe doing all the ballads that used to get me in good with the girls. I even have a studio in my house capable of making this record. I have all the instruments, software and microphones too. The only thing missing is the talent. Yes the talent. That certain "I don't know what" that I had for all these years, the thing that allowed me to get away with being a performer while not being the best player or singer, but gave me the confidence that I could stand up against anyone in either department. The "Talent" seems to have taken stock in my situation and decided that I'm no longer a good risk . Either that or something like it because the bastard's done a back door on me. I'm serious you know. I pick up my new mandolin (was to be my salvation) and play a scale. Well part of a scale. It's like digging a hole- do re mi-but my fingers fumble and the notes will not flow. This is bad because the scales are just repeating patterns learned by rote and are something you do while Mr. Talent is having breakfast or a brief nap. Then I'll try a tune. Well most tunes are just bits of scales with a A part and a B part and hardly something to get Talent out of bed for unless you are really putting on a show. Well, in my case, I try to fight my way through a simple song I've played 1000 times and get the distinct feeling that Talent is not even in his room let alone in bed. No, I fear that the dread Parkinson Company has finally cut enough of the Rainforest in my head to affect the special broadband communication with my hands that is necessary for real guitar playing to take place and, in turn, attract an itinerant Talent. See, I can be flippant about it because I still don't really believe it can happen to me. Just give me another week or so, I'll break out. See what I mean? Thing is I wont stop trying and if anything, it does give a bit of a glimpse into how people with real problems like cancer keep going, even when the truth is right there for you to see. Human nature. It is an Awful and a Terrible thing, but if you allow those words to hold their original meaning you will know it is not bad.

Horrible tales from the Belgian Congo

Yes it is a sad commentary to see how the white colonialists treated the blacks in the early part of the last century, however; after viewing these recently discovered news items, you may see that the Blacks had things a bit more in control as will been seen by the coordinated action against the greedy speculator Tin Tin.








What will happen?  It's hard to say.  I can only report these old news clippings as they come to me from my secret European sources and I disavow any sentiment toward either side, other than to say it wouldn't bother me if someone shrunk Tin Tin's head.

Texino

"Toss me a cigarette..."

That's Paul Simon talking, or I should say singing from a song called America.  It's a pretty tune where Paul and "Kathy" are off in search of America and seem to get as far as Michigan or Pittsburgh on the strength of a pack of smokes and a couple of fruit pies before heading home to NYC. on a bus. They are smoking on the bus.

Now if you have ever seen Paul Simon playing himself on Saturday Night Live or playing someone like himself in a Woody Allen movie, you know that he would be the first person to bust someone for smoking out loud, once it became The Thing to do.

That's why I think it's funny that he is singing it forever .  Just goes to show you that smoking is cool.  Now you may have lost a friend or relative to tobacco related illness or know someone who is sick from cigarettes and won't stop smoking.  If you are in this fix, then you may not think smoking is so sharp, but it is.  I never smoked until I was in the service.  I did because there was something extremely satisfying about firing up a Lucky Strike after some action.  The taste brought back memories of hot coffee and breakfast and the old days camping at the lake.  The fact that I never drank coffee, ate breakfast or camped at a lake in my life didn't matter.

It was some magic cigarette mojo that eased your mind.  I'm not sure why cigarettes took a notion to start killing people.  Maybe they started putting too much weird stuff in them.  I don't know if you have ever smoked cured tobacco from NC, but it's pretty tasty and doesn't have a cigarette odor to it.   Looking back, it doesn't seem that smoking became a killer until cigarettes got to be such a huge business with about a million brands fighting for the smokers dollar and with that many in the fray it was only a matter a time before the inference was made that smoking might in fact be bad for you, so all kinds of new filters and 'Lite' brands came flying out.  "Are you smoking more, but enjoying it less?" we were asked.  Well I don't know about that Jack, but people sure started to get sick more than they had in the past and the disease was traced to smoking.  Was this some kind of reverse placebo?  Tell people something will make them ill, so they feel bad?  Hard to say.  I certainly have seem some gross over reaction to smoking back when it was legal in certain parts of a bar.  I always figured if you were close enough to people smoking pot to get high yourself, that would be the definition of bothersome  secondhand cigarette smoke; meaning there are lots worse pollutants out and about on a daily basis.  People take to the strangest notions.  I got heart disease 8 years ago and stopped smoking. For my part, I haven't looked back, but I don't scamper away when someone lights up.  Back to Paul Simon.  He didn't get his cigarette because "... we smoked the last one an hour ago."  Just something about little Paul smoking on a bus in a rather nonsensical song written with a very high hand got me thinking about how quickly things can flop around from good to bad.  Then of a sudden, I realize that in counting the years between the notion behind Simon's words and where things lie today, I'm running down more than half a life time.   Gosh,

it really does seem like yesterday that people smoked every place and no one noticed.  I guess when you can stuff a whole era into your mind and then examine it from every angle, you better start watching your step for you may have lived long enough. (Wonder if it would change anything if Garfunkle wrote that song?)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

He's really glad to meet ya! (Very much so)

Oh oh! Its a Ghost! (silent 'T') Sure it's Casper The Friendly, but he's still a ghost and even though he is cartoonish with a bubblehead and expressive eyebrows  he is destined to walk the earth in search of a friend before he can rest.  Kind of begs the question of what happens to his friend?.  I lived in a house with a ghost in it and the thing was not the least bit friendly.  In fact, it would stomp around the halls and go dragging right by the bedroom where I slept causing me to flee in panic.  The ghost never got me and I was damn glad to get out of that big scary old place.  I wish I could have confronted the source of the sound because it was a real physical noise of someone dragging something and the father of the family who lived there before had died while out in the woods cutting a Christmas tree.  Kind of get the impression I'd be seeing a rather confused looking semi transparent man with a tree.  Trouble with that is it would open up a whole lot of theological and scientific seams plus throw the light of suspicion on my ability to tell the truth.  In the long run it's a better ghost story than factual sighting.  Still it gives one pause to wonder what happens if ones death is unexpected or particularly tragic and not totally resolved.  I mean this guy with his tree would show up any time there was a big commotion at the house.  His family had moved.  Not far, but away and all the hoo ha of another big family moving in and raising hell seemed to excite the "spirit".  Oh well, I only had a chance to solve the whole riddle of life and death and blew it cause I'm a chicken.  That's the whole of it I guess.

Our whole field of cosmic misunderstanding may be laid at my cowardly feet.  Well, God knows I'm sorry!  Never said I was perfect, just Texino.

Texino vs The P Trap

 That thing is called a P Trap.  If you have a drain in your home you have one.  If you kitchen sink is slow to drain there is likely an obstruction in the U shape part. In the old days before PVC a plunger tool might be a help, however if you have PVC (plastic) pipes coming out of your sink, a plunger is not a good idea and here's why.  There will be a pipe coming out of your sink  and another pipe will go between it and the part of the P trap thats sticking straight up in the air.  OK?  Fine.  Now all that is holding that pipe to the bottom of your sink is a plastic washer that holds a plastic nut that screws onto one end of the connecting pipe and then the same thing happens at the bottom.  Now everything gets right and tight but are no threads on the piece of pipe coming from the sink just the washer is holding it by compression.  A good hefty plunge can pop that sucker lose and give you a sink full of water right underneath in the cabinet.  Ugh.  Speaking of sinks full, I should add that there is always water in the P trap because not only is it used for catching diamond rings and such, but it also serves to keep poisonous sewer gases from coming in through the pipes and killing you.  I am telling you about the water because the very best way to clear up the drain situation is to simply take the P trap out and clean the junk out or it.

Your modern P trap can be handled by simply unscrewing the plastic  nuts an making sure you have something to catch any excess water remove the U shaped part and take it out sir and run a hose though it till it is clear.  Then replace the washers and put it back together.  They sell all the stuff at the hardware store and a P trap replacement is pretty much a one trip deal.  Some of you may have a chrome plated brass P trap.  It will be held in place by nuts but they will take a monkey wrench or slip joint pliers to get loose.  They may have washers, but teflon tape is a must here.  Just wrap some around the threads and you will not have to over tighten the nuts and damage the washers.  It is important to understand that when you see mental pipes you may be dealing with professional plumbing which is hard work and requires special tools.  So be prepared to make at least three trips to the hardware store if metal is involved, and you might as well get a couple of things to keep handy.  One, a water shutoff tool. Its a metal bar with a t handle that lets you shut off the water at you meter because you various valves are probably corroded and if you break one it will be easy to fix if the water is not spraying all over.

You also need two pipe wrenches, a gee flash or work light, some kind of propane torch and a big long lighter for relighting water heaters.  Those things and a tool for undoing the plastic nuts on flexible supply tubing for toilets and sinks and you are ready to plumb.  You would be surprised what you can do.  I got my dual sinks draining like Niagara falls and in only cost me .29 cent for each washer.  Less that $5.

So even if you are suffering from strange medication changeover.  Don forget. Fixing stuff is what we are good at, so before you spend huge money ask me or just google what you want to do and do it.

There's More Pretty Blogs than one

I spent the entire week being worried over the whereabouts of my friend.  I emailed her several times.  I called her home long distance.  I emailed her kids.  I emailed her brother, who answered saying he thought she had one off to her island home for a week and was having trouble getting on line.  Well since this home is actually on an Island and one cannot get there without a reasonably sized boat or a ridiculously small plane, plus strangers who are not greeted by a resident are, as a rule, killed and buried in the sand by the Island's ubiquitous "handyman" and his tractor of all trades, I decided to just wait it out.  That decision reached, I retreated into my  "Cave O' Hits"  and recorded music, until my pal returned to her mainland digs and resumed to commune.   So, says I. "Thanks for the heads up on your trip"  Says she "It was all in my blog."  Oops!

So I realize that I have gotten so involved in my own writing that I have not been paying attention to one who reads my stuff all the time and is a damn good writer her own self.

I fucked up.  I don't plan to get so self involved again.  My recent writing is just stuff.  If you want to write well, you had better listen to what other people are saying because you don't own the words.  They are only there for the sharing.

T Texino

Dog House

Six Days in a warehouse...

A very large warehouse.  Somewhere in Oakland, CA.  The warehouse was full of army men, the type that get blown up wholesale in a war movie that calls for a lot of dead soldiers.  In other words, replacements. I don't remember very much about this warehouse other than it was huge and went on for ever in all directions, and there were little islands of bunk beds.

The were in groups 6 or maybe 12 but the didn't seem like a crowd because the space was just gigantic and even though there were easily 1000 men in there all the time it was not very loud.  No horse play.  

We stayed there longer than normal because of the six day war.  It started the day I reported to the Oakland Army Terminal and they held everyone up until it was obvious they weren't going to need to blow up any or our guys over there and then they started shipping us out to Vietnam.  Being a replacement you flew over on a civilian jet and it took about 27 hours

19 off  them flying.  Seems like you had to go a lot of places, although Vietnam is pretty far away; sort of between China and India, so you had to go to Seattle and Japan and Okinawa first.  Guys who shipped over with their unit mostly went by boat and that took a long time and was no fun.  I think I would have liked it though.  I ended up making that trip a couple of times, but never got warehoused like that first time.  For some reason after all these years, and I think about Vietnam a lot, it has occurred to me that a portion of the boy live stock in that big warehouse never came back. How many?  Can't say.  When you get killed in a war though, you go from person to  garbage pretty quickly.  I mean, your buddies will make a big deal about getting you out so the enemy don't cut your dick off, but once the boys at graves registration get you well they handle a body pretty rough.  Got to or they would go mad.  I'd say they are already mad and mostly drunk any way.  They bag you and tag you and put you in a tin box and God only knows how they send those boxes back except they end up in Delaware which is where Graves Reg HQ.  is and where they start treating the bodies like normal dead people again.  From there they to off to get buried.  But no one gets to look, so you got to take the word of graves reg that the body in the box is whom they say which BTW is the function of those dog tags soldiers wear.  If you see a set of real dog tags you will notice one has a notch in the end.  Well the Graves Reg. guys take that and sort of well wedge it between your teeth except they make sure it will stay.  Then when the body gets to where it's going they match the tags.  Well that's what they do. I didn't make the rules.  Maybe someone should write a book or a movie about that part of the service.  Some times I think if people new a little more about your day to day war time, they would not be so pleased with themselves sending the boys and girls off to prove a point.  So back in june of 67, it went something like this:  "Better hold off on that shipment for a week Bob, the Jews might need 'em."  Oh the price of freedom is a heavy coin.

The Fat Heads

Who?  Well the fat heads are the people whose overall mindset is what keeps

actual American Citizens dying in these crazy wars that you sort of hear about.

Sort of hear about?  Well yeah, I'd say that.  Like where is the 82 nd Airborne pounding the ground at the moment? Or the 101st Screaming Eagles?  The 1st infantry?  The 1st Cav. (Airmobile)  This ain't loose lips sink ships stuff you know.  It's just the TV doesn't say because The Fat Heads don't want the word out that our storied fighting groups are just tooling about being used for target practice by Johnny Arab.  Are you holding your head and saying, oh no not again?  Well you may as well because The Fat Heads learned back during the War Between The States, that there was good money to be made by a stay at home Fat Head so long as the bullets kept flying and the bombs kept bursting and even if a war happened to stop, there was something called R&D that paid pretty good money to modify the tech from the previous conflict and make it more powerful and expensive for the next war and woe be it to anyone who tried to keep there from being a next war.  Take a second if you will and bring in the Ghosts of Woodrow Wilson and Jimmie Carter.  You say Carter's not dead? Sure he is, he just don't know it. Now here are two great men who tried to set an example of peace.  Mr. Carter Even tried to be Green!  Plus he was every bit the fundamental Christian G.W. Bush would like to be.  He just did it by honest work and setting an example of the Christian life.  Wilson's work on the League of Nations was masterful and he was proud to believe he could have ended all wars, until the Fat Heads stabbed him in the back and dashed his dream.  And Mr. Carter?  He was dismissed by a neurologically defunct B movie actor and his wife who knew how a queen should live, and as the Carters we ushered out the back door of the boarded up mansion, the curtain went up on 8 years of Fat Head theatre where they were so comfy they didn't even need a war and things looked so peachy that just about every potential Fat Head there was joined the Republican party.  Well the Ronnie Show finally had to leave town.  At their convention no one seemed to notice that rather than a speech they folksy Prez put on a hi tech video of his accomplishments narrated as he strolled and rode around his wild-west ranch and ending it walking away from the camera with his arm around "Mommie" who reaches out and gives him a pat on the butt as he says "...And I think we did a pretty god job." Oh Jesus fucking Christ, the Fat Heads cheered  their fat heads off.  For a fucking movie by a fucking movie actor reading voice over while the actual man was Ga Ga. Didn't matter because they had the big MO behind them and elected a former CIA chief who knew exactly who he could get  a war going with and did it it the grandest fat head style chasing Iraqis all over the desert and blasting the crap out of them with smart and very expensive weapons.  You will remember the Patriot missiles that couldn't miss?  And all those briefings where "TV guided" things went right through the doors windows and down the chimney.  Well it turns out things were not quite as accurate as all that, but what the hey?  We ran those stinking towel heads... well you know what I mean.  One thing though.  The jr. Fat Heads and the Thick Heads could not figure out why didn't we chase evil Sadam back to Baghdad?  Well, a lot has to do with how this story started, and I'll get right to it  Still in Iraq #1 we had plenty of Fat Head Dollars to be made putting out those oil fires and restoring infrastructure and all that jazz.  The reason we just stuck with that fat head business was Mr. Bush #1 had been around and he knew the secret.  The secret is not going to make you very happy regardless of what size hat you wear.  But damn the lies and full speed ahead.  Lets build a metaphor, OK? Fine.  No suppose you had a gang of scrawny little british kids and they had been playing some type of game for ages.  Something Americans don't play or even understand at all; like Cricket.  Well these boys could be really good but say a German school moved into their neighborhood and they had a team that was just as good but had the advantage of regular meals and warm clothes, so they were bigger and stronger and they would win enough games to always be on top.  OK.  We suppose we were to bring three men over from the USA: Michael Jordan, Joe Montana and Barry Bonds, each one at his peak and each one with a huge fortune.  Before too long, with the help of these super athletes and their money, the British boys would find a way to come out the over all winners. Well the great wars, the world wars, have sort of been fought like that.  Our side won, not because the Americans were the smartest fighters but because we had the inexhaustible supplies from Fat Head business and the foolish patriotism drummed into the real Americans by their Fat Head bosses. Plus our allies had been fighting wars for thousands of years and really just needed the infusion of unlimited wealth and plenty of guys in green.  Don't buy it?  Well just look at the wars we have attempted to prosecute on our own;Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, The Drug War... See a pattern?  Maybe we are not the big time winners the Fat Heads tell us we are.  Remember, it really doesn't matter to the Fat Head Confederacy if we keep losing these wars;  so long as we don't see the truth of the matter and stop fighting for Fat Heads.  What might happen if we did that.  Did what?  Admitted that we can't win a war against a determined insurgent population who is not trying to take our stuff but just trying to work out their inner turmoil and just come home.  That's right.  Say fuck it Johnny Arab, you fix it and we will talk business.  Well the Fat Heads would not care for that in the least, but, being fat heads they would get to work on bringing some some sort of big dollar can't lose business to ground.  Wouldn't it be swell they decided to make some highly efficient car or some medical cure?  Could that happen?  Of course it could.  The Fat Heads are really just a big machine tool factory of sorts.  They have just been profiting of war for so long that it's hard to change the product and of course as long as we believe that we are ace war winners, a status quo will exist. Admit that we can't win a game of checkers against these non-enemies and see how fast the  industry develops  the tools for our cleaner greener and better future.  Why?  Sooner or later another real war will pop up and after all, a Jeep's just a kind of car and if it's electrically powered and made of composite material it will bring a good price on the defense market.