The Miracle of "Hyperlinks" Explained

You folks know how much I love "hyperlinks"! They give my "blog" its special "texture"! As Mevelyn once said, they turn the "blog" into a bewildering and maddening dream within a dream, just the way you like it. Oh! That reminds me. Beware of zombie "links"! When I was putting together a recent "post," I noticed that back when Megan first told me about Lawrence Welk's sexy daughter-in-law, she included a "link" to a Lawrence Welk fansite for more information. I put that "link" on the "blog." But as I noticed the other day, that particular Lawrence Welk fansite must have gone belly up, and the "link" now leads to a webpage for, shall we say, libidinous Germans. Don't worry, I took care of it! But despite my vow to find and eradicate all ancient zombie "links" from the "blog," which I made when I was unemployed, it seemed too hard, and I gave up. Anyway, that's not what I meant to talk about! So, here's the kind of coincidence enjoyed only by McNeil and myself... wait! First I have to reiterate, in case you don't know, that almost all "hyperlinks" on the "blog" lead to the "blog's" most recent previous mention of their subject, lending the "blog" its distinctive ouroboros shape enjoyed by one and all. So! In yesterday's "post," I mentioned two great songwriters, Paul McCartney and Dolly Parton. Okay. Are you ready to have your mind blown? The prior "post" mentioning Paul McCartney AND the prior "post" mentioning Dolly Parton were BOTH, by utter chance, illustrated with photos of... you guessed it... Jack Palance! If you don't believe me, check it out for yourself. I know you won't. I pity more than scorn you.

Lost and Gone: Memories of Mr. Belding

I texted Kent Osborne immediately when I read that Mr. Belding from SAVED BY THE BELL died. Kent used to know everything about SAVED BY THE BELL! He probably still does. Once Kent and I were at a karaoke bar called Dimples, which, I have since heard, or so I believe, was torn down. But that's not the point! Though it's close. As I recall, Kent and I butchered Paul McCartney's "Jet." But that's not the point either! So I remember Kent saying, "I heard Mr. Belding comes here a lot." And then he was ecstatic when Mr. Belding showed up! And the night ended with Joey Lauren Adams and Mr. Belding and me singing Dolly Parton's "Jolene" together, speaking of the recently departed. There used to be video evidence! But like so many things, it is lost and gone. Now, Mr. Belding would never have remembered this (or did he?) but Kent and I had already met him once, in the late 1990s, at which time he recorded the outgoing message for Kent's answering machine. He was just sweet and adorable! Mr. Belding, I mean. Based on our two brief encounters. And I'll tell you something about life. Joey and I went to Dimples again a year or two later, just before it was (I believe) torn down, and we sang Lloyd Price's version of "Stagger Lee," or tried, but they stopped the music and sprayed us with foam cannons to get us to shut up. It just goes to show you, nothing gold can stay. That's the point!

Celebrating 20 Years of Crap

Well, yesterday I finished the fourth and final volume of OUTLAWS OF THE MARSH. It didn’t end the way I thought it would! Checked in with Jimmy, but he has only recently cracked open volume three, so I have no one to talk to. But that’s not why we’re here, is it? As sorry as I am to admit it, today marks the 20th anniversary of the "blog." What a waste of time! What a monument, indeed, to the wasting of time. Just in case you don’t want to go back and read all 6,455 previous "posts," I am going to attach "hyperlinks" to the single greatest "post" from each year. Ballots were sent to Nobel prizewinners, movie stars, and rulers of nations. Results were tabulated by an army of robots. 2006: I mash my middle finger while attempting to get the suitcase out of the trunk. 2007: I think I see a spider on the hand soap dispenser. 2008: I drop a French fry on the floor. 2009: Emily shows me her wisdom teeth. 2010: G. Gordon Liddy’s commercial for gold. 2011: Is it 2011 already? Many (ha ha!) would assume my big long list of books with owls in them to be the obvious choice here. But there’s a problem with that! Though initiated in October 2011, which date it retains, the owl list has been regularly updated ever since and so cannot be said to belong exclusively to that year. The list of books with owls in them is for all time! And all people! And all owls! No, the greatest "post" of 2011 was when I eavesdropped on a conversation about someone who displayed dinosaur bones at her wedding reception. That being said, remember when I cleverly observed that James Ellroy simply can’t resist the term "night owl"? Well, I was too busy to tell you, but last week I was reading a different James Ellroy book than the one which provoked the comment, and I have to admit this one is comparatively light on night owls. He’s exercising uncharacteristic restraint! In the 300 or so pages I’ve read so far, he does use it twice with a hyphen ("night-owl"), as an adjective. So that’s exciting. 2012: A guy pulls my teeth while telling me a story about B.B. King. 2013: A cool name for a dog. 2014: I out-crazy an authentic New York City crazy. 2015: Lawrence Welk’s sexy daughter-in-law. 2016: Scarlet fever isn’t all that. 2017: Critiquing a quip that Arnold Schwarzenegger makes to a dead alligator. 2018: A bone falls out of the sky (photographic evidence included). 2019: An omelet named after my novel has been taken off the menu. 2020: Counting wienies. 2021: We sit around the house talking about Jonathan "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" Edwards. 2022: What they put on pancakes in Sweden. 2023: The New York Times throws its considerable weight behind Skippy brand peanut butter. 2024: Prayed over by a fudge manufacturer in an airport. 2025: The fork I’ve been eating with for close to sixty years is lost forever. 2026: Ending on another bummer, as seems appropriate, I leave my hat behind at my parents’ house. So many things lost. Forks, hats, omelets, time. All right! There it is, the "blog" in one neat package. See you on September 27, 2056, for the 50th anniversary. In hell! (Pictured, the hat, in 2019, at the Los Alamitos racetrack with Pendleton Ward.)

Buckatunna Chicken Mat

Life took us once again through Buckatunna, where we stopped at the same gas station, only this time there was a chicken guarding it. The chicken did not stray from what I suppose we should call the welcome mat outside the gas station. I contemplated the chicken. I thought about how, when we have recorded for you here the stories of various chickens hanging around various commercial buildings, the chickens have always congregated in groups. I felt bad for the presumably lonesome chicken. Maybe that's my problem, not the chicken's! Our journey continued to Grand Bay, Alabama, where I noticed a restaurant called New York Pizza. I took a photo of it and sent it to Bill Boyle, who is from New York and very particular about pizza. He replied in astonishment that the lunch special appeared to be 18.99 for two slices and a drink! That was also how I had read the sign, which was blurry due to my lack of skills of all kinds. Later that night, my mom and I vowed to get to the bottom of it! We raced to our precious enhanced telephones, which were replete with information and modern capabilities. Mom said the special was 8.99 for two slices and a drink. I blew up the photo, like David Hemmings in BLOW-UP, and conceded that what Bill and I had taken for a 1 could well have been a dollar sign instead. I relayed the information to Bill. He said it was still too much. Anyway, glancing over the menu of Grand Bay, Alabama's New York Pizza, I observed that they offer a "pickle slice." That is to say, a slice of pizza with pickles on it. Here's the thing! Get ready! Just the night before, my brother had been sitting at the kitchen table, saying, out of nowhere, quote, "I can imagine a slice of pizza with pickles on it." Later, I checked my email and saw that McNeil had written to inform me that in 2007 I misspelled the title of the movie BUONA SERA, MRS. CAMPBELL. It has been corrected!

Grits in Zurich

Last time I checked, the grits had made it as far as Zurich.

Shaft Punctuation

Well, now that the Million Dollar Book Club has finished its most recent selection - which, as Megan and I were discussing, is mostly a list of people having sex in piles of rotting garbage for art - I have returned to the final volume of OUTLAWS OF THE MARSH, in which our army of former bandits has come up against a military formation called... wait! Remember when McNeil was trying to get me to worship "The Monad"? So, they come up against a formation called "The Great Monad." Can this be a coincidence? Or does everybody just have monad fever? Anyway, these guys are completely flummoxed by the Great Monad! And nothing gets to these guys. The last time they were this upset was back when they were still bandits, about 400 pages ago, and they ran into their greatest adversary... a guy who is good at throwing rocks! I'm not kidding. Individually and as a group, these guys have triumphed over impossible odds again and again, but all of a sudden they're saying "Ow! Ow!" and falling off their horses because they met - seemingly for the first time in their lives - someone who can throw rocks. Don't worry, they eventually get the rock thrower - whose nickname is the Featherless Arrow - to come over to their side, so they can use his rock throwing powers for their own purposes. And yet not even this guy who is good at throwing rocks will be much use against the Great Monad! I'll keep you posted. So, the other night it was Dr. Theresa's birthday and we were driving around singing the theme from SHAFT. One thing we saw was a bunch of golden glinting orbs in a thicket, and then a baby raccoon emerged, and the golden glinting orbs were the eyes of its many brothers and sisters. But the point is we were driving around before that, singing the theme from SHAFT, and to my surprise, when we got to "no one understands him but his woman," Dr. Theresa belted out, with great confidence, "Joan Shaft!" And I said WHAT! Well, it turns out that for her whole life, Dr. Theresa has heard, I suppose, a comma after the phrase "no one understands him but his woman," a comma leading to a syntactically very logical end to that sentence, which would be giving the name of the woman to whom Isaac Hayes is referring, one "Joan Shaft." Dr. Theresa's theory was further bolstered by the fact that prior to the supposed introduction of "Joan Shaft," the protagonist Shaft is referred to by his surname alone. I had to burst her bubble on her birthday and inform her that there is no Joan Shaft. The backup singers are, of course, supplying us with Shaft's full name, John Shaft. Then, as a refreshing break from my mansplaining, the baby raccoon came out of the thicket. It was just like that Walt Whitman poem about the astronomer.

Grits to Sweden

Yesterday I mailed some grits to Sweden. In return, I expect to receive some canned fish meatballs. "They taste like nothing," Hanna assured me.