The Real Memphis Mike (don't settle for imitations)

Thank you to the U.S. Supreme Court for taking us another step towards the end. A few years ago, I read that one of the cable channels was planning a series called America Town. The premise being that one day, in the not too horribly distant future, the US, as we've come to know it, would be a memory. Many of it's citizens would have emigrated to other countries, looking for a better way of life. The series never even made it to production (that I know of) and I've never been able to find the article again...so here's my take on it. Imagine a slum in an un-named European city. This is one of the America Towns...not unlike Chinatown or Little Italy in many large US cities. The difference being that it is populated by former American citizens who have fled their homeland looking for a better, happier life in a more tolerant nation.  Walking through America Town, one would probably smell hamburgers and hot dogs cooking. The residents would be fat and badly dressed. P...

If you've been following the continuing saga I call LIFE, you may have noticed I haven't seriously played guitar in a while. A lot of reasons for this. I've been busy doing other stuff tops the list. I went on an insane writing jag for a few months and sort of burned myself out comes in a close second. I just haven't felt like it rounds out the top three. Well, I'm getting that itch to play again. You know what that means! Time to get loud! Time to round up Robbo & JD and attempt to make some noise. Who knows, we might be coming to a joint near you. I've also been down. Yeah, it happens. No need to cry and wring hands or anything. I've been sitting on a finished CD for 4 friggin' years. I just don't know what to do with it. CDs? They don't sell well anymore. Downloads? Are you fucking kidding me? That is the biggest racket in the world! There is NO WAY to account for what is/isn't being sold...and I don't know about YOU, bu...

I've learned to loathe Mikey and that damned Life cereal commercial.... I wound up having the day off...and I'm sitting here trying to think of what to make for dinner. I'm actually craving stuff that I know I can't easily find. I could really go for a nice Cornish pasty , or a cold pork pie , or any number of delicious treats I've had in my travels...but my options in the pantry are limited. I could make some chorizo, I know I have that in the freezer. Thinking about food has me thinking about some of the foods I've eaten, and how friends in different cultures view them. It's odd, really, when one takes into account societal viewpoints on food. Food is fuel. It serves the purpose of keeping our bodies running. It can also be delicious, fun to prepare, and made to look fancy! But...really, why do people get so bent out of shape about certain foods? Sure, the Bible says not to eat certain things, for various reasons...and I'm sure other religions have...

Halyomorpha halys, also known as the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB), or simply the stink bug, is an insect in the family Pentatomidae, and it is native to China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan. It was accidentally introduced into the United States, with the first specimen being collected in September 1998. They are, simply put, nasty. Halyomorpha halys, aka, The Stinkbug How nasty are they? So nasty that even spiders won't eat them. We, in the Greater Pittsburgh Area, have been dealing with these nasty, odorous little pests for a few years now. Here at our house, we haven't had much of a problem with them. Every so often, we'll catch a few in our trap...or find one behind a curtain (sneaky little bastards) and pop it, live, into the trap, where it lives out a fiendish, real-life horror show of being surrounded by the corpses of other halyomorpha halys that have ended up there. I, sometimes, imagine what is going on in the stink bug's mind. " Holy Hell! Get m...

I see so many of my friends excited about Father's Day. They tell amazing stories about their dad and happy family life growing up. That's all a mystery to me. Don't get me wrong. I love my dad. He's a great man. However, as I've always said, our family put the funk in dysfunctional. We just do NOT, as a general rule, get along. You can put two of us in the same room, and we'll get on fine. Any more than that...look out. I'm sure dad wanted to be there for us. The reality of it, he was too busy working 16+ hour days, 6-7 days a week, saving lives. Dad was a cardiologist...and the only one in the area. Generations of big-eating steel worker families gave dad more work than he could handle! This left dad a grumpy, exhausted mess most of the time. I often joke that dad was the grumpy SOB I'd see every other Sunday. As a kid, I didn't understand all of this. He could seem distant. Reality was, he was exhausted and seriously overworked. By age 5, I ...

Want to know why so many people have issues with Christianity? It's not so much the whole concept (let's face it, all religions have some hard-to-fathom origins) but the whole corporate mentality of contemporary Christianity. Let's be honest; it turns people off. I mean really...you don't see Jews, Buddhists, or Muslims on TV begging for money. Mind you, I'd probably enjoy watching that. I can just imagine an old, Orthodox rabbi, explaining philosophy and giving good reasons to send him money. But you never see that. I can imagine the Dalai Lama hosting a talk show, and interspersing it with pleasant, humorous, requests for donations. I can imagine a Muslim cleric who...no, I can't. I could've written a great idea here...but it would just be too over-the-top. No, it's the so-called Christians, mostly American Christians, who have ruined it for everyone. Ever since folks like S. Parks Cadman and Aimee Semple McPherson took to the radio waves and s...

You have all, apparently, gone completely insane. If I have to hear about one more child "graduating" kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th,10th, or 11th grade, I will go ballistic. Seriously, these are not milestone events. Sounds to me like a scam being run by the cap & gown industry. Think about it! The American education system is bad enough...but to delude one's self into believing that it's a great accomplishment to learn that 2 + 2 does indeed = 4, and do so without eating too much paste, fighting with the other kids over who's turn it is to nap, and sneak in those prayers whenever there's a math test, is just ridiculous. For Pete's sake! They don't even teach cursive writing anymore! Kids do NOT deserve a trophy just for showing up! This is one of the many things destroying our so-called culture. Why should a kid try to achieve anything when everything they do is celebrated? It takes the concept of achievement and fl...