Armadillo Songs

If an armadillo could talk about her particular misery I would not hesitate to accompany her with a planking attempt on my mandolin, threading her narrative together more than she might want. At the cursing of a prolific digger I would fling dried dung and song. "That is a god damned lie that Armadillo just told." Her nine banded suffering is unmatched by any warm frog, hers is infinite on a hot night mouthing sticks and leaves. Along with ticks, wasps, mosquitoes and spiders she marks her calendar until the moisture of autumn when the air turns swampy cool. The quartet swimming in her womb serenade fire ants on charango's made from father's. When they sing "Arroyo" I stop my planking and listen. I can only hope to mimic that wild harmony, as fragile and enduring as the egg stores of the antbeds spiked with bluestem.

3 win Shinyribs Tix for Ribtober

Three researchers whose work delves into how information encoded on strands of the lyrics of Shinyribs is translated by the chemical complexes known as ribosomes into the thousands of proteins that make up Shinyribs music will have to fight over a pair of free tickets to the upcoming month of Shinyribs shows, the Swedish Academy of Sciences said Wednesday.

The trio are Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England; Thomas A. Steitz of Yale University; and Ada E. Yonath of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.

Dr. Yonath, 70, said on Wednesday that she was both surprised and not surprised at being awarded tickets to all Shinyribs' shows for Ribtober.

Speaking by telephone from her daughter's house in Kiryat Ono, Israel, she said people had long been telling her that her project was a potential winner. But at the same time, she said, there were "many, many people with fantastic work standing in line." She is the first Israeli woman and the third Israeli to win tickets to Shinyribs shows.

Each scientist will get part of the prize, worth 10 million Swedish kronors in total, or $15 US in a ceremony in Stockholm at midnight after the sacrifice of a goat and the offering of the virgin bloody Mary to the weeping Jesus of the Volcano.

If the sequence of lettered words and melodic amino acids in the songs form the blueprint for some of the best damn songs being written, ribosomes are the funky factory floor. In a news release the Swedish academy said the three, who worked independently, were being honored "for having showed what the ribosome looks like and how it functions at the down home level."

The ribosome research, the academy said, is being used to develop new honky-Tonkin hippie-gospel hybrids.

Dr. Ramakrishnan was born in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, India, in 1952 and obtained his Ph.D. at Ohio University, and holds American citizenship. Dr. Steitz was born in Milwaukee in 1940 and received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1966. Dr. Yonath was born in Jerusalem in 1939 and received her Ph.D. at the Weizmann Institute in 1968.

Mary OpossumKiller

In the early morning around 5:30 am my wife woke me with a request for help in a tone of voice that sounded concerned and creeped out. "what's wrong I asked?" as I rose up out of too little sleep.
"Mary caught a opossum and tried to bring it in the house. I closed the door before she could come in and now the opossum is wriggling, stuck in the door."
I was up quickly, not too concerned. Opossum are generally harmless, bashful creatures who would rather just be left alone. I figured I could just push it out of the door the other way and it would then maybe just run off. I did manage to get it out of the door and back outside. But it gave up the ghost right then. Mary was damn proud of her kill. I went outside to share that with her and congratulate her on such an accomplishment. (what you want me to yell at her and tell her not to protect her yard?) She came in with me and told everybody to come look at what she had. Then a story popped in my head from my friend, Bob Graham of Charlotte, NC
He told me about a dog of his that had once tangled with a raccoon. I think the dog had some wounds and they took it to the vet. The vet explained to them that coon's in that part if the world were commonly turning up as rabid. He asked if they had touched the dog. Of course they had. He then broke the news to them that they had better get treated for exposure to rabies unless they had the coon to test it. Well, they ended up having to go through a painful, expensive series of rabies shots. He warned me of this if ever I should encounter such a thing. Unfortunately I did not think about this at 6am until after I let the dog in and we had all petted her.
I looked up some info on the Internet that was typically all over the map. I did get the advice for having the animal tested and calling my vet. I first called my local 311. A man named Carey instructed me how to call the city to have the animal picked up. He did not consider rabies until I brought it up. So he told me to call my vet to have the animal tested.
Our vet explained that opossum are rarely rabid. And anyway the city does the testing. They told us to just bathe Mary and wash her mouth out with water, not toothpaste for people. This they explained was more for our peace of mind. Otherwise no worries. We made one more call to the doctor to ask about any risk factors involved in our limited exposure to Mary Opossumkiller. Again they repeated the same fact that opossum are rarely if ever rabid. And any other worry about germs was of similar low risk. Turns out opossum are downright harmless in this regard. I am still a bit wiggy about letting her lick any of us though. Maybe Bob will share his story here. Raccoon' s are a whole different animal, ha. And I think there was more blood involved in his story. We had a few drops of blood and some feces on our deck outside the door, but nothing too graphic. Just in case something like this happens to you.

Politeness Washes Off With The Myth

Politeness washes off with the myth, the money creeps all want a piece of it. They'll never understand the soul of a man. I'll buy odds they'll try and buy you out of it. A man is the ark and Noah is the soul charged with the task of serving a goal. The blue print to the key to heart. Each creature in a pair but placed apart. Defined and tagged, categorized and flagged, compartmentalized and dragged through the calm of the ocean long and blue and strong til the crow comes back with mud on his own. Responsibility and commitment to be the burden and the blessing to share that timeless moment when he gazes down at the children that have come to join him there. Look in the mirror old man and see that wild eyed boy throwing knives from his knee, killing snakes, shooting guns and winning hearts for the crown to come. That old boy is still alive smashing silver swords against the spring. All this time in gradual decline, God only knows how you feel.

Euphemism-ism #61

Clogged Condiments #1

In the blue light of the Nugget Casino's late night Rosie's Cafe at my faux acid stained table there it sat assuming the familiar shape and unmistakable green labeling we all are accustomed to expect from it, a bottle of green Tabasco sauce. It sat next to its red kin. I chose the green from the pair of pepper shakers explicitly, in mind anyway,to tilt the scale of popularity a bit more in favor of the inferior. It's not that I particularly favor this over it's cayenne cousin. As a middle child though I sometimes want to send a message to the inanimate world of condiments that indeed variety is the spice of life.
Imagine my perplexed confusion when upon the first few shakes nothing fell out of its green neck. No emerald drizzle on my plate; no jalapeño drops on my gastronomic investment. Looking down the barrel of the bottle I spied a white petroleum-like gleem. A plug of waxy build-up, I wondered? Upon further inspection it appeared the entire bottle had congealed as if having been injected with melted candle wax then left to harden on what would eventually become my table.
I have never in all my years of dining at all sorts of restaurants, diners, cafes, greasy spoons encountered such a peculiar chemical state in which I found the green bottled, less popular sibling of that most famous condiment from Avery Island, LA.
Out of concern for my fellow diners who might later inhabit this table I tried to inform my wait person of this questionable bottle of mild jalapeño sauce. But she did not take it or touch it or even look at it. She looked at me though like maybe I was at fault somehow. Then she scowled and commented on the attire of another woman passing by, "That's not a skirt, that's just panties with a vest and a jacket. " She then explained to me, still holding the bottle aloft with some obvious concern, that someone would come and get it. This sounded plausible and I reconsidered my moderately alarmist position. I left it there, uncertain of the outcome. And tonight in the Nugget Casino in Sparks,NV. there very well may be a bottle of congealed green tabasco sauce sitting and waiting to tempt the hand of another unsuspecting patron. I can only hope that my cry for help was heeded and I have saved someone from the unwarranted frustration and derailed desire that I experienced.

Villanelle fatman

If you will recall I posted a quick cut up poem thing recently here. It was pretty lame, but had some fun imagery in it. I thought I might try and use it as raw material for a poetic form I have been wrestling with lately. It is called a Villanelle. It consists of 19 lines; 5 stanzas of 3 and a final one of 4. The 1st line of the 1st stanza is repeated as the last line of the 2nd and 4th stanzas. The 3rd line of the 1st stanza is repeated as last line of the 3rd and 5th stanza. And these two lines follow each other as the last two lines of the poem in completion of that last four line stanza. Rhyme scheme is a/b/a. Got it? Yikes! You of average intellect like myself must see how confusing it can get using the right and left brain. This is why I decided to go with some "tasso" poem as I call these kinds of stream o' conch things. It free's up some resources in the skill-skull. In question is the use of "linoleum" in the second stanza as a rhyme for that scheme. I like it though, especially since it was in the original piece of tasso.

The fatman is sick with juiciest sickness.
Radiant, terrible tenderness sleeps with my sister again.
The measure of time seems such foolishness.

The fatman enters quietly with a fat little quickness
Slides dirty little feet bottoms over linoleum.
Sick with juiciest sickness?

When dogs run their tung's over her thickness
Nipples grow raw red and distended when
The measure of time seems such foolishness.

The moment goes through the street fighting fitness.
Convinced these mistakes just pretend
The fatman is sick with juiciest sickness.

To answer concern my sister's health is good I am witness.
That line of cancer was bad metaphor, Ben.
The measure of time seems such foolishness.

Some would disdain this writing in "hickness"
The doctor has warned me of my on-going sin
The fatman is sick with juiciest sickness
The measure of time seems such foolishness

Euphemism-ism

Monty felt nausia at the very sight of the prarie gifts left by Jacko. They were moist and steamy and smelled of waffles and eggs.