Every Man, Woman, And Child Should Grow A Beard At Least Once In Their Lifetime

Beards are natural. They invigorate. They teach. Hieroglyphics found near the Fertile Crescent suggest that an ancient human’s beard was regarded as a minor deity, and being in its presence could elevate one to what the Hindus would later go on to call Samadhi; the Buddhists, Nirvana; the Japanese, Bushido. The first guy to cut off his beard was branded as a heretic, smeared with animal lard, and sent into the jungle to first be licked, and then ripped apart by ravenous hordes of savage beasts, as was tradition at the time.

Everyone had beards back then. I look around today, and see so much face-skin it makes me sick. If I’ve learned anything the past few years, it is this—every time a new generation emerges, the old guard will talk ceaselessly, if you don’t tell them to shut up, about how things were better in their day. If we follow codger logic, then naturally the best time of all was when the first humans roamed—bearded, beautiful, and gloriously flocculent.

You literally have to do nothing to raise a beard. So go ahead, give it a whirl.

With A Great Beard Comes Great Responsibility

“Right now, we’ve got freedom and responsibility. It’s a very groovy time.” -Austin Powers

Thick. Lustrous. Gingery. Stupendous. Fantastic. Sprawling. Authoritative. Finer than the pelt of a Colorado marmot. These are just a few of the words that have been used by me to describe my beard. Finer compliments are rarely dished out, and I’m very flattered to have been on the receiving end of them. Recently, an adjective was added to the growing list of accolades — great.

And I didn’t even come up with that one.

A few weeks ago as I walked into line at Cub Foods, the cashier, so taken in by the beauty present before her, knowingly eschewed corporate policy by failing to offer the standard “Hello” and instead said, “Wow, that’s a GREAT beard.” Had a manager been within earshot, this blatant display of off-script dialogue could have gotten her fi-yad.

She even went on to say that it was better than her own husband’s. Men, imagine if you were working at Cub Foods as a cashier and said to some girl, “Hey, nice boobs. Those are better than my wife’s!” You’d be roasted like a suckling pig if your spouse ever found out. And the same goes for women. So you can imagine how truly great this beard must be for a woman to take such a calculated risk, in addition to swimming upstream against the powers-that-be of the mighty Cub Foods employee training videos.

I realize now I have a great responsiblity before me. It is within in my power to become what the Mexicans call a sancho. Dealing with ravenous hordes of women, married or not, openly throwing themselves at me is standard operating procedure. Often, there’s just no time to check the ring finger. Do I want to be a home-wrecker? I don’t know. That’s why this brand new epoch is so exciting and confusing. It’s a very groovy time.

Stuff That Kids Say

Quote of the day:

“I just threw up in my mouth, but it went back down. Sometimes I do that.” -my five-year-old nephew.

The Restroom Review – Apple Valley South Super Target

New segment – I use public bathrooms and report on their cleanliness, design, and overall “ease of use.”

For a corporation that has proclaimed it strives to be “the best company ever,” Target sure makes its employees and guests wade through a whole lot of pubic hair and liquid waste to access their urinals. This visit started off good – I took note of the ample square footage of the stalls, the art nouveau three-quarter-eggshell urinal design – but as I saddled up to the urination station, I looked down and noticed that I was in a sea of golden waste. I finished up, being careful to find sure footing lest I slip and take a dip in the hairy bog I had become ensnared in. The sinks worked well enough, and I must commend them for not skimping on the blow dryer – my skin rippled from the gale force blast! I did have to spend a considerable amount of time in the parking lot after exiting the store, dragging my feet on the pavement in order to scrape as much of the sludge off my shoes as I could.

Final verdict – If you enjoy other people’s urine, by all means visit Apple Valley South Super Target.

Blong. Cake – Jolene.

Ol’ Man Sits In A Rocking Chair And Tells It Like It Is

Hi there, America. If I could, please allow me to take off my Shlog pants, slip into my relaxed-fit, no-nonsense “What has happened to this country” trousers and ease into my old rocking chair out there on the front porch. Ooooh yeah, that’s the stuff. Now, America’s values are in trouble my friends! Time was, a man could head down to the town square, beat the feces out of a draft-dodging, free-thinking hippie doper and be home in time to tuck in junior, who, by the way, has been cruisin’ for a bruisin’ himself listenin’ to this rock’n’roll music. Down what perilous path is this land of the free traveling? I didn’t lose an arm in ‘Nam to live like this. In fact, my severed limb is probably still rotting at the bottom of that rice paddy, being nibbled on by communist amphibians. And for what? In days of yore, if I wanted to kick the teeth out of some lousy beatnik at a WWII ticker-tape parade, all I had to do was bend over, lace up my boots, and go to town. The times have changed. For the worse, I might add. I didn’t raise six kids during the Great Depression just so I could say that I did. Which I did. Now we’ve got this Elvis Presley character shakin’ his weener around on live television. How am I supposed to explain that to my grandkids? If I tried to pull that garbage in a foxhole in Korea, believe you me we’d all be eating sushi and bamboo out of tin cans at this very moment. Now I’ve got these neighbor kids, listening to their jazz music at all hours, when I just want an honest night’s sleep. I spent the duration of the Coolidge administration shining shoes down on lower 43rd street, and all these kids can do is play Intendo and Sexbox. My old man would have brought me out to the pole barn and taken a switch to my behind, if he wasn’t still out there in the U.S.S.R. laying the beat-down on commies. Hell, even the sun was better in the 40’s, if you ask me. Just hangin’ around up there, not bothering anyone. Now you’ve got the spawn of the few remaining hippie laggards that I didn’t beat the crap out of back in ’68, talking about “UV rays” and “melting ice caps!” You think that’s the sun’s fault, you little Stalin-worshipper? The only reason the sun is burning your precious skin and melting the world’s ice is because you’ve been touching yourself at night! I didn’t spend four years as a POW in Germany to be bombarded with such ignorance! If I had complained about the sun when I was working 16 hour days on my grandpa’s farm after we closed out WWI I would have had my mouth washed out with soap, and then dear grandpappy would have slapped me for not thanking him for sparing a ration of suds! Did I even mention how I busted my sack raising eight kids while Kennedy was busy running this country straight into the ground? And on top of that, we’ve got flappers going wild in the streets, revealing their petticoats! Barf! Did I just say barf? I will not have modern society sully my way of speak! I am off to wash my own mouth out with hand-crafted pumice. After that, I’ll be back out in this rocking chair, tellin’ it like it is.

Just to show you what these young vagrants have been up to, here’s an internet video of my friend Little Braddy singing “Crank Dat” by Soulja Boy.

The Simple Pleasures

 As we all know, people love the simple pleasures in life. I will now talk about one of these pleasures that any man, woman, or child can relate to.

I love waking up to a sunny, breezy morning. As I step out of bed, I peel the sweat-soaked shirt off my back and step outside to face the gusty breath of the great outdoors. With my skin exposed, I let Mother Nature run her wispy fingers through the ropy strands of my luxurious back hair. Ah yes, dig in, Madre Natura. Don’t leave a single bewhiskered inch of my backside unattended. As the wind clears the perspiration from a deep sleep away, I begin to feel the heavy, saturated mass of hair grow alive and vibrant with the airy kiss of a new morning. As each fiber becomes untethered from the sweaty prison it was trapped in the previous night, I can feel it lift and flutter about in its newfound freedom. After just a few minutes, there is a flocculent whirlwind from the small of my back to the top of my spine. Yes! Don’t let it stop! Many would say love is the greatest feeling that a human can experience, yet have they ever encountered an early morning zephyr running through the forest of their back? Methinks not. The delicate dance betwixt wind and hair; the gentle tug of each strand on the skin as the breeze coaxes it skyward; the ecstasy! Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go outside.

Yeah, that's the stuff.

Blong. Ween – Exactly Where I’m At.