SMOKE, SMOKE, SMOKE THAT CIGARETTE...
...just don't smoke it around me...puh-leeze....

Actually, now that I think about it, it's all my fault. I'm the one who exposed myself to cigarette smoke. See, there's a lot of places where people can't smoke in bars anymore. Oregon isn't one of those places. This evening, after a week's break to collect my wits (they're pretty scattered), I went back to the bar where jam sessions happen. I bought a new cheap guitar, so I wanted to test out my new toy. It sounded great. So did the other guitar I brought. Now, if I could only find a way to play both of them at the same time, I'd really be on to something. Anyway, I started feeling weird in my throat while onstage playing the blues...it felt like, well, dinner had come back up on me...a hot, disgusting, awful feeling in my throat that made me cough...it was like my throat had become one big phlegm factory (that would be a great name for a punk band, "Phlegm Factory"; I can see it on the marquee now!), and I started feeling clammy, sweaty and just strange.

I went out in the parking lot, to cool off and cough some more, and that's when I realized I had inhaled too much cigarette smoke, and I was paying the price. I actually had a physical reaction to the smoke in the bar. I did feel queasy for a while. And I flashed back to other nights where I'd come home from the bar, and couldn't get to sleep because I was hacking and coughing too much. I realize this post is rather gross, and I'm sorry if I've turned your gills green, but I just can't believe how awful I'd felt, how suddenly it happened, and how much better I feel NOW, as I'm typing this. Well, down here on the Oregon Coast, the air is ultra-clean, and the constant coastal winds blow all the pollen away, and I'm not having allergy attacks this year. Although, all the clean living I'm doing these days may have left me more susceptible to cigarette smoke. Seriously, this is a case where I could come down with lung cancer from guitar playing. Ack.

So, if you happen to go into an Oregon bar and see some people playing music, and one of the guitar players onstage is wearing a cheesy little paper mask, that would be me. Hmmm...that would be quite the outfit for a punk band! (Remember, DEVO put flower pots on their heads, so the "mask idea" might not be all that farfetched.) And I've already got a good punk-sounding name for a band...
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OODLES OF NOODLES: One of the regional Oregon newspapers I read with some regularity featured an article about a supposedly really good Noodle Chef in Eugene, and how his ramen is the best for miles and miles around. First of all, why would I want to go to a custom noodle restaurant and order an expensive pile of noodle ramen when I can go and buy those little dried Ramen chunks in the local grocery store at 5 for $1.00 or whatever they're going for these days? Back when I was doing the minimum-wage thing, and then later the sub-minimum wage thing (that would be my cab-driving job), I fixed Top Ramen every way I could think of. I'd put butter in it. Hmmm...cholesterol on top of noodles? That probably wasn't the best food combination. I then thot, "well, since Ramen is Chinese Noodles, I bet Soy Sauce would taste good on it!" Wrong again; the only positive thing soy sauce did was enable the noodles to slide down my throat a little bit faster. (There's a running theme here; and it must be "throats", huh?)

I put canned peas in my ramen once, and actually, that wasn't too bad. But, I ate SO MUCH RAMEN, prepared in myriad ways thru the years, that I just got sick at the sight and thought of it. I can't even LOOK at a package of Ramen in the grocery store. One question I must ask, though: Why is the "Chicken Flavor" Cup O'Noodles so GOOD? Isn't that Ramen?" I guess all the preservatives in the chicken flavoring, combined with those yummy freeze-dried, artificial-looking three peas, two carrot bits and some unidentified stuff, render the Ramen more positively than what I personally could do to augment the taste. So, yes, that Ramen guy might be the cat's pajamas, but when I go out to eat...I'm thinking Ramen is about the LAST thing I'll be ordering. I do have one rule when I go out to eat: "Never order anything you can make at home". Take Eggs Over Easy or Sunny Side Up, for instance. I have tried to cook eggs that way at home, but they all come out scrambled. And since I cooked so much ramen at home...well, thanks, but no thanks.
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TIME OUT FOR THIS COMMERCIAL: I just saw a new commercial for Verizon wireless internet...it's another of those spots, the subject of which is "connectile dysfunction". In the commercial, there's a coffee-shop full of smiling laptop computer users...but the guy with the inferior network is experiencing "connectile dysfunction"; his network won't let him go anywhere in cyberspace. So, he's "faking it", trying to make all the other computer users think he's reading a web page or doing e-mails, when all he's looking at is a blank screen. A woman approaches him with a Verizon computer insertion device, and she lovingly coos at the guy suffering "connectile dysfunction": "You're not the first guy it's happened to." And I just about fell out of the old La-Z-Boy when I heard that. So perhaps a Verizon internet card could be advertised as "Viagra for computers?" I'll stop now. This segment of my post is fast becoming out of control.
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NO PERIOD AT THE END OF THIS SENTENCE...Everyone seems to be so frank about things that people used to be not so frank about, that I guess I'll just leap on the bandwagon. Ulp. Anyway, there's a news story going around that there's a birth-control pill that may be able to enable women to not have their...um...er....uhhh...."monthly visitor". (How am i doing so far?) This development may have political ramifications...quite possibly, after all, we could have a female of the species running for the Prezzidency. Now, I understand that physical things can go wacko when the "visitor" visits. However, with this new birth control pill, perhaps a lady Prezzident would be at the top of her game, all the time. Otherwise, one week a month, perhaps she'd be more irritable and throw her advisors out the nearest White House window if they do stupid stuff which reflects badly on her administration. Perhaps, if the lady Prezzident uses this pill, it will become safer for her to have access to the big red button that activates all kinds of nuclear devices around the country. Peace through medication. A unique platform, for sure.
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YOU COULD PROBABLY DO WITHOUT THIS:Another story in that regional paper I referred to above, is that there's a SHORTAGE OF CHICKEN SH*T!!! I bet you thought you'd never see the day, huh? A chickensh*t farmer (I'm describing the item, not him!) was quoted as saying that demand for his commodity has risen "because oil prices have gone up, and that's a product used in commercial fertilizer." Commercial fertilizer prices have increased 40% in the last few years. And, organic fertilizers (cluck cluck) are cheaper. So will people quit buying fertilizer and start buying chickens? And, because of this situation, demand has risen for chicken sh*t, leading another farmer to say (and I quote), "The birds are already pooped out." Now, there are other suppliers of 'organic fertilizer' who specialize in cow manure, but according to the article, it's "wetter and messier" (while) chicken sh*t is really stable, has really good nitrogen content, and it's easy to handle and spread", according to yet another farmer. Maybe, just maybe, restaurant and grocery store items involving chicken will rise, because more people will buy live chickens for "chickensh*t", which means there'll be less of those dumb birds to EAT. Restaurants all over this great nation will have to revise their menus. Beef nuggets, anyone?
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The "chickensh*t" article referred to above was printed in the Register-Guard newspaper out of Eugene, Oregon. So, blame them, not me. And, as far as this "chickensh*t posting, pull up the pant legs, 'cos it's too late to save the shoes!