Hornswaggler | The culture, the humor, a bit of the sports, not so much the politics, and the workplace distraction
Hornswaggle is an alternate spelling of
hornswoggle, an archaic word that means to bamboozle or hoodwink. I take my
pronunciation from the late Harvey Korman in "Blazing Saddles" --
"I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers,
bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits,
vipers, snipers, conmen, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers,
buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train
robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists!"
This one goes out to Martay, the Kaiser of Cuyahoga Valley. He knows what I'm talking about (regarding weekend afternoon posts). Maybe.
Note to Self: Do NOT, the day after finishing reading "The Catcher in the Rye" for the first time since 1989, go down the hill to get your shit started and stumble upon the Polk Street Fair. I don't know who was more repulsive, the jarhead idiot dudes or the dumb girls who liked them. Ugh. Too much Russian Hill ignorance for my taste. But then I noticed a cute girl manning the beer tent, and I started to mellow out. I've got plenty to say about "Catcher" and that will follow. For one thing, it was part of THE BEST SUMMER READING LIST EVER, going into 9th grade. The lineup was "Catcher," "A Separate Peace," and "Lord of the Flies." (Which book featured the least homoeroticism? Discuss.) Of course, I don't know what the hell we were supposed to get out of the book as eighth-graders. Still loved it though. I reckon one of the reasons I took so long to get back to it is that Winona Ryder says it's her favorite book and she reads it all the time. I stayed away like it was contaminated by the plague. (Did You Know? A couple of my good friends went to Amherst College, as did the great David Foster Wallace, but did you know that the college is named after Lord Jeffrey Amherst, a British military officer known for employing germ warfare in the conflict with the Native Americans -- probably Iroquois -- by secreting small pox-infested blankets into their villages? Yeah, he was quite a guy, a real prince. You can look it up. I learned it at the Yoo-Ni-Ver-Sity.)
It's time to rock and I'm going to throw in "Hard to Handle," live from '71, performed by the Grateful Dead, off of the double CD "Fallout from the Phil Zone." This reminds me, I've been meaning to rant about people who disrespect Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. They make me ill. You don't have to like him, but you have to respect him as a musician. To those who front on Jerry: You may think the Dead is all mellow "Touch of Grey" and whatever else you've heard, but you're wrong. You obviously haven't heard early Dead or the shit that hasn't been handed to you. You think you know, but you don't. You have no fucking idea. Take your favorite guitarist, I'll bring Jerry in and he'll bitch-slap that cretin til the pomade flies out of his trendy fucking hair. SAT answer sheet: "Hard to Handle" off Phil Zone is to the rendition by the Black Crowes (yeah you've heard of that one, haven't you, ya moron?) as Bernini's "Apollo and Daphne" is to the fucking "King of Queens." Go check it out, I implore you. I don't mean to cause offense. I just get worked up. I know most people reading this site are cool, but just in case some ignoramus has stumbled on this shit, word to the wise. You want rock? You want to have your ass blown out? This is what you're looking for. Make sure to turn it up really, really loud.
