Kelldog...

HAPPINESS

"I am in desperate need of help - or I'll go crazy. We're living in a single room - my wife, my children and my in-laws. So our nerves are on edge, we yell and scream at one another. The room is a hell."

"Do you promise to do whatever I tell you?" said the Master gravely.

"I swear I shall do anything."

"Very well. How many animals do you have?"

"A cow, a goat and six chickens."

"Take them all into the room with you. Then come back after a week."

The disciple was appalled. But he had promised to obey! So he took the animals in. A week later he came back, a pitiable figure, moaning, "I'm a nervous wreck. The dirt! The stench! The noise! We're all on the verge of madness!"

"Go back," said the Master, "and put the animals out."

The man ran all the way home. And came back the following day, his eyes sparkling with joy. "How sweet life is! The animals are out. The home is a Paradise - so quiet and clean and roomy!"

Anthony de Mello, SJ
One Minute Wisdom, pgs 24-25

In Need of Advice

How to start...18 years of the same job selling chemicals, 4 kids, wife, dog, all w too many needs and wants I cannot possibly meet and no one stepping up to help out. Oh, yeah, the Santa Claws list for all of these consumer driven materialistic next gen kids, what the F-. This is insanity, BURN OUT is around the corner..MWM seeking advice from all Knowledgeable HubBub readers...this painting by Edvard Munch depicts my current state of mind..........is the answer another beer?

Seinfeld Lost Episode

Yac sent this link to me.

5 Years Ago Today

We Lost George, Rest In peace.

Winter's Calling

Flush with autumn,
A leaf let go
In a silent fall.

The unseen wings
Of an arctic gust
Sped set journey.

Upon a current
Dark and quick,
The scarlet veil did glide...

To a light-dappled pool, black and swirling.

On that sunlit stage
Danced the ember,
Bright and burning red.

'Til twilight cast her shadows,
And a harvest moon foretold:
Gone and lost forever...

To the river bottom's bed.

Beer Nutz: Coda

For your listening pleasure, I present the final three tracks from Mike Kelly's epic "Beer Nutz."

Track 9 - My Glass Is Blue

Track 10 - A Prayer For Us And Jimmy

and RAW62's favorite, Track 11 - The Fenian Sway

Bring back CJM

Big E's Friday Sizzle on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving!

Peek-a-boo!!




HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!!

Back by Minor Demand...Big E's Friday Sizzle

Enjoy Folks...



And since I've been away...I have little lagniappe for ya.



For my Northern brothers a little FYI...

lagniappe

SYLLABICATION: la-gniappe
PRONUNCIATION: ln-yp, lnyp

NOUN: Chiefly Southern Louisiana & Mississippi 1. A small gift presented by a storeowner to a customer with the cusomer's purchase. 2. An extra or unexpected gift or benifit.
ETYMOLOGY: Louisiana French, from American Spanish

I don't like how they have the pronunciation so I offer my own: Lan-Yap.

See ya when I see ya!

Beer Nutz Tracks of the Day

Track 6 - Drunk Little John: I like to think of it as a zydeco "Edmund McFinken" (there are exactly 3 people laughing right now).

Track 7 - Drinking With The Nurse: Getting drunk with a hot school nurse, there are so many pubescent fantasies rolled into this song, it's hard to keep them all straight. Wait, aren't you an over-40 schoolteacher? OK, now that's creepy.

Track 8 - Charles: What if your acne blister were next in line for the Throne of England? You'd have a zit named Charles.

Making Up For Lost Time: 3 Featured "Beer Nutz" Tracks

I've been behind in my posting, so to make up for lost time I am posting tracks 3,4 and 5 at once.

Track 3 - Hoops of Steel: I thought this one was going to be about basketball, I think it may be about a magic trick instead.

Track 4 - God Silence The Gun: Good song, of course, the only way God is going silence my gun is by taking it from my cold dead hand, but, that's me.

Track 5 - Go Away Poop: What can one say about perfection? There are simply no words to describe the awesome majesty of this song, so I will make one up: "Go Away Poop" is scrumtamulent.

Today's Featured Beer Nutz Track: "My Last Clean Pair"

Mike reached deep into the Poekicker's archive for this tasty nugget. This song is partly the tale of an infamous Poekicker's gig at the Moose Hall Lodge in Clifton, NJ.

The show was in December, around Christmas time, and we had added The Band song "Christmas Must Be Tonight" just for the occasion. The way we had arranged it, Mike would sing the first verse, we'd sing the chorus together, and then I would sing the second verse which starts,"A shepherd on a hillside, while over my flock I bide." Simple right? The problem was that whenever we'd rehearse it, I would inevitably sing "A shepherd on a hilltop." We'd have to stop, Mike would yell at me "Shepard on a hillSIDE! Rhymes with BIDE!" and we'd have to do it over.

Come the night of the show, we ran through our first set, everything was going good, so as Paul Simon would say, we stepped outside to smoke ourselves a "j" before the second set. "Christmas Must Be Tonight" was to be the second set opener. Mike reminded me, "Shepard on a hillSIDE! Rhymes with BIDE!" OK I got it.

The problem now though was that when we went back inside, and the warm air hit us, I was suddenly REALLY high, and now very paranoid over this line.

We started the song, Mike signing the first verse, me not paying attention at all, just saying over in my head "shepherd on a hillside, rhymes with bide,""shepherd on a hillside, rhymes with bide." We made it through the chorus, and I am still just thinking "shepherd on a hillside, rhymes with bide." I open my mouth to sing the second verse and out comes "Shepherd on a hillTOP."

Mike just glared at me with a look of WTF? I think that is the only time I have ever seen him really mad.

But me being the consumate professional, I saved the flub by improvising the next line as "over my flock I a bop." The drunks at the bar never noticed the difference, so we finished our set and had a great time getting snockered with the Mooses for the rest of the night.

For the song, we had to change a few of the details to fit the meter and the rhymes, but you get the idea.

Now, without further delay, "My Last Clean Pair"

Mike Kelly: Beer Nutz (Brand Songs)

Mike Kelly, the ribald raconteur of River Edge, is back with a triumphant new CD after a five-year hiatus. "Beer Nutz (Brand Songs)" is a boozy blow out of dipsomaniacal delight, featuring eleven original new songs, four of which, as you may have surmised from the title, celebrate the inebriant arts.

But "Beer Nutz" is much more than bar ballads and distilled ditties. This a mature Mike Kelly flexing his musical muscles in serious way (well except for "Go Away Poop and "My Last Pair," the former co-written by our own Stalwart and the latter proudly co-written by your own humble editor [thank you]).

We love this album and we are going to feature songs from it all week. OK, sure, we got song writing credits, but that didn't influence our opinion at all (funny, Mike has three other albums that I don't have any song writing credits on, but I can't recall their names right now, hmmmm).

Anyway, don't take our word for it, listen for yourself. The first track is the confessional "Tap That Brew." The song prominently features Producer/Guitarist Tom Gioia playing an SRV-isnpired blues guitar lead positively dripping with wah-wah effect.

Take a listen.

Tomorrow's featured track: "My Last Clean Pair"

Election 2006

Although political commentary is banned from the iron fisted communist regime handlers of The Hubub, please remember you women, the RIGHT TO VOTE for you is less than one hundred years old. Please vote, with or without a penis!

Trivial Question

Who can answer the question: What does the term Arachibutyrophobia denote:

Please dont forget to vote. (Is that allowed on the Hubub?)

Don't Forget Your 200th Anniversary Webster's Dictionary While You Finish Your Novel This Month

2006 marks the nearly forgotten 200th anniversary of the first Webster's Dictionary, a small volume of short definitions (ex. "Dic'tionary, n. a book of words explained in alphabetical order").

It would be 22 years before he would complete the 70,000 entries (each personally written by him) in the two-volume "American Dictionary of the English Language" with which he would become synonymous, but the 1806 publication was important as it marked the first attempt by Noah (don't call me Daniel) Webster to capture the uniquely American-brand of English being spoke on our side of the Atlantic.

At the time, the idea of an American dictionary of English was highly controversial, almost the most equivalent of someone today publishing a dictionary of Spanglish. A predecessor publication, the "Columbian Dictionary," drew criticism for including Americanism's such as "wigwam,""rateability,""caucus," and "lengthy" (lengthy? what's next "strengthy"?). Webster was demoralized (a word he coined) at the lowly reaction to his endeavor.

But eventually, Webster's Dictionary was so successful that it's the first example of a copyrighted name being so ubiquitously associated with a generic product that the Merriam Company (which bought the rights to Webster's from his heirs) could no longer defend it's copyright, and after decades of lawsuits, conceded defeat and no longer layed claim to the name. This is why virtually every dictionary today is a "Webster's Dictionary."

So as you pound away at your novel this month, take a moment to remember Daniel, doh, I mean Noah Webster, the man who defined every word in this post and probably every word (except for the dirty ones, they wouldn't make it until the notorious third edition in 1961) in your trashy novel.

November Is National Novel Writing Month

What is National Novel Writing Month?

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and -- when the thing is done -- the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.

In 2005, we had over 59,000 participants. Nearly 10,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.

So, to recap:

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.

Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.

Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

When: Sign-ups begin October 1, 2006. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

Still confused? Just visit the How NaNoWriMo Works page!