Fall harvest always brings a cornucopia of new foods into my diet. Combined with the fall road trips, hunting trips, fishing trips and upcoming holiday excursions to see family and friends the variety of foods I tend to ingest over the next few months is enormous. While I have always loved traveling and eating foods, my gastronomical tract has not. I tend to get all stopped up. The exact cause is unknown as to whether it is stress, too much lactose, being in a sitting position for too long, or traveling across the magnetic lines of the earth too quickly.
I have always had this issue, even as a young boy. Whenever we went to grandma's house, somebody on day three or four would clog the toilet. I'm not saying who, but after an hour or two of working out a complex mathematical problem on the throne, the plumbing gods would decide to punish me.
I recall one traumatic incident as a young lad, after not having a BM for the better part of a week, my grandmother introduced me to the joys of the enema, a thrill not shared into my adult life.
When she first mentioned it I thought at first an enema was a new type of pastry she was making especially for the holidays. Her biscuits and dinner rolls were always to die for, especially when grandpa made the butter and molasses mixture to spread on them. I was eager to try her new pastry, the "enema."
In hindsight (no pun intended), it could have been her biscuits that bunched me up.
My first inkling that something was amiss came when she said it was in the bathroom.
"Why would you bake an enema in the bathroom grandma?"
She thought that was cute and grabbed me by the ear to drag me into the bathroom. Down on the ranch they had well water, and in certain parts of South Texas the water tends to come up with a powerful sulphur smell. To this day I imagine that water coming up from the depths of hell itself, full of fire and brimstone.
"You're going to stick what where?" I screamed.
There was no escape. She was between the door and me holding a red bag with a tube. She was a large woman and I was just a wee tot at the time. Yep, it was all fire and brimstone and a half gallon of water shooting out of my ass after her part was done. I can't remember if it fixed my problem at the time but it fixed a memory in my head for life. I still get all bunched up thinking about it.

It seems I'm getting more and more irritable. I'm eating more. I'm sleeping more. There is less and less sunlight during the day. My bear spirit is coming out and I'm doing my best to get out of bed every day. It's time for me to hibernate. I think I was a bear in a previous incarnation. But then again, I could be any other number of hibernating reincarnations.
I've written about it before, but over the last several years I've noticed that I tend to get more depressed in winter. It's called SAD (Seasonal Affected Disorder) and I think I've got it. After a winter in Alaska I definitely believe that lack of the sun is a key element in the moods we have.
Over the years I've tried different treatments from full on prescription anti-depressants to homeopathic remedies. I can definitely say that the medical route has worked and the Fruit Loop therapies have not.
So, it may be time to bite the bullet and go see the doctor.
I'm really hoping that the revised health care plan takes care of these issues with our society. Or perhaps they really amp up the drugs in the chemtrails.

I've encountered a television show that horrifies me. The format is simple, each episode profiles two people who have a challenging mental condition. It's kind of like "Intervention" but instead of dealing with addictive drugs, it deals with addictive personalities. It's called "Hoarders" and it scares the hell out of me.
Why does it scare me? Because I collect things too. I keep things thinking that I might use them at some later date. If I paid money for an item I sure as hell don't want to throw it out, I might need it someday. If I found the object I kept it for a reason, most often some as yet unknown art project. I keep it. The objects pile up. While the extent of my "collection" has not yet reached the epic proportions of those in the show, I hear the same excuses for keeping stuff on TV coming out of the mouths of those poor afflicted hoarders as I do my own.
I'm disgusted with some of their behaviors. On the other hand I see some of my own in them.
I have never been a fan or had a desire to watch reality shows like this, but if they give me some insight into my own strange behaviors, perhaps they have served a purpose other than to gawk at the freaks.

Last year I swore I wouldn't miss two years in a row. This year I'm vowing to not let three years go by without going. I have been depressed the last few days because I'm not with my fellow burners down on the playa. I'm very sad and full of longing for playa dust.
I've been watching a live feed of the playa (see here) almost constantly and have been thinking about getting my costumes out just to try them on and smell 2007's dust on them.

So, unless you have a plane and an extra ticket, it looks like I won't make it this year. :(

You can see previous year's excursions in the BW Archives here.
2004 - Burning Man 2004
2005 - 168 Hours
2006 - Hope & Fear (a.k.a. Dope & Beer)

So I'm working down at the Bouquet last night and I throw out a string of classic cocktail names.
"Manhattan, Martini, Tom Collins, Sidecar and Sidewinder."
"What's a sidewinder?" Andy says.
"Gosh, I'm not sure," replies I. "It just came out of my mouth. I wan't thinking." Which is common for me. Spout off first and wonder what I said later.
I can make all the others, but I don't know why I said "Sidewinder."
So we look it up. It's not in any bar books the bar has behind the counter. A quick internet search last night at the bar revealed no such drink.
So we made it up.
We felt it should have the rawness of the frontier, a little bit of the South and a bite. Maybe a drop of blood for good measure.
The Sidewinder
1 part whiskey (rye preferred)
1 part Tequila (do not skimp and go for the cheap stuff, go high end and it will make all the difference)
Pour both into a shot glass and finish with a drop of grenadine, which will sink to the bottom.
While this drink may make you wince, that "drop of blood" at the bottom sweetens the whole kit-and-kaboodle. It's not bad. And it can poison you like a real sidewinder.

This morning I researched it a little more deeply and found a cocktail made with tea, vodka and cinnamon (a whole teaspoon). I also found a "Sidewinder Fang" cocktail that is basically a Cosmopolitan minus the lime and with a little Angostura bitters thrown in.

Now ask me about a "Ground Zero" and a "Horse's Neck"

Someone I know died today. He lived in Seattle and had a wonderful family. Last week, he was training on his bike and a delivery truck turned in front of him. According to what I was told, at his speed, it took him through the passenger side window.
Avoiding the medical details between a week ago and today, his ventilator was turned off at noon and he soon passed with family and friends surrounding him.

It brings back that whole bike vs. auto for me. It makes it personal. And when I hear people make blanket statements about renegade bikers, I get a little mad.

But today is not a day to get mad. Today is a day to say goodbye to Jose.

One of the little jobs I do now is bartend at a downtown bar a few nights a week. Summer is often a little slower at some bars so it offers me some time to talk to patrons. Unfortunately, sometimes those conversations are painful.

Take, for instance, one group of young revelers on a particularly slow Sunday night. When the conversation turned to martinis I mentioned how I'm a classic martini kind of guy... just gin and vermouth for me.
One young lady was shocked, SHOCKED, to find out that martinis are made with anything except vodka. She thought that martinis are only made with vodka. I just about had a coronary right there. What are they teaching kids in school these days? While vodka is OK in a martini, it was developed for those who don't have the nads to drink gin. Suck it up girlie.

Which came first, the gin or vodka martini? If you guessed vodka, then go back to drinking school. Which, is exactly what I'm going to do, host a drinking school. If all goes well, I'll be posting notices in this blog when and where we'll be having drinking class. People have forgotten how to drink properly so I'm going to do something about it.

The first one will be at the Bouquet in a few weeks and will cover bourbon. Do you know the difference between neat and straight-up? On the rocks vs. water back? What proof means and how it compares to alcohol percentage? And, how to deal with those pesky cheap whiskeys in plastic bottles. My suggestion is to use as a fire starter when camping.

So, my little vodka martini pansies, email me at Bingo@bingopress.biz to get more info when it comes available about the classes. And please order a gin martini.

One of the hardest things to do is write a column. I know. I've tried. I've done it semi-successfully over the years. But inevitably, I always peter out. I'm not the long-term columnist type. Eight-hundred or so words, every week, year after year... it gets tiresome. My hat goes off to those that can do it. Bill Cope is one. (Luv ya Bill!)

But a blog is something different. Sure there are those that blog every day. I'm more like the blogger that does so when he feels like it. And tonight, the green fairy is helping me write a little bit. Why tonight? I'm not sure. I've been feeling distraught lately. My guilty feelings of not having contributed to the BLINGO thang lately have been building. But also my own personal life has been seeing some turmoil. I've always walked that fine line between public and private, what to say in an editor's note, or not say. I've not wanted to bother the general public, or those regular readers who seek out the Bingo voice (those one or two of you) with my banal self-pitying rants. Unfortunately, you've been subjected to a few over the years.

I'm thinking that I've addressed the spawn stressing me out. Politics has been another. I was injured during an episode where I thought I could train for a marathon... boy, that was a whiny period. I've outed myself like many celebrities about my seasonal affected disorder... you get depressed during winter. Yeah, I should have re-read those columns before I considered moving to Alaska.

Anyway... with a blog you can write as long as you want... when you want. I don't get paid for it, perhaps if I did I would contribute more often.

On the other hand, what is this blog? Is it a diary? Is it a self-promotional tool? (I'm bartending this Saturday night at the Bouquet.) Is is an opportunity to get on my soapbox? Is it an outlet for creative endeavors? I imagine it to be a virtual giant megaphone... letting my voice get heard by those that are opening their ears to such a voice. Whew. Glad I got that off my chest.

I was thinking that it's a good thing our founding fathers signed a Declaration in the middle of summer. Otherwise, there'd be some other stupid holiday invented for a reason to gift/camp/drink or eat our ways into oblivion. If some pagan ritual wasn't readily available to modify, then the greeting card industry would have thought of something. It seems that every month has a holiday, except August. Yes, we're going into the holiday dry spell.
While Labor day is towards the end of August, technically most folks attribute it to September. It's also conveniently far enough away for the gunpowder burns to have healed nicely.

When a fridge goes out you usually can tell by the awful smell that wafts in your face as you open it for a beer. Mine didn't do that. It slowly got warmer and warmer until the butter was the consistency of creamy frosting. The freezer was still working so I couldn't figure it out.

Last time the freezer went out, and a $70 repairman visit later, I discovered that the thermostat button had been turned accidentally to full on warm. That was an expensive lesson.

This time I checked all the buttons, knobs and switches but to no avail. They were all fine. So the repairman is here as I speak and informs me that my defrost switch/thermostat thingy (accessible only by a repairman) is broken. At least it wasn't my fault this time.

The repairman told me that with the economy most people are buying used fridges and repairing their old ones. So Maytag apparently has lowered the price on it's fridges, but increased the price on their parts. So what normally would have been a cheap part, now was much more expensive. Funny how companies take advantage of economic woes.