Morton Malaise

I’m well aware that my blog is running the risk of becoming one YouTube video after another. However, this is SO worth it.

I spent most of my late Friday morning in Amish country. Arthur, Illinois is about 40 minutes outside of Decatur. As you travel down two-lane highway towards Arthur, you start to see bonnets and dungarees on clotheslines outside of farmhouses. Shortly thereafter, you see workhorses out on pasture, and very shortly after that, you see this.

After that, you meet the Amish. They are unassuming, humble, kind people. Much like the rest of us, they have their problems. Their youth get caught drinking in barns, their husbands and wives cheat, they skirt the rules to make their money. A few things I learned about the Amish today:

- They can buy a house, but within a year, they have to remove all wiring.

- They can rent a house with electrical wiring, but they can only live there for a year.

- They can use kerosene and propane to heat and light their property.

- They can use generators to control the climate of their dog kennels, but they can’t use it to control the climate of their homes.

- They have an accent. It’s a mix of high Southern US and Dutch.

- If they lease the building in which their business is run, they can use the machines we’re all used to, i.e. CNC’s, pumps, etc. However, if they OWN the building, they are forbidden to use electricity.

This week, I’m going with a more recent song that really reminds me of last summer more than anything. Backyard Tire Fire can best be described as the Drive-By Truckers meet Tom Petty meets the Allman Brothers. They have a distinctly Southern rock sound with just a hint of Outlaw. I’ve seen them several times, including twice at Summercamp and Eamon Patrick’s in Peoria. I coaxed Max and Rob into driving to Bloomington with me to see them over the summer. It was hot and crowded, but they had cheap Long Islands in Mason jars (which become increasingly difficult to hold onto as condensation forms on the jar because it’s 80 degrees in the venue), and as always, the song “How the Hell Did You Get Back Here?” was a highlight of the show.

Jack Kerouac is the most recent of our great American poets.

It’s amazing how many great songs from the 90’s heyday of alt-rock I had forgotten until I found someone with an amazing torrent documenting the era. I HAD to post this one.

Holy fucking shit. There have been a few times in my life that I nearly shed tears in mourning of the 30-60 minutes of my life I will never get back. Last night was one of those times. Tool Academy is so fucking awful, I feel bad for the cameraman that had to film it, because he probably had to reschedule his colostomy bag fitting/dentist appointment/vasectomy to film that steaming load of horse jizz. The dudes are total douchehoses. They’re disrespectful, metrosexual, self-absorbed, nippledick cumstains on the torn panties of the Earth. What’s more, they’ve obviously been coached to ham it up as much as possible. And the girlfriends are even worse. The girlfriends are the stupidest, lowest self-esteem, crybabiest doormats I’ve ever seen. “My boyfriend cheats on me and tells people he has me trained and takes my child support money to go out partying and flipping other chicks but I love him and want to make it work.” You know what, you stupid fucking cum dumpster? HE’S NOT GOING TO CHANGE AND YOU’RE A STUPID FUCKING BITCH FOR STAYING WITH HIM AND IT’S YOUR FAULT FOR NOT GETTING THE FUCK OUT, YOU FUCKING STUPID FUCKING FUCKTARDED SKANK BITCH! The women are going to get infected with all the puss-secreting, oily discharge, swollen, itchy genital STD’s that their slut boyfriends get, and I have a really hard time feeling any pity at all. Maybe then they’ll learn to stay away from dudes who get their hair dyed more often than they do and use enough sticky shit in their hair to build a life-size replica of the Eiffel Tower out of toothpicks.

I can’t wait to see what happens next week!