O Fried Chicken Ye Tuna O' The Land

There was no egg wash or batter with corn flakes and bread crumbs. Mom would just coat it with a bit of flour and throw it in a cast iron skillet in rendered bacon fat that she got from 5 inches away on the top of the stove in a mason jar. Dad made fun of her for saving things such as bacon fat and leftovers in general. Dad hated leftovers. Of course Verna, dad's mom, did the same thing. So dad saw it as a sign of poverty because dad grew up poor. So mom would say, "Well at least we didn't have to eat field corn." "We didn't have to eat field corn! We liked the lack of flavor!" This exchange, as predictable as sunday dinner, made mom and I laugh as if no one was ever going to die ever, not even the dogs.

It should be noted that the chicken mom grew up eating was alive shortly before it hit the pan, which is why whenever we moved around one of the first things she always looked for was a good butcher with "connections".

Now frying chicken in bacon fat is probably something that those genius nutritionismists would look down upon in scorn and condescending assholedness because they know everything there is to know about food, namely, that food is nothing more than the collection of a bunch of chemicals. Do not dispute them or you will have to punch them in the head.

Now eating chicken fried in bacon fat just after watching tv all day and just before drinking beer all night may indeed not be the ideal diet. But most of my and your people come from those whose day went from sunup to sundown, then started again at sundown and went to sunup in the winter on account of livestock, who are like children in their neediness but are much more worthwhile and are nicer people with non-psychotic tendencies, unless they're chickens. So my people, needing fuel as much as their horses, then their tractors, did eat things like boiled potatoes doing the butterfly in a lap pool of butter and salt. Grandpa Kading's favorite lunch was cold chicken leftover from last night's supper. During planting and harvest my mom would take it out to him and his brothers to save time. Their farms weren't at all huge by today's standards, but "making hay while the sun shines" wasn't just a metaphor and actually has its origins in farming, if you can even believe that!

So cold chicken, also called by many "the lobster of the midwest" (where "many" means "me"), with it's high fat content, protein and other chemicals we need to live (oh you nutty nutritionistas!), was the perfect fuel for men who smoked and washed their hands in gasoline and died at 63.

Rambling a bit here. I've been on a 2-week Kentucky Fried Chicken binge. It's the gravy.

Mom liked it when I rambled on the phone. Today is her 72nd birthday. She was 10 times smarter than all her kids combined. My siblings would agree with this tacitly, believing in their hearts that this couldn't possibly be true. Problem is, shit-for-brains, it was and is true. And it's your sense of self-importance and unearned arrogance that prevents you from realizing it and therefore renders you incapable appreciating who she was. Idiots. It's always the baby of the family who bears the brunt of inconsolable loss. But I'm learning to bear it gratefully.

Nota Bene: When my sister had the idea of sauteing chicken without the skin, without the skin, and in a non-fat substance with the look of snot, dad tasted it and said, "Perhaps it would've been better had you just boiled it." My dad was funny without being mean. Most of the time.

Romney Storms Europe Dressed As Saxon Redcoat

Arranges Joint Press Conference With MI6, Mossad, Thanks Both For All The People They Secretly Kill For Our Freedoms, Promises White House With Fewer Security Leaks On Behalf Of Our Freedoms As Well, "'Munich'" Is My Favorite Motion Talking Picture Show!"

Perhaps The Most Misunderstood Genius In The History Of Music

Like I even have to tell you.

I know where I'll be friday night. Oh yeah! Just try to stop me.
I dare you. Just try to stop me.
Just try. Seriously. I dare you.
Try to stop me. Really. Try to stop me.
Okay, stop me. Try. I'm begging you.

It should be noted here, though relapse is no joke, that I'd have to be screaming on pot like a baked ham in a can, knee-walking drunk. And that would be just to buy the ticket. But I would. But it should also be noted here that if I were to go sober I'd have just as bad of a hangover the next day, and my soul would also have a little mold and mildew on it.

Life can be such a chore.

I need to sort my scrap lumber and my salvaged lumber so that I can proceed with getting the "cabin" ready for winter. I don't have to do the sorting chore, but it will make the process so much more organized, easier, and, dare I say, even pleasurable.

But boy it's hard to get motivated to haul boards all over the property and centralize them in the part of the original house that's not weather-proofed (chortle!) but still has a roof on it and is held together by recycled beams, posts, and plaster.

You'd think it's practically thankless work. But when I start, with the radio blaring and organization blooming and the scent of sobriety ripe in the air, momentum, inertia and cumulative progress seem to happen without me even thinking about it, which is key, because when I get into the midst of mindless, thankless work and life begins to move at the speed of time*, I'll look up, and without having thought about it, there are dents in otherwise intimidating piles.

Does that make any sense?

Not to mention the fact that tonight is the season premier of Bachelor Pad, so everybody wins, except for those watching it and on it.

P.S. Bryan Cranston really is enormously talented and looks a lot like Gary Oldman.

*Michael Scott

The Batman 3: Dark Night Rider, A Movie Review

With a talking car named "Kat", and a talking catwoman named "Katnip Evergreen", this bat man will be littering the streets with MeowMix till the poop is scooped, the hairballs are coughed up, and Kitty von Meowington has been sprayed for neutral.

Riddle me that, Robin! Who? Exactly!

The last movie I actually went to the theater to see was Team America: World Police. But since I was a fanatic of Nolan's franchise from the first frame of Begins, and because anyone who isn't is stupid, I may actually have to head on down to the GigantoPlex in Troy for this gem. I won't.

Movies I Wish I'd Seen In The Theater:

Star Trek
The Matrix
Batman Begins
The Dark Knight
Zoolander
War Of The Worlds
Rachel Getting Married
Lord Of The Rings
Mr. And Mrs. Smith
Hey I Fuckin' Shot That!
Jerry Maguire
Phantom Menace
The Bourne Ultimatum
Sense And Sensibility

Also, and while we're on the subject, here's a list of shows that should win many Emmys but will be cancelled:

Parks And Rec
Community
Up All Night
The Season Finale Of Whitney In Which The Whole Gang Is Gunned Down By 2 Broke Girls With A Gattling Gun
The Firm
30 Rock
Sewing With Nancy
Dateline NBC When It Explodes All Over
Happy Endings
Master Chef!
Marc Shaiman

Full Disclosure:
1. I don't have cable.
2. The cable shows have an unfair advantage on account of their being so much better.

The Emmys have been retarded for some time now. But they went full Simple Jack when Jim Parsons beat out Alec Baldwin a few years ago. Which is the same reason why President Obama will lose. Because when it was revealed during the premier of Big Brother xxiv that they would be joined by 4 Big Brother All-Stars, the quote of the show by one of the contestants was, "It just got real." "It just got real." "Real." "It." "Just." "Got." "Real." And that Julie Chen is considered a journalist.

Oh, skitch!

Boy I'm glad my mom and dad are dead.

I get so mad sometimes when I see someone like Michele Bachmann go on the tv and claim that the current administration has been infiltrated by The Brothers Of The Muslim Fraternity Of Islam and that Hillary Clinton pilots unmanned drones in order to kill American citizens in Yemen and Mankato. And that Michelle is fine with her husband paying 14-year old boys to come to the house so he can suck their cocks.

That folks like Michele and Sarah rise to prominence and importance not in spite of their ignorance but proudly because of it really grates my cheese.

Then I think of my parents and realize I have a lot to do yet to get ready for the first fly of snow. And I'm grateful, so very grateful that I continue to retain the privilege of being their son.

And I calm down. A little. And I get back to the art of living.*









*Oh, IOZ!

Master Chef! Paula Deen! [racing heart monitor sfx here]

When the Mystery Ingredient Box began to be raised I was thinking the reveal would reveal either Paula Deen, or a piano. I was right.

Then, as if to add sugar to Type 9 diabetes, when the Secret Ingredients Crate was raised to reveal the revealed ingredients for tonight's supper, I was shocked to see an entire chicken, bacon, peppers, creamed bacon, a fried chicken fried in fried chicken skin stuffed with bacon-fried chicken skin, buttered butter, oil, oiled butter, cream of cheese-buttered cream oil, okra, a life-size Paula Deen salt sculpture, Fritos-crusted onion rings, a Red Lobster Fudge Overboard! Chocolate Volcano Fountain, grass clippings, and a midget with fresh ground pepper and a porn mill. For those of you not watching, don't ask.

How many people have you killed, Paula? And how many with your food, m'lady?

The Mystery Container Challenge? Sushi. Or as I like to call it, "bait". Full disclosure: I love sushi, but only because I also like to call sushi rolls "soy sauce sponges".

I'm guessing The Pressure [Cooker] Challenge Coffin will reveal a bag of potato chips, a jar of mayonnaise, a loaf of Wonder Bread, 20 endless minutes on the egg timer that can be seen from space were we still going there on a regular basis, and no leftovers. And product placements that make the nose twitch and twist.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to check on my Fruit Loop casserole to see if it's risen.
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It has risen indeed.