While on my walk this afternoon, I saw this guy rolling his prize across the road.
Many dung beetles, known as rollers, roll dung into round balls, which are used as a food source or brooding chambers.
Dung Beetles are good for agriculture, and serve as nature’s sanitation workers.
I was certain my apathy-induced disregard for Wake Forest basketball spelled the end of Deacon Blues. But when Athletic Director Ron Wellman decided to meet the press today, another episode sprang forth from the sarcastic depths of fan hell.
Here’s the 8th episode of Deacon Blues. In this episode, Ron meets with a hand-picked reporter for an all-holds barred discussion about the status and future of Wake Forest basketball.
Note: All characters and events in this show—even those based on real people—are entirely fictional. All celebrity voices are impersonated…..poorly. The following program contains coarse language and due to its content it should not be viewed by anyone.
Obviously, this is satire and humor. No offense to any person, real or fictional, is intended.
Deacon Blues Archive: Episode 1 is here. Episode 2 is here. Episode 3 is here. Episode 4 is here. Episode 5 is here. Episode 6 is here. Episode 7 is here.
First, a little farm music. Otis Gibbs dominated the jukebox this weekend, but Son Volt’s new record is coming on strong.
Cassidy had a volleyball tournament and a birthday party this weekend and Lucky Dog is recovering from a little surgery to fix his eye (you know, so he can see and all), so Delaney, Luke and I went up to the farm by ourselves on Friday night. One of the most interesting parts of the drive out to the farm when Raina isn’t in the truck is to watch Luke transform from Felix Unger into some sort of tough as nails farm boy, courtesy of my absence of patience for the first world problems of a 7 year old boy. I’m turning him into either a man’s man or a neurotic mess. Only time will tell which.
We had dinner at the Burton Cafe on the way in. There were some (other) old folks there, doing karaoke. I’m a second time tweener (as in between middle age and old), so they aren’t sure whether to give me great grandfatherly advice or ask me to join in. So they mostly ignore me, in polite rural fashion. Since I generally ignore even my best friends in polite rural fashion, this works out great for me. There’s a lady there most nights who can flat out sing. She did a great version of Harper Valley PTA, credited both Tom T. Hall and Jeannie C. Riley, and wrapped things up by saying that Jeannie C. Riley lives in Brenham- the nearby “big city” of 15,000 souls. I had no idea.
Then some dude I’d never seen before got up there and absolutely killed a duet with her. I didn’t recognize the song, but that cat can sing. I offered to buy Delaney her very own Ranger if she’d go up there, sing an entire song and try really hard. She passed, which says all you need to know about her feelings about singing.
We got to the place in time to take the 4 wheelers for a spin, including the one that Delaney has already wrecked. Twice. I don’t know which has less of a chance to remain intact- Delaney’s farm implement or Raina’s car. Later we watched The Hobbit and a couple of American Pickers episodes, to get me ready for some haggling at the Round Top Antiques Fair. Or at least the fringes of it that I’ll actually see. I am deeply crowd-averse and antiquing with 30,000 or so other people along a two-lane country road is not on my bucket list.
As always, Luke and I checked the game cameras diligently.
We’ve seen deer, coyotes, hogs (must kill them all before they destroy my hay field) and all manner of small mammals on the property, but nevertheless we usually get pictures only of ourselves and the guys I have working up there on various projects.
We rode the 4 wheelers on Saturday morning, did a little work, made a run to town for supplies, ate some pie in Brenham (sadly we didn’t see Jeannie) and went for a walk/bike ride.
Later we took a ride over to Dime Box. Bought some groceries…
And saw a colorful roadside honky tonk.
We ate dinner at the Cactus on Saturday night. Then we hurried home and watched the most awesome Chupacabra vs the Alamo. It was good. I’m hoping Sasquatch vs the Eiffel Tower will be next. I’d be torn as to who to pull for.
Through some combination of sheer force of will and random chance, Luke and I finally got a bad photo of an actual wild creature late Saturday night. This was the basis for much celebration- and yet another camera relocation. We see tracks almost every morning, but they must be Romulans.
Today Raina, Cassidy and Lucky Dog came out for lunch at Royers, then we went to some of the antique venues that are already open. Again, there’s no way I’ll set foot over there during the madness of the official show weekends, so this was it for me.
Finally, one more thing happened. It was terrifying. Delaney behind the wheel. Of my truck. Fear not neighbors- only on our dirt road.
The new Burton Cafe annex is just one of the many fun places in and around Burton, TX
We just got back from a fun week on the farm over Spring Break 2013. Here are a few of the highlights.
Thanks to Greg, Yvette, Evie, Aidan, Arnie, Christina, Remy, Sierra, Emerson, Kelly & Hayden for sharing some fun times with us.
I came across a discussion on Facebook a few months ago about Savage Breed, a book published in 1959, allegedly by a man from Chesterfield County, SC, my hometown county. I’d never heard of it, but some of the comments intrigued me.
There were hints of censorship.
When I moved to Cheraw all the kids were talking about this book….could not be sold in Cheraw…could not be in the library…..there was talk back then that it was actually written by a woman.
And scandal.
At the time (60′s) I recognized all the characters. It was really the talk of the county!
And more scandal.
I remember being told the young man’s father tried to buy up as many copies as he could, out of embarrassment over the book’s content.
I wondered if there was any truth to the stories that this book referenced places and maybe even people from home. So being the computer savvy cat that I am, I set up a few eBay, web and Amazon scripts and waited. It took almost a year, but I got a hit. Someone had a used copy for sale via Amazon.
So I bought it. For $20.
Published by Newsstand Library Books in December 1959. By William K. Douglas. 126 pages. Originally 35 cents. No “about the author” paragraph. It’s pretty clear from the “other books” pages at the back that Newsstand Library Books featured a lot of soft-core pulp and not much high-brow literature.
Nevertheless, I was happy to receive my copy of the much-discussed book. Here’s the first sentence:
“Luke Saxon turned off the Bloomfield Bypass, and got on Highway number 9. He was going to Camel, 13 miles away, to pick up Dot Silvens.” Hmm. There’s no Bloomfield back home, but there’s a Bennettsville. At first I thought maybe Camel was a thinly disguised pseudonym for Cheraw, but that turned out not to be the case. More on this below.
It takes less than 10 pages to get racy. By page 20, it’s crude and exploitative. By 2013 standards. Beyond that by 1959 standards.
First stop, “Lory’s Drive-In.” Never heard of it or anything similar to it. Same with “the Hightower,” described as the local beer joint.
In chapter 2 there’s a mention of Winthrop, “the state college for girls.” I just think of it as one of the many schools to beat Wake Forest in basketball, since Ron Wellman’s ego assassinated the program. There’s also a mention, in Chapter 2, of going to a Rock Hudson movie in…wait for it…Cheraw. That is, however, the one and only mention of Cheraw.
Mostly, it’s just one scene after another in which some brothers and their friends do horrible things to weakly portrayed women. A literary masterpiece, it is not. ”When you had enough beer, you didn’t need a woman. They could go to hell, and be damned.”
In sum, two brothers and their friends do horrible things. One brother is a completely horrible person. The other brother is only around 90% horrible. 90% marries a girl, who has been abused for years by her pharmacist father. 100% impregnates her, while 90% is at work. An abused farm hand kills 100%. The abusive father marries the brothers’ young cousin. At the end, there is some small nod towards resolution, as the remaining family gathers for a completely dysfunctional Christmas meal. It’s bad, shallow writing, designed mainly to get from one soft-core scene to the next.
The more interesting question is whether any part of this was based on actual events or people from my hometown. I’d have to say unlikely, as the events are really just your run of the mill horrible acts by your run of the mill horrible people. Cheraw was mentioned exactly once, and none of the action takes place there. One existing road (Highway 9) was mentioned. Other than that, I saw nothing that sounded familiar.
I will say this, however. To the extent any of these events or people really occurred or existed, there is no doubt that this book would have been extremely scandalous when written. I also think the author would have been sued, or killed.
Bottom line? It’s poorly written, trashy pulp, likely authored by someone in or near Chesterfield County, SC. If any of the events in the book are factually accurate, it would be surprising and likely unprovable.
My name is Kent Newsome. I love Wake Forest University. And I support this video.
I am re-watching the entire original Dark Shadows series as treadmill fare. I’ve watched it twice before, once as a kid when it was on the air and once when it was on the Sci-Fi Channel back in the nineties. It’s good stuff.
I have been struck this time by the complete lack in the series of any cultural references from the era. It was mostly set in the late 60s to early 7os. Other than an occasional reference to seeing an (unnamed) movie, there are virtually no references to music, film or television. In fact, I can only recall seeing a television in one scene. A woman’s boarding house room as she was terrorized by John Yaeger.
As a result, I’ve watched closely for any intentional or unintentional cultural references. I noticed a cardboard animal in David Collins’ room that said “Chicken Little was Right.” A google search didn’t turn up anything interesting. There are some interesting posters in David Collins’s room, but until today there was never a close enough shot to see what they were.
But today.
There was a scene where I could read this poster. It says Aug 29 – Sept 3. I gave google a shot, and much to my surprise and delight it turns out TO BE A CREAM POSTER!!!
Specifically, a Fillmore poster for Cream’s Aug. 29-Sept. 3, 1967 shows with the Electric Flag and the Gary Burton Quartet.
How awesome is that?
A close look shows that they removed the references to the bands and the Fillmore, but it is clearly the same poster.
Update:
There’s another Cream poster in David’s room too.
This one from Cream’s Aug. 22-27, 1967 shows with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the South Side Sound System.
One of my favorite things is when someone takes a stupid position on something and the rest of the world makes hilarious fun of it. I do it. Sometimes it’s done to me. Either way it’s good.
Duck Dynasty is one of the best shows on TV. My entire family loves it, and you can rarely get all of us to agree on anything. Virtually all of the cast members come across as genuinely good, moral folks. Things I’ve read and heard about them off-camera are consistent with that impression. The Smiths were pretty cool. A long time ago. Post-Smiths Morrissey, not so much. So when Morrissey decided to cancel his appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel show because the Duck Dynasty crew was appearing, hilarity ensued.
Here’s the thing. Animal rights activism suffers from the same malady politics and gun control debate suffers from. There are very few logical, middle ground voices to be heard in the chaos of stupidity and extremism. I am generally inclined to favor reasonable animal rights. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to eat some of them (though close to half my meals are meat-free), but I generally get it. Nothing, however, makes me want to shoot some animals as badly as 99% of the things PETA publishes.
So props to Jimmy and the Duck Dynasty crew for making fun of Morrissey. I get it. If you’re going to cancel this appearance because hunters are appearing, you better have a very small circle of friends and business associates, because if these guys violate your sense of righteousness, so does most of the rest of the population. On the other hand, if the cancellation is really just about you being you, maybe it doesn’t matter so much.
First, a musical interlude.
I remember singing that song on Sugarloaf Mountain when I was a kid. I have no other context to that memory, but there you go.
On airlines this is trash
I’ve been under the deeply held misunderstanding that all commercial endeavors were required to take cash. You know, money. I’ve actually yelled at people who wouldn’t take my legal tender, in lieu of a credit card that inserts banks, merchant charges and interest rates into my desire to acquire.
Turns out that they were just kidding about that legal tender for all debts, public and private stuff:
[The Coinage Act of 1965] means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.
I don’t drink much or buy overpriced headphones ever, so while I have noticed the airlines announced no-cash requirements, I’ve always thought that if the need to booze it up overcame me on a plane, I could force my will and logic and dollar bills on them.
Thank goodness I never decided to try.
There are scary things out in the country. There are feral dogs, hogs, coyotes, bulls, yuppies, the occasional mountain lion. But nothing short of a Chupacabra is as terrifying as this…
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