Lawn Follies: City Gets Rapped On The Knuckles For Trying To Seize Someone's House Because Of Tall Grass

I've been fascinated with the politics of lawns for years.  The latest news report about it concerns a man in Florida whose city tried to seize his house because of tall grass.

Thankfully, the Institute For Justice is helping him to fight back and he seems to be winning.  I hope he wins.  The tall grass laws are crappy laws that shouldn't exist.  I don't care what my neighbor does with his yard.  The neighbor could grow a forest there, and I'm never going to complain.  That's the neighbor's business and not mine.  I might not like it, but the neighbor might not like what I do with my yard either.  And it certainly is not the government's concern.  They usually are just enforcing conformity or trying to pad their coffers (i.e., give themselves and their relatives jobs) or both by interfering with grass growing on private property.

What is needed for lawn liberty to be protected overall is for more people to believe in it.  Unfortunately, many people who will wave the flag on the 4th Of July will act like Nazis the next day if they don't like their neighbors' yards.  Hyperbole?  Not really, I've been studying this stuff for years.  I've even found cases where people have been murdered over lawn issues.  Here's one:  https://fox8.com/news/man-accused-of-shooting-neighbor-running-her-over-with-lawn-mower/.  If you read it, you'll see that the murdered woman was mowing her lawn at night.  Surely, a no-no, not enough to justify a murder, but clearly lacking in neighborhood grace.  But why was she mowing the lawn at that late hour?  Because she was leaving on vacation and didn't want to get fined by her city for violating a stupid tall grass law.  Notice that no one mentions in the article about the sentencing the stupid tall grass law that probably set the whole tragedy in motion.  But a couple of years later that same city the murder happened in brags about sending out taxpayer-funded workers to harass taxpayers about the height of their grass:  "We reacted to 263 grass complaints and mowed more than 150 properties, a 16% increase."

And surely we all remember this, an all-star moment in lawn follies, when U.S. Senator Rand Paul got attacked by his neighbor.  Paul was mowing his yard, and the neighbor was enraged over lawn debris on Paul's lawn.  Cheers to Paul for mowing his own lawn; he might be the only U.S. Senator who does so.   Jeers to him for not introducing federal legislation banning tall grass laws.

Though it's amusing to keep track of these lawn follies, a serious matter does lurk underneath.  I hope you shake off the brainwashing of the lawn industrial complex and stand on the side of lawn liberty, nay, indeed, yard liberty, who needs a lawn anyway?  Grow a garden instead!

No lawn follies but other laughs can be found in my latest novel.

drinkdrankdrunk: "The Politics of the Third Floor Bathroom: IBS as Weapon of Mass Destruction" by Jeff Somers

Let's face it, piggies, politics is just a fancy-pants way of channeling aggression. People opposed to each other in a system instinctively hate each other, and back in our blood-splattered glory days as a race any time two Chiefs went against each other on policy, they generally killed thousands in a war between their tribes, or at the very least engaged in man-to-man combat, gouging out eyes and ripping open abdomens until one ‘policy’ had triumphed over the other.  In today’s more civilized society this sort of thing is frowned upon—the man-to-man combat thing; war, thank goodness, remains a socially acceptable way of killing thousands in order to determine policy.  You won’t see John Kerry and George Bush wrestling at the base of the Washington Monument to see who gets to order the next few thousand men and women to their deaths, no sir.  We’ve invented politics to take the place of violence.

Of course, you can invent all sorts of rules and procedures designed to keep the Monkeys we all live side-by-side with under control, and while it may work on a macro-scale, when you get down to the nitty-gritty life remains a struggle between violent personalities for control of their immediate airspace.  Political candidates can’t fight each other for the job, but I’ll bet they wouldn’t mind. People remain pretty much primitive in their desires and the manner in which they pursue them.

For proof, I offer you the third-floor restroom at my job.

Someone in my building wishes to be King of the Third Floor Restroom. Someone else opposes his candidacy.  I know this because there is a war going on in there, one which I know too much about already.  In a more evolved society, the question of who will be King of the Third Floor Restroom would be addressed through a civilized and organized procedure:  Nomination of candidates, presentation of views and policies regarding the restroom, and, finally, an election of some sort, probably conducted using urinal cakes.  Since society remains woefully un-evolved, what we have instead is a classic battle between signage and someone with what appears to be Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Some background and geographic detail, then:  I started a new job back in April, and the offices are located on the third floor of a large Manhattan office building.  The floor has several offices being rented, and sports one large restroom for each gender, used in common by all the offices (it’s possible some of the fancier offices sport private bathrooms, and if I ever discover this to be so you can bet we’ll take that office by force, kill its men and enslave its women, and enjoy the facilities).  A perfectly acceptable situation, especially since I personally frown on anything aside from urination being performed in semi-public restrooms like that.  Shared restroom toilets just weren’t meant to be used except under dire emergency situations, you ask me.  If everyone would just use the urinals (a wonderful invention—I’d have a urinal in my home if I could) and get the hell out, we’d have a lot fewer problems in this world.  There are two urinals and three stalls in the men’s restroom, along with two sinks, of course, so we can fool ourselves into thinking we’ve washed away the microbes, and a towel-dispenser and trashcan.  Standard stuff.

So, I stay away from the stalls if I can.  I’m not one of those people who thinks he’s going to get the Andromeda Strain if my skin comes in contact with a public toilet; I don’t have to get into a Virus Suit in order to take a shit in a public restroom.  I also believe firmly that human beings have been dealing with germs and microbes and all sorts of nasty shit for thousands of years, and while you can argue that some of those microbes are pretty nasty (Black Death, for example) I still doubt anyone is going to become the new Typhoid Mary by using a public restroom.  That said, I see no reason to expose myself to nasty public toilets any more than necessary, chum.  So that’s my policy on toilets:  Avoid if possible, but use when necessary and don’t lose sleep over it.

I first became aware of a campaign to be King of the Third Floor Restroom when I entered the restroom one day and discovered a neat, laser-printed sign had been taped on the rear wall of stall #3:

PLEASE
DON’T
URINATE
ON
THE
SEAT   Poetic, in a way; hauntingly beautiful.  This seemed like common sense to me, and one thing I’ve learned over the years is that you can’t teach people anything common:  Sense, decency, or knowledge.  They get violent and huffy is my experience, and I wasn’t disappointed.  After the first candidate for kingship threw his hat into the ring with this bit of pithy signage, our second candidate responded the next day by detonating an ass explosion reminiscent of Hiroshima in stall #3.  It looked like an infinite number of monkeys had suffered an infinite number of bowel spasms in there.  He’d painted the damn place with his feces. And there, sitting above it like an ironic caption was the Signage.

I would have thought this to be just a merry moment of societal collapse, like many I witness on a daily basis, except that it wasn’t an isolated event.  Over the next few weeks, these ass detonations became common, always in stall #3. Candidate #1 for King of the Third Floor Restroom, whom we’ll call IBS, was obviously passionately dedicated to fouling stall #3 and keeping it fouled.

Candidate #2, who we’ll call Mr. Placard, laid low for a few days while this assault on the senses went on.  Mr. Placard obviously believes that what the world needs is more signage, that everything could be perfect if only we had the proper signs and a population that slavishly, unquestioningly obeyed the signs.  A few days after the first ass detonation, Mr. Placard crept in one afternoon and pasted a new sign on the radioactive door of stall #3:

OUT

OF

ORDER

I’ve rarely witnessed such a powerful message packed into three little words; I may have wept.  This took balls, if you ask me:  I wouldn’t have touched anything near that stall for anything in the known universe.  I didn’t even like the idea of breathing that funk.  So the sight of that flimsy, delicate piece of paper with the hopeful call for civilized discourse (behind the safety of anonymous notes) moved me.  Both these men were uncompromising heroes, in their way.

The campaign escalated immediately.  The next time I found myself in the bathroom, the Out of Order sign had been ripped off the stall door and tossed to the floor, and the stall door thrown open so that the Beta Males of the floor could see the power of IBS, and cower before it.  I cowered all right.  I cowered to think this motherfucker might be touching the same things I did in the building, that he might be standing next to me in the elevator one day, that he might be someone I’d someday shake hands with.

For a few weeks, the debates continued:  A new sign, a new ass detonation.  I came to admire IBS for his physical prowess in the ass detonation department, even as I wondered what in the fucking world was wrong with him.  I mean, to continuously generate that sort of ammunition, you have to have one hell of a bad diet, or one hell of a physical condition.  Mr. Placard, on the other hand, was clearly one of those frightening men who spend their lives complaining about their neighbors and co-workers, and finally kill all of them in an orgy of justice.  I imagined he’d adorn each of his victims with a crisp Post-It note, listing the crimes he’d just avenged.  This was a battle for the ages, and whoever won, I was sure, deserved the awesome power invested in the King of the Third Floor Bathroom.

It ended as you might expect:  IBS, with his awesome physical abilities, was victorious.  I knew that Mr. Placard had conceded when IBS invaded and conquered stall #2 in addition to stall #3 without suffering any signage at all. IBS was obviously free to do as he wished in the bathroom.  I was apparently not invited to the coronation ceremony.  And thank goodness.

This is politics in its purest form, if you think about it:  One man believes the restroom should be a sort of Thunderdome, a land without rules, where men are free to behave in any way they wish.  Another believes otherwise:  That even restrooms should be governed by the Rule of Polite Society, with said rules enforced via the written word.  The rest of us, the citizens, are ostensibly involved in the process of voting—we could speak up at any time, if we wished, join in the desecration of stalls or put up our own notes in support of one side or another—but in reality we’re just underfoot, just like voters in this country.  We exist merely as an audience, really.  The shit-flinging begins, and after a brief struggle one policy is adopted—if that ain’t government on a micro-scale, I don’t know what it.  Of course some might say that my stunted comprehension of the world around me is one good reason why I am not in politics.  I’d say I’m not in politics because I’m too smart to waste my time.  Time rubs everything blank in the end, mi amigos.

As for IBS, there haven’t been any ass detonations recently, and I wonder if he’s finally died of some sort of internal rot.

I have been rereading some old zines recently and came across this gem.  I probably haven't laughed that hard since I first read it back in 2004.  Jeff Somers graciously agreed to let me rerun it here for your enjoyment.  Please check out his website at JeffreySomers.Com for more fun.  No pressure on the readers, but he wrote, "I may starve if they don't buy all my books and click on all my links and possibly also send me cash."  I am happy to feature his work on drinkdrankdrunk. 

Red Stripe Update

A few years ago, I noted that Red Stripe, the beer of Jamaica, was now being made in Latrobe, Pennsylvania USA, which struck me as odd.  Recently, I bought another 6-pack of Red Stripe, and it's back to being made in Jamaica, which is probably how it should be.  It looks like some people got upset enough about Red Stripe not being made in Jamaica that they sued the company.  That lawsuit got dismissed, but it looks like at some point, the beermaking moved back to its origins.  It looks like they might be making Pabst, along with some other stuff (apparently, whomever pays them to brew), at the old Rolling Rock plant now.  Poor Rolling Rock is made in Newark, New Jersey USA still.

With all the good craft beer around, I drink this type of mass market beer rarely, but when the weather starts getting warmer, I do get an occasional hankering for Red Stripe and reggae music, so I am happy to know that if that will be the case again, then I will be drinking the stuff from Jamaica.  The Latrobe stuff seemed like a cover band from Western Pennsylvania playing Bob Marley songs.  Not bad, but not quite the real thing.

Whatever beer you drink, my latest novel goes well with it.

drinkdrankdrunk: "CHURCH-GOING IDA" by Keith Dersley

In my long history of bedsit bachelorhood there’s the occasion when I had the December sads and happened to mention it to Rick.  He thought it was terrible that I intended to celebrate the 25th and 26th with a kettle and a hotplate.

To me, a quiet break was no big deal, should even be enjoyable, but Rick said to his wife, ‘We’ve got to see if we can find a lady to get Keith over Christmas.’

He soon came up with the name of a grandmother, one of the young ones, called Ida. 

‘She’s a looker. I even contemplated her for myself when she came onto the ward,’ said Rick.

I knew he was kidding, as he was now happily married.  It was during his separation from his first wife that he had dallied with a domestic in the broom cupboard, holding the door shut with one foot while he sported his oak.

‘This young lady’s church-going but broad-minded,’ said Rick.

She was a nursing assistant type, working on the ward.

‘Unattached.  Just moved into a flat in Burlington Road and wants to build up her social circle.  Upgrade it, like, with the Right Stuff.  And here YOU are, not far from Burlington at all, and ready to meet someone eligible.  Coulda been meant, boy.’

Next evening I called at Ida’s flat.  It looked pretty good, and so did Ida.  She was dressed in jeans and a woollen sweater with an arty design showing zoo animals.  Grandmothers can look great these days, but even so you would not have thought her kids had kids.

‘What do you think of the place?’ she asked after she had led me to the sofa and put the kettle on for coffee.

‘It’s great.’

‘There’s still more to do, of course.  One of the girls from work, Karen, do you know her?  She helped.  My son came round and said, “Mum, you’ve got it looking wonderful.”  He hadn’t seen that new chest of drawers or the shelves.  I don’t know if he expected I’d just be living out of cardboard boxes or what.’

Over coffee she pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

‘Do you?  No?  Do you mind if I have one?  I’m getting off them slowly.’

‘That’s all right.’

I tried not to look disappointed or disapproving, but if she smoked, forget it. Though she was sexy, intelligent and a caring, decent woman, I didn’t want to get hooked on a smoker.

At one point she came close, and I could have grabbed her and made my play and I didn’t think she would have hated it, but I was undecided because of the clouds of tobacco, so the moment passed.

‘Ah, she frayed your nose, did she?’ said Rick when I explained.  ‘She told me she’d be giving up the fags.  I don’t blame you though.  I jacked in the old rollies, as you know.  I’ve got enough health complications already.  It’s amazing how many health care people still smoke, they oughta know better.’

‘Anyway, I’ll get through Christmas on my own resources. Won’t be the first time.’

‘Yes, well, maybe it’s best you rule Ida out.  But it’s not only Christmas, is it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, who’s gonna get you through the rest of your LIFE?’

I've been reading Keith Dersley's (or as I like to call him, The Derz!) work for two decades now, from poetry to fiction to memoir.  There doesn't seem to be any literary genre or media he can't do.  His latest novel, By The Time I Get To Pellax, is science-fiction!  I am happy to feature him on drinkdrankdrunk!  You can check out more of his stuff on his website, Derzville! 

 

New Song!: "Plagiarist In Chief"

wredfright · Plagiarist In Chief

Joe Biden Vs. Donald Trump? What is this? People going back to things they rejected as unsuitable in 1988 and thinking, "Wow, we really missed out there; we could have run out of toilet paper in 1989 instead of 2020."? I hope the mass hysteria and idiocy settles down, but it looks as if there's no end in sight at the moment. Buckle up; it may be a rough decade . . . The lyrics are below.  It's the same deal as always.  If you like a song, then feel free to cover it if you're in a band or whatnot.  I love to hear covers of my songs, so please let me know about your version.  If you start making money, then send me a check/we can work out a deal.  Similarly, if you want to use a song for your Youtube video or whatnot, then just let me know.  It's usually fine by me unless it's a commercial product or whatnot (and then it's likely fine as well--I just want my cut).  Find out first though.  Write me at wredfright ATATAT yahoo DOTT com.

He's the Plagiarist In Chief,
and he likes your ideas.
Likes them so much he's going to steal them,
along with your life story.

He's up against the nation's greatest con artist
who is working his hardest
at looting every last dime
from the public treasury.

How did it ever come to this?
People are afraid of a hug and a kiss.
How did it ever come to this?
People are afraid to hug and to kiss.

You're either left or you're leaving,
so there's no need to be overly grieving.
You'd think people never knew
that they would someday die.

I see you wearing a mask,
so I just have to ask.
Is that your idea or your leaders'?
Are you afraid of me,
or just afraid of you?

I got germs, and you got germs,
so let's keep our distance social.
Maybe if we can keep it up long enough
the human race can go extinct.

But maybe the experts can save us,
find some new way of having babies,
who never question authority
and have a little pet virus.

Written April 2020
Recorded April 2020

Want more Wred Fright music?  Order the Yeast? 7" here!

drindrankdrunk: "BUMPY-4-LIFE" by The Midnight Rider

you would think that a tale about 2 professors helping a student cheat to graduate college would be the craziest story I know about luther, but it isn’t……soon after I wrote the preceding paragraph, luther packed his gear and moved to maryland to fulfill his rock n’ roll dreams by becoming the new bassist for the trolls (a 1970s-era doom metal band)….i honestly don’t know much about the doom metal scene, but the lead singer, bumpy, had been luther’s childhood idol---luther had their posters in his bedroom and taught himself how to play all their riffs……luther was enough of a fan that he would follow the band whenever they toured the midwest (at the expense of his cashpoint classes or whatever else he had to do)….it wasn’t long before he had ingratiated himself enough with the band to become their midwestern speed dealer (and rest assured, 1970s doom metal bands still do their fair share of speed)…..luther eventually became their traveling guitar tech and toured the usa with them over the summer…..art professor giada and I went to see them in june in moline and wound up smoking with the band backstage out of bumpy’s crack pipe----ostensibly we were smoking weed, but whatever substance (angel dust?) that was in the pipe the night before radically changed the dynamic of our buzz (and giada stayed up all night tweaking/asking me if she “would ever be normal again”)…...we smoked with the other members of the band, but the band itself was basically 56-year-old bumpy and whatever other (young) speed freak wanted to come along for the ride…..bumpy was short, but muscular and with hair-to-his-waist, dozens of tattoos, and some crazy, fucking eyes……he seemed to be a conspiracy nut, but that night he was ultimately more interested in trying to fuck giada than he was hearing about victor thorn and the lizard people…..giada and I stayed in a nice hotel whereas the band crashed on a friend-of-a-friend’s flophouse floor, but I guess that’s all relative when quality angel dust is your #1 priority……anyway, onto luther’s rock n’ roll fantasy….after the tour, luther moved into a maryland farmhouse with bumpy and his 30-year-old, swedish girlfriend (with the band planning on recording a new studio album in the spring and then touring europe in fall 2017)…..don’t ask me why, but the trolls are popular enough to play stadium gigs in the european union (except, of course, the czech republic where bumpy was busted for speed, spent 9 months in jail, and is currently banned from entering the country for the next ten years)…..i was supposed to go hiking in the blue ridge mountains with luther when I went home for christmas, but he never called……when I finally called him, luther asked if I knew any good lawyers in the dc area……it seems that bumpy ate too many mushrooms on new year’s eve and was in the process of choking his girlfriend to death when luther had to crack him over the head with a maglite flashlight to make him stop…and I realize this sounds like it’s going to be a funny story (and it is), but the really poignant part is that bumpy was luther’s childhood idol----it would be like if I grew up to be roommates with dusty rhodes and then had to hit him in the head with a flashlight to stop the american dream from trying to bite my face off…..bumpy is obviously a speed man, but some fan at their new year’s eve party gave him a bag of mushrooms which bumpy promptly ate……luther said that bumpy spend the majority of the evening propositioning every woman at the party while bumpy’s live-in, swedish girlfriend sat in the corner sulking…..eventually they went outside to argue and when bumpy returned, he was spinning in circles and talking about “demons from other dimensions”……bumpy smashed a bathroom window and then charged back outside to lay spread-eagle in the grass…..the partygoers let bumpy stew for about an hour, but it was 25 degrees and he was in his underwear, plus he was everyone-in-the-room’s meal ticket……his girlfriend went outside with a blanket with the intention of talking bumpy into coming back inside and going to bed…..there were screams and when luther walked outside, bumpy had his girlfriend on the ground choking her…..after trying to pull him off, luther eventually had to start cracking his idol over the head with the flashlight to make him release his girlfriend….bumpy took a swing at luther and then tried to “bite his face off” while both men were wrestling on the ground (luther said the main reason why bumpy didn’t draw blood was that he had “chiclet teeth” from all the years of abusing speed)…..by that time, the rest of the partygoers had come outside to watch the fight and one of troll’s roadies pulled bumpy off luther…..this pissed bumpy off even more, and he went inside, grabbed a shotgun, put the gun in the roadie’s belly, and pulled the trigger----mercifully the shotgun was unloaded, but the roadie punched bumpy in the face and called the police…..when bumpy came to, he grabbed a machete from his bedroom and began hacking away at his girlfriend’s clothes…..then he went into luther’s room and started hacking away at luther’s amps (bumpy also destroyed what he thought was luther’s laptop, but it belonged to the band)…..when the police arrived outside, bumpy ran into his bedroom and pretended to be asleep…..once the police “woke” him and his girlfriend informed bumpy that they were breaking up, he went for the machete again and the police had to throw bumpy on the living room floor/cuff him…..bumpy spent the next 4 nights in jail and a restraining order was issued for him to stay away from luther, the swedish girl, and the band’s roadie (the only one of the three to press charges against bumpy)……they all have to go to court in february, but for the time being, 23-year-old luther continues to live in bumpy’s house with bumpy’s 30-year-old, swedish girlfriend…..luther said at the end of our conversation that they were planning on going into the soap-making business and that he thought he was “falling in love with the swede”---I guess that story will have to wait for another time

The Midnight Rider prefers to remain mysterious.  You could visit his website, but he won't say where it is.  You could read his books, but he won't say what they are.  You could email him, but I'm pretty sure spam@gofuckyourself.gov is not a real email address.  In a world where everyone is repping their Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, sex tapes, line of clothing, new microbrew, and overall brand, I find that refreshing.  I am happy to have the Rider ride on drinkdrankdrunk.

Poem: I Pledge Allegiance To The Flag Of Bunnies

I pledge allegiance to the flag of bunnies
In honor of mothers, baskets, and burial
I pledge allegiance to the flag of chickens
"I'll get you, you fwuckin rabbit" sd the Fuddamentalist
But he had to fight his way into the ghetto
I pledge allegiance to the union of dyed eggs
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the flagship of the flag of the United Empire of Imperial Utopia
I fudge allegiance to bunny balls bare
Sounds itchy, unless they're chocolate
And dropping poopy eggs yoke fest artificial mucus mind blips of seeping stripped lude manmade muck
And I became lost, like a lone emu in the red light rabbit garden district
And spent all my coin fucking like a . . .
The peter grows into more peters
And to the burrow for which it stands
And it all must come to an end

I found this poem while clearing out some papers.  It is fun and appropriate for spring.  It was written jointly by the audience and myself at a reading I did exactly 14 years ago today at The Shaker Heights Public Library in Shaker Heights, Ohio USA.  I remember getting suckered into the reading thinking I could just read an excerpt from The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus or something, and then I found out at the last minute it was a poetry reading, so I had to crank out a bunch of poems.  I just got an intro to literature textbook and wrote an example of every type of form it had in there, plus some extras, such as this one, a sort of exquisite corpse.  I supplied the first line, and the audience supplied the rest on a sheet of paper passed around, then we read it at the end.  They didn't do too badly if I liked it enough to post it over a decade later here.  Good job, yuns!