Dylan Bolin

Lady Catherine pulled her brush through her hair feeling the tug against her scalp.  While staring in the mirror, she felt the tug from her heart.  Sometimes she feared her heart would leap from her chest, take her place at the breakfast table and betray her lustful yearnings to her husband, Lord Horatio Hotchkiss.  She supposed that their relationship was built on love, if love was little more than an efficient partnership, but what it displayed in efficiency, it sorely lacked in passion.  Lovemaking with Lord Horatio was like lying beneath a pasty scarecrow.  His effort was anemic and his touch was like that of a blind man trying to read Braille while wearing mittens.

She took her place at the table where her eggs, sunny side up, were getting cold.  Across from her was her husband, reading the newspaper and slurping his coffee.  She gently traced the yolks with her fork.  Beneath a thin, cooked membrane, the yolks seemed to undulate, anticipating their long-awaited forking. 

Lady Catherine picked up a sausage link and, with it, gently tapped her bulbous eggs.  Finally, the sausage broke through, and the grateful yolk coated it completely.  Lady Catherine let the two foods revel in the moment, but the moment could never last.  The eggs and sausage were just too incompatible, and before their yolky afterglow could congeal, Lady Catherine preserved the moment by devouring them both.  Now they could be together forever.

“I’m going for a walk,” said Lady Catherine.  Her husband grunted behind his paper.

To be continued…

-Dylan

Morning broke early on the Hotchkiss Estate.  The fog lingered over the rolling pasture, and the hills broke through the mist like a heaving bosom straining against a nightgown.  The horses had already been put out to pasture, and Lady Catherine Hotchkiss watched them through her second-story, chamber window.  Their powerful haunches writhed beneath wiry coats mottled in black, white and brown, but one handsome stud stood head and shoulders above them.  His name was Thor, and his mighty seed had sired more champions than Lady Catherine could count. 

What struck her, though, was not the power with which he mated, (and his strength was undeniable) but the tenderness; his playful nipping and nuzzling, followed by meaningful eye contact.  And many was the time that, post-Equus coitus, he would stand shoulder to shoulder with the lucky mare all day instead of sneaking out of the stable while she slept and frolicking with the young colts, snorting tales of his conquest like so many of the other stallions would.  However, with no mares in season, Thor had not mated in months, and the steam from his boiling desire was visible. 

Today, he was mounted by the Chief Stableman, Fernando, who was running off Thor’s frustration.  Like Thor, Fernando’s body was that of Greek sculpture, and, as the late summer sun began to caress the countryside, his threadbare, denim shirt was stowed away in a saddlebag.  His olive skin sweated virgin oil that pooled into his navel like honey.  His thick mane of hair would occasionally fall rakishly over his eyes, and, with a flick of his elegant neck, would fall back to his collar (which today was nothing more than a damp bandana).

As they galloped together in their perfect syncopation, Fernando gracefully rocking and bucking atop his steed, for a moment they became a mythical Centaur and she was Hippodamia, bride of Pirithous, King of the Lapiths.  (Why on Earth did she know that, let alone mentally reference it?)  He was coming to abduct her, and she would have no choice but to go with him.  She would struggle, but eventually, he would take her.  Her chest and cheeks flushed.

“Lady Catherine,” called her maid from downstairs, “breakfast!”

“Coming,” said Lady Catherine without irony.

To Be Continued…

-Dylan

Who doesn’t love a good bodice-ripping romance novel.  God knows I do.  I read them all the time; at the laundromat, on the bus, in the lunch room at work and even at home before Family Feud.  Why, then, do they always leave me feeling so unfulfilled?  Well, better to light a match than curse the darkness, I always say, so I decided to write one.  The following excerpt is from “Chapter V:  Fernando on the Balcony.”  This is just a taste, friends.  With any luck, I’ll soon be the next Sophie Jordan.  Please to enjoy a passage from my new novel:  Yearning by Moonlight:  The Seduction of Lady Catherine©.

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In the moonlight, Fernando’s body seemed to be chiseled out of turkey meat with one notable exception; this turkey had nipples, and they were rigid with longing.  As he walked towards Lady Catherine’s canopy bed, his buttocks jostled like a pair of puppies playing under a Speedo blanket, and he was momentarily silhouetted against the window.  The curtains billowed around him.

Soon, his shadow joined the darkness and Lady Catherine might have thought she was again alone but for the scent of his man sweat lingering like ozone after a passionate thunderstorm.  While her eyes probed the darkness, she suddenly felt his heat.  He was hovering over her.  As he lowered his face towards hers, his pectorals flexed in time with her racing heart.  She felt his brown, flowing mane tickle her forehead, and the stubble on his perfect jaw rasped her velvet cheek; prickling, tickling.  She drew a breath in spite of herself at the strange combination of pain and pleasure.

His lips were nearly upon hers, and they parted slightly with a moist slurp.  She writhed beneath him.  She could brook no more of this smoking smolder like that of damp firewood.  Lacing her fingers in the hair on the back of his head, she pulled his mouth to hers.  His tongue was flat and thick, and it explored her mouth like a curious boy in a confectioner’s shoppe; rushing first to her cheeks, then behind her teeth and finally deep down her throat.  She gagged with longing for him. 

His nose whistled its dragon steam as her loins’ tinder began to flame.  He pulled away and her breath hitched in fits and starts.  His massive tongue pushed out betwixt his lips, and he began to lick her face.  His moist, powerful tongue was like a twelve-ounce rib eye steak being dragged across a mewling, newborn babe.  Her back arched.

Suddenly, she felt his lips around her nose.  At first the sucking was gentle and experimental, but soon enough, the vacuum in his mouth intensified and he sucked it like a triple-thick milkshake through a cocktail straw.  She felt years of repressed desire flow through her nasal passages and out of her nostrils.  The room began to spin, and she felt her consciousness being sucked into him as well.  Without warning she succumbed to the sweet, sweet darkness.

The next morning, she awoke with a new-found vigor and an amazingly clear head.  She folded back the blankets and walked to the window.  Outside was her midnight caller.  In his hand was his trusty shovel and the sun was just beginning to bronze his powerful shoulders.  He lifted his head towards her window and she pressed her hand against the glass.  With a nod, he was off to muck out the stalls of the Estate’s Palominos.  This would be an interesting breakfast indeed.

___________________________________________________

More to come…

-Dylan

This is regarding Housing Help, a recent Blog of mine.

First of all, as the website announces, I’m a comedian in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  I say that in order to distinguish myself from, say, an economist in Indianapolis, Indiana or a financial advisor in Ames, Iowa, both of whom might be better informed on such a topic than I.  So, take that into consideration when you read whatever I have to write.

Second, the slant of that article/Blog was that indeed some of the money that is being spent should find its way into the bank accounts of working people as opposed to only the accounts of rich, white guys. 

Keeping caveat #1 in mind, the idea that certain banks and money minders artificially increased the value of securities that they knew to be worthless in order to make a buck or two or several million, got busted and then claimed that “they were too big to fail” is so absurd as to require a pair of roller skates with which to transport their fantastical cojones.

At the same time, providing a basis for some of these mortgage-backed securities, certain mortgage lenders were hard at work concocting Variable Rate Mortgages and Adjustable Rate Mortgages so they didn’t have to turn anybody away, and ensuring that they made a hefty commission every time the phone rang. 

Their sales pitch went something like this:  “With this Variable Rate Mortgage, all you have to pay us the monthly interest.  Sure, in five years we’re going to adjust the rate to something that would make Scrooge McDuck blush, but all you have to do is sell the house, keep the increase in value and use it buy an even bigger house.”

This was all in the name of the “Free Market” exercising a little “freedom.” 

But the politicians bought the argument that the billionaires needed to be saved, forcing us (the taxpaying regular people) to subsidize the institutions that were “too big to fail.”

In my Blog, “Housing Help,” I failed to mention this opinion prior to suggesting that, maybe, as long as we’re already bailing out institutions for (apparently) the sole purpose of maintaining the standard of living of their management, we could also throw a couple bucks at the people that run the risk of losing everything, you know, like possibly your neighbors.  This may have led one to believe that I was some sort of Commie Pinko, Bleeding-Heart, Marxist, Neighbor-Loving Socialist.

The fact is, for anybody that cares, that I’m actually a big fan of Entropy, which is the breaking down of systems that grow too large for their own good.  Just like everything born must eventually die and every tide that flows must eventually ebb, every system can grow only so large before it ceases to sustain itself and begins to collapse.  An example of Entropy is the fact that forest fires are certainly destructive, but in many cases, it’s the only way that young saplings can receive the sunlight that they need to grow. 

Greed and the artificial inflation of our economic systems are what resulted in a Dow of over 14,000, a “bursting bubble” and the subsequent catastrophe.  While this qualifies as Entropy, a truly “Free Market” system would never have pushed the Dow to unrealistic levels, but, within reasonable parameters, would have experienced a simple correction; a temporary ebb.  Any system that is truly ”free” will establish an equilibrium that will sustain it. 

For that reason, I think it’s a little too late to ask the “Free Market” to take care of the problem; we’ve already let it mutate (with Corporate Socialism to the benefit of a select few) and we shouldn’t let it metastasize. 

Or, we let the true “Free Market” do its thing and devour all that hid behind it, smugly confident that they were “too big to fail.”  But that means nobody gets a bailout, and I’m fine with that if you are.

Let the comments commence:

-Dylan

Ugh.

Readers of this Blog will remember that just three short weeks ago, another Monday was erased by a “Big Game” hangover and here we are again.  Except this time the culprits were Mimosas, spinach dip and Brussels Sprouts wrapped in bacon.  There is some solace, however, as it’s all part of celebrating the wonderful diversity of non-sanctioned, National holidays:  The fiercely heterosexual ”Big Game” Sunday and not-so-fiercely-heterosexual Oscar© Sunday.

It started early with the E! Red Carpet show where they (E!) mainly took pictures of their correspondents standing on the Red Carpet©.  But we couldn’t stay with them for long because the Barbara Walters’ Special© was coming on, and I was really curious as to what makes the Jonas Brothers© tick; especially what gave them the cojones to think that they could take the stage with Stevie Wonder at the Grammys© and screw up his song.  It was very entertaining, however, to listen to Barbara© hint at their budding, pubescent sexuality and watch them fondle their Purity Rings© like a trio of horny Golems©.  Barbara, in the world of Cougars, you’re a Sabre-Toothed Tiger.

And congratulations to the continent of Australia.  With Hugh Jackman, you’re back on top.  Not since Paul Hogan have we fallen for your fair Down Under© like this.  (By the way, Portia de Rossi?  Australian?  Really?)  What with being usurped by a drunken Mel Gibson, the sweeping Lord of the Rings© trilogy and the hilarious Flight of the Conchords©, you were probably worried, but there can be no doubt that Australia is sexy again.

And you know what that means, folks.  An Australian accent will make you sexy, too.  What’s that?  You say you don’t do accents very well?  Not to worry; as always, I’m here to help.

Australia is a fascinating former penal colony with a rich heritage and culture.  It’s important to remember that when saying things like “G’day©,” “Throw another shrimp on the barbie” and “May your chooks turn into emus and kick your shithouse door down!”

For Americans trying to master the Australian accent, here’s where you start:  Do your best Southern U.S. dialect.  (If you happen to currently live south of the Mason/Dixon line, just speak normally; you’re half-way there.)  Go ahead; I’ll wait…

Good enough.  Now, do your best English dialect (the more ”Cockney” the better)…diphthongs, people, remember your diphthongs!

Nice.  Now, against all of the intentions of God© and Nature, combine the two accents.  Initially, you may feel like the subject of an exorcism, but that’s okay.  And don’t worry if the parts aren’t perfect; the Australian accent is not an exact science.  Go ahead and give it a shot…

Bravo!©  Now get out there to the singles bars and practice.  Remember though, if you want to really pull off being Australian, you’d better be able to hold your liquor.  By this I mean:  Don’t ”chunder¹.”  Feel free to fight, fall down, break things and blame the Jews for everything² however.

One more Oscar© note:  A big thumbs-up to former Milwaukeeans Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab for their work on Hugh Jackman’s throroughly entertaining opening number.  Dan and Rob wrote Hugh’s lyrics, and Rob built the spartan, yet incredibly creative sets.

-Dylan

¹ “To Vomit”

² …Mel G.

It’s official.  President Obama’s stimulus package is law and, come March 4th, some of that money ($75 Billion but likely much more) will theoretically begin to flow to struggling home owners facing foreclosure.  If you are a homeowner (like my wife and I) and you aren’t facing foreclosure (like my wife and I) because you’ve been keeping up with payments (like my wife and I), you probably thought:  “Hey, what about us?”  Like my wife and I.

After all, Human Nature is pretty competitive, and it relies on a sort of ethereal Universal Justice to act as referee.  And while we like to think that the Universe is minding the store and responsibly meting out this Justice where applicable, the fact is that the Universe is huge (bigger than Texas, even) and our cries of:  “It’s not fair!” have light years to travel.  But this is a matter of Government, as universally insignificant as each of us individually, so maybe it’s fair to expect a little more justice.

So, let’s put this in perspective:  It’s really all about perspective; specifically the perspective of what constitutes a “level playing field.”  If, like many, you’re situated on the middle of a ladder, chances are, you’re always looking up and wondering how those people got there.  “How can we level the playing field?”  Maybe a tax break for us folks in the middle would do it.

Well, guess what; those same people are looking up at the people above them and are thinking the exact same thing, except for them, the answer is zero taxes on Capital Gains.

As another result of our limited perspective, no matter where a given person is on the ladder, since they know that they’re not at the top, they’ll always feel like they’re in the middle.

The notion that if we can just get to that next level that everything will be okay has been proven false at every stage in our lives, but our competitive Human Nature provides some convenient memory loss.  When I was a young man, I thought that if I could just do comedy and make a living at it (a living being Rent and Mac ‘n’ Cheese) that I would never want anything else, and, for a time, I had exactly that.  Perhaps you had a time in your life like that, too.  How did it work out?  Did you have a peer/boss that made more than you?  That lived in a bigger house?  Had insurance?  Suddenly, your perspective changed and your sense of satisfaction was shattered.  In a moment, your previous declaration seemed so naive.  

My point is that we always seem to feel slighted when looking up (that’s where we want to be, after all), but we never seem to feel fortunate when looking down and acknowledge that, in many respects, we’re lucky to be where we are.  Complacency makes lousy fuel to propel us up the ladder.

We yearn for a level playing field, but our perspective is so skewed towards a “me-centric” world view that we wouldn’t recognize “level” if we saw it.  And the field is only allowed to be leveled in one direction; by either lifting us, or cutting off at the knees the ones above us.

Yes, some people took out some questionable mortgages, but it wasn’t entirely their fault.  Alan Greenspan admitted that lowering interest rates when he did was a major mistake, and many of the people selling these mortgages were predatory lenders.  “Sure you can afford this home with no money down.  How do I know?  My commission is always right.”  I remember a time in my life when I could have been pretty easily taken.

And what do you think a neighborhood of foreclosed, bank-owned homes does to your property value?  Unfortunately, in terms of your home’s value, there are no points for good behavior if a Sheriff’s Deputy is gluing a Notice to your neighbor’s storm door.  Perhaps a rising tide does indeed raise all ships.     

So we have a choice:  We can scream:  “It’s not fair!  Don’t bail out the Suckers!  Don’t bail out the Deadbeats!” or we can say:  “There but for the grace of God go I.”

-Dylan

We’re going on month four of this here B-log, and let me just get goosey and girlie for a minute and say that these four months of howling at the moon in my own obscure little corner of the Internet have been just fantastic, and I doubt the Honeymoon will ever end.  I mean, my pal Randy estimates that there are 3.21 Million Blogs on the Internet, and I get to count myself as one of them.  I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating:  It’s my pleasure to provide you with the pallet-cleansing sorbet of web content between YouTube courses of A Kid Freaking Out After a Trip to the Dentist and A Kitten Slowly Falls Asleep.  Even though you don’t ask for these Blogs, I’m proud to deliver.

Keeping up with site visits, page views and reader comments is new and exciting, too.  Personally, I use Google Analytics.  And I know that this site has finally arrived because the Spambots have found me.  After looking at the Map Overlay feature in Google Analytics, I was impressed at how folks from all over the globe had visited the site.  “Golly,” I thought in my best Indiana Hayseed accent, “this site sure is cosmopolitan.”  I even got a visit from Iran, which I’m sure didn’t put me on some sort of list somewhere.  It surprised me, however, to see that these visitors stuck around for no time at all.  “00:00,” said Google Analytics.  “Shucks,” I thought, taking off an imaginary hat made from macramed Pabst cans and scratching my head, “y’all come on back when you can sit a spell.” 

At the same time, I started receiving strange comments on the Blogs like this:  “Kmqrwtysip!  Truibg pa rwundle!”  At first, I thought it was a cry for help from someone having a stroke at their keyboard, but it didn’t take long for me to put the pieces together.  These visits for no time at all and the strange messages were coinciding. 

Now, WordPress makes it easy enough to catch the Spam before it appears as a comment, but you have to wonder who is sending it, and whether they think this Spamming method actually works.  I mean, imagine talking to someone at a party.  You’re standing there with a Collins glass wrapped in a napkin, engaged in heady discourse about, say, how Japan’s Nikkei fell the day before, when suddenly this loon runs up to both of you shouting:  “BOOBIES!  BOOBIES!  BOOBIES!”

Does this Goofus really think that your conversation partner is going to say:  “Hold that thought please, Dylan.  These…what did you call them again, sir?”

“BOOBIES!”

“Indeed.  These ‘Boobies,’ as you say, sound fascinating.  Excuse me.”  And then walk away with the guy?

Apparently, he does because the same Goofus expects you to click on a link of Gibberish.  When I told this to my friend the Nigerian prince and my Russian bride, we laughed and laughed.  Well, just in case there are people out there who will click on Gibberish, I want some of this action myself.

Comment:  Bkhgxctuih! Inr wqs Vzpouhb!*

-Dylan

*Don’t worry, it’s just OK Go’s video for Here It Goes Again.  No matter how many times I see it, it’s still cool.

I would like to start smoking again. 

I know that sounds crazy, but hear me out.  Yes, I know it’s bad for me, yes, I know it’s dangerous, but the State of Wisconsin needs me.  Folks, I love my State of Wisconsin (State Flower:  the Wood Violet, State Tree:  the Sugar Maple, State Rock:  Red Granite, State Soil:  Antigo Silt Loam.  “This level, silty soil was created during the last of the Great Glaciers.”  State Hobby:  Plagiarizing Wikipedia.)

By the way, the State Bird is the Robin, whose Latin name is Turdus Migratorius.  Turdus Migratorius.  Just enjoy that.

But my state needs me.  You see Wisconsin needs money to pay for State programs.  Some of these programs are very cool, but it also needs money to pay the people that payed them to have us pay for these programs.  It gets this money by levying taxes on the residents of the state.  And I don’t know if you heard, but it seems that the state has fallen on some financial hard times of late. 

Well, if you’re anything like me…after you flush the toilet, you’ll wait until the water stops running completely before you drink out of the sink.  I know my house isn’t plumbed that way, but if something went wrong it would be very, very gross. 

But that’s got nothing to do with state taxes.  How can you go about giving the state a little extra?  You could check any number of boxes on your State Income Tax form, but let’s face it, entering a dollar amount into those boxes is little more than a thinly-veiled bribe:  “Hey, State of Wisconsin!  It’s been a good year for me and my family.  Here’s a little something for you.  What do you say we overlook those $14,000 worth of Internet purchases?” 

Sure I could check the box to donate a dollar to some Election Campaign Fund, but I still don’t know what that is, and besides, I want to give more than a dollar; I want to give $1.75 a day.  Thankfully, The State of Wisconsin has arranged the perfect payment plan:  Cigarettes.  In 2008, the state of Wisconsin increased the tax on a pack of cigarettes by a dollar.  Tonight, at 7pm C.S.T., for 2009, Governor Doyle plans to announce another seventy-five cent tax hike.  As luck would have it, that’s exactly how much, per day, I’d like to send to Madison, no questions asked.  I’m sure they’ll spend it on something worth while.  When I think fiscal responsibility, I think State Government.  All I need to do is smoke a pack a day.  It’s win/win.  Not only is the extra $1.75 the state charges me good for the state, since cigarettes are bad for me, it’s for my own good as well. 

And while we’re on the subject of taxes, I have another way for Wisconsin to make some money.  It’s another tax, but when you hear it, I don’t think you Wisconsinites will have a problem paying it.  It’s a tax on children.  If you’re a home owner, you’re already paying a tax on children. 

I found this out when I looked at my Property tax bill, and saw a column for Milwaukee Public Schools.  Now, I love Milwaukee Public Schools; I’m the product of Milwaukee Public Schools; Hartford Avenue and then Rufus King. I have many friends who themselves are teachers at M.P.S., and I’d be more than happy to pay to have my children go there.  Trouble is, my wife and I don’t have children.  But that’s okay; we’re all about supporting our community.  But, maybe, just to make our tax payment more personal, M.P.S. could assign a student to us; M.P.S. could send us a photo of our child, and he or she could, you know, write us letters and stuff. 

But think about it; a tax on children.  To be paid by the parents.  We’ll call it the Breeding Tax.  I sense some of you are pulling back, but listen:  We don’t even have to charge a $1.75 a day.  We’ll only charge $300 a year.  That’s less than a dollar a day; the price of a cup of coffee (at a gas station).  Three hundred dollars per child in the State of Wisconsin per year?  The state would be rolling in it.  What kind of cool programs could we have then?   

As part of the deal, if parents didn’t want to pay the Breeding Tax, they could opt their children out of the program at the age of 12 by forcing them to get a job.  Like the Child Labor of the Good Ol’ Days.  And by the way, when did we get so skittish about putting kids to work?  I was a Milwaukee Sentinel paper boy.  And if I had to walk through two feet of unshoveled snow to deliver my weight in newspapers to certain old ladies who would call my house and wake up my Mom if I didn’t get the paper in her door by 5:15am (which was precisely when her toast popped up) so she could read it while she listened to Paul Harvey, and then tip me each week with a single Werther’s Candy that smelled like the pennies it shared a coin purse with, every kid should have to.

And the $300 dollars a year will also help pay for the child’s increased carbon footprint.  On average, a family with a child uses more energy and generates more waste than a family without.  A portion of the Breeding Tax will go towards developing alternative fuel sources and more easily-recyclable materials.  Combine that with the cigarette tax helping to fund health care and smoking awareness, and you’ve got a winning combination indeed.

Okay, look, I realize that our current tax laws allow us to actually deduct children from our taxes, and I realize that taking away dependents might not sit well with some people.  And I also realize that children are like tattoos and potato chips:  It’s really hard to stop at one.  So I have a compromise:  You can keep your child as a dependent, but every time your child bumps into me at a grocery store or a museum or a restaurant, you have to give me ten dollars from your tax deduction.  We’ll exchange information, just like at the site of a little fender bender, and at the end of the year, we’ll report all of these transactions to the I.R.S. 

And if your child hits me in the groin with anything swung, thrown or otherwise, I get your entire refund.

-Dylan

I hope everyone is doing well today despite the state of our economy.  If it makes you feel better just know that you’re not the only ones feeling the pinch.  I’m sure you’ve heard about the financial ruin that has befallen companies like Bear/Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, A.I.G., Bank of America, Citigroup, IndyMac, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers and even Freedom Bank, so clearly you’re not alone.  And don’t think those companies don’t appreciate the fact that you all are willing to pay some increased taxes to help them recover.  And, if you ever find yourself in need of a loan to pay those taxes, not to worry.  Just as soon as the C.E.O.’s take their cut and stash it in their tax-free accounts in the Bank of Bermuda, they’ll be more than happy to loan you what’s left of your own money at a reasonable interest rate. 

But no matter what happens, there are always the eternal economic optimists that say that this economic downturn is all in our heads which is kind of true.  Anybody who’s seen It’s a Wonderful Life knows that a few financially skittish types can start a full-fledged run on a humble savings and loan.  In the movie, George Bailey was saved by an Angel named Clarence, and you can’t spell “bailout” without ”Bailey.”  And this is our chance as taxpayers to earn our wings by bailing out these humble, Mom and Pop institutions.  Remember folks, every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings, and every time the closing bell rings on the New York Stock Exchange, an angel hits a power line. 

Besides, you really don’t have a choice; look how not paying taxes turned out for Wesley Snipes. 

You see, me, I’m an optimist.  While everybody else was complaining about high gas prices, I was filling up my Focus with Premium.  I was just amazed that somebody was still making the stuff, and I certainly didn’t want it to sit there in the underground tanks, go stale and lose all of its octane.  And besides, look at gas prices now; they’ve come down, haven’t they?  After being punched in the face with four-dollar-a-gallon-gas for so long, doesn’t it feel good now that we’re just being slapped? 

Still other people say that the value of the dollar is falling; I say it’s just resting.  Laying low for a while like it did back in 1987 when it got sick of being used to buy Hypercolor T-shirts and Jenga.  Nevertheless, the current state of the U.S. dollar has kept a lot of Americans from participating in that most American of traditions:  The Vacation.  Back when I was a kid and gas was 65 cents a gallon, my parents took me on several summer vacations, but, despite their best efforts, I always found my way home (Rimshot).  So I was never a big fan of traveling when I was a kid.  Like a rabbit, most times I found it was safest to stay perfectly still. 

From what I understand, regular people love vacations, but, thanks to a wonky economy those same families are forced to stay home for their vacations.  This situation has also introduced a new word into our vocabulary:  “Stay-cation,” which sounds much better than my phrase:  “The Holi-Don’t.”  However, since I’d like to promote my word, I plan to use it liberally. 

Now, a lot of people are upset that they can’t afford to travel, but, as I mentioned, I’m an optimist, and I say that everything that costs money and requires travel can be done right here at home.  For instance, camping is very inexpensive if you do it right.  Now, I’m not talking about renting a cabin in the woods.  That’s not camping; that’s just a bad hotel.  And I’m also not talking about an R.V., and I’m not really sure where the R.V. falls in the realm of the Holi-don’t.  On one hand, you are staying home, but on the other hand, the home isn’t staying put.  Either way you look at it though, you aren’t camping. 

I’m talking about a tent, a sleeping bag, a can of beans and some firewood.  Once upon a time, I used to love camping, but at some point, and I don’t know when it happened, I turned a corner.  I now no longer enjoy falling asleep in a 100-degree tent with mosquitoes that are large enough to require mid-air refueling and waking up on the ground covered in a film that is three parts sweat, two parts insect repellent and one part campfire smoke.  But that is not to say that you won’t enjoy it. 

Now, onto everyone’s favorite American pastime:  The Baseball Game.  Now, you might be thinking:  “Wait a minute, Dylan, it costs money to go to a Milwaukee Brewer game,” and you would be right, but I didn’t say “A Brewer Game,” I said “a baseball game.”  Last I checked, Little League games were free.  Why not take a grill, some brats and a quarter barrel and do some hard-core tailgating at your neighborhood Little League diamond.  Perhaps you like a little higher level of competition.  I which case, there’s always high school baseball. 

Many current baseball stars were once area high school players, most notably Brewer utility infielder Craig Counsell.  Now I’m not one to drop names like pennies at a parking meter, but Craig and I played area high school baseball at the exact same time.  I haven’t talked to Craig recently, but that’s probably only because, back then, we never actually met.  You see, Craig played for Whitefish Bay which is in the North Shore Conference while I played for Rufus King which is in the City Conference.  With all due respect to the North Shore Conference, I think the City Conference was definitely tougher. 

On the fields in the North Shore Conference with a pop fly, your average center fielder would have to judge the arc of the ball, the wind speed, wind direction and so on.  On the M.P.S. fields, your average center fielder would have to judge all of those things plus he had to negotiate the rusted-out Oldsmobile Cutlass.  In the North Shore Conference the infielders would occasionally get a bad hop off the lip of the grass or a stone in the dirt.  In the City Conference, the bad hops often caromed off of an actual body.  But what’s more important in the grand scheme of things, turning a double play or solving a cold case? 

Those are just two ideas for the Holi-Don’t and don’t hesitate to add a few ideas of your own.  And don’t worry too much about the economy, folks.  Maybe we weren’t as rich as we thought, but we’re still as rich as we are, and we Americans have overcome much worse.  In the meantime remember the words of Clarence the Angel from It’s a Wonderful Life when he said:  “Remember, George, no man is a failure who has friends.”  And then he hit a power line.

-Dylan

Brett Favre has recently announced his retirement (again), and this time, it’s likely to stick.  As a resident of Wisconsin and a Green Bay Packer fan, I was drawn into the myriad dramas of Brett Favre’s career, first tearful retirement and subsequent departure to New York.  Now that the Broadway curtain has fallen, looking at this history as the sum of its parts, I’ve arrived at the conclusion that the Brett Favre Saga is nothing short of a tragedy.

When I use the word “tragedy,” I’m referring to the literal, theatrical definition.  Nowadays, the term “tragedy” is used to denote anything big and sad, but the actual definition includes some very specific rules.  Brett Favre’s story abides by all of those rules.

The chief characters of a tragic action should be persons of consequence, of exalted station.

Brett Farve certainly qualifies here.  Whether his “exalted station” is justified in your opinion (he was, after all, the player of a game), his status within that context is undeniable.

The leading personage should not be a man characterized by great virtue or great vice, but of a mixed nature, partly good and partly bad.

As a player, he broke fans’ hearts just as often as he made them stand up and cheer.  As a person, he struggled with vices and addictions but, at the same time, was devoted to his wife and family.

Such a mixture of good and evil makes him seem like ourselves, thus more quickly arousing our sympathy.

He wasn’t a prince or a king, but merely a self-proclaimed hayseed from Kiln, Mississippi who happened to carry a cannon on the right side of his torso.

His errors and weaknesses lead him into misfortune.  The crimes suitable for tragic treatment may be committed either in ignorance, or intentionally, and are commonly against friends or relatives. 

Whether it was greed, the need to be admired or just a change of heart, retracting his retirement and forcing the hand of Packers’ management essentially put him above the best interests of the team and was a glowing example of his monumental hubris.  His defection to New York certainly qualifies as a crime against friends (while he probably wouldn’t bother to spit on them if he knew them, the fans definitely considered themselves his friends).

Crimes committed intentionally are generally the more dramatic and impressive.

There can be no doubt that Brett Farve was the architect of his own misery; nobody called him out of retirement.

Had Brett simply remained retired as a Green Bay Packer, he could have swaggered off the green of the Lambeau tundra and into the sunset, forever silouhetted in its molten gold, and assume his place at the right hand of the Football Father.  Had he not attempted to transcend the game, we, the fans, would have happily carried him there.  As it is, he went out with a mediocre whimper instead of the proverbial ”Bang;” his statistics will always be stated as a matter of fact, but they could have been sung.  Honestly, it makes me a little sad.  Which dovetails into the final rule of tragedy:

The course of the tragic action should be such as to saturate the spectator with feelings of compassion, drive out his petty personal emotions, and so “purge” the soul through pity (Catharsis).  

See you around the bend, Brett.

-Dylan