Dirty Ert

2010: A NASCAR playoff trek

2010-09-24T17:52:00.000-04:00

With the close of the NASCAR "regular season", the Chase for the Sprint Cup has begun. This new-fangled playoff format was devised by the NASCAR brain trust some years ago. A complicated points based playoff system, it is supposed to enhance fan excitement for the last 10 races of the year.

This is the evil work of Ivy League MBA consultants, let loose in the hallowed halls of stock car racing.

The regular points system is hard enough to figure out. But in the "Chase" it totally befuddles most casual racing fans. I have one college degree and working on a second; I can barely figure out what the hell is going on. My race loving cousins, who dropped out of the 7th grade, have no chance of comprehension.

Now only the top twelve drivers have a chance to win the championship. The other 30 or so drivers are in a "rebuilding phase" for next year. But the eliminated drivers are still in every race, even though they cannot win a championship. In other sports, the last place team does not get to play in the playoffs. I can smell the corporate idiot-mania here. Twelve drivers are "in it to win it", while 35 drivers are "in it to take up space."

In 2010, the "Chase" contenders are set. There is a problem. Ask any average NASCAR fan to name all twelve of them. You might get four. If I think real hard I might get six. So after drinking myself silly through 26 races, this is the best that I can recall that are in the "Chase"

- Jeff Burton, He is one of my favorites, so I can remember him.

- Denny Hamlin, I only know that, because he won last night's race and the TV squawked for 20 minutes about him being the number one seed.

- Jimmie Johnson, TV commentators will not shut up about his chances of winning a fifth straight championship.

- Clint Bowyer, TV wouldn't shut up about him being the last one to make the cut.

- Jeff Gordon, Next to Jimmie Johnson, the other guy the TV people talk about constantly.

- Greg Biffle, I like him because I think Biffle is a really cool last name.

As for the other six, me and millions of other hard drinking fans will need a nice graphic from ESPN to figure it out.

The ironic nose zit

2010-09-24T17:43:00.000-04:00

For reasons unknown, I get a zit on my nose about every two to three years. I have been unemployed for two years.

I have a job interview in three days. There is now a huge red zit on my nose.

Figures...

Criteria for a great job

2010-09-17T00:00:00.000-04:00

I am fastly approaching two years of unemployment. I even have a headhunter, who specializes in the scrap industry looking for me. Its to the point; I would accept a job in a foreign country, The North.

When I first sent my headhunter my resume, he called me immediately. "This is a terrible resume."

"Its mostly because of my career." I wanted to say it, but I didn't.

I even offered to work for a scrap yard for FREE, just to gain a few resume bullets. Still got a NO. I can't even give it away. I must be the nastiest metal whore ever.

So I dusted off my 2004 edition of "What color is your parachute?" And started going through the section of determining what type of job I wanted to do. Here is my criteria for a great job.

•Being drunk or stoned would not greatly affect job performance.
•I refuse to be on call after I leave work. If you need me, call somebodyelse.
•I do not like working with people, particularly young people.
•I do not like working with computers
•I am completely terrified of snakes and refuse to work anywhere near them.
•I don't do confined spaces, rules out mining.
•Medical field a definite no, I have the nurturing skills of a buzzard.
•Fortune 500 bullshit drives me nuts, cannot deal with it. Rules out the world's largest employers.
•No government jobs, been there, done that. Hated it.
•I have a near pathological hatred and distrust of authority. Rules out police work.
•I will only work holidays if it a) is not difficult b) pays well c) greatly increases my chances of pussy. The same applies for weekends.
•Not a skilled trade that I don't already have. Which is almost none. I am too damn old to learn a trade.
•I will only work more than 40 hours a week if it pays really well. I prefer to work 20 to 30 hours per week.
•I like to take a lot of vacation to go hiking or have day long masturbation sessions.
•I enjoy working with my hands, even more if soft music is playing and my penis is available.

On the positive side of things, I ain't too picky about pay and benefits. I ain't had health insurance in years. Mankind went thousands of years with out insurance and did just fine.

My journey to the dark side is complete. I am an alcoholic, broke, jobless - hillbilly.

" Help me Obi Won Kenobi - The correct six lottery numbers are my only hope."

Lottery Winner, there is the job I want.

The swamp rats of Tatooine

2010-09-14T23:44:00.000-04:00

I went to a party a while back. They had lost the labels for the two kegs. No one could tell which beer was which. I told them to step aside, I was unemployed. Two sips and I solved the mystery. The one on the right was Landshark, the left was Fat Tire. Should I consider quitting - Hell No! Just cutting back. I had been spending over $100 a week for booze. This is the fourth day in row that I have been sober. Honestly it sucks. How do you people do it? My plan is to drink only 2 days a week instead of 4 or 5. And I can only get fucked up once during the "work" week. Further, I can only drink good beer or liquor on one of those days. On the other day, its Icehouse road quarts in the can.

I just read over that last paragraph. The problem may be worse than I initially feared.

But there is hope! The rebel fighters have penetrated the Death Star's outer defenses. Several have begun their attack run; the two meter exhaust port is in sight. Which made me think. Luke used to bullseye swamp rats in his T16 back home on Tatooine. Now, Tatooine is a planet that is entirely desert. So where exactly in the desert does one find "swamp" rats?

Further, shouldn't Luke's propensity to slaughter innocent animals for sport, factored into Yoda's decision to train him in the Jedi arts? Too old and reckless my ass! The boy has no patience or respect for living creatures. Hell, even his old Pa, Ani-boy, did not kill for sport. He slaughtered the Sand People in revenge for happened to his Ma. He did not put out 'Sand People bait' and crawl up in his T16 and wait for the unsuspecting bastards. Then stuff a couple of them and hang them above Padme's fireplace

Math of the functional alcoholic

2010-09-12T20:26:00.001-04:00

How can a man, who hikes 20 miles a week for 3 months, still gain over 10 pounds? The numbers are terrifying. Sadly, the facts I am about to present to you are accurate.

Calories burned:
I usually hiked at least 6 1/2 miles at a time, 3 times a week - 35 times total during the summer. My typical hiking time per trip was 2 1/2 hours. With my pack, that's burning about 800 calories an hour. So I burned 2,000 per trip, times 35 trips. That equals 70,000 calories burned over the summer.

Calories consumed.
I usually drank 60 beers a week (or more) for 12 weeks. That's 720 beers over the summer; or 67 1/2 gallons. A typical beer of my preference runs 160 calories each. That's 115,200 calories imbibed over the summer.

115,200 calories consumed minus 70,000 calories burned. That a surplus of 45,200 calories. Now divide that by about 3,500 calories per pound of fat. So my beer drinking accounted for the13 pounds of fat put on my ass. The scale confirms my calculations.

Oh but it is worse! I gained 13 pounds over the summer. Had I not drank all that beer and still hiked; those 70,000 calories burned would have caused me to loose 20 pounds. So in all actuality, my voracious beer consumption caused me to be 33 pounds heavier today than I should be.

Guess how many pounds over weight I am... 36. So had I been able to resist the irresistible call of beer, I would only be 3 pounds over weight right now.

Worse yet, all that beer cost over $500.

Yes, I realize the absurdity of my beer habit. I have decided to take action and take back control of my life.

I am switching to vodka

I am to old to go greek.

2010-09-11T18:37:00.002-04:00

It was Friday, beer day.

Being old and in college has some issues (I am in my late thirties). Sometimes a good beer drinking crowd is hard to find.

I called everyone who I normally drink with, no takers. Not afraid to drink alone I sit at the end of the bar, destroying $1 drafts of Miller High Life (the champagne of beers.)

I end up striking a conversation with the guy across the bar. He is 25 years old and a veteran of 2 tours of combat in Iraq. We do glorious drinking. Then he hits me with an odd proposal.

"Dirty Ert, I am the president of a local fraternity. I want you to come by and join us. Hell, you won't even be the oldest guy there. Our sergeant at arms is 43."

He spent half an hour talking me into his little group.

I came home and sobered up. The next morning I decided me, married with two kids, a mortgage and one kid in college...joining a fraternity is a horrible idea.

I've never let the fact that an idea is bad, prevent me from doing it anyhow.

What am I getting myself into?

We were in a recession

2009-08-03T11:26:00.002-04:00

I noticed something interesting in the news back in early 2008. There was all kinds of bad economic reports. It prompted The President, The Chairman of the Federal Reserve, The Commerce Secretary, The President of the National Banking Association, and even the drunken whore intern in the senate - to all say the same thing.

"We are not in a recession and we are not heading towards a recession."

It could mean only one thing.

We were in a recession.

I like how they try to narrowly define the term "recession" - trying to reason it away like a high school debate. Bill Clinton tried to run the same semantics with "I did not have sex with that woman." He just left off the follow on sentence "But she did blow my balls clear out of my sack!"

So when you hear "We are not in a recession." the follow up is actually "But, the lower half of the middle class is getting mildly fucked. While the higher income brackets, will notice no difference in their life - what so ever."

Recession is defined as "six consecutive months of economic loss." Our leaders pointed out that we had yet to go more than three in a row. But, were getting two bad months for every good one. Perhaps our leaders will enjoy it when the middle class rises up and reworks a few definitions.

Ass rape will be defined as: "60 consecutive minutes aggressive anal assault with a oaken shovel handle." Then when can smile as we point out that the ultra rich leadership jackasses have only received aggressive anal assault for no more than 25 minutes at a time. And then, it was with a fiberglass wiffle ball bat.

Bastards.

Ert

A library should have a full service bar.

2009-07-28T10:13:00.002-04:00

A library should have a full service bar.

After 20 years of searching for my million dollar idea - Eureka - I have found it.

Private library/bars, a chain of the fuckers all across this great land. Strap in and hold on to your venture capital people, let the free association begin.

Start with a library, add a bar. Also, make sure that there are cocktail waitresses. Imagine doing research in the reference section and having a Whiskey Sour brought to you. My heavens, if fiction needs anything, it's a Kamikaze. You can even have discussion groups; everybody reads the same damn book, and then gets together over drinks to discuss the fucker.

There could even be a facilitator, trained in the arts of drinking games. Like every time Goethe makes a prophetic statement - everybody hits a Purple Hooter Shooter.

Holy Smokes and Sweet Desire!

Singles events! Yes! Read those damn Mars/Venus fuckers. Then everybody does shots.

Think of it! Bad day?? Tired of your ole ladie's shit? Applebees just don't fucking cut it? A variety of quality micro brew hefeweizens and lagers while perusing the periodicals, yes, that is where I could go when I need a break.

Dirty Ert

What if that tire blows?

2009-07-27T12:23:00.002-04:00

In my old truck, I choogled around town without a care in the world or a decent stereo. My dog and me were the only usual riders in my 12 year old Ford with over 200,000 miles. Then my most valued possession, my wife, took a 250 mile journey in my truck.

Normally we took her vehicle on trips, but it was unavailable that weekend. A half an hour, for me to yank old Mountain Dew bottles and Reese's Cup wrappers out from under the seat. An hour of vacuuming extracted the dog hair from the upholstery. The chariot was now fit for my queen.

We headed to a party in Knoxville. I wheeled the truck up on the interstate at the 70 miles per hour. Setting the cruise control, I let it ride. My truck has an old school cruise control; it's called 'hold your foot still'. The wife and I chat and sing along with the radio. At last, she crawled into the back seat for a nap. Alone with my thoughts, I took a turn for the worst.

The truck had a tendency to pull to the left. Abruptly, I remembered. "The front left tire is completely worn out, and the spare is flat." Just driving around town, I didn't give a damn. I figured "Hell with it. Run it to the steel belts." But now, I was making top speed with my queen onboard. What if that tire blows?

The question haunted me. A mind might be a terrible thing to waste. But I wish to hell it had a mute button.

I began running scenarios in my head of that left front tire exploding. What would I do? Could I control my truck? In my mind I was practicing for the incident. Waiting till I found myself sandwiched between two rigs and a minivan on my bumper; I'd rehearse my emergency procedures. "I'll turn the steering wheel slightly to the right to compensate, then brake firmly and steadily but not too fast. There is a gap about 300 yards behind me and I can make it to the right shoulder."

I broke into a mild sweat just picturing the scene.

Then it got worse. I envisioned the tire blowing and the left side of the truck knuckling under at 70 miles per hour. The front bumper "grabbed" the pavement. I predicted my truck flipping end over end down the highway. My mind's eye saw fire trucks, ambulances and police, a horrible accident scene. Watching helplessly as a helicopter whisked my beloved wife off to the emergency room.

Suddenly, I come back to myself. "Get hold of yourself man!" I was shaking, sweating, suffering heart palpitations and about to cry. Peacefully my wife continued napping as I battled neurosis. I began breathing exercises, attempting to relax. Then a disturbing "Whaaaaaannnannn" noise screamed up from the road. "Jesus Christ this is it!" I sprang to emergency procedures and braced for impact. Nothing happened; I had simply drifted onto the rumble strips. Alarm gracefully yielded to laughter, my mind caught up to itself. Softly I chided myself for allowing my imagination to run wild.

I hit the Knoxville freeway; "Malfunction Junction" as it is unaffectionately known. Panic returned. The main interstate was closed. All traffic detoured to the bypass. It was a throng. Confused tractor trailers, flashed their blinkers, attempting to change lanes. Young girls in zippy cars darted around like hummingbirds. Jack asses in luxury SUVs plowed ahead like blind bulldogs in ring full of cats. Everyone talked on a cell phone. The only thing in my mind; "what if the left front tire blows out right now."

I recalled a World War II movie. It was about a bomber crew attacking Nazi Germany. The crew was gripped with terror. Fighter planes tried to strafe them with machine guns. Cannons on the ground puked black flack clouds of shrapnel at them. The crew fought off panic and paralyzing fear; hoping each moment was not the last. That was exactly how I felt.

I thought I could not take it anymore, then I saw a sign. The sign I needed and my salvation. My exit was one mile away. I swear my blood pressure dropped along with the speed of the truck. The red light was a god-send. I got fifteen seconds of peace as I tried to catch myself. My queen arose. "Hey baby," her soothing voice. "Could you pull into that store for cigarettes and a six pack?"

The truck seemed to thank me when I parked at the store. The wife pondered her beer selection. I hit the restroom. My emotional trauma resulted in a full and painful bladder. I used a visualization technique to calm myself down. The urine contained all my anxiety. As it left my body: stress, fear and worry went with it. I stood at the urinal; it was working. The negativity drained away and headed out into the sewer system, where it belonged.

Then it hit me. I had to drive back the next morning, doing it all over again. A shock wave of panic flowed over me. I lost my balance. My head smacked into the wall and I literally pissed on myself.

Dirty Ert

Fantasy Job #8: Bluegrass Rebel

2009-07-22T11:35:00.003-04:00

Beset by unemployment and cursed with an over active imagination, I have started fantasizing about dream jobs.

Fantasy Job #8: Bluegrass Rebel

I want to be the radical outcast that takes bluegrass mainstream.

There is no musical talent in my body and I hate bluegrass. Not withstanding, I've got some good song titles and a dream in my heart. Theses songs are hard-core obscene and vulgar.

My first album, entitled "Songs I wrote while driving a great distance"

Track List

Shit Bitch (I love taking you anal)
Loving you is like ridin' a motor sickle with highly inconvenient handle bars
Did you fart? Or did your sister take her pants off?
You ain't doing nothing with it (The married Wednesday night song)
The race is on, lets do it dog like
Breeding Season
It ain't gonna lick itself
I'd rather wipe my ass with a belt sander
Don't just stand there, bring me a beer
Toothless women
Hillbillies do it in the hollow

Dirty Ert

The Cipro Story

2009-07-10T10:15:00.007-04:00

My brother and one of his bestest friends had a joint bachelor party, in the Bahamas. The trip in and of itself is a hell of a story, but this story spring from that trip.

During a drunken episode, me and a friend decided to play full contact volleyball in the resort pool. Of course, it is all fun and games until somebody gets hurt, then it is hilarious. I was the one who got hurt. I skinned my knee, it left a spot with no skin on it, about the size of a quarter. With no confidence in Caribbean medicine, I just slapped Neosporin on it until I got home, a week later.

Arriving home, the wound had not yet begun to heal and was emitting puss. Figuring this was a trivial medical matter, I went to a walk in clinic for help instead of my doctor. It took a little time, but I told the doctor the full story of my injury including the final score of the full contact volleyball match. The doc cleaned the wound and wrote me a prescription for Cipro.

"Cipro is a very powerful drug, but there have been stories of some bad infections coming out of Central America the last few years and I want to err on the safe side. Cipro is probably more fire power than you really need but lets be sure."

Not being a doctor I did not argue geography with him. The Bahamas is in the Caribbean not Central America. But ole boy had a Phd and his reasoning was reasonable. I dutifully filled my prescription and began taking Cipro. All went well that night save an odd bad dream about snakes.

Around ten the next morning my rear was back in my desk chair at work. Nature called me to the restroom. I stood up and almost lost my balance. Shrugging it off as nothing I heeded nature's call. What came out of me was horrible. Had I seen such a liquid like substance in the wilds; I would have never guessed that it came from a human. Standing up from the commode, I almost lost my footing again. This pattern continued for the rest of the day. Every time I stood up my head swam; I had to be careful not to fall. My bowels were constantly churning out a vile liquid. By the end of the day I was having trouble completing my work; I kept getting confused.

At home that evening I continued to feel awful. It got worse when my breath started getting short. As I lay down for sleep; I thought "This is the worst hang over I have ever had." That night I got no rest. A series of nightmares haunted me incessantly. There were snakes coming out of walls, the world turning totally dark, hideous creatures hunting me. Day break found me exhausted, light headed and gasping for air.

Driving to work I got lost; despite having driven the same way for years. I began to freak out because of the road. There was a sharp curve to the left in the road. But my senses told my brain the the road was bending to the right. But just yesterday it went to the left! Surely the highway department had not changed the road since yesterday? I wondered if I weren't still asleep and having another nightmare.

Once at work it only got worse. The first thing I tried to do was read an office memo. All the memo said was: "There will be a company wide meeting Thursday at 3:00PM, everyone's attendance is mandatory." After twenty minutes of trying, I still did not understand what I was reading. The individual words were clear, I just could not put them together and make any sense of it. My desk became very unnerving. Things just were not quite right. The stapler looked like it was two feet long. I lost my pen and could not find it, until I stabbed myself in the head with it; it was in my hand. The computer screen looked like it was 50 feet away. I would have sworn to you that my office chair was rolling away with me in it. A coworker came into my office.

"Delores, is my chair moving at all right now?"

"Uhhhhh? What?"

"Is my chair moving?"

"Mr. Ert are you okay?"

"DELORES, stop hemy hawing around, am I moving or NOT?"

"NO, No, you have been perfectly still since I came into the room."

"DAMN!"

"I take it that this is not a good time to go over the past due accounts. Would you like some help?"

"No! Delores, I am just feeling a little peckish. I am gonna go home and take the rest of the day off." I stood up to leave and almost fell over and shit on myself. The diarrhea had evolved into a painful ordeal.

The drive home was agony. Still the concepts of left and right were hellish. Any bend in the road confused me. On a straight away, I thought I could relax. Suddenly it felt like I was driving straight UP! Panic set in. I thought I had taken a wrong turn and was motoring up a cliff. White knuckled I held onto the steering wheel. At any moment I thought my car was going to fall over backward. Only by Providence did I make it home alive.

I tried to eat; it ended in burning vomit. Agitated and shaking I began walking in circles in my backyard, chain smoking. I began talking to myself aloud as I took a drag off a cigarette.

"Well, you've done it now Dirty Ert. You've lost your mind. It was probably the 3 shots of Tequila on the plane back from the Bahamas that did it. I've gone insane. I've lost it. My brain went around a bend and there is no going back. I am now officially a lunatic. I can't think; I am scared. All is lost."

I continued to walk in circles and smoke in silence, until my next idea hit.

"That's it! THAT IS IT!! I am going to empty my bank account and buy a one way ticket to Istanbul. I can't bring the shame of my broken life upon my family. Istanbul, YES. So it is to be."

I scrambled into the house and began hunting for my passport.

"I just had it here. I had it out for the Bahamas trip. Bahamas??"

Something about the Bahamas struck me. For several moments I stood motionless trying desperately to figure out the significance of the Bahamas. Then it hit me: the wound, the doctor, the Cipro. The pharmacist gave me an info sheet with the prescription. Where is it? I tore the house apart until I found it. With my hands shaking I read aloud to myself,

"Tell your doctor if you have diarrhea that is severe, watery or last for two days."

"OK, I got that one."

"Do not drive, use machinery, or do anything that needs mental alertness until you know how this medicine affects you."

"Now they tell me."

"Do not stand or sit up quickly. Curtail the use of caffeine, antacids and zinc products while on Cipro."

"Crap, I've been drinking coffee like a fiend, popping antacids like candy and took a zinc tablet because I thought it would help my immune system."

"Call your doctor immediately if you experience any of these side effects: breathing problems, confusion, nightmares, disorientation, hallucinations, lightheaded, falling, weakness or tingling."

"Oh my God I am having all of them."

I lept for the phone and called the walk in clinic.

"At least I ain't crazy. Maybe."

"Yes! Hello! Is this the walk in clinic? ..... My name is Dirty Ert and I was there two days ago and got a prescription for Cipro. I am having some trouble with the side effects. ....... Which side effect am I having? Well, all of them."

There was a moment of silence from the nurse.

"Mame you must see me today. All hell is breaking loose around here. ..... What seems to be the problem? Honey, right before I called you, I was on my way to Istanbul and never fucking coming back. ...... You can see me in fifteen minutes? I'll be there in five if I can keep the car on the road."

Dirty Ert

Fantasy Job #7: An Abnormal, Paranormal Investigator

2009-07-09T20:53:00.001-04:00

Beset by unemployment and cursed with an over active imagination, I have started fantasizing about dream jobs.

Fantasy Job #7: An Abnormal, Paranormal Investigator

Aliens, Bigfeet, Ghosts, UFOs, Haints, I don't give a fuck. I'll investigate them like a duck on a june bug.

I want to find complete dumb asses. You know, drugged up white trailer trash. Then I will investigate their claims of alien abduction or dogs with moose antlers.

Can't you see it now? I show up at their trailer with a camera crew. It takes me five minutes to plow through the trash on their front porch to get to their front door. Then me and my brave crew spend the night drinking beer and smoking weed with the white trash; waiting for Satan to emerge from the lawn mower shed.

Nothing in this will go well. This is some redneck couple we are dealing with here. After about eight beers, two shots and three hits from a joint; ole girl is going to take her top off. This will, of course, piss off ole boy. A small domestic disturbance will follow. The ghost of old Granny Witherspoon will be missed due to the argument over exposing tittes and who bought the last carton of cigarettes.

I am worried that ghosts may be real and have a libido like mine. Somebody or something is going to get fucked. It would never be my luck to encounter the ghost of the nineteen year old, hot, Camero-Bitch, nympho. Hell no! I'll have to fend off the homosexual advances of "Thad, The Undead Art Collector."

Finding aliens, now I would enjoy that. It is one of my life's goals to kick the ever-loving shit out of an alien bastard. No good can come from aliens on Earth. Little fuckers are always up to no good. My fondest wish is to send one back to Alpha Centauri, and have him report: "That Dirty Ert is a bad ass, alien beating, sumbitch."

Aliens are simply: little shit-grazers from another solar system or dimension. Either way, when I find the shit-asses, all hell is gonna break loose. I've got a tie iron with ET's fucking name on it. If the four way tie iron don't fuck him up, the bicycle chain will.

Dirty Ert, The Abnormal Paranormal Investigator

Dirty Ert Versus The Lake

2009-06-29T15:09:00.003-04:00

My friend and business partner, Lyle, recently bought a boat. I use the term "boat" loosely. In the world of boating, this is the equivalent of a power chair. She is 10 feet long on a hot day. Her "power source" is a 12 volt car battery. Which Lyle claimed would last for 12 hours. The little electric motor that propels her has a top output of 3 horse power. It fits entirely in the bed of my Ford pick up. This boat is best suited for fishing on mid to large size ponds. I have dubbed her the USS Death Star.

Last weekend, I got the hankering to drink on water. I am fully aware that this is not an impulse felt by normal humans. I surrendered to my unusual urge and borrowed the Death Star from Lyle. My lovely wife, Ginger, looked at the silly thing in the back of my Ford. Laughing through tears, she informed me that it would be a cold day in hell before she would venture onto water in that boat with me drinking. Undaunted, I filled my cooler with a special blend of Vodka and Lemonade and made directly for the nearest TVA lake: Fort Patrick Henry.

With no small effort, the Death Star was muscled out of my truck and into the water. But at last! My strange desire for the combination of lake water and ethyl alcohol was fulfilled. The Death Star made a fairly decent speed out of the cove where I launched her. The vodka and lemonade was tasty, delicious and very satisfying.

I spent the next three hours just trolling around the lake. Sure people were pointing and laughing at me. I was on a ridiculous boat and wearing only bright red shorts and sunglasses. But I really did not give a fuck. The sun felt so good on my skin as I worked on my first good tan of the year. All my troubles and stresses of late just faded away to the relaxing day on the lake. I achieved an almost Zen like state of outdoorsmanship and drunkardness.

The only thing that broke me from my dream like state was when a real boat came zipping by. The Death Star did not do well in the waves and wake of other boats. I had to turn her directly into the waves to keep her from turning over. But all was well and Dirty Ert was immersed in a little redneck heaven.

Suddenly and at the farthest point from my truck, all hell broke loose. I downed my last bit of vodka. Longingly, I looked at the bottom of the jar, hoping more vodka would appear. As I chided myself for not bringing more booze, I heard it. The little motor that pushed the boat around, gurgled, stumbled and stopped.

"What the fuck?" I asked, aloud.

I was sitting on a swivel fishing chair. As I turned around to inspect the motor, I heard what sounded like coins hitting the boat floor. The chair broke underneath me. Grasping for a handhold, I tossed up my vodka jar. My body flailed around like a mannequin dropped from an airplane. The vodka jar landed squarely on my chest. After what seemed like an eternity, I achieved personal and watercraft balance. My feet hung off the left side of the Death Star. My right hand and head off the right. The remnants of the chair ate into my back. Taking a deep breath, I began planning how to recover from this ridiculous position.

Then I heard a really big boat go blasting past me. Panic began to set in. I knew that big ass waves were headed my way. I cursed the big boat heavily.

There are no words that I can find to describe what happened next. I was drunker than a five legged frog, only wearing a pair of shorts and flung oddly across a small boat. The wake of the big boat hit and tossed me around like a rag doll. At some point, I lost any sense of where my arms and legs got off to. In the middle of this horrible situation, I figured "Well, fuck, there goes the boat and my favorite cooler."

Old Neptune himself must have stepped in and saved me, I certainly did nothing productive to save myself. The storm passed. The Death Star, her contents and myself were miraculously spared harm.

As I regained my bearings, I heard laughing. There were people fishing on the bank who had witnessed the whole thing. The motor refused to come back to life. The entire time I spent diagnosing the problem, the humiliation from the shore fishers continued. I could hear them, and their liberal use of the terms idiot and dumbass.

Finally, I gave up on the motor and dejectedly picked up the paddle. This brought a new round of laughing from the shore. I motivated myself to paddle hard; thinking of hitting the bastards in the nose. I found myself three miles up shit creek, but I did have a paddle.

After one mile of paddling, my tired poor-old ass just gave out. I was exhausted. With what little strength I had left, I grounded the Death Star on a rock beach in the woods. Desperate for any sustenance, I ate the ice out of my cooler. The sun was still high, so I just stretched out on the rocks and hoped for divine guidance. After an hour of breathing heavily and cursing, inspiration came. I decided to just hook the battery back up and see what happens. One hour of heavy thinking, that was just all I had in me.

Neptune must have smiled on me again. The motor did come to life, only it was not lively. The boat was propelled forward, but at a painfully slow pace. A fish actually passed me. I swear the mother fucker was laughing at me.

It took almost three hours to cover two miles back to the boat ramp. People in their yards actually stopped and stared at me. I could read their thoughts. "Why is he going so slow?" I waved to them, as if this was my normal speed. I figured the only way to salvage any dignity, was to act like this was just the way I roll.

As I loaded the Death Star back into my Ford; I thought of Lyle bragging to me that the battery lasted 12 hours. I made a mental note to shove that battery up Lyle's ass.

Dirty Ert

I am a bad ass

2009-06-28T20:39:00.003-04:00

Long have I been excessively and oddly proud of the pungent stench that my gastrointestinal system produces.

It gets bad, real bad. My wife will often slide a pack of matches under the bathroom door. "My God, what is wrong with you and is the marriage still valid?"

A while back, my daughter had a friend over. I blasted both of them out of the kitchen; the commode was two walls and a hallway removed. I started down the hallway after my award winning movement when I could see the girl in the hall mirror. She waved her hand under her nose and tried to fan away the toxins. "Oh! My God" she cried. "I can smell it, Oh my gosh, I think I am going to vomit."

Silently I listened down the hall and was filled with a tremendous sense of pride. The only way it could have gone better was if the teen queen had actually puked.

And then there was my fourth day on a new job.

The restroom that we machinist used could be considered frightening, or possibly unnerving. It was nasty. The kind of place that no woman would use, no matter the circumstance. However, we did have an assortment of cleaning supplies and paper products at the ready. That way, you could clean off a spot when the time comes. It was also not a very private restroom. If you sat on the commode and leaned down on your knees, looked to your right, you could see into the foreman's office.

I had been at the company for four days. The owner of the company, a multi-multi millionaire had come down to the shop to speak with the foreman. Along with the owner was our CEO, also a millionaire. The three of them were standing in front of the foreman's office.

That is when it hit me. I had been holding back unleashing my bowels at work. The hour was neigh. Let me tell you something, this was no ordinary fecal matter I was dealing with. It was the hot quasi-liquid, jalapeno hot sauce inspired, bring on a sweat kind of turd. As I said, the point of no return had been crossed. Like in Star Wars, when the Death Star fired off the big gun. Once the firing sequence had begun, a planet was going to get the shit blown out of it. There was no going back.

Many people may have been unnerved or embarrassed or intimated in this situation. Not the most relaxing scenario. I mean, one could be pinching the proverbial loaf while looking your new boss, the CEO and the owner square in the eye.

But not me. No sir! I am a bad ass. And it was just about time that these bastards found out just who in the fuck they were dealing with.

I made my way to the restroom, with slow, short and deliberate steps. I passed behind the back of the power trio of the shop. They were busy looking away from the restroom at a pallet for the moment. I approached the receptacle. I began to clean it with a paper towel and scouring powder. Then, No! I am too late? A crisis narrowly avoided as the Death Star that was my ass almost fired the main weapon before locking on target. But, I am a man of unusual bowel control. Three deep breaths and the cleaning began anew. At last the target was prepped and ready to receive.

I turned around to get into position for final approach. The three most important people at the plant were 15 feet away with their backs to me, in plain view. That is when I experienced one of the most remarkable bowel movements of my life. It occurred swiftly and fluidly. One sweeping motion of steady movement with now stops or hesitations.

I dropped trou and sharply moved into a squat. The moment my buttocks touched the seat, all hell erupted in the blink of an eye. My squat movement never came to a stop. I never stopped moving. It was like I did a repetition of a weight lifting squat. At the bottom of the movement there was no sitting, stopping or even a hitch in my motion.

Suddenly, I found myself standing with my hands still clasped to my belt. Quite frankly, I was confused. Could it be? Did that just happen? Then screaming trough my brain like a bull with its nuts on fire.

"Then we shall crush the rebellion with one swift stroke!"

The words of Grand Moff Tarkin from Star Wars rang through my head. I had indeed just crushed a rectal rebellion in one swift stroke.

I began to laugh. The only problem being was that I was standing over the commode with my pants down and my penis flapping in the breeze. The company power trio was still 15 feet away and looking in the opposite direction. As I began to "mop up", the smell hit. It stunned me. Over the smell of welding and a hundred other dirty industrial operations, it hit like a freight train. Now I was laughing, wiping my ass, looking at the power trio and holding my breath.

I finally got myself together. Slowly I washed my hands, letting the smell waft out into the plant. Still, the power trio were unaware of the horror that had occurred literally behind their backs. Did I walk back to my work? Nay! I strutted like a damn peacock.

From where I was working I could see them. I had not been working 30 seconds when I saw the stench hit. The CEO ducked and flailed his arms like a vampire bat had just grabbed his hair. The foreman shook his head like he had just plucked four nose hairs at the same time. The owner took three quick steps away from the restroom, as if he had just seen a snake.

I had to stick my head in a machine for ten minutes, pretending to clean it out, as I laughed my damn ass off.

Yeah, I am a bad ass.

Dirty Ert

The metal markets are coming back!!!????

2009-06-19T12:17:00.015-04:00

If nothing else, being a scrap metal dealer is interesting, if not entirely unprofitable.

I recently had the displeasure of attempting business with a married couple who own a scrap yard, and are completely bat shit crazy. The names are changed, in order to protect the mentally volatile.

My business partner, Lyle, and I find this place via a referral from another customer. This place is way the hell out in the middle of no-damn-where. We literally had to turn off the paved road and dodge livestock to get there. But much to our surprise this place had a lot of scrap and junk cars. Lyle and I figured we could be in luck, very few other scrap buyers would venture this far off the beaten path.

Lyle and I introduce ourselves to Gwen and Will. After about ten minutes of discussing business, Will leads us to pile of scrap he wanted to sell. Lyle looks it over and gives him a price. Will is thrilled, he sells us the metal immediately. As Lyle and I load our bounty into the truck, Will fetches Gwen. He excitedly tells her about the good prices we just paid him. Gwen seemed impressed with us as well. All seems to be going well; Lyle and I have made another good customer.

"Hey boys," Will says to us. "Do y'all cut scrap off junk cars?"

"Yessir!" I reply. "But we usually only do large quantities."

"I got a 150 cars to cut. Is that enough for you?"

Mine and Lyle's excitement is almost palpable. In these lean times, this is a mother load of scrap; enough to pay the next mortgage. We make an appointment with Will to come back in two days to start harvesting the scrap; the whole process will take a week. Will is so excited about our prices that he even volunteers to loan us his forklift and an employee to help. For the rest of the day Lyle and I are floating on cloud nine.

For those of you who are not roving metal buyers, this is how it works. Harvesting scrap off junk cars is like shopping at Wal Mart. There are thousands of different kinds of scrap on automobiles. Guys like me go into old junk yards and take various parts off the cars. Then we go to "check out." We lay out all the stuff we got, tell the customer what it is worth, then pay.

Lyle and I arrive on our appointed day to start harvesting the scrap. Will walks out to our truck, there is an odd look in his eyes.

"You boys just go down there and look at all them cars. When you are done, come back here and we will talk price."

"Hey Will, no need for all that" I say. "The prices we gave you the other day are still good."

"No, that ain't what I want. I want one price for all of it."

"So you just want us to look at the entire junk yard and give you one price for all the scrap on it?"

"That's how we do business here boys. If you don't like it, you can just go on down the road." Will is getting kind of cold.

"Well, we'll have a look." I attempt to smooth him over.

Driving out into the yard, Lyle and I huddle. This is not the way anybody really does business. It would be like going to Wal Mart, loading your buggy and then guessing how much it is all worth.

Out in the junk yard, Lyle and I look around. There are not 150 cars, there are over 1,000. Most of the scrap has already been removed. What is sitting in the field is mostly hunks of steel and plastic, neither of which scrap guys like us buy.

"Dude" Lyle says to me. "Somebody done hit this yard. They just got the expensive stuff and what is easy to remove. About 1 in 10 cars actually have anything valuable. Dirty, just talk him into letting us get to work and doing our thing. We planned a week here, I just want to get to work." Lyle lacks several things, including timing and patience.

"Lyle slow down. Let me take the lead talking to this man. Whatever you do, don't say what you just said. Will thinks he's got a gold mine out here."

"Alright then, but lets go."

"Give me a fucking minute Lyle. I am thinking."

"Fuck man. I don't want to sit out here all morning while you just fucking think. LETS FUCKING GET GOING."

With a half ass plan in my head, I bow to Lyle's impatience. We make our way back to Will and Gwen's office.

"So men, how much are you going to pay us today?" Gwen says as we walk in.

"Miss Gwen, can I ask you and Will a few questions right fast?" I say.

"Go right ahead honey."

"Have any other scrap or core buyers cut in the southern corner of the yard?" I ask.

"Yeah!" Breaks in Lyle "Looks like somebody done gone in there and got the high dollar and easy stuff. I looked at about 30 cars and only 3 of them have any real money left on them."

Immediately Lyle looks at me with the "OH SHIT, I WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK" face.

Gwen and Will go through the roof.

"If you boys are gonna be like that, get your shit and leave." Will says angrily.

"We ain't gonna be crooked again." Gwen says with venom.

Gwen and Will are in a shit storm of anger. I glare at Lyle. Sheepishly he sneaks out of the door during the tirade of heat from Gwen and Will.

I am a tenured veteran of sales; I have dealt with many angry customers before. After five minutes, the situation calms down and cooler heads prevail. I see an aerial photo of their junk yard on the wall.

"Will I am a little turned around on all this. If you would, can you show me on this aerial photo where the cars that have everything on them are?"

"Sure, it is this corner right here." He points to where Lyle only found 3 with scrap.

"Yeah!" Gwen breaks in. "But this corner right here, we had one of our boys cut the scrap off." She walks up and points to the same place that Will just pointed to.

I am really confused now. So I nicely ask for them to go over the photo with me again. With Will on my left and Gwen on my right, both pointing to the same spot; sanity leaves the room. For five minutes the two of them keep pointing to the same spot. He says the scrap is there, she says it isn't. Neither of them notice that they are contradicting each other, in fact they are looking at each other and nodding in agreement. Then as they talk, English breaks down. I suddenly realize that both of them are using words from English, but no real sentences are being made. I caught this one from him.

"When the market got up there, we had to buy a four wheeler but the man from the state said that our permit was fine." Trust me when I say, I did NOT miss anything in the conversation, this was just non-sequator.

Suddenly and with no waring Will turns around, sits in an old chair and lights a smoke. Gwen just walked off. My head is swimming, but I am a champ, not going to give up. Before I can speak, Will starts talking.

"You see, your money don't mean nothing to me. I got gold, lots of it. I told everyone in the county to buy gold last year. I bought $40,000 in gold last year, now it is worth over half a million."

I keep up with gold prices. Gold has not gone up over 10 times in the last year. "Damn good investment Will! Did you leverage to get those kind of profits?"

"Leverage? What the hell is that? No I GOT GOLD. I got it hid up on the hollers, no one will ever find it."

It occurs to me that this guy is either insane or fucking with me. He has a very serious, yet a far away look on his face. I stopped to really take a look and Gwen and Will. There is perhaps 8 teeth between the two of them. Neither looked like they use a shower much. Both of them were smoking cheap cigarettes like freight trains.

"I don't understand you scrap men. Y'all talk about Platinum going down. It is the same price it was last year. I know, I check it every day."

Will would be correct to say that Platinum was the same price as last year: if you believe that $1,200 per ounce is the same as $2,300 per ounce.

"Hell I got so much going on, I don't have time to fool with you. We have already done a bunch of business today. Gwen what have we done so far today?"

Gwen walks in and looks at me very seriously. "$140! And it looks like we are about to sell $200 more!"

"Honey you forgot about that old Ford headlight I sold! That's another $40. You see I got a lot going on."

I am desperately trying to understand the situation I am in. That is when Will hits me again.

"Really, I am an investor. I watch Bill O'Reily and listen to Rush Limbaugh. I know all about investing. Hell I'll just leave that scrap on them old cars. If there ain't more of it, and there will be, I just sell it off to the shredder. If just leave it laying, there will be more of it. Did you know that the shredder called and offered me $12 on my steel?"

"Did not know that Will. That is one hell of a price." I know he is out of his mind now. That morning I had talked to the shredder. A good friend of mine works there. The shredder would be lucky to sell steel for $7."

"I am telling you metal is going to be back at all time high prices in less than 30 days."

"Will, you are the only one I know that optimistic. What makes you say that?"

He stands up and whispers in my ear, his big secret. "Japan is going nuclear."

"Really?" I ask as he sits back down. I am feeling terribly lost.

"South Korea too. Both of them are going nuclear. They are gonna need all the scrap that they can get. I heard it on Bill O'Reily."

"Hmmmm." I am speechless. "You think I might could check back with you in 30 days when scrap is higher?"

Gwen and Will shake my hand and let me leave on that one.

I jump in the truck. Lyle winces.

"I know, I know, I fucked up. Dude don't punch me or anything."

"Lyle, get us the fuck out of here as fast as you can; these people are fucking nuts."

Later on, Lyle and I run into another scrap buyer that we know.

"Hey man, you ever buy any scrap from Will and Gwen up in the holler."

He starts laughing. "I tried too, they are bat shit crazy."

Dirty Ert

Redneck Thinking Caps

2009-06-16T10:31:00.003-04:00

I have several caps depicting the assigned number of several different NASCAR drivers. But my hats are confusing. Some of them have some years behind them and the driver/number/sponsor no longer match. Number 39, used to be the Interstate Battery, Dale Jarret driven car. Then 39 was the M&M's, Elliot Sadler piloted vehicle, now it is something else entirely. Fuck, I really do not know if there is a 39 this year. Now all my #8, Budweiser, Dale Earnhart Jr. stuff is someone else. And Dale now drives some kinda Mountain Dew car.

This is why rednecks are confused, our thinking caps change more often than Hollywood marriages.

Damn, I wish I still had my #01 Harry Gant, Skoal cap from 1989, or my Morgan Sheppard, Folgers Coffee, #12 cap from 1982.

Life was much simpler back then, I had no concept of calculus.

Dirty Ert

What are we making?

2009-06-11T10:53:00.002-04:00

I used to work for a machine shop that made parts for industrial, electrical and mining equipment. Not the kind of crap the average person would ever run into. Here is how I tried to find out about the parts I made. I went up to the lead man.

"Hey big daddy! What does this stop block; I am making, go in?"

"That goes at the end of the switch barrel on one of the pad mounts that they make down the hill at the assembly plant."

"What kind of switch is it and what the hell is a switch barrel?"

"Shit, I don't know and I've worked here for almost 30 years."

"So what is a pad mount?"

"Some sort of electrical distribution thing that mounts to a concrete pad."

"So what does it distribute power to, or look like, good god man where do they use these mother fuckers?"

"Fuck, I don't know, the bitches are blue and shaped like a box. That I do know, if that helps you any."

"You have worked here 30 years and all you know about what we make is that it goes in a blue box that gets bolted to concrete and vaguely has something to do with distributing electricity."

"Yeah, fucking sad isn't it. Since the early 80's I've been so busy cranking the fuckers out, I never really cared to find out more about them other than the blue print."

"So you never got curious about where 16,000 of the aluminum mother fuckers go and what they do?"

"Yeah, I got curious twice."

"When?"

"1984 and 1999."

"What happened?"

"I got busy with something else."

Dirty Ert

Being a Southern Hillbilly is Like...

2009-06-09T20:00:00.014-04:00

Over the years I have noticed people's reaction when I proudly proclaim that I am a Southerner and a Hillbilly. The stereotypes attached to these groups are powerful. But, it is always the bad ones that people latch onto. So when I say that "I am a Southern, Hillbilly, Redneck from East Tennessee." Folks from other parts of the world look at me as if I were a racist.

I often attempt to educate people who are not of my stereotyping; that being a Southerner does NOT make you a racist. After many years of searching for the best metaphor to explain this; Eureka, I have found it.

Being a Southern Hillbilly is like being an American when George W. Bush was President.

Look at it this way. People who were not Americans figured that we all wanted to torture and mutilate Muslims and fuck up their countries. During the early part of the 21st century the rest of the world saw us as Imperial assholes of the first order. They figured that all Americans must think that waterboarding was the best idea since vitamin enriched white bread.

Of course, there are the few misguided souls who think that what we did was a good idea. There were people, who decided to ignore the evidence of no weapons of mass destruction, and proclaimed that invading Iraq was "visionary." They also extorted that torturing suspected terrorists was a good idea. Their thinking was; since we started torturing people, nothing has been blown up, so it must be working.

The vast majority of Americans felt that fucking up Iraq and Afghanistan was not a good idea. And we sure as hell would not appreciate it if the Chinese and Russians did it to us. The bulk of our population felt that torture was wrong and should not be done. So perhaps now, folks of Non-Southern persuasion can understand this: Just because you are an East Tennessee Redneck, that does not mean that you are a racist or think slavery was a good idea. Most all good Southern people fell that holding humans in bondage was wrong and a black man is still a man, just as God made him.

Dirty Ert

P.S. All that said, we still despise Yankees. Go figure.

Fantasy Job #6: Fortune Teller

2009-06-07T22:11:00.003-04:00

Beset by unemployment and cursed with an over active imagination, I have started fantasizing about dream jobs.

Fantasy Job #6: Fortune Teller

Y'all know anything about I Ching?

Here is how it goes. It came from ancient China - old Chiner is alright, the pre-commie era. Damn, I just can't stand a Red-Chinaman. Anyways, what you do is throw some old bones or dice or some shit. Then you look at the direction and pattern of how it all landed. Then you look the pattern up in the book. The book will then give you a statement that you have to interpret. For example:

"The dragon walks slowly across the green meadow, his left arm slightly lower than his right. While in the saffron bush the hedgehog grooms his leg hair."

This is, of course, allegory. You have got to decide what in your life is the dragon is and what the significance of the saffron bush is and so on and so forth.

What the fuck??

No wonder the Chinese invented gun powder, land mines and all kinds of shit; but the pasty faced faggy British made them bow down and kiss the King's royal ass.

So I Ching was the original "I" app, predating the I Pod by about 3,000 years and the I Phone by about 3,002 years.

This all got me to thinking. My career is not really "climbing the ladder" but bumble fucking over a series of step stools. Since I ain't got no job, there ain't none on the horizon and unemployment will run out in a while - I need a back up plan.

ERT'S BEER EMPORIUM AND FORTUNE TELLING.

This is how it will work. I am going to rent three things: an old run down building next to an exit off Interstate 81, a billboard on the northbound side and one on the southbound side. Truckers, tourist and locals will enter my establishment. They will purchase from me cheap, shitty, and slightly cooler that room temperature, beer. The customer drinks the beer as hard and fast as they can go. When they get sick, they vomit on to an open, yet smooth and clean, patch of cement. For an extra fee, The Amazing Ert will interpret their vomit.

Yes, can you not see it?? Neon lights, walls painted florescent green, black lights, bead curtains, incense and Frank Zappa playing in the background.

Oh! A funny hat. Damn it! I'll need a funny hat. You can't be a sooth sayer without a proper cap. I'll wear a lot of satin and silk garments, you know, like Hugh Heffner. A coon skin cap and a monogrammed satin bath robe - by god I've got it! People will come in and immediately be able to tell that: "That mother fucker knows what he is talking about, look at the hat!"

When customer's walk in they will be able to feel two things in the air: love, because the Great Ert loves all, but he loves those with valid credit cards more. Second that can be felt in the air, electrostatic air purification; the only sure way to keep the smell of vomit from the air.

Entrepreneur Magazine - kiss my ass. Put that in a five year plan and smoke it.

I'll even serve breath mints out of a bowl shaped like Darth Vader's head. Details people, it is all in the details.

Dirty Ert

Forklifts Named For People

2009-06-05T10:10:00.012-04:00

I worked for a forklift dealer for years. At one point, I was the dispatcher and rental unit salesman. Most rental forklifts are assigned a boring ID number, like 465-125. Our company employed the unique marketing idea of naming forklifts. Most of the lifts were named after employees and friends of the company. Yes, there were forklifts named "Dirty" and "Ert." We also had forklifts named after female employees. All of this made for some interesting conversations.

One day a salesman called on me. He was sitting in my office discussing his products when a call came in; someone needed to rent a forklift. Keep in mind the poor salesman had no idea that we named our forklifts after employees and such. This is what the poor man heard.

"This is Ert, how can I help you today?"

"Yes sir, we have several that might suit you nicely. Tell me what you are into today, so I can find something in my stable that suits your needs."

"Uh-huh."

"I see, yes."

"I think I have just what you want. Robin sounds perfect for you. She is sleek and small. That allows her to get into places and positions that my other ones just can't get into."

"Oh! If it is that big, then maybe you need Sherry. She is a little huskier, and to be honest with you, a little rough around the edges. She looks like hell, quite frankly, but she WILL do you just fine. The last job I sent her on was tough. She got beat up pretty good. It was really abusive and I probably shouldn't have sent her there. I was going have her cleaned up today, but you can have her if you want her."

"Hmm, well if that is what you are into; then I don't think you will be satisfied with Robin or Sherry. Perhaps you need Dennis. He is kinda big, but most of my customers have not had a problem with his size. The good thing about Dennis is that he can get it done just about anywhere: on the docks, in the racks, heck he can even do it for you outside in the grass. I will tell you this, I just got Dennis back here this morning. He was on a job last night. He is not clean today."

"OK, just for this afternoon. Robin and Sherry run $100 each. But since Sherry looks so rough, I'll let you have her for $85. Being a little more specialized, Dennis typically runs $175. But I hate to send one out to a customer, unclean. I can let you have Dennis this afternoon for $150. We do charge another $150 for pick up and delivery."

"OK, OK, I see. If you really want to do all that, it is my experience that one afternoon is not enough time. And it also seems to me, that no single one of my group will do everything you want. Here is what I propose: take both Robin and Dennis and keep them for the night. That way I know you can accomplish what you want to do. I can have both of them out there in about an hour and a half. It'll just cost you $500 for the both of them for the night. How does that sound to you?"

"I see, yes that is a lot of money. I do want your business and you did happen to catch me on a slow day. I'll throw in Sherry for an extra $50."

"Great, my driver, Bert will have them there by 2:00. Please make sure that they are ready to pick up tomorrow by noon. Oh! I like to remind my customers to not leave any personal property on them. Once they get back to me, we may never see your stuff again."

"OK, pleasure doing business with you and I look forward to the next time."

I turned to the waiting salesman in my office. He looked rather confused and said "Now just exactly what is it, that you do here?"

Dirty Ert

Fantasy Job #5: Local Wrestler

2009-06-04T07:43:00.001-04:00

Beset by unemployment and cursed with an over active imagination, I have started fantasizing about dream jobs.

Fantasy Job #5: Local Wrestler

I want to be a "Pro Wrestler"

My first performance is two weeks hence at the Unicoi County Smackdown. I perform (wrestle) as "Nalgene the Beastmaster." My costume consists of a blue, faux, animal skin tunic and a leather tank top emblazoned with the NASCAR number 67. I carry a cane with a skull atop of it, vaguely resembling a dragon's head. As for headwear, I intend to swap between an English constable's hat and a blue and gold fedora that says "LION TAMER" on it. My footwear looks just like the boots Gene Simmons was wearing on the cover of the Kiss "Destroyer" album. For my first show, I am matched against three boar goats in an all out cage match. To get the goats going, the promoter will attached sandpaper with a rubber band to their gonads and then pepper spray them in the nose. I get a $8 bonus if I can defeat all three in less than five minutes.

This show will be two Friday's from now, 8:00 PM at the Unicoi County National Guard Armory. It's just off the Beartown Road; turn after the fish hatchery but before the nuclear plant.

I am tentatively on the card for the Hancock County Snow Jamboree in early December. As of now, my opponent is to be two wet bobcats in the heat of mating season.

Technique people, its all technique.

But what of the promotion organization I intend to form, The Southern Mountain Wrestling and Fight Association? Our target audience is not, what you might say, hip people. Our shows will have stands filled with persons of poor dental hygiene, poor hygiene in general, an IQ only marginally higher than a sloth and a raging meth addiction.

There will NOT be anyone in the building who can successfully pod cast or read anything written by Tolstoy. Most of them are pretty sure that a PDA is a venereal disease. As for the internet, it is a Communist mind control plot, slowly replacing the old plot of fluoridated water.

These are people who do not trust banks, mostly because they have no money. The ones with a regular job have "checkings" accounts. The $4 entry fee to the show is almost an hour's wages for most of them. What we have here are people who still cannot handle the rules of driving through a four-way stop.

Should I promote this activity on the internet? A blog or internet link would be like giving your business card to a blind Russian whaling captain; a nice touch, but really not doing any one any good.

Nalgene The Beastmaster

A word that sells, at least to me.

2009-06-03T13:05:00.011-04:00

As of late, I have been attempting to "monetize" my little nook in the cyber world. Far too many hours have been spent on advertising companies and their gadgets, widgets and what not. During this cluster-bumble I've discovered one thing: I may be the only person that thinks "FUCK" is a word that sells.

The little, hell-spawn, MBA in Marketing creeps have a list of "hot" words that seem to drive people to spend money. The usual list toppers are "Free" and "Value." It would appear that six long years of college clouds the mind, "Fuck" is not on the list. It is, in fact, on the other list; words you can't use in advertising.

The website you are currently on has been dropped or denied advertising due to the extravagant use of the term in question. Have these idiots lost their minds?

Fuck is my favorite word, it sells me every time.

First of all, like most people, I really like to fuck. If a woman says to me "Excuse me sir, but would you like to fuck?" I am sold, immediately.

Nextly, I enjoy getting fucked up. I drink vast quantities of alcohol because I enjoy the sensation of getting lost in my own yard. The following is a very effective pitch, "Take some of this. It'll get you more fucked up than a football bat." Now, there are some very nasty things in this world that will fuck you up, many of them to be avoided. But, if anyone throws the football bat pitch at me; I'll, at least, hear the rest of the sales presentation.

Lastly, I just like to say the word. Noun, verb, adverb, adjective, pronoun, it is all parts of speech. Put that in a sentence diagram and smoke it. It just rolls of the tongue like no other. Its the word that really says what none other can. For example, the last time I quit a job. I explained that cutting my pay and benefits was: "The worst fucking idea I've ever heard. Fuck you, I quit. Mother Fucker."

Words that sell, MY ASS!

Dirty Ert

Herman Vogel Must Die

2009-06-02T07:49:00.010-04:00

Our friend, Nelson was graduating from the Naval Academy. Herman Vogel and I made the trip to Annapolis to join in the revelry.

The drive up was uneventful, save the Washington Beltway at rush hour. Arriving on the east side of Washington, we celebrated our safe passage. We smoked a joint, our first mistake.

I pulled my Ford into Annapolis, hours before the scheduled rendezvous with Nelson. By now, Herm and I had a screaming case of the munchies. We picked the busiest street in town and drove it, scanning for a meal. Excitedly, Herman points to a restaurant.

"Vietnamese food! Holy shit! I love some damn Vietnamese food. Pull in there Dirty and be quick about it man."

I didn't want Vietnamese food. I was "not of my best mind" and unable to fashion an acceptable argument.

"I don't know, Herm. I mean I am unsure about this here Vietnamese food. You know there was a war?"

"Dirty, you ignorant bastard! We fought Italy and you still eat pizza, you moron. Pull in damn it."

Bereft of any more arguments against Vietnamese food, that was it. Our first mistake had now led to our second.

Herm ordered some sort of god awful fish dish. It tasted like rat shit with nasty noodles. The waitress talked me into cinnamon beef. It was not good; it was fucking appalling, but I ate it anyway. Herm wouldn't stop talking about how delicious the food was. The bastard even called the manager over, complementing the rat-shit fish. Departing the Vietnamese filth food, we meet up with Nelson and the rest of the Navy boys.

That evening my poison was Vodka. I put down an insane quantity of Lemon Drops and Kamikazes. Meanwhile, Herm was putting away enough Whiskey Sours to knock down a Shetland pony. The two of us had committed our final mistake.

By means that no one can remember, we arrived at Nelson's new apartment. I drug myself into the bathroom and collapsed on the floor. I got as far as the toilet itself. But, there was no energy left to pull my head up over the bowel. I lay flat on the ground; my body was in a cold sweat. Then it came.

At that point in my drinking career, my puking experience was impressive. I was, in fact, well known for vomiting. My alcohol induced regurgitating was a point of personal pride. But nothing had prepared me for this.

Vietnamese Cinnamon Beef burns like an unholy mother fucker when it comes back up.

Never had I experienced this kind of pain. The Cinnamon Beef had mixed with the rat-shit fish, bile and vodka. This was pure liquid evil I was dealing with. The right cheek of my face was stuck to the tile floor. The evil vomit gushed onto my skin, including my right eyelid, and up my nose. It burned.

In my agony, only one thought: "Herman Vogel must die!" That rat bastard was the one who picked out the Vietnamese restaurant. In my befuddled mind, I figured he knew this would happen. Herman was responsible for this. He must pay. I passed out in a pool of my own vomit, dreaming of punching one of my best friends in the face.

I awoke to pure hell. Nelson collected clocks. The whole apartment sounded of 30 different clocks going off simultaneously, at noon. It was like the beginning of the Pink Floyd song "Time."

Not really understanding what was happening, I jerked awake and rolled over. Now my head was completely covered in the vile Cinnamon Beef vomit. The smell and burning was so awful, coupled with the clock madness; I began a new hurling session. My life was now hell on earth. My eyes, ears and nose were burning from the liquid evil. The smell and feel in my stomach drove me to puke. My whole body was convulsing from the gagging and hurling. In the background, the horrible clocks chimed away. I was so confused and heaving so violently I could not stop throwing up. So I couldn't wash off the vomit that was driving me to puke more. It was a vicious cycle. There is a merry-go-around in hell like this. And all I could think was "Herman Vogel Must Die."

During these hellish moments, I mustered a Greek hero's strength. I stumbled up off the floor and fell into tub; knocking the shit out of my head in the process. I managed to turn the cold water on. If my situation wasn't bad enough this far, the cold water on my face caused me to scream in between heaves. I lay there, trying desperately not to drown, yet wash myself off. All hope was lost; I was going to die in a bathtub full of my own vomit and cold water.

Without warning the water stopped. Looking up, I saw Herman standing over me. "Here, take this." He shoved a pill in my mouth. Then he turned the water back on so I could get a drink.

That was the last thing I remember before passing out again. But this time it was such wonderful sleep! Oh, it was like laying in a luxurious bed with a heating blanket. I completely forgot I was cold, covered in vomit and lying face down in a bath tub.

"Oh my god! Is he alright? Should we take him to the hospital?" There were several unknown voices above me. Some of the Navy boys and their parents had found me in the tub. They were terrified that I may die at any moment.

"Hell no!" I hear Herm. "He's fine. I gave him a Percocet about an hour ago. Poor fellow, he was really suffering. He just does that sometimes."

"What's wrong with him?" Some stranger asked.

Herm said "I think he's allergic to Vietnamese food."

I managed to speak from the dead. "Herm, if it weren't for your mercy of the percocet, I'd kill you right now."

"Hey y'all." Herm turned to the gathered crowd and grinned. "Watch this! It'll be funnier than hell." He walked over and turned the cold water back on.

I screamed like a little girl. In that physical condition, when the cold water hit me, all I could do was shake.

"Herman Vogel, you mother fucker, you must die!"

Forklift Driver Preemployment Testing

2009-06-01T16:43:00.007-04:00

There was an ad in the paper for a forklift driver job. The posting emphasized that there would be preemployment and continuing drug testing. All, at the outrageous pay rate of $8.00 per hour.

I worked for a forklift dealer for almost 20 years. It is my experience that forklift drivers tend to come in three varieties: bat shit crazy, drug crazed or both.

So just how in the hell does someone expect to find a "normal" person to drive a forklift?

Really, if you want a safe forklift driver; this is what you do. Hell with the drug test. Drug free forklift drivers are more rare than spotted owls. Give a personality test to candidates instead. This is sincerely the best thing you can possibly do. A non-crazy person, smoking a joint while driving a forklift, is safer than a completely sober paranoid schizophrenic.

If there is someone who is neither crazy or fucked up as a opossum in a blue barrel, they are worth their weight in gold.

Dirty Ert

Can't Keep A Good Man Down, But....

2009-05-28T10:31:00.006-04:00

The old saying is true. You can't keep a good man down. But you sure as hell can kick him while he is still there.

This whole blog-a-ma-jigger started because the economy ate my dream job. I was clicking like chicken and on my way to breaking one hundred grand a year for the first time in my life. Then all hell broke loose in the metals world, last September. It took only six weeks to fall from grace. Killer money was coming in every week. The owners would put a grand in my pocket on Friday; just to have a little "walking around money" for the weekend. Insurance, retirement and all manner of benefits were part of my pay. I was even issued a brand new Chevy 3/4 ton truck. The owners told me to put the fuel on the company card and just do whatever in the fuck I wanted to with the truck. By Christmas, I was unshaven, drunk and wearing sweat pants all day.

In the spring, an old friend talked me into starting this blog. He is a professional blogger and convinced me that I could break the doldrums by writing and make a little coin along the way. This has indeed broken the doldrums, but the coin is a different story.

It took, nearly, an act of congress to get a Google AdSense account opened. I made an entire $3.49 before Google jerked my ads. It seems they now have a policy against the word FUCK and its repeated use. I suppose it will take another act of congress to get my damn $3.49.

Trying to replace the bastards at AdSense has not gone any better. It seems old Dirty Ert uses FUCK too much, or talks about getting FUCKED or FUCKED UP too much. Or not enough eyeballs out in the nether space of the internet wander in here. Or some other kind of internet gibbereish speech that I do not understand comes into play.

So it seems that this blogging activity may not pay the mortgage or even the water bill. Well fuck it! I like doing this, I'll just pay the bills otherwise.

Just so y'all know. I went to at least 10 other sites with far more "mature" content than mine; plenty of Google ads.

In case anyone from Google reads this: Tell the rat bastards in Adsense I want my $3.49 or I am gonna whip somebody's ass. Oh yeah, FUCK YOU TOO.

Dirty Ert

Places not to fish

2009-05-26T11:19:00.004-04:00

I was at a party for wealthy people. The kind of party where I am bound to get into trouble. Folks hemming it up this evening where doctors, lawyers, professors, etc. who were not from my beloved Tennessee hills. These professionals had not found a social scene to their liking in my motherland, so they took to running in their own circle. Somehow I got invited as the token local hillbilly. I felt like Ohura on the bridge of the Enterprise.

I stayed fairly quite for the first half an hour after arriving. There were several reasons for my silence. Most importantly, my buzz wasn't buzzing. Talking would only slow down my drinking. I was also scoping for possible women, of which there were none. Being a careful and cautious drinker; I was looking for quick vomit exits and a comfortable place to pass out. As well, the whole group was in a tizzy discussing Honda Gold Wing accessories and these new fangled cell phones everyone was getting. It was the nineties.

Some old hag was bitching about how few places she could actually use the phone. This led to the group discussing local geography. One member caught my attention when he said, "Well Dirty here is local. Dirty tell us something about Sullivan County that we do not know."

I cannot remember what it was that I was originally going to say. Before my mouth moved; I could almost hear it turn off. A sound like when a computer shuts down. My Super Ego unexpectedly went off line. I was there, in front of thirty yankees, a captive audience. With all my self monitoring gone; God help me, I can't control what happens.

"Well," I said. "Despite, two rivers, two TVA lakes, hundreds of streams and dozens of ponds; Sullivan County has a surprising number of places to not fish."

The party stopped dead in its tracks. A hush fell over the room. Only the sound of the fish tank bubbles could be heard.

"I am sorry," said the host timidly. "But did you say places NOT to fish?"

"Hell yeah!" I replied. "There is an ass load of places you can't fish." The party goers looked at each other nervously. "Let me tell you about old Branson's tree. Old man Branson lives up Arcadia way. He's got this old tree; an old chestnut. It stands 150 feet tall if it stands ten. The trunk on it is bigger round than a Volkswagen. The damn branches on it are bigger than a whale's pecker. But they ain't one place in 500 yards of that tree that you can catch a fish."

Two guys in the group and one drunk chick in the back started nodding, as if I were actually making any sense. The others shifted uneasily, but took this as a good time to kill their cocktails.

"Take old Emmit Jarnigan. He was desperate one night to do a little fishing. Emmit loves two things, fishing and smoking weed. Now on this particular night Emmit had rolled and then consumed what we locals like to call a "fatty." Son of a bitch was stoned. Some say he was too stoned to fish. But Emmit didn't see it that way. He was a Jarnigan, his daddy was a Jarnigan and his grand daddy was a Jarnigan. So by God, he was a gonna fish."

"At this point Emmit grabs his fishing gear and sets out to find hisself a fish. Well, we really weren't near anywhere that Emmit had ever fished. He just lit out the door; figuring if walked west long enough. He'd find a spot to fish. Emmit had got about 200 yards due west when a black man hit him upside the head with a mop. Hard, really hard."

"It was Mr. Nelson that hit him. Mr. Nelson was fine man and gym coach at school. Back in the day, he won a medal for bravery in the Corps. He had been a Marine Drill Sergeant. His fondest dream was turning gym class into a miniature version of Paris Island. But, you see, Mr. Nelson had a daughter, Sarah. She was our age and we followed her around like sad puppies. Beauty and brains, Sarah had them both."

"So when Mr. Nelson sees Emmit coming up the way, he figures hormones are flying. Not wanting anymore babies around the house, Mr. Nelson chose putting Emmit on his ass as his favorite form of birth control."

"As you can see, if Sullivan County had more places to fish; than Emmit Jarnigan wouldn't have had to dig mop hairs out of his asshole."

I was never invited back to another of their parties.

Dirty Ert

Games I like to Play

2009-05-21T12:10:00.005-04:00

I have some nerd-ass friends. They seem to spend a lot of time discussing computer games. One day they asked me "What kind of games do you play Ert?"

"Low Coolant"

Tales of an automotive warning light that refuses to extinguish in the wife's car

"Beaver Quest"

Includes the short film, "Hot assed young bitches at the gym in tighter than hell work out pants." Yes this is a film for the married man, as the "interactive" segment of "Beaver Quest" is restricted - to the same beaver every time you play.

"Hunt for the blue handled hacksaw"

Lost in action, soothsayers unable to divine, can you find the hacksaw before the angry husband whips some ass?

"God Damned neighbor's cats"

Use your skills to stop a feline turd invasion on your personal property

"The garbage only runs on Tuesday morning"

A classic brain twister and game of memory

"Burn permit, we don't need no stinking burn permit"

Burn all the leaves and brambles before being caught by the fire chief

"Supervise your children and their friends doing anything that remotely resembles outdoor work"

A test of patience and possibly a complete waste of time

"Alignment"

Imagine you are a hillbilly redneck, you drive a truck with "THE LONG WHEELBASE" You muster your skills to find a repair shop with an alignment rack long enough for your truck. Unfortunately there are only 3 such shops in town. Two of which you "no longer trade with" due to "police instructions." No official restraining order has been issued, but the nice officer did not arrest you when you threatened to beat the service manager like "an angry monkey fucking his sister" The one shop in which "the law" has not gotten involved will only see you on Tuesdays between 10:00am and 10:30am. Hurry! Before the tires prematurely wear and you spend a week's paycheck on a new set of tires.

Outlaw Power Steering

2009-05-20T06:24:00.003-04:00

One of my old buddies, Lyle came by my apartment some years ago. Lyle is an avid outdoorsman and was "Green" many years before it was hip.

"Hey Ert Man, I need your help putting together my new idea."

"Hell man, what's your new idea?"

"I know how to cut down on pollution. Big Time!"

"Cool dude! How's that?"

"We just need Congress to pass a simple law that outlaws power steering."

"I am sorry Lyle; did you say power steering or power queering?"

"Steering!"

"You think banning power steering will cut back on pollution?"

"Hell yeah it will! Don't you see it? It is so simple. Without power steering people will drive more slowly and more efficiently."

"Drive efficiently because it is more effort to dart in and out of traffic?"

"Yeah man, you get it! Now I AM willing to make concessions. I guess it is all right if grannies and cripples have power steering"

"Lyle, were you huffing gas when you hatched this one?"

I lost the next twenty minutes of my life to his god damned nonsense. Unable to convince me to schedule an appointment with our Congressmen, Lyle left in a huff. On his way out the door he called me a narrow minded fart bag. As he heavy handedly closed the door, "You ain't visionary enough for me to drink with."

He was back at my place an hour and a half later. Two ole girls we knew showed up at my door, with a bottle of Jack. One girl called him up and he appeared at my refrigerator door in ten minutes.

"Dirty Ert, your vision has definitely improved."

Fantasy Job #3: Tennessee River Boat Captain

2009-05-19T12:15:00.005-04:00

Beset by unemployment and cursed with an over active imagination, I have started fantasizing about dream jobs.

Fantasy Job #3: Tennessee River Boat Captain

"My name is Dirty Ert, Captain of the Muddy Beaver. My first mate, Shaef here, tells me you are looking for passage to the Louisville system."

"Yes, if it is a fast ship."

"You've never heard of the Muddy Beaver? She's the ship that made the beer run in less than 3 cigarettes!"

How cool would that be? A Tennessee River boat captain, just hanging around the Applebee's in Knoxville. Waiting for someone who needs to book passage and freight 1,500 tons of gravel to the Louisville system. And they'll need to get to Louisville without any Department of Mines and Minerals imperial-interference.

I gonna have a cool ass sidekick too. Schaef, the Albino Aardvark. Sheaf will terrify Southerners who are unaccustomed to the sight of an aardvark. Hell my cousins from Carter County would probably think an aardvark was an earthly vestige of Satan. If one of them got loose from a petting zoo, all hell would break loose in these hills.

"Margret, get my shotgun! They is a damn Satan nosing around my lawn mower shed. Hurry damn it, the son of a bitch is a headin' fo my new weedeater. Bring some birdshot woman, hurry."

I foresee that my river boating will go so well, that I'll need to hire a crew for a fleet of ships. Just like BJ McKay. Do remember that fucker? He started off trucking with just hisself and that nasty monkey. In the beginning it was just him versus Sheriff Lobo; then BJ hit it big. He hired a passel of hot chicks to drive trucks for him. I'll do the same thing, except on the water, and the aardvark. Of course instead of Lobo, I have to face the Gay Pirates of Tellico Lake.

Let me tell you something people, them gay pirates are bitches. They run around the lake in a pontoon boat called The Snatch. Most of their victims tend to be the elderly and people in row boats. They pick off the slow ones first. Once the pirates have taken a prisoner, the torture begins. The bitches just tell it like it is. For fifteen minutes you have to listen to a grown man bitch about how bad Paula Abdul's pants looked on Entertainment Television. All the while, another queer pilfers your cooler.

That where me, The Muddy Beaver, Shaef, a crew of titty chicks and 1,500 tons of gravel come in. There are good queer-fearing rednecks who deserve to enjoy the lake, without the dread of a gay cooler pilfering. Captain Ert is here to save the day.

Dirty Ert

Them Shoes

2009-05-18T21:02:00.010-04:00

"God knows you're looking good enough,
But you're so smooth and the world's so rough.
You might have something to loose.
Oh no, pretty momma
What you gonna do in those shoes?"

The Eagles "Those Shoes"

I happened through the living room when my family was watching an episode of "Dancing with the Stars." This is not the sort of television programming that is condoned by Dirty Ert. I did, however, watch one dance routine.

The female dancer caught my eye. She left me in awe. Yes, she was "easy on the eyes," but that is not what struck me. It was her shoes.

She was wearing a pair of three inch pumps. The common name for this footwear is FUCK ME PUMPS. These are the shoes that signal to men that there is a job vacancy and applicants are being interviewed, RIGHT NOW.

But this girl danced about, jumped, boogied and all manner of undulations; with the grace of a mountain goat. She put on a spectacle of dexterity, rarely seen in the Tennessee Hills.

This is what impressed me. While wearing fuck me pumps; I thought there were only two activities that females could safely perform: 1-walking forward in first gear, 2-fucking.

I have no idea of how she fucks, but the ole girl can do a shit load more than walking.

Dirty Ert

Son Of A Bitch Won't Let Me Smoke

2009-05-12T16:31:00.007-04:00

I was the Manager of a scrap metal yard, back in the boom days of all things metal. The Chairman (thus my boss) was crazier than hell, let's call him Jim. Jim was a local boy "done good" and spoke with a heavy southern accent. Apart from no real sense of appropriate behavior, he was also a raging pot head.

I submitted a proposal to the board to open an additional location. They were favorable and gave me preliminary approval. The board asked me to take the chaiman to inspect the new facility.

Knowing Jim, I arrived at his house an hour before I was supposed to be there. I was welcome in his house at any time. So I made coffee and woke his ass up before he knew what hit him. As he sipped his first cup of coffee; "Ert, I am gonna to fire your ass some day; if you don't let me just smoke my weed. How can you ban me from smoking killer bud in your office? The gall! You got balls Ert, and you're a funny drunk. It's the only reason I keep you gainfully employed."

For the next hour I chased my boss around his own house like a herding dog and a flock of sheep. He kept trying to sneak a bong or joint into the company truck. I looked at him as he climbed into the truck. He had a printed shirt that came from a Jimmy Buffett concert. It said "Why don't we get drunk......." on a parrot's ass. There was the cut off jean shorts he had made himself. Flip flops were the only shoes I could get him to wear. Topping it all off was a camouflaged wide brimmed boonie hat and large horn rimmed sunglasses.

"Jim, you look like a dumb ass."

"I don't give a fuck. I got more damn money than these sons of bitches can shake a thorny stick at."

It was a two hour drive to our destination. The whole time, Jim went on with his one man conversation. Half the time he blasted me for banning him from smoking weed on company property. The rest of his thoughtlessness involved his new business plan that concerned making environmentally friendly fabrics from dog hair.

The real estate I had selected for our location was an old factory. It was one of those huge industrial properties built before world war two, a maze of brick buildings, pipes and smokestacks. As we pulled in, Jim points to a nook next to the garbage compactor. "Damn that might be a good place to burn one."

"Jim, please behave, as much as you possibly can."

We met up with the real estate agent (Ron) and the owner of the property (Jason.) They were both upstanding yet stereotypical business men, well educated and well healed. Ron was: a member of the chamber of commerce, director of the economic development commission, president of the lion's club, and chairman of the quarter back club. Ron was a pillar of the community, a real "square"; he also wore an expensive suit.

As pleasantries were exchanged, I saw the sideways glances between Ron and Jason. "Ron, Jason you'll have to forgive Jim's attire. He was on his way to an all day pool party when I nabbed him this morning. It was my mistake he did not get enough time to change." Neither gentlemen seemed satisfied with the explanation, but I started talking quickly to prevent them from thinking of it further.

To tour the property, we had to ride golf carts. I rode with Jason, who drove ours. Jim jumped into the driver's seat of the other. "I play a lot of golf and I love golf carts." I winced at the thought of Jim getting out of my grasp. As the golf carts took off, Jason and I were in the lead. I looked back at Jim; the look was in his eyes. Even behind his ridiculous glasses I could see it. He was about to do something he knew was wrong, but just couldn't help himself.

Jim turned to Ron "Hold on!" The cart came up on two wheels as Jim swerved off the road. Gravel flew into the air as Ron held on for dear life. The golf cart lurched and became airborne as Jim powered it over a ditch. Driving the damn thing like he stole it, he headed for the nook next to the garbage compactor. As the cart came to a screeching halt, Jim snatched a joint from his shirt pocket. Ron's head bobbed violently. Casually Jim lit the joint and took a deep hit. As he exhaled, "That short haired son of a bitch won't let me smoke my weed." Ron's jaw dropped, the look of total surprise filled his face. "Here Ron, go ahead at take the top of this 'un." Jim held the joint up for Ron to take.

"Uhhh, well, Jim I really don't do that."

"Ah hell, you a'int gotta be coy with me. I know'd you was cool the moment I saw you." Jim took another big hit.

"Really, No. I don't do drugs and this makes me very nervous. In fact could you please stop? I do not want to go to jail."

"Serve anytime Ron?"

"No!!"

"Shit, what the hell are ya so fucking worried about? You don't never know until ya try! I made some of my best weed connections when I was in jail."

Ron was now flabbergasted. He stammered and looked around nervously while Jim finished his joint. Jim started the cart and began driving slowly to find me. "Listen Ron, I need you to be cool about what just went down. Don't tell that short haired son of a bitch we just flamed one up."

"Jim there was no WE to it! You did it by yourself."

"Calm down and be cool. I won't tell, if you don't."

"What! What do you mean? I did nothing of the sort!"

"Shit they don't know that! Just be cool man."

Of course, Jim got lost. He meandered around the place for half an hour. The golf cart got stuck and poor Ron had to manually push it out.

I was discussing with Jason my plans to install a railroad connection. Just as I was telling Jason that Jim and the board had given me $600,000 for that project alone; I saw Jim's golf cart. There was a big black streak down the side of it. I knew that it wasn't there earlier. I saw poor Ron, with mud up to his knees on his tailored pant legs. Even from a hundred yards away, the look of panic and disbelief was all over Ron's face. Slowly Jim brought the golf cart up to my feet.

Ron jumped off and cleared the sweat from his brow. He looked me in the eye. "Well, that was illuminating!"

I turned and glared at Jim. "Ron would you and Jason excuse us for a moment." Sliding onto the golf cart with Jim, "I left something in the truck." Jim made a huge circle in the cart and turned back to the truck. I stared at him. As soon as we were out of earshot; "Jim, I am going to kill you."

There was a brief moment when I thought Jim and I were going to break into a fist fight. He glared at me and said. "Damn Son! Don't barbeque just sound like the shit right now?"

Jim and I left the industrial property without saying another word to the owner or poor Ron. It was clear to me. Jim had just fucked this up beyond all recognition. It took twenty minutes to find a good barbeque joint; the two of us had driven in silence. I was so mad I could have punched my boss.

Jim led the way to the bar at the restaurant. He ordered an insane amount of food and a round of Vodka shots. "Drink this ya son of bitch and lighten the fuck up."

"Jim, do you know how long I spent on this project?"

"No, and I really don't give a fuck." He nailed his first shot.

"But I'll tell you what. This seems to have really set you off. Drink four shots with me. If you are still mad at me after four, you can punch me in the face. If not, I'll send you and your wife on a three day vacation."

"You only offering three days because you don't want me away from the office for a week, aren't you?"

"You're a smart man Ert, that's why I keep you around. That, and the fact you are a funny drunk."

My wife and I had a lovely three day vacation.

Drivel, Chapter 2

2009-05-10T21:20:00.002-04:00

Sometimes, I just find out the hard way.

For example, never hide your liquor in the cleaning supplies closet.

I have been hiding my booze in the janitorial closet from two groups. First is my wife, she will drink my shit every damn time. Second is my kids, I have two teenagers. I figure that I stole my old man's liquor, my kids will return the favor.

My plan worked well about a quarter of the way through a bottle of vodka. That is when I fucked the hell up.

People, Murphy's Oil Soap and Lemon Juice is just fucking nasty!

I threw up on the floor. Then I tried to clean my face off with a Wet Swiffer Pad. Damn it! I got some of the fluid off the wet swiffer in my god damned mouth. So, I threw up again.

Life is a real pain in the ass; if one must moonlight with liquor.

Dirty Ert

Locals are funny, Vol 3, I'll cut a fish

2009-05-05T13:18:00.002-04:00

"Man charged in attack with scissors"

That's a headline that grabs my attention. The paper offered few details and no follow up story. The facts are: the aggressor breaks into another man's home and cuts the victim on the head and hands with scissors. Then the aggressor pushes over a fish tank.

Since the media failed horribly on this one, I'll dream up the rest of the story on my own.

The aggressor (let's call him Otis) is in the grips of withdrawal from meth. Otis is broke and upset over losing his girlfriend (Amy.) She is an upper class girl who fell for a bad boy. Bored with Otis, she dumps him for our victim (Gregory.) In desperation, Otis concocts a plan. He will break into Gregory's house, rob him and scare him away from Amy. Otis hopes to get money for drugs and woo back his girl, in one stroke.

Gregory is on his couch relaxing after work. There is a loud bang on his door. Startled Gregory jumps to his feet, as Otis kicks the door open.

"OK Mother Fucker! Let's have it!"
Gregory is stunned. "Have what?"
"Your money, give me all your god damn money. That's what you get!"
"Get for what?"
"Dating her!"
"Who"
"Amy, you bastard!"
"Who are you?"
"Otis!!"
"And you would be.....?"
"Amy's boyfriend"
"Ahhh! The drug addict."
"I am not an addict; I just like to get high."

Gregory evaluates the situation. Otis is pale, shaking and failed to bring a weapon. Gregory is confident that can destroy Otis in a fight. Gregory yells as he walks toward Otis. "Look man, you just need to get the hell out of here."

The tables are turned. Otis realizes he may not have thought this one through; he is about to get an ass whopping. On a table near the door, there is a pair of scissors. Otis snatches them, hoping to regain the upper hand. From the looks of Gregory walking toward him; the scissors did not help. There is a large and meticulously kept fish tank, three feet away. The fish are exotic and expensive. Otis rushes to the tank and opens the scissors above the water.

"Back off! Back off! Or I swear the fish gets it. Come any closer and I'll cut a fish. I swear to God I will."

Concerned for his prized fish, Gregory stops. His mind rolls the situation over a few times. Then he punches Otis in the mouth. Otis flails backward; the scissors slash Gregory's hands and head. The body of Otis slams against the fish tank. The water sloshes and it begins to tip. Gregory desperately tries to steady it, to no avail. The beautiful fish and colored pebbles pour out onto the floor.

Gregory kicks Otis in the balls so hard that he almost stops breathing. After calling 911, Gregory calls Amy.

"You owe me a fish tank, bitch."

Dirty Ert

Drivel, Chapter 1

2009-04-30T11:44:00.004-04:00

My God, People! I once made payments on vacuum cleaner. But I have not fucked it. No! Seriously, the powerfully motor and micron level filtration worries me more than it turns me on. I have thing about vacuum cleaners.

Won $33 on the lottery the other day; reinvested in more tickets. Back down to $15. You see folks, that's how you make money. If I don't when some damn lottery money soon, all hell is gonna break loose.

I know a guy that might train me to do stained glass work. I'd be more excited if I could make money doing that. Nobody will hire me because I am simultaneously over and under qualified. It gets confusing for me.

I am not sure what you would call how I make a living. It's like a career, only it pays less.

There is, however, a steady source of beer and liquor. I am on a first name basis with clerks at two liquor stores. In Tennessee, you must be 21 to sell alcohol. At the food mart, all the clerks are high schoolers. To scan beer, checkers call the dreaded "Code 2" over the PA system. Then an adult comes, checks my ID and scans my beer. Last week, I walked into the food mart, only one register was open and nobody was in line. Barely 30 feet into the store when I hear "Code 2 on register 1" The girl looked at me and said "You always get beer."

Currently I am considering taking back up smoking, stopping brushing my teeth and moving my family into a trailer. Then I'll scatter trash and random shit all over my yard and the front of the "manufactured home." Perhaps then, I can split my time between sitting in front of the TV and in the ER waiting room (watching TV). I could get excited about the first Thursday of the month; that's when the government checks come in the mail.

I feel myself being sucked into a stereotype.

Send me pictures of your vacuum cleaners.

Dirty Ert

Relationships: A man needs an indicator

2009-04-28T22:06:00.004-04:00

I was thinking about the relationship between a man and a woman. At the same time, beer was migrating from the refrigerator to my belly and on to the grassy spot in the back yard.

The general consensus among couple's therapy books seems to be: men need sex the most and women need attention the most. This I pondered deeply.

How does a woman know when her man has had the sex need fulfilled? It is obvious to even the most casual of observer. A man's cock pukes up the fluid from below. If a woman provokes this response in a man, one to three times a week, ole boy has his need met.

But what about a woman? How does a man know?

Questions were rolling in my head when my wife came home from work. She finds me in the back yard. I've got a beer in one hand and my penis in the other. I am putting an application of urine on a rose bush.

I look at my wife and ask my nagging question.

"Honey, could I get you to spit on me when you've had enough attention?"

The combination of the question itself and my watering of the flora throws her into a loop. She gives me the most quizzical face. "What in the hell are you talking about?"

"Well," as I zip up my pants. "I got to thinking. It is easy for you to tell when I have had enough sex."

"Yes, you fall asleep."

"Exactly! You have an indicator. I need a way to tell when you have gotten enough attention from me."

"You want me to spit?"

"My dick spits at you when I've had enough. Baby, when you think about it, equality in our relationship can only be achieved if you spit on me like a llama."

"When I have had enough attention, you want me to spit on you like a pack animal from South America?"

"It's only fair!"

She lights a cigarette and shakes her head in disbelief. "You're taking me out to dinner; try that on for an indicator."

Dirty Ert

Locals Are Funny, Vol 2, Slow Police Response

2009-04-27T13:14:00.004-04:00

A great story hit the local papers; here are the facts as I have gleaned them from the reports.

A man in his sixties comes home. There is a window broken on his house. He calls 911 wanting a Deputy to come out. Police can ensure that no felon is hiding in your closet. Should any thing be stolen, the nice patrolman will make a report for your insurance. So far, so good.

Then our intrepid hillbilly home owner takes a turn for the worst. He decides that the Deputies are taking way to long to respond to his call. Maybe this guy had beer that was getting cold. Or perhaps, his beer did not get cold, because he drank it. Either way, the plot was about to thicken.

His patience exhausted, our home owner calls 911 again. This time he tells the dispatcher that there was someone in the house. And he has just shot the intruder. Then he told 911 “that there was no longer a need for officers to respond.”

Law enforcement does not think in these terms. "Well, we were going to make our way out there to investigate a possible burglary. But, since the homeowner has shot the invader, then there is no need for us to even show up, now."

It was a "calling all units" kind of response. Officers dropped what they were doing and scrambled to the scene. Ambulances were called in. A swarm of flashing blue and red lights descended upon our hillbilly's home.

Police found the hillbilly in his front yard, probably scratching his ass. It did not take the deputies long to uncover the truth. Our hillbilly home owner had, in fact, not shot anyone. He did not even have a gun. Shortly, the ole boy confessed. He felt that the police were taking too long. He figured if he told 911 that he shot someone, the police would come out to his house faster.

He was right. The Deputies immediately hauled his ass to jail and booked him for filing a false report.

Adding insult to ole boy's injury; nothing was missing or damaged in his house. He just had a broken window.

You just can't make this kind of shit up.

Dirty Ert

Fantasy Job #3: Women's Sex Toy Repairman

2009-04-22T13:48:00.004-04:00

Beset by unemployment and cursed with an over active imagination, I have started fantasizing about dream jobs.

Fantasy Job #3: Women's Sex Toy Repairman

For Pete's Sake! Web sites that sell these things give technical specifications. You can find out the total weight of the machine, stroke length and occasionally torque (in inch-pounds no less!)

With that many moving parts there will be breakdowns and I want to be there when it happens.

I'll have my own van; drive around like an ambulance waiting for some wore out old hag to call when her Fuckzilla has a viscosity breakdown. I'll show up, Johnny on the spot, fix it then ask the old bitch to test it before I leave. She'll beg for my cock, sure, but she can't have it. I need to make a living and her filthy cunt needs to seize up the main bearings in the damn thing. Cash, the old road whore will have to pay me in cash.

That is just one possible service call in my busy days as a Women's Sex Toy Repairman.

I am afraid that no young, hot assed, college volleyball player will have one of these. There are two reasons for this grade of woman not having a sex toy. One, she cannot afford it. Two, she is too young to understand what her "box" really does for her. Nasty little Indy bitch won't stop talking on her damn cell phone long enough to turn the fucking thing on any ways.

Yes! Can't you see it now?

"DIRTY ERT'S FUCKING MACHINE REPAIR, Licensed, Bonded and Insured - 24 hour emergency service. 'Call me, when it won't come on, and you can't get off'"

"She drove herself to madness, with a silver spoon" - The Eagles Witchy Woman

"Oh, thank god! Vibrator repair"
"No Mame, the police"
- Dragnet The Movie

Ert

P.S. Fuckzilla is not in my spell check dictionary. It suggested frowzily or Duckbill, whatever the hell that means.

P.P.S Cash you horny bitches - I only take cash!

Locals are funny, Vol. 1, Some Guys Have All the Luck

2009-04-19T17:11:00.009-04:00

A story hit the local papers about some odd goings on, at a local jail. Basically the story is: man gets laid while in jail.

Here are the basic facts. A female jailor (age 25) was supervising a male inmate. The inmate was on good behavior and doing mundane labor jobs for the jail. When she escorted him to the supply closets, she fucked him. Only because she became suspiciously pregnant did the Sheriff "smell a rat." In the end, she lost her job and ended up pleading guilty to five counts of sexual contact with a prisoner.

THAT LUCKY BASTARD!

I thought jail was about dodging dick. A'int there some guy about 6'6" and 320 pounds, desperate to stab some shit? That would be my luck in jail. My anal integrity would only be saved with a victory in an all out fist fight.

This guy broke the law and was punished with one of the all time great male fantasies. He got tied up and fucked by a woman jailor, five damn times. I have no idea of what this misguided girl looks like. But who cares? When you're in jail, you can't be picky. Any she-jailor will do, even if she has the head of wombat and the body of gorilla. And to beat all, she was in her mid-twenties. She may not be great looking, but damn she's young.

The last interesting fact of the story was the inmate was transferred to another prison, "for his protection." Protecting the bastard from what? Were they worried that another she-jailor would hork him in the supply closet, only to post this tryst on Youtube? Worse yet, was the Sheriff concerned that a prison uprising might break out? All the inmates would hoist the lucky bastard upon their shoulders, for a victory celebration.

Some guys just have all the fucking luck.

Dirty Ert

Fantasy Job #2: Demolition Derby Announcer

2009-04-19T13:47:00.005-04:00

Beset by unemployment and cursed with an over active imagination, I have started fantasizing about dream jobs.

Fantasy Job #2: Demolition Derby Announcer

If you have ever been to a demolition derby in the South, you know what I am talking about. Should you have failed to attend such a spectacle, add it to the list of things you must see before you die. Trust me; it's a shit-ton better than Paris.

For those uncultured in the sport, here is a quick introduction. Take a bunch of old cars on the brink of death. Then run them into each other. The winner is the last car able to move around of its own power.

The announcer has a real thick Southern/Hick (aka Redneck Gibberish) accent. An attribute I have covered. Personally, I think the secret to good public announcing work is hard liquor. As the first round of cars start their engines, I'd be on shot three. It would be a good night in the booth if I passed out just as the champion is crowned.

The personal lives of the competitors (including recent divorce) is something I've actually heard an announcer discuss. "Looks like Jimmy Douglas throwed an axle. Gotta be disappointin' fo' Jimmy. I knowed he was hoping for a good run today, he's a try'n to cheer hisself up after his ole lady stepped out last month."

Another sweet announcer move is giving instructions to the fire crew. Occasionally an old car catches a flame. Local volunteer fire departments are there to handle it. Oh! But, some announcers really get into it. This is an actual announcement I once heard. "Ays a far! Ays a far! Mon far boys, git in nar! Git Grigg out dar." Allow me to translate: "There is a fire! There is a fire! Come on, firemen, get in there. Get Gregg out of there." Ays, nar and dar are all Redneck Gibberish conjugations of there.

Perhaps my favorite job perk is the view of redneck tang. Country girls like to dress to the nines for any sport involving internal combustion engines. There is always one ole girl dressed like this: blue jeans (two sizes too small,) a black pair of fuck me pumps and a NASCAR t-shirt. The t-shirt is also way too small. Her cleavage is on display, for all to enjoy. She is constantly sucking on a cigarette.

Getting liquored up, talking Redneck Gibberish about cars mashing in the mud and scoping redneck tang. Try finding that one in Career Builder.

Dirty Ert

Fantasy Job #1: Dirty Ert's Tours

2009-04-16T02:22:00.008-04:00

Beset by unemployment and cursed with an over active imagination, I have started fantasizing about dream jobs.

Fantasy Job #1: Dirty Ert's Southern Appalachian Tour Guide

See the Hillbilly South like never before! Come on down, I'll show you.....

I want to take you Yankees and other foreigners on an genuine trip through my home region. Before you leave, you'll experience the Hills like never before.

Be in the lobby of your hotel at 6:00 AM. I highly suggest you wear your drinking shoes. Clothes that you wouldn't mind getting filthy are best. Ladies should display cleavage and hats are optional.

My tour bus is like no other. It's a big ass, 70's U-Haul truck. The cargo interior has been completely refurbished. The floor, walls and ceiling are covered in green outdoor carpet. There are La-Z-Boy chairs and couches bolted to the floor. For your viewing pleasure, I've installed a sliding-glass patio door on each side. It is also equipped with a first aid kit: Goody's Headache Powders, Gatorade and Pepto Bismal. There is a complete bar and a chemical toilet.

As the tour bus peels out of the parking lot, we crack our first beer. Please keep in mind that this is a smoking tour. Throughout the day you should plan on eating a lot. We'll stop for a country breakfast. For lunch and dinner, a feast of BBQ will be had.

There are, of course, Civil War Battlefields, Historic Homes, Museums and all that crap. I'll briefly tell you about them as they whiz past the patio doors. But I want people to see the "other side" of Appalachia. And you need a good beer buzz to take it in.

Your first walking tour is an authentic crystal meth lab. I'll have a few rednecks explain how it is made and give a short lecture on the economics of it. If Skeeter is available; he can tell you all about a meth-dealer conviction and how not to have a stand off with the police. Skeeter was hemmed up in his trailer while the Sheriff was outside with a warrant. Using quick thinking, Skeeter looked for a hostage. Unfortunately the only available hostage, at the time, was a goat. Skeeter quickly discovered that the following phrase does not stop the Sheriff or his SWAT team. "Back off or I'll blow this goat's fucking head off!"

Next we will walk a real marijuana patch. A real-deal grower, with the guilty verdicts to prove it, will show you the art of "booby trapin'" I also have a man that gives a five minute informative lecture on "Confusing the DEA's Helicopters."

At this point in the tour, the sun is setting. Your intoxication should be reaching its peak. Then I shall take you on a romp of personal expression. Bridge and water tower painting. You will have the opportunity to paint the name of your most cherished loved one, on a municipal structure.

Should you pass out, you will get treated like one of us. I am going to paint "FART" on your forehead. Then I'll leave your drunk ass in the landscaping out front of your hotel.

The next morning, upon waking up, you will feel like a real hillbilly.

Dirty Ert

Beast more hair than woman

2009-04-14T23:05:00.007-04:00

Spring fever, I was crawling to walls to get out of the house. Heading to downtown just to return a single library book; was the excuse I needed. Driving along, a series of clouds rolled in, ready to deliver our next April shower.

The library is located downtown on a wide boulevard. Small trees lined the street with their leaves merely green spots on the branches. Odd sculptures sat obtrusively along the sidewalk. The trees and art were the city's attempt to enliven the fading old downtown.

I wheeled my old pick up into a parking place out front of the library. Looking up, I saw a very nasty dark cloud settling over the town. Fat drops of rain had just begun to fall here and there. Moving quickly, I headed to the book drop.

Just beside the book drop was a park bench. It sat in the little flower garden the city had planted beside the library. The bench was fifteen feet away from the awning hanging over the book drop. At that moment, a woman was sitting upon that bench. Let me tell you; she was a beast more hair than woman.

She was about sixty years old. Wearing a heavy pair of boots, maybe she weight 90 pounds. It seemed like she was unusually tall for a woman of her generation. She was built like a tooth pick. An oversized charcoal gray, men's, button up shirt hung on the top over her. A pair of white washed, skin tight blue jeans were stretched across her bottom half. Then there was her hair. Brothers and Sisters, it was huge.

Light brown-dead grass would be the color I would use to describe it. There was a hell of a lot of it. To the left and right, it was nearly wider than her shoulders. Reaching to the sky, I'd say there was a good eight inches from the top of her skull. It was curly, very curly. Quite frankly, it looked like she had three or four poodles stuck on her head. This was a creature more hair than woman.

As I dropped my book in the slot; I made a terrible mistake. Eye contact, "damn it, do not look these freaks in the eye." She looked at me and smiled real big. Both of her hands reached up and started primping her absurd hair. Her face shot me an inviting look. It was if she said "come on over here and we will do it on this bench." Making it worse, I could clearly see that her pupils were dilated. She was trashed on a drug I could not understand.

I ran back to my truck at full speed. Firstly, to escape the crazy hair-whore on the bench. Secondly, to escape the heavy rain that was beginning to come down. Just as I closed my truck door, all hell of precipitation broke loose. The rain came down so hard that I could barely see the hair-beast thirty feet away. Moments later, came the hail. Chunks of ice, the size of M&M candy drilled down from the sky. The ice pelted down so hard, the cab of my truck roared like a freight train.

On the bench, the hair-beast sat oblivious. From the safety of my truck, I saw hail bounce off of her nose. She was unfazed. Her lips were in a permanent smile. It was if she was unaware of the hell dropping down around her. Casually she reached up to "touch up" her hair-do. Amazingly, rain and hail seemed to have no effect on her hair. It held its own, defiantly against wind and falling ice.

Now I became concerned. She noticed me watching her. Again, she sent me the "DO ME" look. Quickly I decided that retreat was the better part of valor. It was time to leave; before she tried to come and get into my truck. As I wheeled away, she remained upon bench. Her hair remained insolent to the rain.

It was three blocks away before I felt safe from the crazy hair-bitch. Then I wondered "what the hell is she on." Worse yet, I pondered "could I have really done her on the park bench?"

Dirty Ert

Sperm Clearance Sale

2009-04-13T01:16:00.007-04:00

Scientific American magazine has posted a new story on it's online edition.

http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=sperm-sale-2009-04-10

It seems economic times have gotten so bad; sperm banks are discounting their goods. A single shot of swimmers is running about $300 now. The article claims that most women need to use about 8 shots. That comes to $2,400 for designer sperm.

How ridiculous is this really?

For $100; I'll crank out enough shots to do the job, guaranteed. If the first shot don't "git r dun" then I'll provide up to 12 more shots for free. For an extra $20, you can inspect me like a damn stud horse.

Hell, if you put an extra ten spot in my pocket, I'll fuck a couch. Throw in another $10 and I'll let you film it.

Who am I kidding? Put 5 shots of Tennessee Whiskey in me, and I'll do the whole nine yards for a draw off a cigarette.

Dirty Ert

A Pirate Looks at 36

2009-04-09T12:26:00.002-04:00

Sipping burnt coffee while sitting at the kitchen table; I started reading the newspaper. Headlines in bold letters declared "Pirates take US Ship." The article went on about the dangers of modern African pirates and their doings. As fate would have it, my CD player shuffled to the Jimmy Buffett song, A Pirate Looks at Forty.

I had always wanted to be a pirate. It was noon, I was unemployed and still wearing sweatpants. Becoming a pirate was the best idea my brain had created in weeks. I was also a business manager by trade. I began to formulate a 5 year plan, for a pirating business.

Dirty Ert's Pirating and Pillaging LLC
5 Year Business Plan
Prepared by: Dirty Ert, Chief Executive Pirate

Executive Summary:

Dirty Ert's Pirating and Pillaging LLC (DEPP) seeks to take strong advantage of the market opportunities.

The primary location for DEPP's operations will be the North Fork of the Holston River. Selected because it is close to Ert's house and is impossible for any US Navy ships to navigate.

The methods for DEPP to create positive cash flow is: Dirty Ert will paddle around the river in a boat, while in splendid costuming. When he sees another boat; he will paddle after it like his ass is on fire. Upon reaching the other boat, he will yell "Heave to and hand over all your loot and libations. That means give me your money and beer mother fuckers." Then Dirty Ert will egress, quickly.

Market Opportunity:

Any stretch of the North Fork of the Holston will have 2 or 3 people pass by a day. Perhaps 1 in 10 will actually have money on them. 7 in 10 will have beer. DEPP seeks to capitalize on both assets.

Management:

Dirty Ert brings a twenty year career to DEPP. None of it is useful for pirating. But he does have his own pirating hat.

Competitors:

None. Currently there are no other pirates operating on the North Fork of the Holston River. There are rumors of a gang of pirates on nearby Boone Lake. However, reports characterize this band as "butt pirates." Therefore they do not appear to be competitor, merely a threat to anal security.

Capital Requirements:

Sources of funds:
Dirty Ert $0.00
Kid's Piggy Bank $26.30

Preoperational Expenditures:

Boat: $0.00 - can steal one from the junkyard next door
Hat: $0.00 - got one
Parrott: $120.00 - will require financing

Closing Remarks:

Our boat has been christened "The Commode Runner." Her hull be strong and her mast be true.

Christmas at the Fraley Springs fire tower

2009-04-08T16:38:00.008-04:00

Back when we were still single, my group of friends had a Christmas tradition. Wrap up family time, meet at Ert's and head to the Fraley Springs fire tower.

It was a cold, bleak winter day that Christmas. In typical humor, the weather deprived us of a White Christmas. The last vestiges of the sun were dropping behind the ridge across the way. The headlights of Herman's Oldsmo-Buick darted down my driveway. Oscar jumped out of the passenger's side. He looked like a little kid who got a pony from Santa that morning.

"I got nitrous!" He held aloft boxes of nitrous oxide canisters.

"Top that off with a little hair of the dog, I'd say we got a party!" Herm held up a Wild Turkey bottle.

"Gentlemen and I use that term loosely. This calls for an immediate round of shots. Such will be followed by a hasty departure from this place unto another place." I declared that as if reading a legal verdict. And let the record show that was exactly what came to pass.

The hills flashed by the windows of my Ford SUV. The three of us caught up on the day's events. Eric Clapton played on the stereo. We came to a thorny issue.

"Dude, where is the weed?" Oscar seemed a little put off.
"Yeah man, you promised." Herm put in his two cents.
"My guy didn't come through. Don't ask why and all that shit. I don't know. It's the guy that always wears that 'kiss my ass' hat. You know, it has the picture of the donkey on it." I was fending off wolves.
"Who gives a fuck about his hat?" Herm was indignant. "You relied on a guy who wears a hat that says 'kiss my ass'. What did you expect? Four star service? This was your one task over the whole holidays. God Damn you!"
"Your taking this a little overboard, don't you think?" Still trying to keep the wolves at bay.
"I want my money back, mother fucker." Oscar hit on a point where I was really going to be in trouble.
"I'll give it to you Friday." I winced.
"Friday? Ahhh! When you get paid! You already spent our money? You miserable rat fucker." Herm smelled blood.
"Alright! Alright! Ya' bastards. Confession time." They had me.
"Fucker" Oscar mumbled under his breath.
"I went to kiss-my-ass hat boy's place. He had the stuff and the exchange went cleanly. He had some friends there, a couple and the girl's best friend."
"Oh god no, a girl! You are going to die." Herm knew where this was going.
"Kiss MY ass, fucker, shut up. Back to the confession in progress. Ole girl wasn't really hot, but hell, I'd fuck her. As is custom, after the exchange we matched some bud for the ceremonial, end of drug deal, joint. Ole girl came and sat down next to me. She laughed at one of my stupid jokes and gave me the arm touch."
"SAVE US THE FUCKING DETAILS." Oscar yells from the back.
"Yes please, answer the only two things we care about. One, did you or did you not get laid? And, where is our weed. MOTHER FUCKER." Herm, angry as usual.
"Okay bitches, damn! No, I did not get any. Ole girl used me to get stoned. She has your weed."
"You gave some random whore our weed?"
"No, she stole it."

The groaning and moaning continued all the way up the mountain. I paid no attention to the bitching; I was planning. If I could quickly get some shots in them all would be well.

We arrive at the tower. Getting out of the Ford, Herm and Oscar's bitching goes unfettered. Suddenly, Herm freezes and breaks into laughter. He is looking at the passenger's floor board. Oscar joins him. He breaks down horse laughing. Standing confused and feeling left out, "What you bastards, what?"

"Dirty, you are an idiot." Herm can barely breathe.
Laboring to breath, Oscar exclaims "You are a complete dumbass. She didn't steal your weed; you dropped it on the floor board."

In an instant, all was forgiven.

While Oscar set to work on our herbal remedy. Herm and I checked out the scene. The mountain was about a thousand feet above the surrounding towns. While there was no snow in town; the mountain was capped with it, a good four inches. The air was cold, crisp and clean; not a cloud in the sky. A half moon shown down with a pale, eerie light.

Oscar glanced up, "Man, this place looks like Hoth."

Our inner nerds came burning to life. We all completely memorized Star Wars, Episode Five, The Empire Strikes Back. As the joint made its rounds, we divided up roles. Herm was to be Hon Solo. If you looked Herm in the face, closed one eye and squinted the other; he could have been Harrison Ford's distant cousin. Oscar was chosen for Luke Skywalker. Herm and Oscar forced multiple roles on me. Chewbacca, I hated that one. I once dated a girl who was a little hairy. She also was not aware of razors and their application, thus her nickname "Chewbacca." The bastards jabbed me bad. I also had to be the visage of Obi Won Kenobi. This was a plot on their part to get even with me for the weed thing. I had no idea of what was coming.

We reverted to eight years old. Running around, like kids, reenacting the movie. Then came the Kenobi scene. In the movie, Luke is in a blizzard. He falls down, on death's door. From the afterlife, Kenobi becomes an apparition. He talks a bit, as he fades away, Han Solo rides through his apparition. Where Kenobi fades away, I was going to simply step behind a tree. As I got to that point I heard Herm's foot steps behind me. I thought he was right on cue. But Herm had started a few moments early, on purpose. I was caught flat footed. He rammed me in the back at full steam. I rolled down the mountain a good fifty feet. Bastards.

The theatre of the idiots was over, time for the serious business of getting fucked up. We smoked more and drank a lot more. Presently all reached the promise land of a real good buzz. It was time to climb the abandoned fire tower.

We each carried one inebriant as we shimmied up to the first set of stairs. Herm and I forged up to the second flight. Looking down, we saw Oscar frozen at the first flight. He looked up at us. "This is incredibly fucking stupid."

Herm and I exchanged confused looks "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"We are all so fucked up that not one of us could find our own balls. This rusted old tower must be at least fifty years old. Half of the wooden steps are either: rotted, broken or missing. And you want to climb up 150 feet of that? Did I mention that the two of you can barley stand up right? HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MINDS?"

Oscar may have well been speaking in French. Herm and I could not comprehend his arguments. He and I looked at each other, confused. Then at the same time we looked down and Oscar. "Pussy" We turned and headed up the fire tower.

We made it up the first three flights of stairs just fine. Half way up the fourth there was a stair missing. Herm lead the way boldly. Until the stair, just before the missing one, disintegrated under his foot. In an amazing furry of moving arms and legs, Herm suddenly shot up the stairs, rolling to a stop at the next landing. It was funnier than Hell. He looked like a cat dropped on a slick kitchen floor. I shimmied up the metal supports until I made it next to Herm.

He lay on the ground clutching a support girder with all his might. Terror covered his face. I was laughing at him so hard I couldn't breath, that made me oblivious to the surroundings. Then it hit me, the wind. The wind started to gust, real hard. I felt the entire tower sway in the wind. For a moment, I thought was going to be blown off the tower. I panicked. I lunged for the same girder that Herm was wrapped around. Herm obviously felt that there was a sturdy support shortage. He began to fight me off. We were now both trashed and in a full on panic and fighting for the right to hold onto a metal girder. Sadly neither of us noticed the other girder, two and a half feet away.

Another big gust hit the tower, it swayed. Herm quit fighting me so he could hold the girder with both hands. I immediately grabbed the damn thing in a death grip. For what seemed an eternity, the two of us clung for our lives. Loud, heavy gusts of wind rocked the tower. The two of us were knotted up, holding on for dear life. Then we heard it.

From below we could hear Oscar in a fit of laughter. Herm and I looked each other in the eye. Without saying a word, we both knew what the other was thinking. "Oscar Mother Fucker." Grim determination set in. We were going to show that bastard. For reasons that no sober mind can possibly comprehend, we started back up the tower. We were both terrified, but some broken line of thinking drove us on. Oscar later described the two of us panicked sloths. He timed us. It took an hour for us to climb the last eight flights of stairs.

Finally at the top we sprang into the little booth. The thin sheet metal walls kept the wind at bay. Both of us were visibly shaking. We could feel the tower continuing to rock about six inches. The terror was palpable. Then I had a great idea.

"Dude, break out the whipits."
"WHAT?" Herm looked at me confused and afraid.
"Yeah man, whipits, it is our only hope. Trust me! Do it! It is the only chance we have."

The wind howled even harder. Herm was loosing it. His hands were convulsing and his head bobbing wildly. In a few seconds he was going to loose all control of himself. I reached over and grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes.

"Damn it man, pull yourself together! You are the keeper of the nitrous. I am depending on you." The tower now began to rock back and forth violently. "We can beat this. All is not lost. You have the whipits. The whipits will save us. Whipits man, the whipits. Think of the whipits as our personal Obi Won Whipit Kenobi. We must travel to Alderaan, but we must whipit and whipit real good. Reach deep into yourself and bring forth the whipit of life. I know I am saying whipit a lot, but whipit man!"

Suddenly the panic eased from his face replaced by a deep understanding. This gave way to grim determination as he pulled out the box of cartridges and the "Whipit Gun."

Honestly, I thought we were going to die. The tower was going to fall over, I just knew it. Really, I had no idea of how whipits would save us. I simply wanted one last good buzz before I died in a horrible tower falling incident.

We hit the first round of whipits. The familiar wha-wha sensation took over. Outside the storm hit its crescendo. Snow was now coming down hard; we could not see the ground. The tower made horrible creaking noises as if to finally cave to the wind. Death was certain. Herm and I sucked down the nitrous oxide as fast as we could; laughing like mad men in the face of death.

Suddenly, I awoke. Looking around I saw Herm lying three feet away, passed out. Nitrous cartridges were everywhere. I nudged Herm. "Man wake up, you are alive fucker." Slowly we came back to consciousness. The storm had passed. All was calm and relaxed. The moon hung reassuringly in the sky. Herm and I broke into a fit of laughter. We had made it. A thought crossed my mind. I said to Herm, "Oscar Mother Fucker."

Back on the ground, Oscar had ball without us. While watching us climb the tower, he smoked enough weed to fell a small horse. At one point, he just knew that me and Herm were going to die. Casually writing us off, he tried to see how much he could smoke before we died. He was trying to figure out how to tell the police how we died, when he saw it. Oscar swore he saw a Keebler elf. Keebler elves always have delicious treats with them. To get the cookies all one must do is catch one of the elves. Then he gives you snacks. Everybody knows how that works, right?

So Oscar started sneaking around the top of the mountain elf hunting. That is when Herm and I awoke. We looked down and saw Oscar darting wildly around. Herm and I were confused, but knew what we must do. We gathered up the spent cartridges and started throwing them at Oscar. On the ground, Oscar was operating under the assumption that Herm and me were dead. Imagine his surprise when suddenly shit fell out of the sky at him. When the first cartridge hit, Oscar jumped straight up in the air. He squawked like a bird and ran off in a random direction. So funny, Herm and I almost pissed on ourselves. About six cartridges later, Oscar figured it out.

White Christmas Indeed!

Dirty Ert

Beer Downgrade

2009-04-07T17:11:00.016-04:00

A late snow settled over East Tennessee. This nearly causes a panic among my people. Southern Hillbillies are fairly certain that snow is the instrument of the devil. Snow causes a knee jerk reaction in us. We scramble to the grocery store and stock up on bread and milk. No one knows why we do it, we just do. Ask a salmon why he swims up the stupid river. He don't know, but everyone else is doing it.

Feeling the primitive call, I head to the food mart. Fortunately I am well stocked with bread and dairy products. But beer levels were beginning to fall dangerously low.

Just inside the door, a big set of titties caught my eye. I pretend to examine a bag of onions, so that I have a moment to take a good rack in. Presently, the breasts in questions started to seem oddly familiar. Curious, I look at ole girl's face. Damn it! She is an old flame.

We had gone out about five times, ten years ago. It was not much of an affair. She decided that 'sure he's funny, but I wouldn't want to have sex with him.' The relationship fizzled out with me only getting her top off once, for fifteen minutes. No, there was no sex, but I did wack off into her glove compartment once. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

She headed down the snack cake aisle. It was my chance to make a break for it. With a little luck I could complete my beer run without an Exgirlfriend Encounter of the Third Kind. I arrived quickly at the beer section and unthinkingly reached for two six packs of good micro brew.

Then I saw the obnoxious bright yellow price label, $9.59 per six pack. In an instant (and without my permission) my brain went to work. Two six packs of good beer would set me back $19.18, plus tax. Glancing over, Miller High Life was $6.95 a twelve pack. The cursed math centers in my brain sprung to action. Good beer: about $1.60 each. Shitty beer: about $0.60 each.

I slumped slightly into the beer cooler as the analytical parts of my brain came to life. "Here is the deal, we are unemployed. Our current income level is zero dollars and zero cents per week. We scratch our ass all day and live off our wife. Do you think it is right to spend an extra $12 on the high end micro brew? A year from now, will you remember the deliciousness of the good beer from tonight? I am afraid it has come to this, we are experiencing a beer downgrade."

Really hate it when I talk to myself, yes I do. Even more, it is infuriating when I am right and thus wrong all at the same time. I really wanted the good beer, so I attempted to throw myself off. Thus I could then buy the good beer. Should this be confusing to you, it is much worse for me.

Motionless I hung there half slumped over the micro brew section of the beer cooler. My theory was that if I was still, then the other part of me would get bored and go away. People were starting to stare. My brain did not give up, "put the expensive beer down and back away slowly." I refused to move. Then my damn conscious entered the fray. It showed me all kinds of scenes. The images of my wife feeling hurt and being taken advantage of, filled my head.

Slowly and dejectedly I replaced the good beer in the cooler. I felt like I was 7 years old again. I went back to that time when I wanted a Reese's Cup so bad I couldn't stand it. I snagged one from the shelf at the grocery store. Timidly I approached the check out counter where my mom had started filling out the check for our groceries. I distinctly remember a cigarette in her mouth. She looked down at me and the candy. Not one word came from her. Mom's right eyebrow simply raised up and she gave me "the look." Like a brow beaten plow mule, I put the Reese's back. Thirty years later, my mother's avatar lives in my shitty-ass pea brain.

In an attempt to exact some sort of dignity from the situation, I bought twice the beer. Feeling that I had reached the sacred middle ground, I headed to the check out line. Just as the clerk was handing me the change; "Dirty Ert, what has it been, ten years?" The old flame nailed me. A brief exchange of pleasantries; then I ask "Do you still drive that old blue Honda?"

Dirty Ert

Please reconsider not selecting me for the job

2009-04-07T12:06:00.012-04:00

For months I suffered under one of the worst cases of unemployment that I have ever contracted. At the height of the worst recession in generations, I reached the fuck it point. It became crystal clear that my career was over.

I had a pile of those, "thank you for applying, but we are not hiring you" form letters. Inspired, I wrote my own form letter in response to their form letter.

Curiously, nobody has responded.....

Dirty Ert
4445 Beaver Ridge Road
Kingsport, TN 37660
February 23, 2009

Director of Human Resources
Sperry Univac
100 Sperry Drive
Bristol, VA 24201

Madame Director,

I am writing you to follow up on my submission of employment credentials.

Your form letter of February 15th was enlightening, if not terribly disappointing. It is my apologies that my qualifications do not currently meet your employment needs. It is a relief to know that my application will be "kept on file for further consideration."

Allow me to strike at the heart of the matter. I am fucked. I lost my dream job. There are no employment needs that fit my qualifications. Yesterday a bill collector threatened to stab me in the balls. I am going bankrupt and I think my wife is leaving me for a 20 year old college swimmer from Puerto Rico. Drastic times call for drastic measures. So here goes.

I know what "kept on file for further consideration" means. My résumé is currently in a landfill covered with coffee grinds; sandwiched between a soiled condom and knot of used paper towels.

But you need me, yes you do. I have qualifications that perfectly match an employment need you don't even know that you have.

You need to hire me as Auggie Boo-Boo Wormbelly, the Towmotor Driving Toad Boy.

First, I'll explain the name. Auggie was the name of a baby calf I raised on the family farm. I cared and loved him every day; right up until I sent him off to slaughter. It was an awful thing to do on my part. This is probably the reason why I am fucked now, Karma is a bitch. Boo-Boo is the name of another baby calf who suffered the same fate as Auggie. Wormbelly was also a cow I had as a teenager. One day, Wormbelly kicked my old man, right-square in the nuts. It was one of the funniest fucking things I have ever seen. THEN we sent Wormbelly to the slaughter. I guess you could say the ole girl had it a comin'.

Toad Boy, shit that just sounds funny. But, Ah! Towmotor (forklift) driving, this is your benefit.

Let me tell you about my forklift driving. I suck at it, bad. I drive a forklift like a 95 year old Jamaican man; slow and oblivious. As I drive, you will also wonder; is he stoned? But life is funny; I used to be a forklift operator safety training instructor. I have probably spent about 20 hours of my life driving a forklift. But I taught people who had driving a forklift 40 hours a week for 15 years; how to safely drive the thing.

At this point, you are probably asking yourself these questions. Why should I hire someone who sucks at driving a forklift, to drive a forklift? Why should I refer to him as Auggie Boo-Boo Wormbelly, the Towmotor Driving Toad Boy?

Every day I will show up to work in a costume.

I already have my first day's get-up picked out. Now keep in mind how I do my first day on the job. I work off Karma (even if it is a nasty bitch.) There is no need for me to start out in human resources. Quite frankly, it is bullshit and not where the action is. Tax forms and safety videos be damned. I can do those at home while I lounge in my dog hair bath robe.

On my first day, I am going to wear a three colored clown wig. For shoes, I have a lovely pair of snake skin hip boots. I also have a kilt; made from an old shower curtain (it still has the hanging hooks.) My shirt will be lime green and in bold letters say "Evan Williams for President." In case you did not know, Evan Williams is a brand of cheap Kentucky Bourbon (and it is bullshit.) Now for the outfit's piece de resistance, a polystyrene pig's nose. I particularly like this one because I occasionally breathe out of my nose. This pig's nose fits nicely over my nose and it has two holes that line up nicely with my own nostrils.

As I mentioned before, I am bypassing human resources. At 7:00 AM when first shift begins, I am going to walk straight in the employee entrance, like I have worked there for 10 years. I will mount the first forklift I see and immediately begin moving shit around. I am a quick learner and anticipate that I'll get the hang of things in my third or maybe fourth week on the job.

You should also know that I do not interact with coworkers, bosses, vendors, customers or visitors. People can certainly talk to me. But that is of limited use. I am probably thinking about intercourse or food or both, and not really listening. Best results are achieved if you leave me a message on an Etch-A-Sketch.

I can make an important and deep commitment to you. Should there be visitors in the plant during my shift; I will be a rock. I'll drive my Towmotor with my eyes locked forward. My face will be stoic. Your visitors will see the calm intensity behind that pig's nose.

As for the kind of forklift you will need to provide me. I prefer to operate a Lewis Shepard brand. I am aware that Lewis Shepard was bought out in 1972 and their products ceased to be that fall. But, you are a champ and I know there will be a shiny "new" Lewis Shepard waiting for me on my first day (which is next Wednesday.)

For future reference I have several T-Shirts picked out for work. Here is what is written on some of them:

Weed, The Other Green Vegetable
Middle Eastern Chicks, The Other White Meat
Bend Over, I'm Driving
Forklift Drivers Do It In The Racks
Hey Everybody, Lets Fart!
Two Nuns And A Duck
Tequila Makes My Asshole Hurt (Based on my 1994 trip to Mexico)
Rhinestone Hog Boy (I made this one right after I bought a Bedazzler.)

Now, it is time for the salary negations. I do not need money. I need chainsaws. We are talking barter here. Each Friday morning you are to leave a DIFFERENT chainsaw on my Lewis Shepard. I am on a quest, to start the world's only chainsaw museum on an Interstate 81 exit.

Each "payday" I will examine the "offering" of a chainsaw you leave for me. If the saw is acceptable, I will give a subtle acknowledgement. I will stand on one leg, raise my arms over my head and let loose my best hyena impression. If the chainsaw fails to make the grade; I will ram my forklift into the Coke machine. Then I will go home. When I come back on Monday, there had better be an acceptable saw on my Lewis Shepard, along with an apology on the Etch-A-Sketch. If not, I will muster a mighty turd, and leave it on the plant manager's car windshield.

I believe that you will find this both a fair and equitable deal.

Looking forward to my new career

Best wishes,

Auggie Boo-Boo Wormbelly, the Towmotor Driving Toad Boy

The Price of Financial Freedom: $19

2009-04-06T20:51:00.011-04:00

I was sicker than a nudist camp for the obese. The mix of medicines was awesome. It felt a little like being stoned, only add really-angry. I was confused, paranoid and angry at everything. That must be what it is like to mix steroids and weed.

Then there was the bevy of physical injuries. There had been no feeling in my left foot for three weeks; due to a mishap during dog exercising (don't ask.) Then I hit my right shin so hard, my lower leg turned blue, or mayhaps that color was indigo? I fell and fucked up my right elbow and pinched a nerve in my neck. I burned my right hand so badly I threw up. Topping it all off; I'd been unemployed for three months.

I felt incredibly bad, just fucking awful. That is when it hit me. The cure: liquor, it was lots of brown liquor. I figured it couldn't possibly feel worse if I drank until taking a knee and hurling vomit like a fire hose.

Therefore, I commenced to crack into "Daddy's Stash" of Evan Williams. . Evan Williams is bullshit. No offense to the fine folks at Evan Williams, but damn! I had to switch from Jack Daniels to Evan Williams due to a severe case of unemployment. A sad fucking state of affairs; no job and taking a liquor downgrade.

After polishing off my "select reserve" I headed upstairs to the "public offering." Low and damn behold, my wife had finished my bourbon. I was madder than hell. So I called her at work, demanded that she not appear in the house until she replenished my liquor. She agreed and that was that. However, I had a better buzz than I realized.

The phone rang. I fucked up, I answered it. That was when I realized how trashed I was.

"Hi, Mr. Ert, this is Tina and I received your resume."

In my head I thought "Damn, this chick sounds hotter than a firecracker. I mean - really good. I bet she is a tall blonde, with C, no wait, D breasts and long legged. Hell, I bet she is wearing a pant suit with a pair of three inch 'bet you want to tap my ass' heels." While I was thinking this, she did not stop talking. Pity that women do not give you a moment to imagine your cock in their mouth, c'est la vie in the politically correct "information age."

"So Mr. Ert, would you come in tomorrow and interview with us?"

She trapped me, time to make a snap decision. She had rambled off information, of which I paid little attention. I don't think she said exactly what it was the position was for, or what the company did, or even the company name. I smelled a rat. It was probably life insurance sales.

"Sure, Tina, what time would be good for you?" I countenanced further business intercourse for three reasons.

One - I knew damn well, I did not have anything else to do.
Two - I was a fucked up as a football bat stuck in a soccer puck. Trashed I tell you. The flu had cooked my brain. The syrups, pills and effervescing shit made me batty. And then, there was the cheap ass bourbon.
Three - Ole girl sounded hot on the telephone.

The wife comes home an hour later. She finds me passed out on laundry. My better half kicked me on the painful right shin. "Wake up and drink this stupid bourbon you made me bring home." At this point, it was difficult to explain to my spouse that I had a job interview the next day. But I had no clue of the name of the company or pay or benefits or what the job was. Just that, the lady "sounded very pleasant on the telephone."

The next morning, I woke up at and ran a diagnostic on myself. My head hurt like a flaming mother fucker. The hang over head ache was resplendent. My mouth tasted like hot tire and my throat felt as if I had swallowed sand paper. My left foot was a faint echo on my leg. My right shin had a thumping, pinging, burning sensation. Mr. Spock was putting a constant "Vulcan Nerve Pinch" on the right side of my neck. My right hand squalled with burning pain. Then I realized, time to get moving, I was throwing up.

After a refreshing vomit, it became evident that I gained twenty pounds since I last put on my suit. You just can't get a fat ass in little pants.

An emergency trip was required to Men's Discount Outlet, home of the cheap shit. Had all I needed as I passed the tie display. "Hey that tie up front is perfect and only $8! No! Dirty Ert, you idiot, you got all kinds of ties at the house. Do not buy a tie." That was a decision I would regret.

At home, I spent an hour attempting to find my tie collection. I had some nice ties, the $50 a pop kind. It is not clear why I looked for them in the back of my unfinished second bathroom. There they were. And damn did they smell. Last year's minor "water containment failure" resulted in fungal colonies breeding on all my ties.

On the way to the interview, another fucking trip to the mall. The tie set me back $25. Son of a bitch!

At last I found myself at the "interview." Please keep in mind, at that moment I was still out of my head with fever, flu, hangover and cough syrup. I was in the waiting area with a guy in a Metallica T-shirt and cut off shorts. A massive lesbian in a bright orange dress suddenly appears. She kindly asked "Can I get you anything? We have coffee or popcorn."

I could handle the huge orange lesbian, but the combination of coffee and popcorn fucked my world up. My head was swimming, but I had to wrap my mind around it. Coffee and popcorn? How do these two things go together? Later on will they have Manhattan's and pancakes? I was discombobulated and breaking into a sweat.

A man walked up and introduced himself as Billy. I was still sketchy about the details of my interview, but figured maybe he was going to interview me and answer my questions; including the coffee and popcorn thing. Then Billy turned and introduced himself to Metallica T-shirt boy. "So if you two gentlemen will just follow me."

I just knew this was going to suck. A group interview with me and a dude in a Metallica T-shirt, may Evan Williams be damned!

We followed Billy into a conference room. I saw it: Power Point. My heart sank deep into my knees. No good has ever come from anything in Power Point form. There was a projector too. To my horror, the Power Point would take up a whole fucking wall.

As the "presentation" launched, I made a quick assessment of my situation. I felt roughly the same as when I woke up, minus the call to vomit. I had gotten passed the coffee and popcorn, only to find my situation had taken a horrible turn for the worst. I wished that I could go back to the lobby and gnaw on the coffee and popcorn some more. As the first slide completely filled to wall in front of me, I realized. Billy had not asked for my resume.

It was like watching a train wreck unfold in slow motion. The first ten slides talked about how stable and wonderful the company was, without saying the company's name or products. Worse yet, Billy read the slides out loud. You got to love it when someone reads a Power Point to you. I cringed for that final moment; when the lead locomotive slams into a tractor trailer full of propane.

Then it hit.

"You can achieve financial independence and help save the environment for only a $19 investment. And it all starts today when you enroll in Amway."

The vomit feeling jumped back into my throat.

This was no job interview. I had been high-jacked into a pitch for a pyramid marketing scheme. You could almost hear my career run screaming out of the building.

"Billy," I broke into his presentation. "Do you think I could get some of that coffee and popcorn?"

Dirty Ert