So You Thought The Flippin' Pube Palace Was Bad...

We went to Chocolate World on the 3rd. Totally rocked, but how could it not--it is a world of chocolate, right?

We had a great dinner at a locally-owned restaurant (hate chain restaurant eating on road trips...I wanna see what the locals eat). It was beyond yummeh.

We stopped by an outlet mall and picked up some great 70% off outlets store liquidation sale stuff. Who couldn't like that? Nothing like a $150 bag reduced to $20, right?

We get to the super seekrit haunted B&B. We were having a great time hanging out, joking around, what's not to like.

I went across the hall to get ice and for just a moment I thought perhaps ZZ Top was staying in this quaint little place and they'd brought the live bull they used to bring on stage in with them because that's what it sounded like was charging down the stairs toward our room. I peek out of the ice room, and there is no bull. Instead it's one really angry chick stomping toward her room in a outfit I believe she stole from Stevie Nicks from the photo shoot for the "Rumours" album cover. Following close behind Stevie was a dude decked in wedding groomsman/usher finery who appeared to be sane and sober from what I could tell.

He followed Stevie-dress-alike into the room next door to ours, and the screaming began.

From what we could hear, he wanted to drink beer and do wedding party duties at the reception, and she wanted him to drop everything and dance with her. She felt he was a bastard, an asshole, a selfish drunk (who honestly appeared sober), and a motherfucker who ruined everything for her. Fuck Bridezilla. She was Wedding Guestzilla. You know, that special brand of crazy chick who ruins any wedding her boyfriend is in but she is not.

Oh, dear God, the screaming and the crying and the wailing went on and on. There could've been ten ghosts in our room and we'd never catch a single EVP for Guestzilla making sure that her man didn't enjoy a second of anything that didn't involve kissing her ass.

Of course, all five of us are lined up along our wall with glasses to our ears like Granny Clampett or summin because we couldn't quite make out every word and this shit was better than TruTV or VH-1 reality put together.

Then we heard a crowd of laughing partying dudes (and one chick inexplicably wearing nothing but a while towel) start banging on Guestzilla's door while yelling, "Bobby, Lisa, are you in there?" It was the only moment of silence from Guestzilla's room.

Then, I went for a soda as the guys and the towel girl were loading up a humongo cooler (like if you could only have one cooler for the entire crowd at Woodstock, this would be the one to have full of cheap-assed beer with house. Towel Girl is yelling (for no reason at all...perhaps she teaches in a school for the hard of hearing) that she doesn't care what time the pool closed because it's time to take the cooler and the boys for a drunken swim.

As soon as they left for the drunken swim, I called the front desk and ratted them out like the angry bitch I am: "Just thought you'd like to know you have a group of drunks heading for the pool with a cooler loaded with beer."

The person in reception (flipper-free, I might add) thanked me and said, "I'm heading out there to bust them right now," like she's on Law & Order or something. So, the party moves back inside. They were right above Sis and Lil' Safire's room partying all night long...or training elephants to dance using some type of slur commands. We know no which for sure, but I'm going to bet it was the first one. Every now and again, some of them would run down the stairs to our floor, open the door to the floor, and just scream down the hall, "Bobby! C'mom, Bobby! Bobby, Bobby, Bobby!" Then they'd run back upstairs and a whole new screamfest with an extra large dollop of pity party on the side would erupt from Lisa, the Guestzilla.

Then, things quietened down and we got some sleep. Sis and Lil' Safire were not so lucky because there was a party going on above their heads. At least they stopped yelling for Bobby to join them after a while.

In the morning, Bobby was wandering the halls bleary-eyed and confused asking everyone if they had any idea what happened to Lisa. As we check out of that room to stay in another room in the same place for tonight, I recounted the tale of Bobby and Lisa and the wedding party that included a girl wearing nothing but a towel. The receptionist said they'd had to run Towel Girl and her gaggle of guys away from the pool four or five times at all hours of the night.

So, I warned them that Lisa the Guestzilla had apparently gone missing during the night, so if they had a body turn up in the cornfields around here to please bear Bobby and Lisa in mind because she either left him during the night or he was creating his cover story in the morning.

Then off we went to the Land of the Little Horses. That was great as always (in the most wonderfully tacky way...love love love that place), but the camel is now gone. When I asked where the camel was, they said they "traded him to a zoo for some cows"! Jesus, what a pathetic excuse for camel-trading, huh? Guess he undid one bra too many. Damn that. Tomorrow, more on that and the joys of Amish Country and the commodification of Christ. Ferreal. If you want to buy some Christ-y products, this is your dream destination!

Seriously. There's a place called Dancing Waters. I was all excited thinking we'd found the Bellagio Fountains of the Amish World. Nope. It's a church that I guess has some kind of assembly line carwash way of baptizing by the score.

Really, you haven't lived until you've seen the Amish pulling their horsedrawn carriage up to the cash machine at the bank. WTF? Oh, and the B&B turns out to be more like a Bed and your choice of toast or a cold mass-produced danish. Wheee. I'm living large. With entertainment like this, who needs a fucking ghost?

I Am In Hershey for a CANCELED Concert

Yeh. I'm one fucking happy hillbilly. Really, this is almost as good as finding a jug of real homemade primo moonshine with the world's largest bud o' green wrapped in a winning Powerball ticket on top.

As I write, I'm in a well-named, well-known hotel. Apparently, the staff isn't aware of this good reputation because someone else's pubes are in the bathroom, two spots of mold/mildew are growing in the toilet, and when we took the uncleaned ice bucket down to the desk to get a clean one and a bag for ice (usually they come with a bag, ya know), the one-and-a-half armed vet working the night desk (because we didn't get here until 1 a.m. since Mom got moved to facility this afternoon, so we couldn't leave WV until after 5 p.m.) said he couldn't get us a clean bucket, but he could get us a plastic bag to keep our ice clean. He went into another room and came back out was whirling his nub arm in the plastic bag to open it for us. Gee, that was thoughtful because nothing goes with ice like working germs whether they come from a unwashed nub, stub, hand, or dirty glove.

By that point, Grasshopper was so happy with the trip she said she had to bite her tongue to keep from saying, "Thanks for germing up the bag there, Flipper." Yeh. We're not happy, and that makes us meaner than normal. Okay. We're normally mean. Now we are insufferable.

So, at least they are going to let us out of the $200 it would cost us to stay in the Pube Palace with nubbed-up ice bags and all the mildew you could care to piss on for tomorrow night, and we'll likely move on for a two-night stay at the super seekrit haunted B&B and take in the joys of Amish Country, the Fireworks Museum, Chocolate World, and a return to one of my favorite places in PA: The Land of Little Horses, where we hope Shadrack the bra unsnapping camel still lives and unsnaps the bras of the unwarned, for Sis and Lil' Safire are with us and they are unwarned. Besides, they have fancy chickens there too, and we all know I love some fancy chickens. Oh, yes, I do. Maybe I can even score a fancy chicken tee!

So instead of seeing the incredibly aging and now apparently injured (according to the scuttlebutt on the fan forum AeroForceOne, their official site) Steven Tyler and getting to drool over Joe Perry after having rocked my ass off to Billy Gibbons, I'm hoping to see a fancy chicken, a bra unsnapping camel, tiny horses, the Amish, some chocolate, perhaps something spooky, and perhaps a whole passel of Civil War reenactors, as tomorrow coincides with the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Somehow, I don't feel like I lead a charmed life at all. And, I wanna punch Steven Tyler in his hurt leg (other sites say pneumonia or Joe Perry's leg or something else, but someone needs to be punched) and whomever sold the tix for Hersheypark because some warning that the mega-buck 14th row seats weren't going to be available for rocking would have been most appreciated.

With any luck, fate will bestow a treasure of the ridiculously tacky on us instead. I hope fate leaves other people's pubes and mildew toilets behind us after tonight.

To make things worse, the show isn't really canceled. It's postponed. It may be canceled at some point in the future. If that happens, I can get our money back on the show tix. Till then, we're just stuck with having eaten $599 total worth of tickets. I swear, I want to pee on every one of their CDs right now. If they were here, I would pee on them.

Fuckers. Stole my weekend. I guess I should be wishing that they all get well soon, but right now lack of communication on the part of the people involved with this show leave me too pissed about how much money we've spent for nada. At least we weren't daft (or rich) enough to go for the $1,200 per person meet-n-greet package.

Gone, Daddy, Gone

Off we go. Don't think I'm taking the craptop with me, so I'll be back Sunday night, unless I get back on Monday afternoon.

Mama is being trasferred to a rehab facility she's been in before today, so we don't feel nearly the pressure that we did...you know: should we go; should we just eat that $500+ in tickets?

I'm so glad she's better enough to move to a rehab facility and start taking PT. The one she's going to specializes in post-cardiac problems and rehab, so she'll be in fine hands.

Now, for Chocolate, Aerosmith, ZZ Top, fireworks, ghosts, and with a smidge of luck we may make it to the Land of Tiny Horses. Oh, yes. It rocks.

As does this which has nothing to do with title (for those of you who were expecting some Violent Femmes' "Gone, Daddy, Gone"). Nope. Here's Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard (the drummer without a beard) still rocking it as well as they ever did before...just no live bulls on stage anymore. Darn that.



Rumour spreadin' a-'round in that Texas town
'bout that shack outside La Grange
and you know what I'm talkin' about.
Just let me know if you wanna go
to that home out on the range.
They gotta lotta nice girls ah.

Have mercy.
A haw, haw, haw, haw, a haw.
A haw, haw, haw.

Well, I hear it's fine if you got the time
and the ten to get yourself in.
A hmm, hmm.
And I hear it's tight most ev'ry night,
but now I might be mistaken.
hmm, hmm, hmm.

Ah have mercy.

****

Hope your holiday booms, bangs, rocks, and maybe includes things that go bump in the night.

Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

For those of you who don't get the joke, let Wiki be your guide.

I remember the day Elvis died. I do not remember Elvis being everywhere until people started spotting him at Burger Kings and stuff. I do remember it got a lot of coverage, but nothing like this...it was not yet the multi-media information age. Well, Elvis's end stage weirdness only became public in dribs and drabs over the years, too. With the Michael Jackson coverage, the weird just keeps on coming, doesn't it?

To this day, news announcers still mention that "Elvis died on this date" whenever August 16th rolls around. My first wedding was on August 16th for that very reason: People would never be able to forget it was our anniversary because before the day was out they would hear that "Elvis died on this date." Worked, too. His family was all overseas. They would call all chipper to say "Happy Anniversary! They just mentioned on the news that Elvis died on this day."

I kinda hold a grudge against Old Cake Icing Ass for taking up my good unforgettable wedding date. S'alright. Curmy and I married on Sugar Bear's birthday. That's even better. We get two, two celebrations in one.

So, which are you: Sick of the madness or mesmerized by the weirdness as it unfolds?

I have to admit, the weirdness does have its draw. I mean, none of the kids are his? He never bothered to adopt them? Where the hell did the one he called "Blanket" come from?

Really, I thought being named after my sister's baby doll was bad (they threw the doll away when I came home and made me the doll's replacement, such was the worry of the parents who only intended to have one child that their only-child-raised first child would accept the oopsie baby). Then, I thought being called "Poody" was bad because other people wouldn't know it came from my sister patting my baby head saying, "She poody," for "She's pretty." No, it is a name that reeks of farts if ever a name could.

Then I heard about Blanket. People should have to take roll in college classes for a while. The first day you get a list of your students' legal names. You'd be surprised how many Starshines and the like would rather be called "Ellen" or something that's a plain old normal name. You also get the rare kid who had a cool name but would rather be called Starshine. You learn quickly that the world is a difficult place for people named Starshine to navigate. Sometimes, normal is best.

And, with that, I'll let Mojo Nixon do the talking because Mama Buzzardbilly is doing much better and may get moved to another facility before we leave and "Elvis is Everywhere"

I said train, met a dame...

...she was handsome, we kinda looked the same...

I cannot wait until the Aerosmith/ZZ Top show on Friday! Lookout Chocolate World, here comes Buzzardbilly and clan!

Mama is coming along very well. Yesterday she was markedly better than the day before. We hope she gets moved to a skilled facility for rehab and physical therapy before we leave on Thursday afternoon. If not, we'll have things set up so that it's not so difficult on my dear Curmy who has graciously accepted the responsibility if it comes before we get back on Sunday. God, am I ever lucky in the husband department! I do love that man so.

The reason we won't be back until Sunday is: We're going ghosting in the heart of Amish country on Saturday!! Yay! The girls and I haven't been on a ghost-hunting visit since New Orleans last year. For girls who used to go at least three or four times a year, that's a long time without ghosts (except for whatever's in this house...totally not creepy, but I'm not hunting where I live either because that could make "not creepy" be "creepy" in a really fast way). I can't name the place we're staying because it's one of the ones that doesn't advertise the hauntings. Sometimes, those are the very best ones. Either way, Amish country will be great because we all love Amish stuff: the food, the countryside, the people, and the furniture. We draw the line at those outfits, though. I just can't see the Amish look being for me.

Finally Grasshopper will get to try out the K2 meter I got her for her birthday in April! The K2 meter is the little light up gizmo that the Ghost Hunters on SciFi use because Chris Fleming (formerly of the Biography Channel's "Dead Famous" ghost-hunting show and all-around nice down-to-earth guy we got to talk to quite a bit when Curmy and I did The Stanley Hotel trip with the Ghost Hunters from SciFi and Chris Fleming and all the other folks who booked that huge hotel solid for that weekend) brought his along when he guested on their infamous Sharon Tate episode (that EVP from that episode is beyond creepy). Chris Fleming sells the K2 meters on his Unknown Magazine website for the ghost-curious amonst you.

Oh, how I hope this turns out to be the welcome break we've all needed. Here's to hoping Steven Tyler is looking better than TMZ showed him last month (warning: if you fear the angry pull of gravity over time, you may not wanna see it)! Now, I ask you: How could a person go to whatever trouble he had to go to in order to get the infamous sunken-from-overuse nostril fixed and leave the rest of it like that?


Obviously, health problems and that (what was it second, third, or fourth?) recent divorce have taken their toll. Doesn't matter either way because I know ZZ Top will put on a show worth the trip alone, and nothing can detract from my love of Joe Perry...not even aging (though I think he's aged the better of the two...or embraced the botox or summin...when compared to Tyler). Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top, on the other hand, somehow looks younger than he used to, but I think that's mainly due to weight loss and good eating because his face has aged in the way a wayward Texas gun- and guitar-slinger would proudly display. It's a face that shows it has lived happy and laughed often, and who doesn't love that?