In just a few moments, I’ll take my seat for the two hour bus ride into the deep recesses of Minnesota’s frigid wilderness, accompanied only by dozens of giggling pre-teens playfully stealing each other’s hats and babbling about Justin Bieber’s exquisite mouth. Sometime during the trip, I will demand silence from the students and deliver a 40 minute harangue about what it was like when I was a teenager: when Huey Lewis’s “Power of Love” blasted from every boom box and old Doc Brown was nothing more than a disgraced kook making side deals with Libyans. The students will likely stare back at me blankly, only escalating my agitation and forcing me to loudly, hurriedly tell them about all of my adventures through the circuits of time.

Once we arrive at the rustic retreat center, the students will get to spend the next 24 hours binging on nature. We will learn about owls and recycling and which girls have a crush on which boys. We will trudge through the woods in the bitter cold listening to some college student talk about wolves and wishing we could just go home where it’s warm and there aren’t as many wolves. Then, upon eating a breakfast of steamed eggs and gray, rubbery meat, the learning objectives of the retreat will have been accomplished. Probably the only thing worse than going on a middle school retreat would be the Bataan Death March, in which some 10,000 American and Filipino POWs died a cruel death. Aside from that though, this is the worst.

Fortunately for the students though, they don’t know that yet. Right now, they’re excited. I suppose I’m a little excited too, but mostly for the steamed eggs.

This is why I got my Master’s Degree.

In celebration of life’s bountiful blessings, I will feast unnaturally upon turkey flesh and bun meat for hours on end. Potatoes, both mashed and scalloped, will be force-fed into my quivering potato-hole at a disturbing rate. Against the tearful warnings of my loved ones, I will proceed recklessly, like Sonic the Hedgehog on meth.

This year, my Thanksgiving will be celebrated in Minnesota’s Iron Range, where the skies are gray, the mines are depleted and and the men are mustachioed and virile. This salt of the earth setting will season my banquet with a rusty zest that pleases the tongue and depresses the economy. Smiles will be minimal and conversations will be perfunctory; the fleshy sounds of eating will be interrupted only by the occasional engorged groan.

I have already begun the process of preparing for tomorrow’s recklessness. Though a series of unpleasant stretches and unnatural devices, I have expanded my stomach volume and coarsened my vocal texture. This will allow me to safely consume an additional quart of sweet potatoes and will give my voice a rich, ragged resonance redolent of a Spanish conquistador in the throes of violent victory.

By this time tomorrow, I will be in sweet agony. My shirt will be soaked through with sweat, and my abdomen will be grotesquely distended. My lips will be raw and my my breathing irregular. My hands will be spackled with meat fragments and my thumbs will be dislocated for reasons not remembered. These are the terrible costs of Thanksgiving.

Here’s wishing all of you a similarly heedless holiday! And remember, wine makes the truth louder!

Yes, like my cats returning to lick each other’s anuses, I am once again blogging about the weather. How can I not? The first snow is always one of the most special times of the year, along with my wedding anniversary and each time I drop my wife’s phone in the toilet and don’t tell her about it.

There’s something about the first snowfall of the year that melts my heart and warms my glands. Standing at the window watching the snow come down with a half dozen Werther’s Originals in my mouth, I feel childlike and renewed. I am transported to another time and place, where yuletide carols are being amiably slurred by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.

Then, in my imagination, after Bing and Frank finish their song I am informed that I will be allowed to receive a hug one of the two men. However, the agonizing choice of which man to embrace reduces me to tears and Crosby refers to me as worthless trash. Magical memories.

The portly racists in the country rock band Alabama once sang of the beauty when “it’s snowing in the pines”, and (except for the racism) they were right. The soft white haze of the new snow against the trees lends a nostalgic glow to the proceedings that would make Thomas Kinkade blast his crap. It’s enough to send tears streaming down my cheeks and blood streaming out my mouth.

Savor it, my friends. The first snowfall can’t last forever. The best, most beautiful things are always so fleeting…

Enjoy the increased road fatalities!

Last year, I was fortunate enough to visit Target Field on a beautiful Saturday in April. It was a rapturous afternoon, filled with ketchup-smothered wieners and firm, prolonged eye contact with strangers. Those fragrant memories have been renewed this spring as I listen on the radio to the Twins beginning their season, as always, by having apparently forgotten how to get an extra-base hit. Hearing the impatient murmuring of the crowd after yet another ground out, I am transported not only to the glory last year, but to the transcendent, collective past of our nation – when Babe Ruth slugged homers by day and prostitutes by night.

Being a man of modest means, I do not have cable, and so I can’t watch the games on TV. Radio announcer Dan Gladden’s plebian staccato soothes my financial worries, allowing me to lounge in my backyard, covered only by my silken bathrobe. It’s actually quite wonderful – I enjoy all the comforts of home, with all the shouted swear words of my neighborhood, while indulging in my imaginary friendship with Dan Gladden. In my mind, he and I play an emotional game of catch, like Kevin Costner and his father at the end of Field of Dreams. Then perhaps Dan Gladden would show me how to throw a curveball and kiss a woman.

It is a little known fact that in 1994, Dan Gladden played a season in Japan, and was despised for his hard-nosed style and golden mullet. His beautiful American antics provided the inspiration for the beloved hit film Mr. Baseball, starring Mustache.

In conclusion, baseball has, over the years, made me the strange and loathesome character that I have become. I hope to pass the gift of baseball on to my son, along with a love for throwing darts and getting into fights. In so doing, perhaps I will have raised up a Dan Gladden for the next generation. Only time will tell.

I think that Perkins is a great restaurant and I would love to go there with you. They have pancakes and paintings of sailboats! We should go Perkins together and eat some mozzarella sticks and I can tell you what it feels like when I dream about you.

Lots of old people eat by themselves at Perkins, but I don’t think that’s depressing. They’re probably just waiting for a friend, but they forgot their friend is already dead. They also prominently display their pies. They have many varieties, from apple pie to French silk pie to another kind of apple pie.

I’ve been thinking about you and Perkins a lot lately. It’s going to be so good to get away from the hectic pace of life and eat some Perkins food with you. I think I’ll wear my Vikings shirt and order chocolate milk.

You can go up my shirt, if you want.

Perkins is obviously way better than Denny’s. Denny’s doesn’t have free mints and one time I saw a man have a seizure there.

When should we go to Perkins? I’m going to get in the shower right now and get ready! I’ll use the special soap the doctor gave me!

See you at Perkins! But first, I’m going to kill my cats. I hate cats, and I wish my brother would stop giving them to me

Let’s sit in a booth!

The worst thing about such storms (besides the snarled traffic and wet pants and suicide) is the fact that they always end with me having to shovel out our driveway and sidewalks, like a low-blooded Slavic manservant. Injury is usually added to insult in the form of lower back pain, dislocated hips, and a sore throat from screaming swear words (I spell them out instead of saying them so it’s not immoral).

And so tonight, after I had gently laid my son to sleep and dutifully did the dishes for my wife, I fastened my greatcoat and padded my loins and prepared to shovel once again. A glance out the window, however, made my heart leap in my chest – our driveway and sidewalks had already been cleared!

I do not know who is responsible for such generosity, but I will say that their selflessness and benevolence makes Gandhi look like Charlie Sheen on spring break. Who knew such heroes still existed? When Hulk Hogan long ago made the shocking revelation that his Adonis figure and adrenalized rampages were the result of steroid use and not just proper vitamin intake, the scales fell from my eyes forever. I couldn’t bring myself to believe in anyone anymore. I once even went so far as to spit in the face of the police officer who changed my flat tire.

As Han Solo was encased in carbonite and sold to Jabba the Hutt, so I have been encased in a chilly cynism and sold to Somali pirates and forced to wear a metal bikini. Yet the brazen goodness of tonight’s act may once again allow me to believe in the better angels of our nature. Maybe this mystery snowblower was a modern day John Brown – wild-eyed and righteous, calling us out of our amoral doldrums by clearing our sidewalks and killing Virginians.

You aren’t mouldering in the grave any longer, John Brown! You’re in north Minneapolis now, which is marginally better! Glory, hallelujah! I believe again!

At this point, I have a love-hate relationship with my readers. On my off days, I grumpily toss off a rehashed passive-aggressive post in hopes of quieting down their incessesant whining, treating them as common housecats. On happier occasions, however, they reward my diligent efforts with careful readings and cracking retorts.

Despite the JLP’s depressing, inexorable decline in vitality, certain readers have proven their worth through their sheer obsequiousness. Their servile attentiveness to even my laziest posts manages to bring a fleeting smile to my lips before my sorrows return. I am like bloated Elvis, sloppily churning my way through some overproduced wreck of a song, and they slap me on the back and tell me I’ve still got it. Of course, I know deep down that the magic is gone, but these sycophantic hangers-on help make the countdown to death a bit more bearable.

Whereas Elvis’ Memphis Mafia fetched him pills in exchange for leftover women, my readers fawn over this blog’s lukewarm swill and fight proxy battles in the flamewars with animal rights folks that occasionally flare up deep in the JLP archives. This relationship is pathetic, of course, but it’s easy, and I (like late-period Elvis) no longer have the energy to alter course. Together, we will float aimlessly into oblivion.

And after this blog is dead, my readers will inevitably write tell-all books to cash in and make a living by signing autographs at JLP conventions.

And yes, the hellish, dystopian future we are headed to will feature JLP conventions. They will take place in Best Western conference rooms, and will culminate in my posts being read aloud by John Goodman. It will be awful.

Mine’s the owl!

Owls are amazing! They have really sharp talons and incredibly good eyes. Even in dim lighting, they can spot a mouse hiding in a field from a half-mile away! They use their powerful wings to speed down like a laser and swoop up the mouse, and get to know it. Then, once they’re friends with the mouse, they eat it!

Another favorite animal of mine is the bee. Like owls, bees are a kind of bird, but they are smaller and don’t have beaks. Bees having stinging power! My research has shown that if you spray a garden hose at a hive of bees, they will swarm you and you will get 17 bites on your neck and face.

I have written several ornithology journals in hopes that they would be willing to publish my findings, but thus far have been rebuffed. Hopefully the box of dead bees I sent out this morning will be more to their liking.

There are many other kinds of animals that I also love, including monkeys and baby owls. One of my favorite things about animals is that they are just like you and me, mostly. The only difference I can think of is that animals never let their toddlers get stuck in a well, like humans often do.

Well, that’s it for now! I’d better get back home, or my dad will smother an owl. Remember to keep on learning about animals – that way, you’ll never have nightmares!

Also, most owls are named Jeff.

Let’s start off with some clapping. Let the beat pulse through your body and seep out your anus. If clapping isn’t your style, then just sway softly from side to side until you feel like a Sufi swaddled in silk.

Join hands with me now, as “Summer Nights” from the hit musical Grease begins to play! We will stand together in sultry stillness and let our friendship shiver through us like electricity. Allow me to slide my hands inside your winter coat to find the warm belly skin beneath. In this eternal moment, our touch is infinite.

As I glance around, it looks like the turnout for this particular dance is a bit sparse. Let’s not let this discourage us, however. We can yet conquer our loneliness by gyrating our groins toward one another in unison. As that ill-groomed obese man glowers on from the dim margins and licks the mustard-spittle from his lips, let us commingle by the unnatural ambiance of a strobe light!

In spite of the empty dance floor, this evening has been a triumph for you and I. Together we thrust, throb, and throttle to the blow dried beat of the Bee Gees. In so doing, I finally express my long-repressed desire: to take you to a Ruby Tuesday’s and see what happens.

This is what dances are for – fostering heightened emotional states, and sheer, animalistic carnality. This is why we come to this junior high mixer week after week – in hopes that the fates will align for just such a night. Like two sea lions dry-humping in quicksand, our union is fleeting, unnatural, and curiously loud.

At long last, after so many years, I am no longer afraid.

This post is dedicated to Mother Theresa of Calcutta.

According to this week’s People magazine, Reese Witherspoon has gotten a second chance at love!

We all know how Reese has been down on her luck lately, what with her 2007 divorce and string of box office failures. But now she’s back! Finally, another man has taken a romantic interest in poor, forgotten Reese. What’s better, his teeth are just as white as hers!

I’m glad People magazine is on top of stories like this. I don’t like to hear about people dying in house fires or things that happen in other countries. I mostly like to read about people wearing $1,100 shoes and getting married in Paris. Also, I can’t get enough Maybelline advertisements. That’s why I love People!

I hope next week’s issue has a feature about Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak with lots of pictures of him and his wife Suzanne at their summer cottage! Maybe she’ll share her recipe for buffalo wings!

Sometimes People includes stories about people who aren’t celebrities. I mostly just skip those and look for interviews with Ricky Martin. Did you know that he is relevant and admirable?

I hope that People magazine never shows a severely mentally retarded person on its cover. That would be so awful to see. Why not somebody from Glee instead? Maybe that ethnic-looking girl? She seems wholesome.

Thanks for giving my life meaning, People magazine!

I can really feel that extra zest on my tongue. It’s like a priest is kissing me!

Cinnamon gum is definitely my favorite, because it’s spicy and dark red, like Satan’s Tingle Wand. I have also noticed that cinnamon gum is the opposite of mint gum, which I hate. Mint gum gives me nosebleeds.

Some people say that the opposite of cinnamon gum would be cinnamon hard candy, and maybe they’re right, but I don’t want to get bogged down in cinnamon semantics. Being the man of action that I am, I’d much rather be blowing some cinnamon gum bubbles and blowing feral cats away with a shotgun than debating the innate nature of gum with a bunch of pencil-necked, cinnamon-hating dweebs. I don’t ask for permission to chew cinnamon gum – I just pop a half-dozen of these little red sons of bitches in my mouth and let the beaurocrats upstairs sort it out later. I’m Sylvester Stallone to their Dennis Kucinich.

So that’s my take on cinnamon gum, in case you were wondering. Given the fact that this blog has featured no fewer than four previous entries on the topic of gum, it seems doubtful that any of you actually were. Sure, all these posts are basically the same, but what of it? Let’s be honest, the people reading this are either a particularly bored acquaintance of mine or another animal rights activist trolling for someone to scold. Either way, you probably checked out two paragraphs ago.

Cheers!

Following last weekend’s blizzard, the Dome’s teflon roof was breeched and collapsed in a manner ominously similar to the Vikings season itself. It was as if the spirits of Spergon Wynn and Robert Smith’s nagging injuries conspired to add further misery to a terrible season by ripping a hole in the roof and reducing Brett Favre to a depressed, purple-handed mumbler.

Watching the video of the collapse, it’s crazy to watch the snow spill all over the field like Old Man Winter trying to overcompensate for the Super Bowl confetti that the Vikings have never seen. I swear that mixed in with the droning, creaking sounds of the collapse I can hear Denny Green’s cackle echoing in the distance, like a floating memory of 9-7 seasons with quick playoff exits past. I’m sure old Denny is off somewhere sipping a cocktail and smiling to himself about all this. (And maybe, in some sort of Wild Things-style twist ending, Brad Childress is in the shower with him.)

The Dome’s roof has always been something of an embarassment for we Minnesotans. With its rusty milk coloration and swastika center, it symbolized our cheapness and ability to overlook the manifest terribleness of things out of sheer politeness. It might have been cool in the 1960s, but in classic fashion, we built it in 1981, like some jackass going out in 2010 and buying a used copy of Throwing Copper by Live.

Back when I was a kid, however, the dome’s roof was awesome. It was bright white like a 9-acre marshmallow and shone down lovingly over the greatest moment of my childhood – when Jack Morris’s mustache vanquished the Atlanta Braves in the 1991 World Series.

Back then, the Dome throbbed with the noise of 60,000 guileless fans in jean shorts. These days, it’s filled with drunken, Randy Moss-obsessed rubes expecting the worst and accepting of the fact that they have to pee into a trough (again, politeness).

No big point here to finish with (I’m the Frank Rich of blogging). As surreal as it was to watch the Dome’s roof collapse due to snow (not an earthquake, but snow), and as much as I’d like to see a new Vikings stadium be built, I still kinda like the Metrodome. Like a plucky underdog, it’s worth rooting for. I guess you could say that the Dome is the Rudy of sports stadiums, except without the happy ending or Old Wise Black Guy to help out.

Fall is coming!

Autumn is a wonderful time of year when the leaves turn to gold, the air feels crisp, and the Minnesota Vikings underperform. As we zip up our jackets and rip up our draft cards, we sip from a warm mug of apple cider and are reminded of the world’s beauty. Ironically, when we watch leaves fall and wither, we are in a sense delighting in death, just as we do when we see a raccoon get annihilated by a Ford F-150. Some may call this macabre, but I call it gross and awesome.

The days grow shorter this time of year, which is admittedly difficult when I’m trudging off to work in the morning. Though I’m a fan of the brisk air and pumpkin musk, I don’t love the fact that starting in fall, it is still dark outside when I leave to go to work. Seriously, if I had wanted to be hard at work before dawn, I would have gone Amish years ago. (I would have been a hot-tempered Amish, though, like Harrison Ford in Witness.)

Despite the surly mornings, I love autumn. In this season I feel still and refreshed, like a morbidly obese man wedged into a warm bath. Sure, it could be said that as the fat man’s bath will soon grow cold and pestilent, this autumn will inevitably give way to another interminable, frigid winter punctuated by an unimpressive Super Bowl halftime show. Such cynicism is perhaps warranted. I, however, choose jump crotch deep into fall and let the consequences be damned. Forebearance, after all, is best left to astronauts and Amish actuaries.

In case you haven’t noticed, I love sanitizing my hands. It keeps me germ-free and it feels all cool and slippery! It’s like a sterilizing slip-n-slide!

Every 10 minutes or so, I blast a half-dozen quirts of clear liquid healthiness into my palm and then rub it all across my hands and face. The alcohol burning my eyes and nostrils makes me feel vivid, as if I were a dog falling from a great height.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling jocular, I like to sidle up to strangers and yell, “THINK FAST!” Then I pump some hand sanitizer at them and tell them my political views. It works pretty well.

In this day and age, you can’t afford to be too careful about germs. When you aren’t looking, germs might just unzip your pants and attack your groin with their radiation. I’m no scientist, but that sounds downright dangerous! I don’t trust some government-made shower to keep me clean. That’s why I opt instead to rub this here hand sanitizer across every sweaty nook of my body.

You ever tried drinking this stuff? It’s not as cool as you’d think it would be. I got a bad case of the pukes when I tried it. Still though, I’m not one to let defeat slow me down. I’ll probably drink it again sometime, but maybe I’ll try the generic stuff instead of Purell. Maybe I won’t burst as many blood vessels in my eyes then.

Well, looks like I’m out of hand sanitizer again. I’m gonna run over to that Holiday gas station to buy some more and maybe get a newspaper too. You ever squirted hand sanitizer on a newspaper? It totally ruins it. It’s pretty cool.

Is it the mini-pretzels topped with their savory secret seasoning? Is it the perfectly brined rye crisps that pop Etruscan flavors across your eager mouth? Is it the salty balm blasting out of the bag like a hot wallop the moment you rip it open that causes you to slam the gas pedal and embrace the consequences?

It is all this and more that makes Gardetto’s the finest road trip snack item since the Mongols munched dried, curdled mare’s milk on their way to slaughtering the children of Baghdad and enslaving their women.

Sometimes when I’m driving and eating Gardetto’s I just want to roll down the windows and hold aloft my Gardetto’s bag for the world to see. I would spit the half-chewed snack crisps out at passing cars, point at their drivers and scream “GARDETTOOOO’S!”

Then I would drive my Hyundai into a ditch and run off into the tall grasses to be alone with Gardetto’s.

People, I’m serious when I tell you that Gardetto’s are so good. After finishing a bag, I feel warm and accepted, like being in Atlantic City and getting a indistinct nod of affirmation from a woozy Alan Thicke holding a bottle of percocet.

Gardetto’s: violate your face!

I’ve eaten a lot of apples in my day – probably about 200 – but I don’t know if I’ve ever tasted one this crisp, tangy, and handsome. It’s a Honeycrisp, grown by the hot-blooded migrant laborers working the fertile fields of Chile. Chile, if you don’t know, is man’s country. For instance, if you pull out a container of yogurt for a snack in Chile, you’re liable to get your neck snapped by a cross-eyed pitfighter. If don’t go 110% every day in Chile, you might as well just mutilate your own genitals and cut your losses.

But back to my topic, this apple. I’m seriously loving this apple. Each bite is a flavor explosion all over my oily face. Other apples, if you haven’t noticed, are terrible. I don’t what type they are – Red Delicious, Granny Smith, or Satan’s Knuckle – my experiences with apples are usually dread-ridden, Kubrickian nightmares ending with cold sweats and me hugging the toilet.

Until this apple. This apple made me a believer in apples.

Now I understand why people love apples so much. They’re all crunchy and sweet and silent. They’re obviously so much better than pears. Apples make pears taste like gross apples. Each time I blast this apple into my mouth, I love it more. Then I chew it up a bunch and swallow it, just like I do for other foods, but it’s better with this apple because it is mighty and pure, like America.

Whenever I used to hear people mention apples, I would get so mad inside that blood vessels in my eyes would burst. Not anymore though. Now I only get mad at cops.

Thanks for being so awesome, apple. Hope you didn’t mind getting torn apart by my teeth until flecks of apple spittle cover my beard, because it happened. It is probably immoral what I just did to you. I’m like R. Kelly, but with apples.

Let’s see what we can find in the children’s section, shall we?

Uh…

Sure, Sosa and McGwire roided up and damaged the integrity of some of sport’s most hallowed numbers, but they did it with class. They showed our children the way with smiles on their faces and needle holes in their asses. As for Griffey, he showed our children the dignified way to go on the disabled list. Heroes all.

Hey kids, check out the fun in the new issue of Mesopotamia magazine! On page 14, you’ll find fun facts about the barbaric slaughter of the Phoenicians by the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III in 740 B.C.! Also, the back page features a Zoroastrianism-themed word find! Mesopotamia: catch the violent, hierarchical fever!

A side question: is this a monthly periodical? How long could it’s run possibly be?

It’s Harry Potter in Chinese! And look, it’s been retitled Harry Potter and the Glorious Proletarian Protectorship! The corrected plot involves Harry learning to use his “thought reform” wand to protect the people from insidious foreign influence! Let’s hope Harry can succeed with the help of Dumbledore’s surveillance cameras!

Libraries: catch the scarlet fever!

Now enjoy these photographs, kindly provided by my friend Mike, a local bald photographer.

We gathered together outside the ballpark at noontime for jovial back-slapping and jocular harassment of passersby. Smiles were abundant and gum was chewed with open-mouthed vigor.

The food offerings at Target Field were wonderful. Here, Adam blasted a fat hot dog into his face in an aggressive manner that will likely earn him a public chastisement once he is married. Enjoy the singleness while you can, Adam. Have another!

The stadium is absolutely beautiful. It’s hard to come up with a complaint (the only inconveniences were from idiots like us slowing up traffic by wandering around with cameras like tourists). My friend Brent commented that it felt like he was on vacation as soon as he stepped inside, and I’d say that pretty much sums it up.

Here’s a shot from my favorite moment of the afternoon. Down 10-5, the game was out of hand when Twins manager Ron Gardenhire came out of the dugout to argue that Michael Cuddyer should have been awarded a base for being hit by a pitch. There really wasn’t a point, but he was going at it and the crowd started cheering and chanting “GAR-DY! GAR-DY!” I screamed, “HE IS CRIMSON WITH RAGE!”

Fun, pointless times.

Finally, enjoy this video I put together that captures the vivid sights, friendly sounds, and remorseful emotions of Target Field. I apologize for the shaky camerawork, but I was working without a tripod and I had few sodapops in me and I was being chased.

I stayed up late last night to watch the doe-eyed Twins starter Scott Baker fumble his way through Opening Day like the Brad Radke of old. The experience was dull and overfamiliar, like a meal at Perkins, yet I loved it like I crave the Perkins Chicken Strip Melt. The game returns me to the rural innocence of my youth and the secret fondlings of my corpulent neighbor Jerry. In watching Delmon Young lope awkwardly around the bases after an improbable home run, I am returned to the sturdy mullet and dirty antics of Twins’ great Dan Gladden, who spiked second basemen by day and imbibed copiously by night.

This year, the Twins begin playing in their new ballpark Target Field. I’ll be attending a game there in a few weeks for my friend Adam’s bachelor party. From all accounts, it has spectacular sightlines, authentic ambiance, and generous urinals.

I fear that in the presence of this building, with the smell of freshly-cut grass in my nose, Joe Mauer’s name at my lips and Coors Light in my belly, I may not be able to control myself. It is entirely possible that I will find myself in the firm grip of the security staff, with grass in my mouth and Nicky Punto’s jockstrap in my grasp. Barking atonally and gyrating arhythmically, the crowd will fall in love with my endearing antics and cheer me on as their beloved simpleton. In recognition of their approval, I will jump-kick the head of security and rush unevenly to the infield before collapsing on the pitcher’s mound. It is my belief that Ron Gardenhire would then carry me back into the clubhouse where he would affectionately nurse me back to health. Then I would get Nick Punto to autograph that jockstrap for me.

Welcome back, baseball. I missed you more than you will ever know. You shall most assuredly see me again. Look for me on April 18th in Minneapolis, shortly after the 1:10pm first pitch.

A 72 ounce bag of chocolate chips.

The bag was a monstrosity – literally an affront to God himself – yet it was also more beautiful than a newborn child. Though inanimate, it nonetheless greeted me with an open expression, as if to say, “Come, friend, and ravish me.” Were the chocolate chips not reserved for Saturday’s breakfast, I would most certainly have torn open the bag and had my way with it. However, level-headed discretion is the name of my game, and so I just took a picture of it so I could blog about it later.

A lesser man might have opened the bag that night and snuck a few chips while everybody was asleep. However, an illicit chip-nibble by moonlight holds little appeal to me. If I can’t fully indulge my base cravings in a groaning chocolate orgy, then I want nothing at all.

So on Saturday morning, after sitting up all night staring at the enormous forbidden bag, I made chocolate chip pancakes. Everybody seemed to enjoy their breakfast, despite the fact that I was muttering petulant obscenities the entire time. All my chocolate chip fantasies had been snuffed out, like a wriggling rabbit held underwater for too long.

Alas, though the enormous bag of chocolate may not be mine, I will always carry the memories of it with me. I mean that literally – I have already printed out a wallet-sized photo of the bag so I can have it on me at all times. It will sit comfortably next to my treasured images of my son Oliver and debauched Russian mystic Rasputin.

Goodbye, 72 ounce bag of chocolate chips. I’ll likely never see the likes of you again. I hope you’re happier where you are now. If I call out to you during the dark times, please answer me. I have nothing else.

Can you feel it in the air? Can you smell it in the breeze? It’s the tart, tangy tingle of rhubarb whispering your name like a red-green lover with slow hands. It’s about time to put on our work gloves and fire up the rhubarb-thresher. I’m coming your way, rhubarb!

I cannot wait until that glorious moment when I can hold the sleek, succulent stalks of rhubarb in my hand and raise them aloft during an electrical storm like Gandalf and then make a pie with them like my mom. Rhubarb is the vegetable of legend!

Many years ago, when America was pure, I once had rhubarb bread. It was the finest, most patriotic thing I have ever tasted. It tasted so good, in fact, that I ate the whole loaf in one afternoon! Then I got the spiciest case of rhubarb squirts I’ve ever had. Rhubarb is full of tangy suprises!

Sorry if this is getting out of hand. Seems like I’ve got rhubarb on the mind. Last night I was up late drawing charcoal sketches of rhubarb and thinking about whether calling myself “The Rhubarb Retard” would be offensive or not. Rhubarb just has a way of getting under my skin and commanding me register the domain name “rhubarblust.com”, just in case I ever need it.

Also, I enjoy rhubarb bars.

Well, 250 words on rhubarb ought to do it. I’ll just leave it at that. Next time you hear from me, I’ll either be stuffed to the gills with rhubarb or sitting in county jail awaiting my court date. Either way, rhubarb is terrific!

Across the streets of St. Paul this morning, jubilant Twins fans are laying down palm leaves and shouting “Hosanna!”

Joe Mauer is our all-American hero who teaches children how to score a ball game and who transforms curious teens into adults with his gentle love. He our slim, monotone Babe Ruth, minus the slugging power and jazz-era depravity.

Some might balk at the hefty price tag, but those people don’t consider all the ancillary benefits that Joe Mauer brings with him. Joe Mauer sells t-shirts, umpires little league games, and can conduct a mass at St. Mary’s Basilica in a pinch. Don’t get pine tar on the eucharist, Joe Mauer!

I wish Joe Mauer would turn his level gaze to me and tell me that I am deeply loved. Until he does that, I will regularly consider suicide.

I have sent Twins GM Bill Smith a package containing the underwear I had on when I heard the news. I included a note congratulating him and asking him to pass the underwear along to Joe Mauer for his inspection and approval. I hope to hear from him or his lawyer soon.

Hooray for Joe Mauer! Now let’s hope that he can simultaneously serve as the Twins’ catcher and closer!

Turn off your space heaters, take off your shirts, and grab the garden hose! It’s time to suck on some spring break until we puke!

The next ten days will be the most sun-soaked, fun-filled, foul-mouthed days of our lives! We’re going to live like 13th century Mongol chieftans, except without all the rape! Spring break is on!

Every other week of the year we wake up early, meet our professional responsibilities, and refrain from microwaving cats. Spring break is different. This is the week where we indulge our sublimated impulses and scream obscenities while running on treadmills. This is our week to be alive! This is a week where shame knows no bounds and the police hold no jurisdiction. Let our bellies hang free and our opinions on everybody be made known!

It is good that spring break is only ten days. Were it to be any longer, I would engorge myself until I was bloated beyond recognition like Luke Wilson in those AT&T ads. In my fattened, lethargic state I would hoist myself onto my side and lay in the gutter moaning for help until a hunter showed pity on me and blew my head clean off with a shotgun. That’s exactly what would happen if spring break lasted eleven days.

Just about done with my preparations here. The moment I finish this post I’m going to stare into a strobe light and hold my breath until I start seeing unnatural things. I figure that should get things off to a solid start. After that, I’ll improvise and do whatever flows. Maybe I’ll huff a few permanent markers, maybe I’ll poop into a box of Rice Krispies, I don’t know. I’m just going to ride the emotion and let the authorities sort things out on the other end. The important thing is that this is a terrible idea.

See you folks on the other side, at least if I’m not in county jail on charges of forced entry and indecent exposure! Happy spring break, everybody!

I’m serious dudes, I am famished right now. It’s still morning and I’m bleary eyed from my shame, but I could eat the biggest, fattest tostada you ever saw. I would eat it so fast that you would get nauseous from watching me do it.

Anybody here got a tostada?

Holy crap, look at that sweet, sloppy tostada. I bet it soaked right through that paper plate. When I get to heaven, I want to be thrown into a darkened room full of those crunchy corn sons of bitches and just go to town on them for weeks.

I bet I’d never get tired of tostadas. They have to be good tostadas though, no fancy ones with shrimp or fish on it. Just a regular American tostada piled high with beef, cheese, and glory. I like my tostadas piled higher than Abe Lincoln’s hat and fatter than Mary Lincoln’s girdle.

Looks like I’ve got tostadas on the mind pretty bad this morning. I can feel the saliva pooling in my mouth as I write about them. I just wish I was an assistant manager at a Taco Bell so I could sit in some dirty back office somewhere and eat tostadas all night. That would be my dream job. When you’re a Taco Bell assistant manager, the world is your greasy oyster.

Looks like I’m out of time. I’ve got a class to teach. I hope these kids are ready to take notes on tostadas, because that’s about to happen. If I get in trouble, the teacher’s union will accuse the administration of being racist. Problem solved!

See you in hell, all you non-tostadas!

While at my parents place, I had a strange moment when my mother pulled out her old pickle strainer from the back of the lazy Susan.

(Incidentally the term “lazy Susan” begs the question of who was this lazy Susan and what ingenius fellow was she with who enabled her laziness? Thomas Jefferson perhaps?)

I hadn’t seen this pickle strainer in perhaps fifteen years, and my reaction upon seeing it was oddly emotional. Suddenly I was transported back to my past and the memories of all the pickles I ate as a youngster. Some were crisp, others flaccid, but all equally wonderous. Pickles were, and shall always remain, the reason I rise in the morning.

Here my brother Patrick demonstrated the proper usage and treatment of the Pickle Strainer of Legend.

One of the beautiful things about this pickle strainer is the way it removes the pickles from the murky brine without moistening the fingers. On a day when my baby was screaming and my stools were loose, this pickle strainer brought me nostalgic satisfaction and meaning. If necessary, I would have traded it for my wedding ring.

I wish the pickle strainer could hold me.

Eating this Malt-O-Meal is a wonderful experience. It is like savoring a warm spoonful of nostalgia and calcium phosphate. With mechanical precision I eagerly begin my feast upon the creamy wheat essence; my eyes are staring into the middle distance and my is torso positioned firmly at a slightly acute angle. Each mound of granular brown paste greets my eager lips with a quiver of welcoming before it is quickly smothered and devoured by my ample flesh-hole. The steaming Malt-O-Meal is then swallowed down into my body’s nether-regions never to be seen again until it gets blasted out defecation alley on Christmas morning.

Can you see that my lust for Malt-O-Meal is both beautiful and perverse? It is only in this unnatural entangling that my soul finds repose. Only the sweet sating of an engorged belly bloated with thick cereal sludge and water chestnuts can end my existential agony.

Thank you, Malt-O-Meal, for being there for me. Thank you for filling my mouth time and again with such sweet shame. Thank you for being so delicious that you make Cream of Wheat taste like a bum’s diseased scrotum.

I love you, chocolate Malt-O-Meal. I want to enter a long, abusive relationship with you. I want you to make me feel like garbage night after night with your emotional abuse. I will forgive you. You just taste so damn good.

In eager expectation of this accursed eve, lanterns have been lit, skulls have been hung, and goats have been violated in the seasonal aisles of Wal-Mart by unenthusiastic employees!

Before we know it, we’ll be inundated with legions of children dressed as hobgoblins and deep sea fishermen with Hepatitis B. Bowls of bite-sized Milky Ways will be tossed in the air to attract feeble-minded passersby as homeless men thrust their pelvises and bellow haggard barks of satisfaction. All will be made right when the clock strikes midnight and the world vomits in unison with unbridled Satanic glee. Halloween is upon us!

Draw nearer to me, my pig! Feel the hot lickspittle from my lips sting your face! Smell the stale blast of cottage cheese on my breath as I hold you down and shout Halloween-related tidings at you!

Halloween is almost here! Mount the celebration device and let us begin!

In the dark and forboding twilight hours of sleepless fatherhood, my precious oatmeal has been my only true companion. Alone, illuminated by the shameful blue light of my laptop and accompanied by my atonal gutteral dronings, my oatmeal has soothed my shames with its warm, creamy essence. In hiding from a fussy infant and beleaguered wife, I cravenly return time and again to my oatmeal in hopes that its hearty texture and savory oat-pleasures will bring me comfort . More often than not, the thickly aromatic oatpaste is able to burrow through my stomach into my soul and fill it with nutrition and meaning.

My oatmeal is flavored with the finest Vermont maple and sweet brown sugar from the engorged breasts of Mother Hawaii herself. In an act of sheer gluttony, I often mix raisins in with this concoction to create a alchemy of oats and dried fruit that would make a priest incontinent. I am like a dark wizard stooping over a bubbling cauldron of oaty enchantment.

Come to me now, my oatmeal lover. My bowels groan for you.

—

P.S. The following illuminating conversation took place midway through the writing of this post as I was rocking Oliver to sleep.

ME: Do you want to take him?
WIFE: I’m in the middle of this.
ME: I just want to finish my blog entry.
WIFE: Well, you have a child now.

Uh…what?

Law & Order has everything I love – grizzled irony, child rapists, and characters who lie. On top of that, each episode features more unexpected wrinkles than Willie Nelson’s anus. Every version of Law & Order runs like clockwork, starting with an incident of unspeakable cruelty and ending with some lucky guest star shouting in a courtroom (somewhat like Willie Nelson, though to a lesser degree). It’s twisted, televised comfort food, like maple-flavored cat excrement.

As the hours pass by during a Law & Order marathon, we the viewers begin to take on the characteristics of the show. We greet strangers with cynical suspicion, we squint our eyes skeptically, and floss our teeth with incredulity. We respond to moments of significance with narrow-eyed, incisive comments and resolve ethical dilemmas with physical force and tough words, totally unlike Willie Nelson.

Hooray for Law & Order marathons! They make us awful!

That owl’s perched above the changing table in our nursery! That owl’s blue! That owl ain’t natural!

That owl’s there to defend my boy against intruders! Any possom going after the baby is gonna get ripped apart by that cold-blooded blue son of a bitch!

What kind of tree is that owl sitting on? Some sort of tree with concentric circle blossoms? That ain’t right! That tree must’ve grown straight from hell!

That blue owl on the nursery looks all wise and such. He’s a friendly owl! He’ll raise the boy to be sure and true!

He ain’t like normal owls.

Go on, owl! You slurp that filthy rat up!