Bits, pieces, and Scraps

Just throwing out a few odds and ends that have bounced off me of late.

• My new favorite CD is the self-titled debut from Black Stone Cherry. I saw these guys a couple of years ago, opening for (I think) Grand Funk Railroad at the Clio Ampitheater. I was blown away by them, especially by the monster rhythm section. Obviously, they had no CD at the time, and I didn't give them a lot of thought after that. Then, a few nights ago, I was driving late at night and heard the DJ on a local rock station mention that he would be playing a new song from Black Stone Cherry. The name was hard for me to place for a minute, but I finally dug the memory out from under all the layers of wine and fungus. A couple of days later, their CD caught my eye on the rack in the store, and I picked it up - been listening to it on heavy rotation since then. Very hard rock, but super melodic at the same time. My favorite cuts change daily, but right now I'm deeply diggin' Crosstown Woman and Backwoods Gold.
  
  
• Last weekend, I had a hankerin' for some alcohol...yes, I know I'm not supposed to have any alcohol with my medication, but you know what? I do lots of things I'm not supposed to do; it's the way of my people. Now, the hankerin' was not accompanied by the desire to travel very far for said alcohol; I tried the local stop-n-rob, but the only wine they had there was of the Boone's Farm variety (well, there was some fine-quality Mad Dog, too, but I have promised every god in my personal pantheon that I would never touch that shit again). The only other place to which I was willing to venture was WalMart. I called Jess and asked if she needed anything, and she asked me to pick up a jar of baby food that she could mix in with Scraps' kitten milk.
  
  Not surprisingly, WalMart's wine selection wasn't much more sophisticated than the last place. I wandered through the aisles of booze, and finally settled on a giant jug of pre-mixed margaritas. Then I decided I needed some Tostitos to go with that, so I snagged a large bag of the scoops kind. After I wandered for about 15 minutes, I realized that the baby food wasn't in with the groceries, but rather, was next to the baby clothes.
  Really, though, how the fuck would I know any of that shit? Gimme a break. When I got over there, I was looking for something very specific (chicken with no spices or veggies mixed in) and had to wait while some idiot couple blocked my every move in the 10 minutes it took them to choose four jars for their baby. Luckily, they left before I satisfied the urge to smash them both in the face with tubs of mashed carrots.
  
  I found a relatively safe jar of pre-chewed chicken and made my way up to the register. Along the way, I noticed that I was receiving more than the usual number of odd and annoyed looks from my fellow shoppers. Then it dawned on me: jumbo-sized jar of margaritas in my left hand, giant bag of Tostitos under my left arm, and one single, tiny jar of baby food in my right hand.
  
  That's right, folks. World's Worst Mother, comin' through. If my kid finishes that jar of food before I'm done with my insanely huge helping of tequila and chips, then it's his own damn fault for not chewin' long enough, isn't it? I had the urge to buy a carton of cigarettes, too, just to further horrify people.
  
  A small bit of consolation came when the cashier carded me. Take that, Father Time, you cocksucker!
  
  
• Lately, I've had the urge to try my hand at performance art. Tell me the truth: do you think it would be too avant garde and inaccessible if I nailed flaming pretzels to my nipples whilst reading aloud selected erotic passages from The Old Farmers' Almanac?
  
  
• If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, then why does ice cream give me diarrhea?