Got Words?
Trilateral – A backwards pass executed while on a tricycle.
Napalm – a contrarian tropical tree.
Cyclops -- The sound a one-eyed horse makes when moving.
Trumped -- what you are when you’re fired on the Apprentice.
Lancelot -- what Mr. Armstrong will open when he retires from racing bikes to sell used cars.
Cerebrum -- a Cuban alcoholic concoction that makes you think a little better.
Trifling – The art of tossing a tricycle.
Clap On – A visit to the Mustang Ranch.
Clap Off – Penicillin.
Piecemeal – how you order at KFC.
Metronome – a small, mythical creature that lives within the earth and dresses really well.
Capable – What junior superheroes are when they graduate from superhero school.
Enough Already…..
Blawgerman
Sunday, July 26, 2009
My Lips Are Sealed!!!
My Lips Are Sealed!!!
Three years I toiled as a Frito Lay salesman in the back woods of Vermont and New Hampshire. I drove a rickety Grumman Frito Lay truck up and down the mountains with an eye towards filling every possible rack of every possible store and hole in the wall with Frito Lay products.
We had the products. Cheetos (puffs and fried to a crackly crunch). Fritos (regular, scoops, and barbeque). Doritos (nacho and cool ranch). Tostitos. Ruffles (plain, barbeque, sour cream & onion). Lays (plain, barbeque, sour cream & onion). Munchos. Funyons. Bakenettes. Rold Gold Pretzels (twists, rods, minis). Grandma’s cookies. Beef Summer Sausages.
My job was to make people fat and give them acne.
Anyway, Mondays and Fridays I hit the big stores in the bigger cities. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays were the trying days. I would use those days to travel between little towns 10-15 miles apart to stores that sold 5-10 bags of chips per week. I could make a dizzying $3 per week on one of those stores. Yet, my route was littered with the little mom and pop outposts, and Frito Lay was out like a bloodhound for any salesman who didn’t treat the little stores like they were Wal-Marts.
I was bored. I even memorized the 17.5 multiplication tables up to 50 because the small bags of chips cost the stores $.175 each (they sold for $.35 back then). So, while I was roaming the back woods working on my multiplication tables, I would quite often indulge in one of my favorite Frito Lay products, the Beef Summer Sausage. Man, were they good. I’d hold them like a cigar in my mouth, savoring the big, Frito-Lay flavor. Over my career I must have eaten three or four million. But then came that fateful day.
I don’t know what came over me. Traveling between towns with half a sausage in my mouth, I got the bright idea of looking at the ingredients of my favorite snack. Never before have I yakked with such velocity or ferocity! The first ingredient? BEEF LIPS!!!
Couldn’t they just have said “PARTS?” Immediately my mind raced to poor lipless cows wandering in the fields, wondering how they would utter their next “moo.” Then I thought of the mindless creeps running around the fields with their lip extractors, sneaking up on poor, helpless cows.
Then I thought of the places the lips had been. That thought was enough to produce another projectile vomit. Cows lips didn’t seem that sanitary to me, and the thought of their lips against mine was simply too much.
That day, waves of nausea swept over me. Each time I placed another box of Beef Summer Sausages on the counters, I couldn’t help but feel I was a part of the mindless horde causing the terrible and painful lip extractions of hapless bovines. I wanted to shout, “read the ingredients!” but was overcome with the fear that each store would become a mass of puking customers and I might have to clean it up.
Never again did I even touch a Beef Summer Sausage. But to this day, I feel responsible for my part in the great bovine lip extraction that is going on week after week in this country. Where is PETA when you need them?
Blawgerman.
Three years I toiled as a Frito Lay salesman in the back woods of Vermont and New Hampshire. I drove a rickety Grumman Frito Lay truck up and down the mountains with an eye towards filling every possible rack of every possible store and hole in the wall with Frito Lay products.
We had the products. Cheetos (puffs and fried to a crackly crunch). Fritos (regular, scoops, and barbeque). Doritos (nacho and cool ranch). Tostitos. Ruffles (plain, barbeque, sour cream & onion). Lays (plain, barbeque, sour cream & onion). Munchos. Funyons. Bakenettes. Rold Gold Pretzels (twists, rods, minis). Grandma’s cookies. Beef Summer Sausages.
My job was to make people fat and give them acne.
Anyway, Mondays and Fridays I hit the big stores in the bigger cities. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays were the trying days. I would use those days to travel between little towns 10-15 miles apart to stores that sold 5-10 bags of chips per week. I could make a dizzying $3 per week on one of those stores. Yet, my route was littered with the little mom and pop outposts, and Frito Lay was out like a bloodhound for any salesman who didn’t treat the little stores like they were Wal-Marts.
I was bored. I even memorized the 17.5 multiplication tables up to 50 because the small bags of chips cost the stores $.175 each (they sold for $.35 back then). So, while I was roaming the back woods working on my multiplication tables, I would quite often indulge in one of my favorite Frito Lay products, the Beef Summer Sausage. Man, were they good. I’d hold them like a cigar in my mouth, savoring the big, Frito-Lay flavor. Over my career I must have eaten three or four million. But then came that fateful day.
I don’t know what came over me. Traveling between towns with half a sausage in my mouth, I got the bright idea of looking at the ingredients of my favorite snack. Never before have I yakked with such velocity or ferocity! The first ingredient? BEEF LIPS!!!
Couldn’t they just have said “PARTS?” Immediately my mind raced to poor lipless cows wandering in the fields, wondering how they would utter their next “moo.” Then I thought of the mindless creeps running around the fields with their lip extractors, sneaking up on poor, helpless cows.
Then I thought of the places the lips had been. That thought was enough to produce another projectile vomit. Cows lips didn’t seem that sanitary to me, and the thought of their lips against mine was simply too much.
That day, waves of nausea swept over me. Each time I placed another box of Beef Summer Sausages on the counters, I couldn’t help but feel I was a part of the mindless horde causing the terrible and painful lip extractions of hapless bovines. I wanted to shout, “read the ingredients!” but was overcome with the fear that each store would become a mass of puking customers and I might have to clean it up.
Never again did I even touch a Beef Summer Sausage. But to this day, I feel responsible for my part in the great bovine lip extraction that is going on week after week in this country. Where is PETA when you need them?
Blawgerman.
Monday, July 13, 2009
God Moves In Mysterious Ways
God moves in mysterious ways.
For the past year and a half, I’ve had the opportunity to play guitar and sing at Street Light Ministries in Grand Rapids (on Division). Street Light Ministries provides food and other services for the poor and homeless in Grand Rapids. I’ve played there about once a month or so and typically have played with Greg Howard and Jimmy Howard (not related). Greg, Jimmy and I are part of a band named Seven Days and we do contemporary Christian worship songs.
Anyway, it’s funny how God works. You see, I’ve always thought that I’m the one ministering to the people who come to enjoy their meals. The music that we play in inspiring and uplifting, and on one occasion last year, many of the people listening got up from there meals and started dancing!
Well, Greg and I played at Street Light this past Saturday. I was in the middle of a very busy and hectic weekend, and I arrived at the ministry feeling tired and worn out. We set up the stage and started to get ready for our "gig." At 5:00 pm we played a 45 minute set for the workers who serve the food and who go out into the community to invite people to the ministry and to evangelize. The music was exceptionally good this weekend, and I felt that we were definitely helping people worship.
However, what happened next was truly amazing to me. You see, the doors were opened and people started coming in to get fed. We started our second set of worship music and got about four or five songs in when an old man with a tattered backpack and a cane hobbled up to the stage. He asked us if he could pray for us. Now, there are many kinds of people that are ministered to by Street Light, and we have sometimes encountered people who aren’t quite all there. Nevertheless, Greg stopped the worship music and we let this old gentleman pray for us.
I will never forget his bright, clear eyes (which were a contrast to his old and broken body) as he painstakingly knelt down to the floor to pray. He looked up to heaven and clenched his hands together and then uttered the most anointed and beautiful prayer on our behalf. "God," he started, "bless these men and the ministry of their music." Even as he knelt down, I felt chills running down my back. As he spoke, tears welled up in my eyes. I don’t even remember all of what he said, but I remember how I felt as his earnest prayer touched me. When he finished his prayer, which only lasted 20 seconds or so, he took his cane and used it as a crutch to get his old body up off of the ground. Once up, he just hobbled off without even noticing how his prayer had touched me and the band in such a powerful way.
In that moment, when an old man with a cane struggled to his knees to lift a prayer on my behalf, God just reminded me that he is the God of the poor and the homeless and the hopeless. I came expecting to minister to the "poor", but instead, I was ministered to by one of the very people who I expected to minister to. This old man humbled himself before God and everyone to pray for me....what a blessing it was!
Jesus holds a special place in His heart for the poor and downtrodden of this world, and we should never assume that worldly poverty means that a person is suffering from spiritual poverty. God opened my eyes this weekend, and I'm so glad that He did.
Blessedly Yours,
Blawgerman
For the past year and a half, I’ve had the opportunity to play guitar and sing at Street Light Ministries in Grand Rapids (on Division). Street Light Ministries provides food and other services for the poor and homeless in Grand Rapids. I’ve played there about once a month or so and typically have played with Greg Howard and Jimmy Howard (not related). Greg, Jimmy and I are part of a band named Seven Days and we do contemporary Christian worship songs.
Anyway, it’s funny how God works. You see, I’ve always thought that I’m the one ministering to the people who come to enjoy their meals. The music that we play in inspiring and uplifting, and on one occasion last year, many of the people listening got up from there meals and started dancing!
Well, Greg and I played at Street Light this past Saturday. I was in the middle of a very busy and hectic weekend, and I arrived at the ministry feeling tired and worn out. We set up the stage and started to get ready for our "gig." At 5:00 pm we played a 45 minute set for the workers who serve the food and who go out into the community to invite people to the ministry and to evangelize. The music was exceptionally good this weekend, and I felt that we were definitely helping people worship.
However, what happened next was truly amazing to me. You see, the doors were opened and people started coming in to get fed. We started our second set of worship music and got about four or five songs in when an old man with a tattered backpack and a cane hobbled up to the stage. He asked us if he could pray for us. Now, there are many kinds of people that are ministered to by Street Light, and we have sometimes encountered people who aren’t quite all there. Nevertheless, Greg stopped the worship music and we let this old gentleman pray for us.
I will never forget his bright, clear eyes (which were a contrast to his old and broken body) as he painstakingly knelt down to the floor to pray. He looked up to heaven and clenched his hands together and then uttered the most anointed and beautiful prayer on our behalf. "God," he started, "bless these men and the ministry of their music." Even as he knelt down, I felt chills running down my back. As he spoke, tears welled up in my eyes. I don’t even remember all of what he said, but I remember how I felt as his earnest prayer touched me. When he finished his prayer, which only lasted 20 seconds or so, he took his cane and used it as a crutch to get his old body up off of the ground. Once up, he just hobbled off without even noticing how his prayer had touched me and the band in such a powerful way.
In that moment, when an old man with a cane struggled to his knees to lift a prayer on my behalf, God just reminded me that he is the God of the poor and the homeless and the hopeless. I came expecting to minister to the "poor", but instead, I was ministered to by one of the very people who I expected to minister to. This old man humbled himself before God and everyone to pray for me....what a blessing it was!
Jesus holds a special place in His heart for the poor and downtrodden of this world, and we should never assume that worldly poverty means that a person is suffering from spiritual poverty. God opened my eyes this weekend, and I'm so glad that He did.
Blessedly Yours,
Blawgerman
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Words, Dude.....Just Words....
Bicuspid -- a cuspid that can "go either way."
Rampage -- a large newspaper ad devoted to the sale of Dodge trucks.
Impale -- what really little demons order at Irish pubs.
Bingo -- A Mexican bing.
Robbery -- How a thief's legs feel after he's completed the bank heist.
Chicken -- Barbie's squeeze when he's lookin' really, really fashionable.
Rooked -- what you were you when his castle took your knight.
Racked -- What you were when Dolly Parton brushed up against you with her chest.
Pecked -- What Peter Piper was after getting all his pickled peppers.
Word.
Blawgerman
Rampage -- a large newspaper ad devoted to the sale of Dodge trucks.
Impale -- what really little demons order at Irish pubs.
Bingo -- A Mexican bing.
Robbery -- How a thief's legs feel after he's completed the bank heist.
Chicken -- Barbie's squeeze when he's lookin' really, really fashionable.
Rooked -- what you were you when his castle took your knight.
Racked -- What you were when Dolly Parton brushed up against you with her chest.
Pecked -- What Peter Piper was after getting all his pickled peppers.
Word.
Blawgerman
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