Friday Fives – guess poster edition

Team,

I haven’t gotten around to posting the Fives this week.  Am too busy right now.  Instead, welcome guess editor and long time friend of the site, Jamie (the Arizona Monkey Boy) >

 

1. Do you have a favorite insect (of the bug variety, of course)? 

 

No… but your mom gave me crabs once… that was kinda special!!

 

2. Which insect could you happily do without seeing for a good long time? 

All of them… but I guess cockroaches. Just so you know… I’ve never seen one in my house… knock on wood!!

 

3. Which insect do you think is of the most benefit to us? 

 

Seriously… we’re doing an insect theme? Okay… let me ask YOU a question. Did insects EVER help you get laid? That’s what i thought…

 

4. Have you had to deal with an insect invasion yet this season (or this past summer for our friends in the other hemisphere)? 

 

Hhmmm… I feel like the writer of these questions… is pleasuring himself as he reads this…

Pizza Connection. That place was a dive… buy they always got like a 98 on there health inspection. One secret i learned while working there… dump bleach down the sinks/toilet BEFORE a monsoon hits… because the ‘bugs’ know it’s coming before you do… and they’re looking for a dry place.*

*(Insert ex-girlfriend’s vagina joke here)

 

5. Would you eat insects? Not even for a lot of money?  

 

Sure… i mean… I probably eat insects everytime i eat anyway… so yeah… go ahead and pay me!!

*** um… wow!  I would like to just apologize for everything you just read.  I figured some content would be better than none.  But man, this guy has some issues.  This is where I should say something like ‘in no way to the opinions above bla bla blah.  But, this is my site and I could just erase this if I wanted to.    and about the cockroaches?  Like Texas, they are everywhere.  and the worst part?  those fuckers FLY.  Sleep tight, readers!

Advertisement

Friday Fives – bookish edition

 How many of you still read books for entertainment?

I do still read, constantly.  However, I just can’t find time to read a book. I still consume books… daily.  These days, I do it all through audiobooks.  I prattle on about that here.  I read something a few years ago that always sticks with me.  The average American household has less than 5 books in it, and one of those is the bible.

What is that one book you just could NOT put down while you were reading it?

Kathy Griffin’s ‘Official Book Club Selection’.  Also gotta mention Springsteen’s autobiography.  Not just a page turner, but incredibly well written.

Btw, I don’t really read books for ‘entertainment’.  More for relaxation.

What book are you currently reading listening to?

Waging Heavy Peace – Neil Young

What book absolutely blew your mind?

 Lamb – the Gospel of Christ according to Biff, his childhood pal.  This book just blew my mind.  So incredibly super really great.  Mind you, I am not just un-religious… but pretty militantly anti-religion.  I was raised Catholic, though. I would also like to tell you about a near ‘religious experience’ I had with this book.  I was alone in a car for many hours on Christmas day reading it (just by chance) on zero sleep for several days.

This book also turned me on to the amazingness that is author Christopher Moore.  Since this book, I have gone on to read many of his.  Again, I prattle on and on about my love for this guy on my books page.  Just hope over here and do a control F on his name.

and….

Probably how well written that Springsteen book was.  You see how he is the voice of a generation.  I can barely think of my favorite writers who write that well.  He spend 7 years on it, and used no ghostwriter.  No ghostwriter is INCREDIBLE.   All rock memoirs are written with ghostwriters, usually the very impressive Anthony Bozza.  Rock stars don’t generally have the time or attention span or literary capability to do that.  The ghostwriter thing is perfect.  A dude hangs out with you for about a year.  He asks you pointed questions, and you tell him anecdotes.  They put it together for you.  Not the Boss.

Generally speaking, every famous person who has written a book uses a ghostwriter.

If you died today and the last text you received was written on your tomb stone, what would it say?

mostly done

 

 

ew… that is actually pretty perfect.  and… kinda creepy out of context of the conversation  Props to the Arizona Monkey Boy for that gem!  In case you don’t remember, we kinda made the Az Monkey Boy famous here.  As a bonus, we have his answers to this week’s five right below.

*** can I point something significant out here?  I just realized I went through an ENTIRE post about books (not my questions, either.  all from my editor) and I never once mentioned Alice in Wonderland.  That is a breakthrough!

Talking Stick Resorts hates it’s community!!! I think… maybe… prolly

 

So, I am researching upcoming concerts.  Don’t worry about who, it’s not your business (and it’s a little embarrassing).  I come across ‘Talking Stick Resort’ in Phx, AZ.  I was puzzled, knowing this was a tour hitting the largest venues in the largest cities.  Generally speaking, that is only venues with names like ‘pepsi center’.  They are 18,000 seat venues that your city’s basketball and hockey teams play in.  ‘Talking Stick Resort’ sounded like a small 2,300 person theater in the back of a native  American casino.

Because I know more than anyone you know about concerts and venues and ticketing and how it all works (in a short answer:  quite poorly for fans) I did some digging.

I found out that Talking Stick Resort is formerly America West Arena.  Quite literally, as I suspected, where the basketball and hockey teams play.  At least I know the Suns still play there, don’t know about the hockey team.  I haven’t lived there in 25 years, and hockey didn’t exist then.  So, I am boycotting the very notion!

Here is my concern, and why I write.  Note, this is not well researched, and I am working off of memory.  I am wrong, please do add in comments, and I will gladly update and acknowledge.

Here is the thing, we (the US Fed Treasury) does not tax Native American Casinos.  I assume Talking Stick Resort made the millions it would cost to buy naming rights from an ‘indian’ casino.

So.. ‘we‘ don’t tax the casinos because the assumption is they will take all this money and spend it in their community.  It is meant as an apology for the last couple of hundred years.  Since many (and every one I have been do) native American communities are a shit show with little to no water or electricity… this seems like a fair deal.

It would seem that Talking Stick Resort took some of these millions and bought naming rights.  Until their communities have clean running water and electricity… maybe naming rights shouldn’t be the biggest priority with extra cash.  Yes, this is me the white devil telling them how to spend their money… ummm. our money?

If that is the case, then that is fucked up.  You know how people don’t want to give panhandlers money, under the assumption they will just use it to buy drugs?  Now, I don’t want to give money to that specific native community because they will just use it to buy naming rights.

Lastly, there is the surreal fucked up bonus of us white folk spending our money buying stadiums for these billionaires, instead of helping our own communities.  That is not lost on me here… I am just sad to see that roll over to other communities that can less afford such a silly luxury.  I mean… let me process this.  We give the native communities access to do whatever they want with their money… and they end up ALSO subsidizing our asshole billionaire sports teams owners?

I wish I could be like Chief Joseph, and ‘fight no more, forever’.  However, as long as this shit goes down… I will be your eyes and ears.  Unless you don’t want me to be.  Then, I will just be my own vigilant protector.

 

** in the interest of fairness and clarity, I emailed the casino through their webpage asking these very questions.  If they respond, I 100% promise to acknowledge and post their response.  This isn’t meant to be a ‘gotcha’ piece.  That benefits no one.  I just want some answers.  As of Spring 2017, there has been no response.  Assume there has been no response no matter when you are reading this.  If they do, I assure you I will speed back here and acknowledge.

*** in the interest of interest – what the hell is a talking stick?  Well, it is just exactly what it sounds like

What is a Talking Stick?

The Talking Stick is a tool used in many Native American Traditions when a council is called. It allows all council members to present their Sacred Point of View. TheTalking Stick is passed from person to person as they speak and only the person holding the stick is allowed to talk during that time period.

**** like many of my most successful pieces, this began as a conversation with Jaime, the Arizona Monkey Boy