Whiskey, Raisin Bran, Pall Malls.

Breakfast of champions. I am not drunk. Fuck your inquiries.

There are some things in life that make a man feel more alive, more manly. Grilling a steak is a pretty good one; there's an inherent machismo in the act of cooking meat on an open flame that makes your average guy feel like his testicles are the size of Hummer tires. If you've killed, skinned, and butchered whatever you're grilling yourself, there's a major added bonus; you are primitive hunter, taker of life and wielder of the flame, that which giveth and that which giveth naught, he to be feared by all lower on the food chain! Primitive and dominant all at once. If my parole officer is reading this, THAT is why I was in the Wal-mart wearing nothing but a loincloth and a cigarette. I was buying marinade for the animal I brutally murdered. With my teeth. If my parole officer would still like to know why I was flinging fruit at the other customers and at one point smeared most of my body with red Kool-Aid while claiming to be Gotar, Avenger of the Hill People and dispensing ancient Barbarian justice to anyone wearing anything resembling a blue vest, I will still plead the fifth. I won't lob a turnip at him again, though.

One of those acts that gets overlooked a fair amount is mowing your lawn. It seems like a tedious chore, pushing a dinky engine on wheels attached to a barely sharp piece of metal, and more often then not it seems like nothing got done. The grass is maybe half an inch shorter; whoopty shit. Nothing to write home about, much less strip down to a loincloth and hunt the neighbor's cat over. But Uncle Tambour learned the hard way what mowing your lawn COULD be, how it can turn easily into a struggle for dominance...man versus nature in pure form. You see, I've never been what you might call a "mechanically gifted" person. When things break, I either call a repairman, buy a new one, steal a new one, "borrow" one from the neighbors, or (at the very worst) Google instructions on how to fix it. This seems to work well about ninety-seven out of a hundred times. So, in the way of the world, those other three are big, important, and hard to fix. Like a septic tank pump. Or a lawnmower.

My lawnmower did not just break down. Oh, no. It caught the mechanical equivalent of ebola and leprosy and died a miserable, nauseating death, hemorrhaging motor oil and bad gas, dropping rusted, rotted parts all over my lawn. I recognized that this was a degree of repair that was well beyond me. I also recognized that I had no money, and borrowing from the neighbors was not an option. You try asking for so much as a goddamn cup of sugar when you've gone stomping up and down the street in a Dollar Store Aloha shirt and a grass skirt, waving around a homemade spear and bellowing "I AM LONO RETURNED! BRING ME PELE, WHORE OF THE VOLCANOES, THAT WE MAY COPULATE!"

I was not on drugs. Drugs are bad for me.

Maybe three weeks went by, maybe a month before I secured the finances to pick up a new lawnmower. By this point, my lawn hadn't grown so much as erupted. My front yard looked like a National Park and my backyard looked like Da Nang. Every time I checked the mail I had to fire a few warning shots off to spook any snipers lurking in the crab grass. I looked at my freshly assembled 150 CC lawnmower and felt like Eisenhower on June 6th. The odds were against me, the casualties would be high, and I wouldn't come out of this the same man...but it could be done. I channeled George Patton long enough to give the wet-behind-the-ears piece of steel a motivational speech that even had the neighbors applauding. The next two hours were spent hacking away at Mother Nature Gone Wild, the Earth Spirit let loose in New Orleans on too many Margaritas. At some points a war of attrition, at some points a fight to survive, but in the end Savage Man prevailed. Grass that was three feet tall at its kindest was now docile and meek. Fear me, for I am Man, called Ruler of the Lands, shining sharp, spinning justice into the dark places of the world!

Now, kiddies, before I leave you today, there's some homework to be done. There's a link at the bottom of the page; click, read, take notes. We'll talk about the subject matter tomorrow. In the meantime, fear not the VC, keep the guns clean, watch thou for the mutant, selah.

Uncle Tambour

PS: Comment, you sons of quadrupeds. Write me. Question my wisdom. Don't just sit there like lobotomy patients and absorb my magnificence! DEMAND CREDENTIALS, you fucking pigs! Have I taught you nothing? Fear me not, for I am harmless. Wink. uncle.tambour@gmail.com

The Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704518904575365793062101552.html