Don't act like y'all don't know where we be neither.



Subscribe in a reader

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Cookin' With Gas




That's how you light a bonfire.



Y'all remember my boss?

Photobucket

I don't work for him anymore but...nobody I've worked for since has really been as boss. He's the boss. I painted houses with him after I got out of the service and while I was an undergraduate. We've always been close.

Three or four a times a year he'll have a bonfire, a party at his place...play the host. We grill* hamburgers and set things on fire. There's a couple of go-carts..."go-carts" with motors that could run a Fiat and easily break the 40mph mark (which feels like 80 when you're out in the open, 2" off the ground). Fireworks! Usually illegal fireworks. I don't know maybe they're not illegal in Alabama. He's buyin' 'em somewhere.

One of the funniest things I ever saw...took part in...was when his dog knocked over a lit mortar before the first charge had left the tube. It was a moment that only Wilferd Owen could fully appreciate...these weren't fire crackers they were shells. They ricocheted off trees and exploded under cars. People reacted according to their insticts...some ran, some hit the dirt, some just laughed. It was chaos and pure unadultrated redneck fun.

Last night The Boy got to go to his first bonfire at Mr. Mark's.

Photobucket

I was glad for it...one, I knew he'd have a good time and he did. He played with the dogs. He got his first ride in the front seat of anything and there were drums...

Photobucket

Two, The Boy comes from good redneck stock...or, more specifically, Cracker stock, but this is not time to be pendantic. Only difference between last night and gettin' together with my Momma's side of the family is that a gun was usually involved and often an old appliance was destroyed.

I want him to know every direction he's come from and learn to be comfortable with...to love it all.





*That thing you pull out in your back "garden" is a GRILLLLL...not a BBQ. BBQ is smoking...not grilling. Usually I let the insanity pass...if you want to drive on the wrong side of the road, that's your business. If you want to kick a ball around with your foot and call it football...that's your insanity. This is a sacrid rite....this is the hog. NO. Stop it.






:) but stop it.





Posted by at
Labels: , ,

23 comments:

  1. sansserifMay 28, 2012 at 1:27 PM

    I like the sound of this bonfire e.f. In fact I am jealous.
    BTW - your boy is sorted. How can he not be when he has a Daddy who says - "I want him to know every direction he's come from and learn to be comfortable with...to love it all."
    You've got parenthood licked.

    ReplyDelete
  2. e.f. bartlamMay 28, 2012 at 2:51 PM

    Of course the bonfire was a pretty easy sale...who, especially a three year old, doesn't like fireworks and go-carts?

    ReplyDelete
  3. AdamMay 29, 2012 at 8:26 AM

    Clearly a man who owns a GAS barbecue is in no position to lecture to anyone on barbecuing. I suppose the same could be said of opinions on which side of the road ya'll drive on comin from a man with more tickets than a sell out Beatles reunion, and a history of breaking cars like a fat bloke in a gym in a heat wave breaks a sweat. I don't know anyone like this though, obviously.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. e.f. bartlamMay 29, 2012 at 8:34 AM

      That was a gift...accepted graciously.

      What about football then?

      No answer for that obviously.

      Delete
    2. AdamMay 29, 2012 at 10:13 AM

      You kinda wrote your own punchline on the football quip dude, you're just supposed to set them up, not finish them. I was stuck which way to jump, I had a nice little souless metric continental riff, with the roads too.

      I also want to come to that party and jam with the dude, looks like a good set up he's got there.

      Delete
    3. e.f. bartlamMay 29, 2012 at 10:26 AM

      Occasionaly I like to laugh at my own jokes...see what that pleasure is like for everybody else.

      Speaking of driving...the new car is a standard transmission. After a decade of driving a golf cart...I nearly crashed it immediately trying to drive with one foot. HA!

      Then I was back on the bike...and driving again.

      Mark's goes full steam at whatever he's doing and sometimes burns himself out. They used to play alot there...now the drums are for sale.

      Delete
  4. The HorseMay 30, 2012 at 12:11 AM

    So I got the steaks and the beer wheres my invite ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. e.f. bartlamMay 30, 2012 at 6:18 AM

      I guess we shouldn't have sent it media mail.

      Delete
    2. The HorseMay 31, 2012 at 4:36 AM

      Its ok have a big BBQ get together next weekend, can see me being very drunk and eating way to much animal lol...

      You are invited just bring beer.

      Delete
    3. e.f. bartlamMay 31, 2012 at 10:12 AM

      Gonna smoke hog are you or, given my present proximity to the Lone Star state, some brisket?


      :)

      Delete
  5. CMay 31, 2012 at 8:26 AM

    Looks like you've got a budding young drummer there.
    And Mr Blonde Hair - if he grew it just a little more and popped on some nice skin-tight trousers he could do a fine Jim Dandy impression I'm sure... How's his dancing?
    (I just had to drop that name in here somehow, didn't I?)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. e.f. bartlamMay 31, 2012 at 10:07 AM

      He can cut it up. Though sober for twenty years...he used to drive us around so we could carry on. Rhythm and Brews, pop's Around the Corner...places we really had no place being. Man it was fun. He didn't drink but he'd dance.

      I do occasionally miss Martha getting drunk...she was so funny.

      Delete
  6. e.f. bartlamJune 1, 2012 at 2:26 PM

    My phone just died dood.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AdamJune 1, 2012 at 2:34 PM

      Probably for the best I could feel the rant building!

      Delete
    2. e.f. bartlamJune 1, 2012 at 2:39 PM

      Just continue it here...I dare you :).

      Of course I left my phone/ipad charger in my room in St Fancisville last week...add it to the list.

      Delete
  7. AdamJune 1, 2012 at 2:44 PM

    Hell no, call it chicken shot an fair do's.

    ReplyDelete
  8. natetinJune 2, 2012 at 5:03 AM

    Adam has a point. It is a universal truth, though rarely recognised, that a man in possession of a gas barbecue, is in fact not a man; he is a poseur for, indeed, he may adopt the form and visage of archetypal masculinity – the accoutrements of manhood: the skillets and tonsils – but in truth his innards are but naught, lacking the intestinal fortitude to stomach the alternating digestive assaults of blood-raw under-cooking, to the charcoaled fossil remains of once animal parts and, as for his outer appearance, it is lily soft as a coddled babe cradled securely in its mother's arms – the real man – not afraid to dowse both himself and the barbecue in lighter fluid, while sparking a cigar befitting of a Schwarzenegger, Seagal or Stallone – his complexion is his character: skin psoriasis, formed from multiple burns, his apron and the tectonic plates of keratin crusts cracking and erupting as he holds his face close to the flame … as dinner is served.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. e.f. bartlamJune 2, 2012 at 7:30 AM

      Since Adam has aired my dirty laundry in public...and now I have been called a Nancy by Nat...YES. We own a gas grill.

      It was given to us by our neighbor...our friend, after his companion passed away and he was forced to move.

      It's a very nice grill...it even as an eye burner...and a set of utensils from Williams and Sanoma. The extenuating circumstances called for gracious acceptance and not, given our friendshiip and the nature of the relationship between this man and his now deceased partner, rejecting the grill as being sissified.

      I will not address this issue further..."gentlemen."


      b****es!

      Delete
  9. natetinJune 2, 2012 at 6:09 AM

    Speaking of drummers: Buddy Rich - what kind of name is that anyway? - why not Rich Buddy? Anyway, seems to me like we got ourselves the new Buddy Bartlam ...

    http://youtu.be/wgaD54YcXpA

    Let's hope he develops a taste for jazz, like myself: the logical development - the classical music - of blues.

    I always found reading Wilfred Owen a bit of bummer - cheer up Wilfers! It'll soon be 1918 and then in a few years the sequel will be out ... I hear they're casting a young Austrian, Charlie Chaplin look-alike for the lead!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. e.f. bartlamJune 2, 2012 at 7:37 AM

      He'll have to pick up a taste for it some place else but, don't give up hope...there are plenty of opportunities for that in these parts. Nevermind that New Orleans will be a regular haunt for him.

      I should be called out for the very surface reference to Owen...as if all he did was make sound effects for the ACME bomb division. It was as clumsy and flippant as e e cummings handling Pilgrims Progress.

      Paul Fussel would hate this blog.

      Delete
    2. natetinJune 2, 2012 at 2:31 PM

      Not to create a leaden zeppelin bustle in your Fussel hedgerow, but it's double-l Fussell ... have you introduced the most obscure reference yet into this blog? ... I swear Smedley Butler would have declared this blog a racket if a medium could send the message from Marshall McLuhan.

      Delete
    3. e.f. bartlamJune 2, 2012 at 9:15 PM

      You have not only been referenced but...quoted here. Mr. Fussell will have to settle for a distant second.

      I have just passed through a bit of a Banana Wars phase...so the Smedley reference is frightening.

      Delete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)