In case you haven’t noticed from the obvious signs like sweltering heat and the never ending musical rendition of “Turkey In The Straw” blaring from the truck of the ice cream man, we are in the middle of summer!

Some call these the dog days of summer but I prefer to think of them as the JoJo the Dog-Faced Boy days of summer. JoJo was a carnival oddity popular in the 1880’s who had a condition known as “hypertrichosis” which did, indeed, make him look like a dog. A spooky, ugly dog. But I digress.

When I was growing up, summer meant fairs, and fairs meant freaks. Over the years I attended quite a few fairs and in the carnival sideshow area I saw a lot of freaks.

I saw The Rubber Boy who blew up his stomach with a tire pump; The Human Pincushion who impaled his body with numerous pointed objects; and The Wild Woman of Borneo who started off as a regular bikini clad woman and then “transformed” before our eyes to become a wild, primal, bikini clad woman.

I’ve also seen animal oddities including the two headed goat, the calf with six legs, and the 3-eyed frog. I’m glad I got to experience all of these freaks of nature, because witnessing them did a lot to form my persona, especially my tendency to be gullible.

I’m glad I saw the freaks but you can’t see them any more. In many places, fairs have been replaced by “fests” and sideshow freaks have been replaced by a dunk tank with the mayor in it.

Both fairs and fests feature the same cuisine, dedicated to giving you a heart attack sooner than later. They both have funnel cakes, lemon shake-ups, and something-on-a-stick; but food is not the drawing card for me. I want to experience something different at a fair/fest but I don’t like the carnival rides. Most carnival rides involve disorienting motion which then leads to lunch expulsion. It is also disconcerting to know that they were assembled overnight by workers with more tattoos than teeth.

The only thing that draws me to a carnival is the freaks, and when you take them away, the carnival becomes a festival. Then the festival becomes a street fair, and the street fair will feature mimes and in the end, nobody wins.

In my opinion, if you want to see America make it to the next century in one piece, bring back the carnys, because nothing says freedom like a 500 pound hermaphrodite and a midget sword swallower. We owe it to our kids lest they never get to see another Lobster Boy.

This, of course, is just my opinion. What’s yours?

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I am not a big fan of reality. Oh, I know it’s something we put up with on a daily basis but the part of reality that I have come to loathe is reality TV.

When I look at the TV listings I see nothing that requires any kind of a script. Every program is a contrived reality show from Survivor, The Amazing Race, and the Bachelor / Bachelorette; to Fear Factor, The Biggest Loser, and my favorite, Hillbilly Handfishin’.

Because of all of these “reality based” shows, real professional script writers are out of work. Perhaps they should do a reality show about script writers. It would be like the old Dick Van Dyke show except they’d all be sitting around cursing reality.

If the bigwigs that run the media think that we love anything based on reality, why not make the jump to Big Brotherhood right now and put a camera in every house and on every street corner. just like a Twitter account, you would gather “followers” who like to watch your everyday movements. Likewise, you can “follow” others.”

If that idea seems too grandiose, what about a REAL reality show holiday special. Imagine grandma’s house (your grandma, my grandma, it makes no difference) on Thanksgiving. Now, imagine hidden cameras all over the house. They would see Uncle Birdie getting drunk; the cousins in the back yard smoking pot; and the inevitable argument that leads to the fistfight. It would be a real Walton’s Thanksgiving. Should be great fun for the viewers.

In the mean time, we will continue to be force fed the fodder of fools in the form of COPS, The Apprentice, Project Runway, So You Think You Can Dance, America’s Next Top Model, etc. etc, ad nauseum.

It’s enough to make a person give up TV watching forever, or at least commercial TV. The folks at Netflicks must be downright giddy.

Watch what you want my friends, or don’t watch at all if you prefer. All I ask is that if you ever get the least bit tempted to watch a little reality – open the door and go outside. It’s right there.

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The buzzword for today is technology. You know about technology and you are either a) a technology lover (a.k.a. geek) or b) a technology hater (a.k.a. the rest of us). The underlying problem is that love it or hate it, we can’t avoid technology.

Technology was so much simpler when I was growing up. We thought that the ultimate advancements in technology were eliminating telephone party lines; being able to see a wet black & white Polaroid photograph in 60 seconds; and getting high by sniffing mimeograph paper fumes. Good times. But now, technology is moving at such a rapid pace that it is impossible to keep up, especially if you are still in a mimeograph fume fog.

By now, most of us are aware of the presence of “smart phones”. These are cell phones that can do almost anything. They can plot your route, take pictures, check on stock prices, make restaurant reservations and even convert dollars to euros. They are very smart phones. Unfortunately, too many of them are in the hands of very stupid people.

Stupid people with smart phones spend most of their time paying attention to their shiny new phone and too little attention to what is happening in the real world around them. We see it every day when people try to text and drive, or even talk and drive, and very often wind up crashing, after which they use their smart phone to call a tow truck.

Even when walking on the street, people use their smart phones to send a text. This causes them to occasionally walk into a phone pole or fall into a fountain, providing the rest of us with great glee.

Technology has also given us computers and at the same time, made us addicted to them. Computers are the new heroin except they are more expensive and there are no needles involved.

Today, computers come in many forms like desk top, lap top, and tablet. Each one is designed to make the other versions look out of date so that we are constantly buying new ones or updating the computers we have. And while computers have saved us countless hours in the library to work on a term paper, they have also created unnecessary problems; but that’s the price you pay for free porn.

The fact of the matter is that we are up to our ears in technology and if we aren’t careful, the machines are going to take over. The machines already know our “favorites”, our “likes”, and our passwords, so it’s only a matter of time before robots become our rulers. (note: I could have inserted a Mitt Romney joke here but opted not to.)

I ask you to join me in a return to the good old days. Instead of texting someone, talk to them, It’s the same number. Rather than visit with your neighbor on Facebook, walk next door and have a coffee. And instead of spending every waking moment checking e-mails, texts, tweets, and whatever else, take a few moments to smell the roses, or, better yet, the mimeograph paper.

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The Fourth of July was a busy one at the plots. Since it was a “watering day” all of the plotters showed up at some time during the holiday to moisten their crops. I even found my plot to be the ideal place from which to view that night’s civic fireworks display.  After a full day of plotting followed by fireworks, I went home with dreams of soon to be ripe vegetables dancing in my head.

I got up the next morning and went to visit the plot, just in case anything ripened over night. When I arrived, I was met by two of my fellow plotters and informed that we had been vandalized! After the fireworks display, apparently some hostile young punk kids, or as my wife refers to them U.T.N.G. (Up To No Good.) ran and rambled through the plots, tipping over water barrels, ripping up plants, and tearing down lattices and wind chimes. It was a shorter, non-flamable version of Sherman’s March to the Sea.

On my plot, the U.T.N.G.s tore up my lettuce and pulled out one of my eggplants. Others suffered greater damage, some, no damage at all. The rampage was random and goes unpunished, but that is about to stop.

When somebody steals and damages somebody else’s stuff, they need to learn that they should never do that again. The best way to teach this lesson is through booby traps.

I intend to make my plot a virtual Temple of Doom for any trespassers. I’ll install the usual trip wires, dead falls, and punji sticks but as a lasting way to teach the vandals a lesson, I have planted poison ivy in my garden plot. Now, when they run through my plot and rip up my plants, they’re going to itch for a week because of it.

I also plan to tether a coyote in the middle of my plot to serve as a guard dog. I know we have numerous coyotes in the area so the only thing I have to do is find one, trap it, feed it and train it. If I can’t find a suitable coyote, I will opt for a boa constrictor.

Plotters work hard to raise their crops and look at their plants like their children…children they will eventually eat. We get very protective and now you know how we feel. So if you are reading this and are a U.T.N.G. (a highly unlikely combination) please respect our plots and stay away. Either that, or you can “Say hello to my little coyote.”

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