Shart! (Shut Yo Mouth!)

Why Does it Always Rain On Me? - Travis (mp3)
Transformers (Theme) - Lion (mp3)

I recently sharted.

Yes, this confession breaks the first rule of Shart Club, but I had to get it off my chest.

Returning from an off-campus lunch and walking from my car's lovely shaded parking space to my office, I let out what is not an altogether out-of-routine post-lunch fart. It wasn't a big fart, In fact, it was one of those little baby farts so inconsequential in its build-up that you don't even slow down or stop walking. You just fart in-step. It's the fart equivalent of a speed bump that's been worn down so drastically that no one even lets off the gas. (Ha. I amuse myself.)

Except this was no mere fart.

The latest studies from the University of Alabama* suggest that some 98.4% of Americans have, at some point in their lives, sharted. This number excludes acts of "poopy pants" where infants and younger children crap in their pants either because they're too distracted by life to think about the toilet, and it also excludes "incontinence" where elderly people crap in their pants because dammit the egg timer moves a lot faster than it used to, and the bathroom's a long damn way from the living room.

Don't worry. Just because I know you've all sharted doesn't mean I'm going to expose your embarrassing secret to the world. In fact, it's perfectly OK with me if you vehemently deny ever having sharted. (But if you try and deny it too strongly, well, that's just annoying.)

In college, me and my male friends would sit around into the early morning hours sharing shart stories. But college males have little shame and find ways to make the most embarrassing and horrible moments into jokes. As I've mentioned before, I know a frat boy who took a dump on a brother's head, and it was a dude he actually liked. So all bets are off in college, because boundaries are symbolic at best for those of us in the phase of life known as "emerging adulthood."

Besides, sharting in college is hardly a problem because your dorm room or apartment is almost always within spitting distance of wherever you sharted. You scurry back, wash off, change undies, and no one other than maybe your roommate ever even has to know.

But once you hit your late 20s and until you start getting mail from AARP, sharting is an unspeakable act. You don't talk about it. You don't sit and discuss the shart you had at church or at that board meeting over beers with a close friend at a downtown bar or in his living room during the game. You sure as shit don't tell your significant other.

My uncle swears he has never in his life farted in the presence or even remote vicinity of another human being. Not once. And I know there are people like that, who can somehow deny what is a natural urge to expel noxious air from one's body, who can contain it all until that time passes. And I've got to think, if you can somehow avoid farts altogether, then sharts are never going to be a problem for you. Yeah, you might have other issues, but you'll avoid sharts.

I'm sorry to do this to all of you. I know you didn't come here to read about my shit.

I needed to let my guard down for a few minutes and be honest and admit what I've done. And not just this one time, either. I've sharted a few times. In a sense, I've been lucky, because my sharts have come at times when the damage to pride and the opinions of others was kept to a minimum. I've never needed assistance to cover it up, never had to pull someone into my conspiracy of smell and stain. I've done the deed, but I've cleaned it up all by myself.

Whew. I feel like this tremendous burden has been lifted. I feel so much.... ohhhh who am I kidding? Confessing hasn't done anything. I feel awkward as ever. More, really. And not only do I feel weirder, but now all these people who apparently read this damn blog are taking a few extra steps back from me every time I walk by. There I was thinking I was being honest and forthright by coming clean.

Maybe the reason we don't talk about sharts when we get older is because it just doesn't do anyone any good. Just because they're a nigh-unavoidable part of life doesn't mean we all need to go on Oprah for it. Maybe some shit is better left to ourselves.

Shart Club has its rules for a reason. That first rule is there for a purpose. Shame on me for daring to break it.

* -- The University of Alabama has never, that I know of, done any medical studies on sharting. But considering how many people have shown up out of thin air in the last few years wearing Crimson Tide gear and toting around toilet paper on a stick with "Roll Tide" on it, I just assumed some seriously big maroon elephant must have sharted them all out.

"There Are Two Kinds of People In the World"

Two Points for Honesty - Guster (mp3)
Not That Funny - Fleetwood Mac (mp3)

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who lump all of humanity into two kinds of people, and those who don't. (Nope. I didn't make that up. It's entirely unoriginal, but I don't know who originated it.) I'm more the latter than the former, but I figured I'd waste a day drumming together some good ones just for the hell of it. Seemed like a good light-hearted option after all that education mumbo jumbo.

There are Two Kinds of People in the World:

• Those who tear out all magazine inserts before reading a single page, and those who don't
• Those who crumple their TP and those who fold it
• Those who use straws in nice restaurants and those who don't
  
• Those who prefer stick and those who like it automatic
• Those who like Hanson and those who wish they'd die bathing in hydrochloric acid
  
• Those who like a Bon Jovi song and those who deny it
• Those who eat sushi and those who call it "soochee"
• Those who believe the hype, and those who don't
• Those who Tom, and those who Jerry
  

And finally, the coup de grace: Those who drive away from the gas station with the pump still in their tank, and those who haven't. Yet.

Yes, as of December 31, 2008, at roughly 4:45 p.m., while stopping off of I-40 outside of Knoxville to get gas, I joined the Dumbass Drives Off With Pump In Tank Club.

I put the pump in. I went in and got some mints and Mountain Dew Code Red. I paid. The dude wished me a Happy New Year. I made some silly remark about how I hope I have so much fun I can't remember it. I walked back to the car. I put the soda in its lovely holder and the mints in the passenger seat, started the car and started to drive away to the sounds of Kelly Willis. Then... CHKKKUNNK!

I knew what I'd done instantly. I said a bad word. The world moved in slow motion. I looked around at the various witnesses. One studly male in his late 20s driving a Land Rover, trying not to chuckle. A completely unattractive mother with strawberry blonde hair, working to put her infant back into the carseat, looking up in panic to make sure terrorists hadn't attacked. And the attendant inside, looking out the window, just beginning to shake his head in that "Oh shit here we go again" kind of way.

When I got out of the car, Land Rover Dude chuckled and said, "Would you believe you're not the first person I've ever seen do that?"

I think he was trying to comfort me... in the same kind of way one of the super-attractive stud brothers at the Sigma Chi house might have tried comforting me after some really hot Alpha Chi sophomore threw beer on my freshman face after I tried dancing with her. (Not that the latter actually happened. I don't think.)

The attendant, the same genial greasy-lookin' fella who had wished me a Happy New Year! mere minutes before, now looked at me as if I were the bastard son of Joan Rivers and Gomer Pyle, but he was doing it in as kind a way as he could muster. He was already on the phone with the manager. "I don't usually work at this one. I'm just fillin' in for the dude who's sick."

I left my name and contact information. No, I left my real name, and my real contact information. He said they'd be in touch if the repair went beyond the simple fix or wasn't covered by whatever insurance they had. Considering I hadn't done any Jack Bauer-esque destruction of the entire friggin' pump, and considering that Land Rover Dude has a penchant for witnessing these moronic moments, I figured the odds were pretty good that gas stations are prepared for this.

It's been a week. No one has called. I might be in the clear.

But there's two kinds of people in the world: those who get the bad calls when they least expect it, and those who keep waiting for the bad calls that never come. In this situation, I'll go for option #2.

Please feel free to pass along your favorites -- or make up some new ones -- in the comment section.

Charts stolen from the amusing GraphJam.com. Guster's song is from their album Lost and Gone Forever. "Not That Funny" is from Tusk. Both can be found at iTunes or Amazon.com's mp3 site.

States of Mind

Crazy Life - Toad the Wet Sprocket (mp3)
One Thing Leads to Another - The Fixx (mp3)

A: Protestant churches, gas stations, African-Americans.
Q: What's the difference between the Northwest and the South?

Over the course of our 9-day drive up the northwestern coast of the US, my wife and I couldn't help but notice the vast differences between the area where we have lived out our 35+ years and this newly-discovered land known as "California," "Oregon," and "Washington."

Some of the differences are powerfully obvious. Landscape, for instance. The Pacific Ocean, more often than not, rages well below the level of human activity, as US 101 and Highway 1 soar hundreds of feet above the beaches, crags, and waves below. This is apparently what happens when your shores have been assaulted repeatedly by tsunamis over the centuries.

[Side Note: Because we're strangers in this West Coast land, we found these signs very, very funny. Mostly because we were under the impression that if the tsunami's that fucking close to your ass, there's really not much point in running unless you're Jesus or The Flash. But hey, it makes for a memorable sign.]

Other differences were less obvious but still salient to the attentive Southerner. Particularly, the ones above stuck with us time and again.

Where have all the WASPs gone?
Jenni noticed this the first day we journeyed through San Francisco, that churches weren't much a part of the scenery. The ones we managed to spot were either Catholic or LDS. No Baptists, no Methodists, no Presbyterians.

Once we approached Oregon, beyond the dreadlock-controlled region of Arcata, we began to spot the occasional run-down Baptist shacks and the occasional Methodist or Episcopal church. After seeing so many dilapidated churches, we were forced to ask ourselves a startling question: What's more suspect, a place where all the churches look like the homes of struggling snake-oil salesmen, or a place where most of them look like modern-day castles?

Who's that dude at my car window?
Get this. In Oregon, you can't pump your own gas. Seriously. A station attendant has to pump it for you. Apparently there are people on the West Coast who, if provided the opportunity to pump their own gas, might accidentally blow up their car or the whole dadgum place. Or worse, they might spill some.

If this is Oregon's solution for gas drive-offs, it's gotta be one of the least cost-efficient solutions I've ever seen... No wait, that's an exaggeration. It's just very inefficient.

Even more odd, gas is kind of difficult to find on the Northwest coast. In the South, you can't hardly get past a single exit without passing three or four gas stations, most of which now come with built-in fast food restaurants. On US 101, gas stations are rarer than conservatives. Everytime we dipped below a quarter tank, we started nervously looking around, knowing that if we didn't stop at our next opportunity, we were taking our chances.

Add Chinatown, Subtract Black
No way to make this observation subtle. The Northwestern US ain't got no black people. Sure, you can find this out by looking at census numbers, which is exactly what I did tonight before making this claim. But you'd have to be blind and deaf to be a Southerner traveling the Northwest and not notice that there's just not much color in the crowd.

On multiple occasions, we'd be sitting in a tourist trap restaurant or walking down a very crowded street in San Francisco, and you could count the number of African-Americans on one hand. As in, fewer than five out of several hundred. The only time during our entire trip that I could see with my naked eye more than a dozen black people in one place was at the airport, when we were flying back from Seattle to Atlanta.

Tennessee is relatively low, compared to Georgia or South Carolina, when it comes to our black population, but at 12+%, we're still more than double that of California (and trust me, it's more extreme in Northern Cali), quadruple that of Washington, and sextuple that of Oregon, which has to be the whitest damn place I've ever been.

What really bothers me about this realization is this: it's people from states like California and Washington that look at the South and claim that we're not very "diverse." Apparently this means that substituting a huge chunk of your African-American population and replacing it with an Asian-American population of slightly smaller proportions makes you diverse.

We're diverse, dammit. The South is diverse. We're just also vastly under-educated and burdened with prejudices at levels that don't want to ebb very quickly.

Conclusion?
It's far too complex for my feeble Southern mind, but I honestly suspect that if you simply tracked what these three cultural differences made in a region, you could come up with a pretty fascinating theory on why all three West Coast states are leaning Obama in the upcoming election while every state in the South save for Florida is leaning McCain. Between the gas stations, the churches and the "diversity," I suspect the answer's in there somewhere.


"Crazy Life" is from Toad's fifth and final album, Coil. "One Thing..." is from the Fixx's second album, Reach the Beach, although I can't quite imagine why you'd buy that whole album. Both are available online at iTunes or Amazon.com. I think.

When Perception Transforms Reality: GAS

Poor Misguided Fool - Starsailor (mp3)
Gas Panic (live) - Oasis (mp3)

Damnedest thing I've seen in a long time.

Gas stations so full of cars, so packed tight, that cars have stopped in the middle of the street waiting to pull in, and another car has rammed right into the backside of it. On the way from my mother's house in East Brainerd to my house in downtown Chattanooga, I witnessed this scene three separate times in the span of 25 minutes.

Three accidents at three gas stations, all within 15 miles of one another.

(I would have taken pictures of those, but I was on my scooter, and the one shot I tried was so blurry all you see is the blue lights of cop cars and the white lights of the gas station streaking all over the place. Above was the best I could do.)

Cars were packed four deep or more to a pump at every gas station I passed that hadn't already run out of gas.
An earlier version of this article in Chattanooga's online newsrag, the Chattanoogan, combined with the idiots on local talk radio, spurred our citizens into believing that, as of Friday morning, gas prices would skyrocket to $5 from their current $3.65 range.

I called some friends in other places tonight. Nothing like this is happening in Raleigh, or Atlanta, or Montgomery, or Nashville. It's happening in a few places in Florida, in Houston (where Ike is soon to rampage), and in Chatta-fucking-nooga. Either Chattanooga is waaaay ahead of its fellow cities, or we're the most gulliable lemmings this side of early 20th Century Germans.

As of 10 p.m. Thursday night, Google had "gas lines" articles from BlueRidgeNews.com, Chattanooga's rags, and Gatorsports.com. That was it, other than some stories about some crisis in Bolivia.


You'll have to pay me a shitload of cash to get me to believe it's pure coincidence that this happened on September 11.

If only we would just drill for oil in Alaska and off the Gulf Coast, this wouldn't happen. In 2042. Maybe.

"Poor Misguided Fool" is from Starsailor's first album, Love is Here. "Gas Panic" is from the Oasis concert CD, Familiar to Millions. The first is available on iTunes. The latter isn't available in download form anywhere I looked. Both bands are full of Brits who don't have to put up with our idiotic American gas fetish.

Do The Hustle

Ryan Adams--"Chin Up, Cheer Up" (mp3)
Shelby Lynne--"Life Is Bad" (mp3)

I turned in to the Conoco, planning to pick up a six-pack of beer. Surprisingly, there were other no cars at the pumps, an odd circumstance at 6 o'clock on a Thursday night, and I parked at a pump closest to the store. As I walked toward the empty store, I noticed a guy on my left, standing outside, talking on the phone. I nodded at him and him at me.

Inside, as I pulled beer out of the cooler, the young cashier tried to sell me two-for-one hot dogs. I couldn't see them; I couldn't smell them, so I declined and took my Michelob Ultra to the counter. "Slow night," I said. "I can't believe there's no one here."

"Yes, it's surprising," she said.

In the summer, especially, I don't like to stop here most evenings because there is usually someone who needs bus money, who is trying to get to see his sister in an Atlanta hospital, and any other number of stories that sound perfectly reasonable until the next time I buy gas here and hear the same story again. Sometimes when I need gas and would like to stop there, I'll say angrily to myself, "Why can't I just buy some gas and not be hustled?"

When I was almost to my car, I heard a voice saying, "Hey, hey, hey!" When I turned it was the guy on the phone, now off, and he said, "Are you from around here?"

"Yes, " I said flatly.

"Do you know where Jasper is?" He walked towards me.

"Yes," I said flatly.

"That's where I'm tryin' to get to. I left my wallet on the hood of a car and then I ran out of gas at the ridge cut. Do you know where that is?"

"Yes," I said flatly.

"It's a long walk from here, I'll tell you that," he said. "Do you think you could help me out? I swear to you I'm not a bum. I'm a welder. I been welding all day in the heat and now this happens." He looked like a welder to me.

I reached into my pockets, but I only had a dollar bill. "Let's go inside," I said. I have another mindset, and it's the one that usually kicks in when I'm leaving a tip. It's the "Hey, the world has gotten pretty tough and I'm not doing too badly so I'll leave you a little more" frame of mind, and it kicked in now.

But it's been a rough month and even though payday was a good two weeks away, I figured I'd give him ten bucks. I tried to withdraw $10, while he stood off to the side, telling me about the day he'd had. I told him we occasionally had students from Jasper, but how hard it was because of the different time zones. The ATM dispensed bills in increments of $20 dollars. So I went for $20. Plus, $2.25 in convenience fees. I figured I'd get change at the counter.

"Can you do it for ten dollars?" I asked.

"Aw, the gas can alone is going to cost me seven."

At that moment, something shifted in me, and I felt had. I handed him the twenty, switching into the mode of just wanting to leave.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "Can you do it?" It was the first time I'd been hit up for money since gas went so high, and I realized that, if true, he was was right that the $20 wouldn't go too far.

"It's no problem," I said. "Good luck to you." I shook his hand and walked out of the store. The clerk gave me a skeptical look.

I walked out to my car. After starting the car and pulling forward, I had it in my head to take a left out of the lot and circle back so that I could see whether or not he was really buying a gas can. One time, this guy was hitting up my wife and daughter for food money at the Walgreen's just as I was coming back from Little Caesars with a pizza, and when my wife told me what was going on, I immediately gave him the pizza, thinking we'd just get another one, but when we were driving home, we saw that he'd just as immediately thrown the pizza away; it wasn't why he wanted the money.

So I looked both ways to see if I could turn, but then I took a right, not quite sure if I was putting my faith in humanity or if I just didn't want to know.

"Chin Up, Cheer Up" is from Ryan Adam's underappreciated solo album, Demolition. "Life is Bad" is from Shelby Lynne's breakthrough CD, I Am Shelby Lynne. Both are available at Itunes.

Zoom Zoom

Fat Bottom Girls - Antigone Rising (mp3)

Motorcycle Drive-By - Third Eye Blind (mp3)

Got a little nippy going through the pass, eh Har?

Yup. Just call me Scooter.

After four years of oft-contemplation, two years of yearning, and six months of gas prices so aggravating and criminal that I could no longer stomach paying $50+ to fill up a f#*king Honda Civic -- uh, that's FIVE iTunes albums, for those who track their spending by the album -- I bit the bullet and bought a scooter.

Weeks of research, a visit to a local scooter dealer, and heavy scouring of the Craigslist both here and in surrounding cities, finally led me on Saturday to Acworth, Georgia, on the outskirts of Atlanta. There, I took a big gulp, forked over something shy of $2,000, and drove back to Chattanooga with my uncle as the proud owner of a 2001 Yamaha Riva 125cc.

For those of you ignorant of scooter culture -- and who could blame you -- "125cc" means "fast enough to stay out of trouble, and slow enough to stay out of trouble." It tops out at just under 60 mph, and I'm not required by TN law to get a motorcycle license, because it's just that pathetic. But it also gets, supposedly, 80 mpg. Hell, even if it's 7-10 mpg shy of that, that still means more than triple the in-town gas mileage of my Civic.

In other words, everytime I would need to fill up my Civic, this Riva will save approximately $100 in gas. OK, but since I still occasionally need to drive the car, let's just say the scooter will save me, oh, $75 a month in gas. In other words, the scooter needs only survive for two years to pay for itself.

And scooters are making the news in spades. Here's a CNN story. Here's an NPR story. Here's another. And another. Although this has been on my mind a while, I can't exactly claim my purchase is boldly going where no man has gone before.

The decision to Scooterize myself was made somewhat easier by the fact that, whatever the Dork Factor of riding a scooter might be, I'm pretty much already peaked out on the Dork-o-Meter, unless, like Nigel Tufnel's amps, the Dork-o-Meter goes to 11.

I was the last person to throw away my Jams. I have been photographed wearing wife-beaters in the past year. I truly love Hawaiian shirts. The only thing I don't do is wear colored socks with my shorts, but that's mostly because it's due to come back into fashion.

No amount of Gooberphobia can negate my ability to buy five more albums a month with the gas I save. Hell, this afternoon I learned I can comfortably and perfectly fit two Starbucks Caramel Frappuccinos in the front compartment, transport them 2.4 miles, and deliver them with nary a spill. And last night I drove downtown, picked up two pizzas and two salads to go, and delivered them back home in mint condition.

Go ahead and laugh, but I'm in love.

My first act to celebrate my financially ingenious decision will probably be to purchase the new Hold Steady album. But first I have to go fill up my 1.7-gallon tank. Or, in car language, I gotta spend $7 for my next 140 miles or so.

Thpttt!

"Fat Bottom Girls" is from the album Say It An-Tig-Uh-Nee. I got this from a friend's CD mix, and I can't find it on iTunes or Amazon.com. "Motorcycle Drive-By" is from Third Eye Blind's first album, 3eb. It's available in the usual places.