Magnolia ~ The Devil's Tree

  I have figured out the meaning of life. Yes, yes I have. So sit up and pay freaking attention.

  Life is a giant test, or at least an ongoing annoying quiz at times. At the end of this test there is accountability, so one might want to straighten up a bit. Now for me personally, I am trying to cram for the final exam. Hopefully, I will pull out an A with some extra credit points on the final... just like my adventures in High School Chemistry. Hey, I passed with a D- ... my professor raged about my wasted potential.

 There are many tests in this life and the Magnolia tree is a test straight from the Devil. It is "the Devil's tree" according to gf.

  This is the second encounter I have had with a Magnolia. The first was with my grandmother "Mére's", or translated in to Southern, "Mater's" Magnolia. As the story goes, Grandfather saw the budding Magnolia, and knowing that it was of the Devil cut it down. The Devil was enraged and sprouted four trees from the cut down root. That tree(s) is still among us today, and it is mammoth. It will never die. Since I did not live nearby, my cousins no doubt took the brunt of the punishment that the devil tree divvied out. I now know their pain.

  Now logically, if the Magnolia is the Devil's tree, then that would make Mississippi the Devil state, since they have embraced and glorified this tree. I better inform my sister about this as she lives in The Magnolia State. She may not know that she is playing on the wrong team.

  Let me explain why I believe the Magnolia is evil. 

  1. Most trees grow modestly throughout the year and let go of their leaves in the fall... One stop shop. Not the evil Magnolia, it drops it's leaves when ever it pleases. Let me tell you, it pleases fairly frequently. 

  2. The Magnolia's flowers are beautiful white delicate flowers that are the size of a fat baby's head. The trouble with the flowers is that one can never reach them. The tree is fifty feet tall and one would break their neck trying to pluck the flowers. That is exactly what the Devil wants. 

  3. The Magnolia has an evil black trunk that looks inviting from afar. The old "beauty from afar" trick. Every girl looks good in a bikini when she is half a mile down the beach.

  4. The Magnolia grows like an adolescent that eats extra large pizzas five times a week. It is abnormal I tell you.

  5. The amount of energy it takes to maintain a Magnolia is not found with any other plant in the plant kingdom. 

  The tree in my yard is testing me. I could have it cut down, but then my test would be cut short. If I cut my test short then my rewards in heaven will be diminished. I must rake weekly without complaining. I must bag the leaves weekly, lest I have to bag up fifteen extra large stretchy lawn bags like I did this Thursday. I must pick up sticks and hard round prickly ball things before I mow each week to protect my riding lawn mower from damage to the undercarriage. I must have the tree trimmed back yearly lest its ever reaching shade chokes out all forms of life in my front yard. I am the Magnolia tree's bitch. 

  Dare I revolt? No. I must obey the evil Devil tree. It owns me. I am its slave. My fate in the future depends on it. I am being tested. I must pass the test. 

  Why do I feel like no matter how well I do on this test I will just wrap up with a D- final grade? 

I hate Magnolias. Magnolias belong in empty fields with plenty of room to grow. Idiots plant Magnolias in subdivisions. I thank the previous owners of this hallowed ground for planting this test in my front yard. They are making me a stronger person every day. Who ever said idiots could not be helpful?

Thanks for reading,

gf

  

Randy's Rib Shack ~ Waldo FL

  I have never done this before, but I think it is necessary that I post a consumer advisory before I write this blog post. Yes, the type that one would find at the bottom of a menu warning diners about undercooked beef and shellfish. This is similar.

CONSUMER ADVISORY: This restaurant may not serve the type of food you were looking to consume. The name of the restaurant does not match its cuisine.

 If you take the time to drive on a highway other than a Interstate Highway you will find barbecue huts. Well, one would at least hope to find a barbecue hut. Especially if it is lunch time. Highway 301 is a normal, old, four-lane highway that evidently used to be "the road". It is an odd road accompanied by railroad tracts and abandoned motels.  Plenty of farms, fruit stands, old souvenir shacks, mobile homes, and businesses can be seen while driving this American thoroughfare. I must also add that a high percentage of the businesses along this route are using a building that was originally designed for some other purpose. It is an odd collection of re-purposed buildings. Go ahead and think of any type of business; there is a good chance of that type of business occupying an old gas station on route 301.

  Driving through Waldo Florida (no, not that Waldo... Well, it possibly could be, but I could not find him) I spotted what I thought was a barbecue hut. Little did I know how wrong I was. As I pulled in, I gazed in awe at an enormous trailer with a clever mural on the side. Two giant home-made smokers that were inside said trailer were gently wisping out white smoke. I was encouraged. Upon seeing the commercial portable smoker at the back of the shack I was even more encouraged. I should have savored that moment longer.

 After waiting at the counter, clearing my throat, calling out "hello", and watching two employees walk in and out from the back, I was finally greeted. During this wait I was able to watch a Golden Corral advertisement about a chocolate fountain, which made my mind go to another place... maybe we can visit that place together at another time... When the normal programming came back on, the show was about forensics. There was a "dead body farm" that the investigators were being walked through. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Click here to check that out. I got to view several bodies in different phases of decomposition. That was very interesting right before lunch.

 Besides watching TV while waiting, I had enough time to review the menu. I did so in amazement. Randy's Rib Shack has ribs on this colossal menu twice. They have a rib dinner and a rib dinner for two. That is it. [insert a significant pause for full effect] However, for a rib shack they have a titanic amount of seafood on the menu. They have Shrimp; Tilapia; Salmon; Oysters; Snow Crab Legs; Grouper; Frog Legs; New Zealand Green Lip Mussles; Scallops; Catfish; Pollock; Mahi Mahi; Clam Strips; Jumbo Shrimp; Crawfish; and Gator Tail. The Swordfish decorative tin above the door should have tipped me off. But wait, they did not have Swordfish.

  Randy's menu is a train wreck. On top of this Mount Pisgah of seafood there is 15 appetizers,18 sandwiches, and 20 dinners. Also, smack-dab in the middle of this menu is the statement "WINGS, OUR BEST SELLER". My head is still swimming.

  I was lucky to have so much time to peruse the menu. Maybe this is why they did not bother to greet me immediately.   I ordered a chopped barbecue  sandwich with Cole slaw and potato salad. The order-taker asked me which of four sauces I wanted to go with my meal. I picked the spicy mustard. They had spicy mustard, regular mustard, spicy tomato and regular tomato sauces. The sauce tasting ended up being the highlight of my meal.

  I had a choice of Texas Toast or a bun for the sandwich. I asked the attendant which one she recommended. Her suggestion of the bun sounded genuine so I went with it. The bun looked great but it was just too much for the sandwich. The bun overtook the unimpressive five ounces of meagerly-smoked chopped pork.

  The Cole slaw was straight off the truck. It was more like a Cole slaw soup. The potato salad was edible, but I suspect it too came pre-made and was delivered on the same truck. I was disappointed.

  So let me sort this rib shack out. It is not a rib shack. It is not a barbecue joint. It looks like one, but it is not. A rib shack would have rib baskets, half slabs of ribs, full slabs of ribs, rib tips, pork ribs, beef ribs, rib salad, rib stew, rib sandwiches, rib wraps, rib beans, steak and ribs, chicken and ribs, and maybe even a rib Quesadilla. A barbecue joint does not need twenty types of frozen fish. It does not need to have 15 appetizers nor 18 random sandwiches. It just requires great barbecue. What I truly do not comprehend is why a quaint shack would  not make their own sides. Randy's has an opportunity to be unique, but instead they choose to be the same. Trying to please everyone out of a shack is... well...  idiotic. Oh, and rib shacks do not have Pastrami sandwiches according to gf.

  The attendant mentioned that they had been there for five months. She also offered up that they were slow because they were in a bad location. She could not have been any farther from the truth about why they were slow. This is a perfect place for a barbecue shack. It was by the railroad tracks and almost under an overpass. What more could one ask for? More signs, that is what one could ask for. I recommend posting little signs along the road every so often upon approaching the shack... just like the old Burma Shave signs...that would do the trick. Click here if you do not know what Burma Shave is. 

Slow Down

Not So Fast

Barbecue is Here

Lunch At last!!!

Randy's Rib Shack

One could also ask for an attentive staff. If an attentive staff is too much to ask for then maybe a bell at the counter like at Empty Arms Hotel. I always got a chuckle when Roy Clark would jump up from behind the Empty Arms Hotel counter. If you were born after 1990 go buy the box set of Hee Haw. The show was fashioned after Rowen and Martin's Laugh-In. ...Nothing? Right.

 It was a slap-stick comedy show during the 60's and 70's. Google it when you run out of other things to Google.

  On a positive note the murals on the walls in the "dining area" were pretty cool

as were the Cypress counter tops.

  Randy's Rib Shack needs to figure out what they are going to be. What they are is very curious, very bland, and very slow.

  86 the TV.

Thanks for reading,

gf

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Kentucky Fried Politics

   Our society has forgotten the rules. Rules like "Thou shall not bear false witness" (don't lie) and "Thou shall not steal" are the two that come to mind lately. Humanity has had these rules in play for eons, and has had them for good reasons. Not holding our leaders and ourselves accountable to rules is why I think America and the world has gone completely into the shitter. There really is no other logical explanation for our plight. 

  The idiotic crap that has been beamed over the brain-washing-machine (TV) has helped suck our society into a vortex of ignorance. KFC currently has the worst advertisement on TV in recent history according to gf. 

  The scene is as follows: Two are cops in a patrol car. The young gullible noob cop is lied to and tricked by the senior cop. The senior cop then proceeds to steal the noob cop's KFC. Whatever happened to cops eating doughnuts?

  Let us review what this teaches the myriads of mindless sheeple who watch TV to gain their daily dose of information.

1.  It is OK for police to lie.

2.  It is OK for police to steal.

3.  It is OK for people of authority to prey on the innocent and weak minded.

4.  It is OK for people of authority to take from citizens and or other government workers for personal gain.

5.  It is OK to put others in harms way for personal gain.

6.  It is OK to steal and manipulate others while on the government's clock.

7.  If personal gain is at stake one is to pay no attention to the job at hand (protecting the innocent).

8.  Never question authority. They are trustworthy.
9.  Thinking is a nonessential activity.
10. Always assume that others have your best interests in mind.

  When I was a kid I too watched TV (we had two channels). Watching Captain Kangaroo trying to keep Bunny Rabbit in line was entertaining. Bunny Rabbit would do anything for carrots. The Captain would go to great lengths to manage Bunny Rabbit and would often get exasperated, rained on with ping-pong balls, and confused as he dealt with other obstacles while keeping Bunny in line. At the end of the day I knew that Bunny was tricking the Captain and that it was wrong. I also knew it was hard work keeping honest and dishonest people honest. Unfortunately, with this crap commercial from the Pepsi Company/KFC there is no "moral to the story" moment like there was when I watched the Captain Kangaroo Show.

  When one starts to peel the onion of deception in America the lies go all the way to the core. The current administration has reached new heights in subterfuge. The lies about IRS; Benghazi; NSA; The (un)Affordable Care Act are no doubt the tip of the iceberg in this administration.

Here is a video that shows our great leader in action. http://theblacksphere.net/2013/11/chronology-obamacare-lie/

  Our great and powerful OzBama being caught in a lie is disturbing. However, even more disturbing are the hidden lies that impact the common man every day. Specifically, food production has to be the biggest lie in my generation. When I was young words like "fortified" were used to promote man-made products. "Fortified" sounds strong and safe. "Homogenized" came around and also sounded like a safe friend. I am not so sure about that anymore. There are myriads and myriads of food products that are poisoned or "fortified" with man-made processes. People wonder why they are sick. The saying "You are what you eat" was chimed often by my elders while I was growing up. Obviously, no one paid attention to that saying. If big corporations can make something cheaper and make more profit from the sale of it, that is the business plan. Advertisements always speak of the benefits the users will receive if the companies products are purchased. Lies. All of it. Well, that may not be completely true. A great lie has just enough truth in it to be believable.

McDonald's: There is no doubt in my mind that McDonald's has to be the big-business-leader-of-lies. Once upon a time (in Camelot) this advertisement may have been true, but I doubt it.

Click here for an article about Jamie Oliver proving that McDonald's hamburgers are unfit for human consumption

Febreze: I just happened to read the ingredient list on a bottle of Febreze that was in my kitchen today. The ingredient list starts as follows:  "odor eliminator", water, fragrance, non-flammable natural propellant, quality control ingredients. First of all, how is it that they can use the word "ingredient" in the list of ingredients? Second of all, what do we know now after reading this list that we did not know already? Third of all, would some scientist please tell me what the hell I am spraying all over my house to cover the idiot-dog smell?! Logic has left us completely. Febreze advertisements show common sheeple siting blindfolded in a fish market or some other crap-hole oblivious to the stench. How is this possible?  WE DON'T KNOW!! Excellent job by big brother protecting the innocent. It is high time the innocent protect the innocent.

Cigarettes:
  This is another classic example of big business lying.

Which brings me to my next group of liars...
Doctors / Pharmaceutical Companies / Insurance Companies
  It is becoming quite clear to gf that the business of doctoring folks is not about curing or healing as much as it is about making money. The next time you see a commercial on TV or read an add in print about pharmaceutical drugs take extra notice of the communication about the side-effects. They are as long or longer than the add itself. If one truly is paying attention to these side-effects, one would never ingest the product. Pharmaceutical drugs are not about curing illness but rather masking the illness. Have you ever seen one of those legal adds on TV about a drug gone bad? "If you have ever taken the drug ('blah blah') you may be able to collect compensation". Does the public ever stand back and really hear this? What if you heard " If you have ever eaten thirty green apples during a month you may be eligible for compensation."? Yea, that makes no sense. If one ate twenty green apples at a time one would possibly be on the crapper for a hot minute. However, if one ingested twenty pills of any drug one would be dead... most likely.
  These companies are about making money on sick people. They do not have any desire or interest about healing or curing; that would lower their profits. Drugs are poison. Toxins. Unnatural. Mankind has survived for eons without them. I am not suggesting that there are not instances where they are helpful, but they still are toxins to our system. Alcohol is helpful at times, but it is still a toxin. I say "Practice" your medicine on someone else. I want no part of being a test monkey. 
  Insurance companies are getting rich off of the whole bit. "You will get sick" they seem to say... Why would I get sick? Well, if I eat enough crap non-food and pop enough pills, sit on my butt long enough, stress out all day every day, and sleep less I should be good and sick in no time. Why has living healthy become an emergency? We need health insurance to secure our health? I would be ok with bone insurance, cut insurance, sprain insurance, bacteria insurance, or even viral insurance. What a racket. I just cannot wait for the government to get into the insurance game.

 So let's review the cycle of life in America. The government approves GMO's and the use of pesticides to "improve" and increase food production (profits). Because this poisoned food makes us sick, the pharmaceutical companies get their toxins approved with great prestidigitation by the FDA. They do this to mask the symptoms and increase the amount of toxins in order to keep our bodies sick. This helps the doctors and pharmaceutical companies busy. Prescribing boat loads of toxic and unnecessary drugs keeps the cash flow at acceptable levels for both parties. "To help the public out" the insurance companies come to the rescue. Lies. They are there to help themselves out. Now the Great OzBama wants a piece of the action. Yes, government is big business...real big. The only missing element to make the circle of life complete is death. 
  "It's the year 2022...People are still the same. They'll do anything to get what they need. And they need Soylent Green." Click here if you have no idea what Soylent Green is.

Ingredients: Sarcasm, random information, humor, pictures, poor grammar, misspelling, comma splices, clever links, stolen pictures, slang, swearing, "odd" political opinions, awkward sentence structure, clever colloquialisms, red 40, yellow 5, yellow 6, blue 1, artificial flavors.

Thanks for reading,
gf

Bucky's Bar-BQ ~ Greenville S.C.

When a good friend tells you to eat at a barbecue joint because it is the best he has ever eaten, you need to listen. Then, you need to get going, and go eat at said joint. So, that is exactly what I did.

  Having grown up in South Carolina, I was curious to see how the barbecue home turf was holding up. As "The gf Commander" and I arrived at Bucky's Bar-BQ's Roper Mountain Road location, we found that it was slightly frumpy. This is a good thing, because had we found a fancy-pants barbecue joint we would have probably left. Once inside, we walked past plain chairs and the semi-plain tables which have Bucky's memorabilia laminated to them, and arrived at the short counter in the back corner. I was a bit confused until I found the "order" sign. I have to say, the set up has me still scratching my head, but it did work somehow. The counter man had a whole Boston Butt on a chopping board. As soon as we placed our order he proceeded to whack away and fill the plates with the carefully chopped pork. That was the magical moment in time. Hang on to that moment as it explains much.

  My Sassy Chef associate, who was traveling with me (the aforementioned "gf Commander") ordered a pork plate with green beans and cucumber salad (This was a gluten free lunch FYI). She reported that the cucumber salad was ok, but the green beans needed some much needed help. She suggested putting them back into the can whence they came, and start over with some fresh green beans. I know, ouch already! She also reported that the chopped barbecue was some of the best she has ever had. Unbelievable, that now makes two "best I ever had" comments. She did not use any sauce and said that the meat had a mild smoked flavor which was not overpowering.

  I ordered a combo plate which had the chopped pork and smoked chicken with sides of Cole slaw and sweet potatoes (souffle). The chopped barbecue was as the Sassy Chef had reported . I am not sure if it is the best I have ever had, but it is definitely in the top ten. Now then, the chicken was on point. It was very tender and seasoned well. The cook brought me a sampling of the ribs (cut up spare ribs) so that I could get the whole experience. My undying charm undoubtedly persuaded his conscience to do so. They were fall off the bone and tender, albeit a bit lacking with rub/seasoning. The moisture in Bucky's meats makes the difference. Nothing is worse than dried out barbecue; every bite was tender and moist.

  Sides... what are we to do with these sides? If I were a betting man, I would put $100 down in Vegas on that the sides are not fresh-made in house. The sides need an overhaul. The Cole slaw was drab, and the sweet potatoes were not as good as "the gf Commander's".

 Is Bucky's being penny foolish with the sides? According to gf... yes indeed.

However, the fixing of this side debacle should be fairly painless. My suggestion is to have a contest. Yes, hold a contest for the locals to bring their "A game". Certainly someone in Greenville SC can whip up some green beans and Cole slaw.

This is one of three "big ass" cookers we were able to see.

Tomorrow's lunch.

Secret brisket for a special gathering.

New school BBQ.

Old school BBQ ready to go for a night class. There is a  $60 a head charge for a BBQ class that the owner puts together.

Spices for the class.

  Hickory wood is always a sight for sore eyes. 

  I almost forgot to mention the barbecue sauces! Holy crap! The mustard base was too thick and too sweet for me. Mustard sauce needs to be runny and spicy according to gf. The tomato base was the best sauce they had. It was a good blend of sweet and hot. The vinager base is what I ended up eating the most of. It was good stuff. Hey, I like hot what can I say?

  Bucky's Bar-BQ has it going on. Are they the best that gf has ever had? Well, fix the sides and they are in the top five. Hey, they could even bust out some peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream if they wanted to impress me.

  "Barbecue is a package deal. One cannot just do one part great." gf

  This was a good lunch served by a great staff who had a heaping helping of care. Overall, I understand why my friend Merle said this was the best barbecue that he has ever had. 

Thanks for reading,

gf