The Green Porch Archives - Page 21 of 30

Redneck Sustainability: the Dirt Wash

May 30, 2011 by David Mark Brown

windmill Let’s talk about the dirt wash. Working on the ranch one day, my wizened father showed me how dirt can actually make you cleaner. It’s true, and oh so sustainable. What cleanser could be more natural than dirt?

Anyway, we had just finished replacing spent rods in a windmill. It had been my first time as the “monkey man” on top of the mill (perched up on the top platform without safety gear in order to latch and unlatch the long wooden rods as they are pulled up and out of the ground). This might not need saying, but everything you pull out of a well is slicked with more gook than skinny dippers at Diaper Springs.

And after sloppin’ this stuff all over for a couple hours and taking in views of red-tailed hawks diving for twittering quail hidden in scrub oak thickets, the monkey man tries to climb down the metal rungs on either side of an angle iron windmill support without slipping off and dying. (Really mom, it’s not that dangerous.)

Rapturific! The View from the Sky

May 26, 2011 by David Mark Brown

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I got raptured five days ago. I know. And I totally wasn’t expecting it. But I’ll tell you one thing. Right in the midst of my rapturous assent I started panicking about all you schmucks LEFT BEHIND. It really sucked too, because I realized I was the only one floating away. I always thought at least Michael Landon would join me. Then I thought, “Oh yeah, he’s dead already.”

Then my next thought really comforted me, “At least my dog, Fluffy, will be taken care of by a professionally vetted and secularly loving non-Christian post-rapture pet handler — all thanks to After the Rapture Pet Care. I mean, if so many people are doomed to eternal hell, than at least one of them should earn a decent wage caring for my precious dog, right?

Death Drinks Tequila

May 12, 2011 by David Mark Brown

Right about now you’re thinking, “I should have taken the blue pill.” I know, I know. Here at the Green Porch the madness never ends. But that’s what makes the crusty stick of gum we call life, taste like Big League Chew.

Most of you have never wondered what sort of alcoholic beverage Death would consume had he the allowance and the inclination to do so. None the less, today I provide the definitive answer — tequila. And not just any tequila, but Casa Herradura, 1878, Reserva. (Could it be a coincidence that Félix López, the founder of the hacienda and distillery, died that same year?)

When you think about it, it makes total sense. Killing people at the fore of the apocalypse is dusty work, and nothing wets the old whistle like a stiff shot of tequila. Anywho, it’s time I bridge over to the official launching of the second complete Reeferpunk prequilla, Fourth Horseman. This little ditty is not so much the backstory on any of my characters, but a harbinger of things to come.