Don't Become A Monster In Order To Defeat A Monster

The mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks is dead.
This should be a jubilant time for our country, right? Absolutely!!

We still need to keep our guard up though, right? More than ever!!

So this means we should call our troops home now, right? Unfortunately, No.

While a great victory for the U.S., terrorism is still alive and well. This is a war which will most likely continue to be fought for the rest of our lifetimes.

My biggest, and really only, problem with the reports I've read regarding this matter in the past several hours is the constant questioning of why bin Laden was given such a proper burial when many of the victims of the 9/11 attacks were not given the same opportunity.


Simple really...
It's because collectively, we as Americans, are better than that.

I was born in a Smalltown.....

I seem to have sparked a bit of controversy (in my own household at least) with my answer to the hometown question accompanying the new facebook profile update. Blacksburg, VA has been my answer to that question for close to 35 years....though, admittedly, I have had reason to question the validity of this response for quite some time.

There is no doubt that I was born in a hospital in Asheville, NC (though the family lived in a smaller nearby town at the time)....that is my birth town....no disputing that but I don't recall having ever been there so it cannot carry over to hometown as well.

Having done some quick internet research, a hometown is supposed to be where one grew up or from where one's family originates. Well, as most of you know, the "grew up" thing hasn't happened yet so we might have to re-visit this topic again somewhere down the line should that ever happen.

Exploring my family history is too damn confusing....would make a bigger mess of things than what I'm already dealing with.

I spent most of 2nd grade through 5th in Blacksburg, VA.....that's where I first played little league baseball, won my first free chicken dinner, broke my first bones, took my first college course, skimmed my first playboy magazine, first (and last) time I spit tobacco in the presence of the governor and his wife (who happened to be Elizabeth Taylor)....you know....all the important stuff....it just always rings of hometown anytime I think of it. The people I've known the longest on FB are from here....and I still remember my home phone number from these days too.

I cannot go without mentioning China Spring, TX.....those were two awesome years during my junior high days. Met some really cool people there...some of whom I'm still in contact with and plan to be for the rest of my life.....made one of my best friends here and that's definitely the longest running, with the least amount of commercial interruption, friendships I've had. Looking back, the CS days were the last of the carefree days.....of course, I didn't realize it at the time...no one ever does.....so for that alone, China Spring always has a bit of magical resonance for me but unfortunately.....not home.

Then came the other Spring.....the Big Spring! I first visited this place the summer of 1981....we all stayed at the holiday inn across from college park shopping center for about a week while my father was interviewing at the old Cameo Homes. There wasn't much to do so I stayed in the room a lot and watched Willie Nelson's "Honeysuckle Rose" movie about four times a day and memorized the dialogue word for word. Little did I know it at the time but after countless viewings of that movie and having already realized there wasn't much going on in this town, I was fully prepared to be a citizen of Big Spring.

Won't go into the next 29 years too much......though I'm sure some of those tales will make an appearance on this blog eventually.......just suffice it to say that over the course of my 42 years, the overwhelming majority of my time has been spent in Big Spring, TX.

My mother still lives there, the majority of my friends are there or are from there, my wife was born there......maybe it's time I start to declare Big Spring my hometown.

So do I have to file some paperwork, have some grand ceremony, or what?

I am somewhat fearful of people and places from my past feeling left out.....just as I am also fearful of not receiving the true, full blessing of any and all true Big Spring-ers....but I do already have the approval of the most important true Big Spring native in my life......in fact, she seems offended that I don't also call BS home.

I'm gonna do it.....it's gonna feel strange....probably sound weird for a while....might have to change my whole mindset

Big Spring, huh? Yeah....that's probably where they'll bury me.

feel free to voice your displeasure to your local elected officials

Resume the Madness

After nearly a year off.....yeah, I know I said I was gonna blog more often!......here we go again.....

Thanks to Kevin Freeman for inspiring me to figure out how to log back into this thing so that I can ramble on for days about nothing of importance.

Today, I would like to touch on the subject of this craziness surrounding the re-vamping of the field of astrology.

Now, I can really only recall two other such conflicts in my lifetime that had the potential for such widespread chaos.

Though I was not old enough for my voice to have much of an impact, I was there for the Metric System riots of the late 70's. Oh, let me tell you children, it was gruesome!! Family members quarreling over the dimensions of the cup they should drink their morning coffee from. Clothes makers were no longer sure how to measure people so they could properly manufacture their garments. However, the proposed conversion did have it's upside. Drivers could boast that they could now drive a lot faster and kids could claim they were taller. (at least the numbers sounded greater) Over the years, I have gathered that it was the beer drinkers in this country that put an end to the insanity. "Give me a fowty!" just flows better than "I'll have one point four three liters of your finest ale, please."

Then came the dissolution of the solar system as we knew it. Pluto was no longer to be referred to as a planet. Millions of Americans were up in arms...as were many of our colleagues in foreign lands. Pluto was a member of the Mickey Mouse gang.....they couldn't take that away from us...could they?

I'm not even sure what is being taught in the schools these days. It saddens me to think that good ol' Pluto is being left out.

Now we have this zodiac thing.....why?

For starters, I'm sure it's going to lead to a lot of tattoo removals. So that's a good thing....I guess....at least it provides job security for those in the business of removing tattoos.

I don't even know how everyone is going to be affected. Are people who used to think they were bulls now scorpions? Are former crabs now twins? Are old fish now scales? Well, that one we might be able to work with.....

I do know this....I'm still a Leo....ROWWWRRRRRR......hear me roar? Still as mighty as ever. If this had been taken from me, I may have had to pull out a big ol' can of whoop-ass. Though, even then I would be unsure just how much to apply. How is whoop-ass measured? Grams? Ounces? Anyone?

....it never ends

Where Did It All Go Wrong?

First of all, I should mention that this "thing" has been in the works for quite some time. After some aborted attempts, I've finally gotten around to it. Of course, I'll always say that Patrick put me up to it. After all, I'll try anything Patty-boy does....at least once.....except maybe that sky-drop thing at Six Flags...and using too much pancake syrup...screw that!!!


The plan is for this to be the totally uncensored place for me to be philosophical, talk sports, use vulgar language, tell offensive jokes, vent and be stupid.....but I don't see it getting too racy at least for a couple hours......but you have been warned.





With that out of the way, I dedicate the remainder of this inaugural post to Patrick, for being a constant source of inspiration....to Kelly Z, for being the one who seems to pay the most attention to my nonsense (and because it's her birthday), to Kevin Freeman, for being cool and to my brother--whom, for over 35 years, has been laughing his ass off at the end result of the story I am about to tell.......




A few people over the years have inquired about the origins of my odd personality.



"Have you always been this weird?"



"Did your parents do a lot of drugs in the 60's?"



"Did you get dropped on your head as a baby?"



"Are you on drugs right now?"






No, no, i don't know and no.



Truth be told, I've never taken any illegal narcotics...never even experimented......I left that to the experts. Some have often joked that I'd be really messed up if I had gotten into that sort of thing......or perhaps, things would've cancelled out and I'd be somewhat closer to what most consider "normal"....who knows?



I like to think I was headed down a more straight and narrow path initially but that all got off course early on in life. In fact, I think that after years of probing the deepest realms of my own brain, I've been able to pinpoint the exact moment when the Steak was born and Greg Salisbury ceased to have control over his own destiny.



If you're here, you probably already know this but for any newcomers, I am half Native American.....from the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma to narrow it down a bit. It's no secret that many Native Americans do not like to be photographed for fear of having their souls stolen from them by a camera. I've never really put much thought into that until recently. I always cast the notion off as myth....or some sort of paranoia......but now, after extensive research, I do have to wonder.



Go back in time with me.....the year is 1973.....



The family and I were living in Conicville, Virginia (in between two separate stints in Blacksburg)......not really near anything but a few Civil War battlegrounds....but for the most part a fairly pleasant place to be a kid. For excitement, we'd often make the thirty minute trek to Harrisonburg to see what the "big city" had to offer. During these trips, my brother and I would be in the back seat of our old 1968 Chevrolet Caprice...making the arm motions at all the truckers we encountered to get them to blow their horns. It was a pretty good day if we could reach double digits in the number of truck horns we heard wail.



On one day in particular, however, I recall being in the backseat by myself while my brother and mom were sitting up front, yapping about something I couldn't care less about. I wanted some horns blarin'!!!! So there I was, jerking my arm up and down as hard as I could.....when I spotted it.



The family camera was sitting in the floorboard behind the passenger seat. I thought that if I could capture what I was doing on film, I could relive the moment anytime I wanted and I could show the pictures to all the kids I knew and they'd all think I was really neat. (don't think I'd been introduced to the term "cool" at this point.....wasn't even in school yet)



Problem was....I'd never used the camera. I'd never been allowed to touch it.....but really, how hard could it be? You just hold it up, point it and pull the trigger thingie....people had done it to me many times and I had paid attention and I was an expert. (The camera is an old Kodak Land model.....which I still have....should also be noted that this day marked the beginning of a photography career as well)



So, I had the composition in my head. I would wait until a semi-truck was close enough to get a good shot. I would position the camera on the little ledge between the seat and the back windshield so that my arm and said truck would both be part of the picture. I was going to be a photographic genius at the age of four and a half!! The perfect moment arrived, I pulled the trigger and presto...........








I had major delusions of grandeur for weeks until the photos were developed.



then.....



RATS!!!!!



I didn't even have the will to ever make another attempt. Getting the horns to blow didn't seem like all that much fun for a long while after that.



But since only half my head was captured, I'm thinking maybe only half my soul was taken.....the serious half.



That's the best explanation I can come up with for being the way I am.



So, no.....no drugs, I'm not from Krypton, i wasn't bitten by a radioactive spider but there, for the first time in print......you finally have the origin of Steak. Pass it on to your children so that they can then pass it on for generations to come.