I have outlined some of the few reasons which will cause me to emerge from my windowless underground lair of my own volition, but the more I try to nail this list down, the more it seems to grow.

If this continues and word gets out, I may face the ignominy of being tossed out of the Hermit League. Scandalous!

I feel safe divulging this information to you fine people, however, since my handy squirrel analyst reports indicate that there are approximately two of you regularly perusing these ravings.

Even so, in the interest of honesty I must own up and add golf to the list of things I like to do that can’t really be effectively done inside my lair. So, the running tally now looks like this:

1. Family doings (Niece Tossing)
2. Racing, Persuing Adventures and Absorbing Nature
1. Running
2. Riding bikes
3. Foot or bike races
4. Outdoorsmanship
3. Behaving in the manner of a buffoon (with my friends)
4. Absorbing culture (Art, books, etc)
5. Golf (new)
6. Talking to Girls

One could make a case that girls can be effectively talked to over the internet, but I remain disdainful of internet dating even though I have profiles out there. I seem to always maintain a nagging suspicion that the person I am talking to is actually a 60 year old man, or a Nigerian scammer, or both. It’s really best to talk to girls in person, I find, even when your game is in a rebuilding year as mine is.

Luckily, as my friend Ashley has asserted, I have a “decent face for a guy”.

I enjoy the benefit of no such saving natural attributes in golf, however. I was on the golf team in school, but it seems that the ability that I remembered having back then is a product of my imagination based not at all in reality. And yet, I enjoy playing the game for some reason.

I think a lot of my enjoyment of it has to do with the relationship I have imagined between myself, the ball, and the golf course. I think of myself as an American intelligence officer in France late in World War II. The ball is a member of the French Resistance.

Ceci ne'st pas une pipe.

We’re both fighting the Germans (the course), but the ball, being French, still doesn’t want to really do what I want it to do all the time. I try to convince it that I know what’s best by talking to it as any American would to a foreigner in their native land, in loud English.

“Okay, ball” I say, teeing it up “You’re gonna go to the top of that hill, there, right in the middle of the fairway.”

The ball sneers and mutters something that I’m unable to decipher with my limited French as it smokes a cigarette. I try to stay positive, wind up, and send it along its path to get the better of the imaginary Germans, but some times these missions work out better than other times.

My friend Tony, who is a pro-level golfer, claims that playing the game anymore for him is boring. His swing is so practiced that each is indistinguishable from the last, whereas mine are each a new ungainly horror, like a man experiencing a standing grand mal seizure while simultaneously fighting a swarm of bees.

The only reason I haven’t been asked by the community to stop is that a line of trees around the course protect any passing children from the sight of my golf. One look would surely cause severe emotional harm, or possibly a dangerous fit of laughter.

I confess it, I do still love to play. Ah well.

C’est la guerre!

Well, my fellow Georgians have done it again. Apparently some bed-wetting liberal has gone and made it illegal to slap other people’s toddlers in Wal-Mart. What is the world coming to? Are we, as adults, supposed to be tolerant of children now? Horsefeathers!

I myself am a proud uncle to a toddler. She and the other young members of my family are the few exceptions to my strict adherence to Mark Twain’s assertion that children should be sealed inside a barrel and fed through the hole in the side until they reach the age of eighteen. At this point, the hole is to be plugged up.

I can only assume that this wisdom isn’t already being put into practice because today’s steel 55-gallon drums severely lack the rustic romance of a good old wooden one. It may be a simple supply problem. It’s possible that the entire world’s supply of the wooden barrels is being hoarded by people who make whiskey, or on display at Cracker Barrel restaurants.

Yes, times are changing, and surely not for the better. It seems that rich famous women can’t even record vanity albums to make a profit anymore. Heidi Montag’s album sold a mere 658 copies its first week.

I’m told that in the meetings leading up to her recording sessions she investigated several other options as businesses to delve into outside of being pretty and saying silly things on television. Many different ideas were pitched by her financial team, who were hired solely on the basis of their extreme age.

These fossilized captains of industry wheezed through pitches for scores of different ideas, but the ones they all agreed still had significant financial merit were recording an album, starting a new line of cigarettes, and the Gold Rush of 1849.

The cigarettes idea was ultimately thrown out because Heidi is married now and never has to suck anything again, but she did give the Gold Rush a try.

Ew, there's like, outside on my sandal.

Sadly, it didn’t work out. Oh well.

The times, they are a-changin!

As I have said many times, there are few things I enjoy more these days than time alone in my hermit hole. I’m usually either writing these blogs for all seven of you to enjoy or receiving security briefings from the neighborhood squirrels who serve as my scouts.

I am a friend and leader to the Animal Kingdom, as you already know. Insects, on the other hand, can go eff themselves. Especially the ones who sting or bite. Jerks!

Look at them sitting there all smug like they're something big.

Still, there are often times when I must emerge from Hodgson Compound, which is situated in a secret corner of a lovely Atlanta neighborhood. Examples include when I need to drop off or pick up my drycleaning, when I need to run or ride bikes, or when I travel to Africa to summit Kilimanjaro.

At these times, it is necessary to select a shoe in which to put my feet. I have many to choose from.

I keep a rotating stock of running shoes because the people who manufacture running shoes have assured everyone that this is prudent and proper. It’s not enough to own one pair. Nay, the wise runner must have a half dozen or more that he rotates with each workout so that one pair doesn’t get over-worn. A pair is said to last about three to six months, but I stretch them much longer because I haven’t really noticed a difference if I don’t. Except, of course, for the money I still have.

It goes without saying that as a member of a dying breed of real men I also own a pair of cowboy boots. These not only look good, but are excellent for ass-kickin’.

As an intrepid explorer I have a pair of hiking boots, along with several pairs of dress shoes in black and in brown. And then there’s my many pairs of casual shoes.

Having an excellent and extensive choice of dress, casual, and ass-kickin’ footwear is very manly. In fact, I was complemented more than once this weekend on my shoes, and on more than one pair. I’ve heard it said that if you want to know if a man is well dressed, look down.

That’s unless he’s kicking your ass, of course, in which case you may want to also keep an eye on what his fists are up to. They could very well be headed for your eye area, or urging a legion of trained attack monkeys forward.

I at first assumed that old saying meant that if his pants are not properly fastened, or indeed missing altogether, then he hasn’t finished dressing. I have come to realize that whoever coined this phrase was referring to shoes, and I have taken it to heart, or to foot in this case. I’ve taken it to the heart of my feat.

My feetheart!

We landed in Atlanta, touching down softly thanks to what must have been great skill on the part of the pilot. If the frantic flapping of the various surfaces on the wing and the side-to-side shifting of the ground relative to the plane were any indication, it wasn’t an easy feat. I immediately turned on my cell phone and alerted the Universe that I was safe.

The Universe appeared to be nonplussed, due, I am sure, to my detestable lack of fame.

Once the plane stopped at the gate, everyone leaped from their seats in order to be the very first to stand in line, which is an effort similar in level of futility to pressing an elevator button over and over when it’s already lit, or participating in heated political debates on Facebook.

It is always good to be home, and as I rode up an escalator behind a generously-proportioned woman wearing a shirt that proclaimed “Shootin Deers and Drinkin Beers, thats how we roll”, I knew I could only be back in my beloved South.

Once on the train platform, I enjoyed some people watching during my wait for the train. When a train arrived, transit employees appeared on the platform to shout that this train was out of service. It seems that the style among transit employees is to wear a great many beads in one’s hair. People boarded the train despite their admonishments, and were herded off with more shouts and waving and beads clicking together. We all went back to waiting and pretending not to look at one another.

After a while, a more in-service train arrived and everyone jostled aboard and found seats. I had probably a dozen stops to go, so I settled in for a lengthy passage with the Flaming Lips hooting in my ears.

After about three stops, a man boarded the train.

“I was trippin’ out there.” he proclaimed. “I saw about eight or nine rats out there. I’ve never seen them like that!”

There was an empty seat behind me, but he didn’t make for it, choosing instead to stand in the aisle by the door. I guessed that the floor show was about to begin, and with the Flaming Lips beeping and booping through “The Dark Side of the Moon” in my ear I thought it might make for a reasonably interesting combination.

“Let me have your attention, ladies and gentlemen,” the man said in a clear, articulate voice. “I am trying to get a place to sleep tonight. I am homeless. I’m not an alcoholic, I just want a bed for the night. I need nine dollars in order to stay at the shelter. I have about two collected already, and I’d appreciate anything you can do.”

He went on for a while, but I don’t think he had any takers. Possibly no one had any cash. This lead me to consider the idea I have for a charity that would distribute hand held credit card swiping machines to panhandlers so they can accept donations from people who don’t carry cash. They’d all have to get bank accounts which might be tough, but at least it would move panhandling into the modern age.

After a couple of stops, the well-spoken floor show got off our train and we rode on in silence. Except for me, of course, as Wayne Coyne was burbling some nonsense over shrieking guitars out of a tiny speaker not thirty millimeters from my eardrum.

That’s when the floor show mark two began. A gentleman stepped onto the train and assumed the same aisle position as the last.

“Ladiesh and jennelmen” he slurred. “I like to have attenshion please. I am HOMELESH!”

At this point he peered around, hands jammed down into his pockets, then continued. “I’m not alcoholic, I jush need a plashe to spenna night. I need twelve dollars to stay at the shelter, and I have got around 1.79 so far. PLEAZSH HELP!”

No one offered any money, and soon we got to another station.

Floor Show Mark Two lumbered off the train, nearly bumping into a kid in a day-glow green hoodie who was shouting “HAAAAAAY” merrily into a cell phone over and over. The kid’s cries echoed around the underground concrete station platform, and he skipped toward the stairs, seemingly having the time of his life.

Last night I was at a long table about to enjoy the family style dinner that my friends and I usually have together on the Sunday night after the NAMM show. There were fifteen of us, all men except my friend Jen, which is a fitting NAMM ratio of men to women.

That’s when, much to my delight, I observed what appeared to be a series of homosexual couplings across the table… but let me back up.

I refer to the NAMM show as the “Bucket of Dudes” because the ratio of men to women at the show is noticeably male-heavy. It is in no way lacking in long hair, however. In fact I very carefully made a note to myself on the first day that NAMM probably has the lowest ratio of long hair to females in the world, which is a pity.

Despite some trouble with my lack of game, I love talking to girls. Unfortunately, as I confided in my friend Mike this weekend, I consider 2010 a rebuilding year for my game. After being in a steady relationship with someone that I was thinking seriously about a very long future with, it has suffered a lot.

Still, I am a fearless explorer, athlete, and artist, so approaching pretty girls is no trouble for me. The trouble comes when I have nothing to say after “Hello” besides “BUH, YOU PRETTY!”.

Rico… suave!

But back to the homosexual coupling.

We were all crammed into a series of tables arranged lengthwise, one side against a wall. Suddenly, one of our party decided he needed to switch places with another, but there was nearly no space on their side of the table to accomplish this.

I knew that some fairly awkward man-grabbin’ was about to take place, so I did what any good friend would do. I rushed to get out my camera to record it.

The faces and any identifying marks have been blurred out to protect the identities of the couplers as well as anyone appearing in a fresco behind them, but here you can see the coupling about to take place.

The coupler on the left is rising from the table to mount the couplee, who is recoiling in horror.

I've been really trying, baby. To hold back this feelin' for so long.

Here you can see the coupling in full swing. Note that there is an extremely hilarious look of abject terror on the face of the couplee at this point, which is obscured by the blurring in order to protect everyone’s identity.

If you feel, like I feel sugar.. let's get it on!

Things reached such a fever pitch that a second couplee got inadvertently mounted and loved up. It was quite a sight. I nearly spilled my house chianti in my haste to document proceedings and scream encouragement.

Come on darlin, stop beatin 'round the bush.. let's get it on!

After a while things calmed down, but there was still a lot of hugging as we said our goodbyes. It would be nice if more girls were involved in the NAMM show, but you couldn’t really ask for a nicer bucket of dudes.