Grandma's Wisdom

My grandparents, who lived through the Depression, taught me it was wise to sock away as much money as possible in a rainy day fund. "If you expect a chintzy fucking government to take care of you when the economy goes into the shitter, Beer," my Grandma used to say, "think again. The only asses those good for nothing pork-choppers give a good god damn about when the going gets tough are their own. Save your money Beer because the only thing in life you can count on is the shit hitting the fan when you are sitting right in front of it."

Grandma was right. So far I have survived two or three depressions and I intend on surviving two or three more. You want to know how I survived those depressions? It was easy - I had money in my rainy day fund for beer. Beer is how working people like me get through bad times.

It takes a lot of planning to keep a rainy day fund topped up if you live in Dope City because you have to have a rainy day fund to dip into every year as well as the one for the Depression beer account. When the rains come lots of us withdraw what we can from our rainy day fund and head south. Sonja and I go to Mexico because at heart we are Mexican artists - and we fear no beer.

There is only one rule you must obey to enjoy a Mexican vacation: take it easy the first night. A few beer, a couple glasses of wine and a little hard liquor the first night sets you up nice for the rest of your stay. Dope has been decriminalized down there, it seems (I don't read the papers), so go ahead and smoke your face off while you are at it. Pretty soon you will be thinking like Pancho Villa.

This year, after we had retired for our first night under a Mexican blanket, a party started up in the room next door. The pissed up motherfuckers were playing Spanish disco at Motorhead volume. The police were called to break the party up. The music stopped like sudden death and I fell back asleep to the unmistakable sound of bones smashing. No candy ass tasers for the Mexican police.

The cleaning staff were inside room when we went by in the morning. I peeked in the open door. It looked like a Charles Manson murder re-enactment had taken place. There was blood on the walls, the ceiling and the floor. There was blood on the tv, on the curtains, on the bed and on the door. You have to really love your motherfucking disco to piss off the Mexican police with it.