Tough Neighborhood HOA

Texas likes to brag about how friendly its people are and for the most part, it's true. I remember the first time I ever came to Texas and anytime I walked into a store, I received a warm friendly greeting. That was very weird to me, and of course I ruined it by always responding, “What's it to you?” and flipping the clerk off for good measure. (I lived in Boston at the time.)

But then on occasion you run into someone who is only friendly in the sense that well, at least he didn't shoot me:

We spent last week at our vacation house in the Hill Country, which is actually just a nice way of saying we currently have two mortgages. As luck would have it, potential buyers came to look at our house. We left for about an hour, but when we came back, they were still there, so we parked on a side road to wait.

After about twenty minutes, a white pickup passed us. The driver slowly made several u-turns up and down the road before finally coming up beside us. I rolled down my window and smiled at our friendly neighbor.

Or not. The man, whom I’ll call Vince, rolled down his window as his truck came to a stop. “May I ask what you’re doing here?” he asked, eyes narrow with suspicion.

“Oh, we're just staking out our own house over there,” I said, pointing to our house. “It’s for sale, and we’re waiting for some prospective buyers to leave.”

Vince shook his head. “Jesus, what’s so wrong with that house that it goes on the market every two years?”

“What? Oh. Well, it was on the market for a while before us, but we've lived there for four years.”

“No, you haven't,” Vince said. “One and half, maybe two years max.”

I glanced at St. Pauli Girl who was biting her lip and turning her face away. I think her shoulders started to shake up and down, just a little.

“Um, no, we bought it in March of 2009. So it's pretty much exactly four years we’ve lived here.”

“No, you haven’t. You haven't been there that long.”

St. Pauli Girl leaned over to interrupt. “We moved in March 2009. Four years ago.”

He dropped that argument and moved on to his next one. “Do you mind telling me how much you're asking?” he said.

“No, not at all. It's all over the internet. Two-hundred ten thousand.”

Vince closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and shook his head slowly as if he were getting a headache. “It’s people like you who are ruining this neighborhood.”

I misunderstood his meaning, I guess, and frowned. “We've studied the market quite a bit, and it’s comparably priced for this area.”

“No! You’re destroying our property values. You should be asking four fifty!”

“Excuse me?”

“How many square feet you got?”

“Thirty-six hundred.”

“Well, I got nineteen hundred and I'd be asking three fifty for my house if it were for sale. Don't ruin it for everyone,” Vince said slapping his left hand on the steering wheel for emphasis.

I was starting to get irritated. I said, “You know that house down the road on the corner on five acres that just sold? It sat empty for two years listed at two-sixty. They had to remodel and drop the price to sell it.”

“That house was a piece of crap. I wouldn't board my ex-wife there.”

“Your house must be very nice.”

“Flawless. But I gotta keep constant guard with those long-hairs living out back behind me. Last week the sheriff hauled one off. Sent him back to the clink because he broke his probation.”

“Yeah, there are people at the end of our street who had the sheriff pay them a visit too,” I said, talking about what we call the “meth house.”

“There's too many no-gooders around here. That's why I carry a gun.”

“Good idea,” I said. That's when I realized we hadn't seen his right hand; it was more than likely resting on a gun in the seat beside him. I flashed him a bright smile and put the car in drive. “Thanks for keeping the neighborhood safe.”

“Well, good luck with your sale,” Vince said, snorting as he drove off.

Too bad it took us four two years to meet Vince. But despite destroying the neighborhood property values, I'm glad we're no longer living between the meth house and neighborhood militia.

Bigfoot Prefers Not to Be Found

A while back I wrote about my late-night television guilty habit of watching Ghost Adventures. I have since lost interest in that show as it has become less about hunting for ghosts and more about their audio detection devices such as the “spirit box,” which can amazingly translate white noise like “grrmphhxsskshhelkuyayt” into “kill you!” I have since discovered a much more superior show, Finding Bigfoot.

The show follows the adventures of three bigfoot nerds (including a man named Bobo) and a skeptical female biologist as they travel the world trying to find hard evidence of Bigfoot. But you don't have to watch the show--I'll just summarize one, because they are all pretty much the same:

Opening stock “preview” scene: video of a roaring beast that looks suspiciously like a gorilla.

Cut to: The team is in a car headed to a town hall meeting. Upon arrival, locals relate their Bigfoot stories. The Bigfoot hunters then pick the most credible sources from the meeting, jump back into the car, and tear off to where the most impressive incident happened. There, the eye witness demonstrates what he/she was doing and what he/she saw or heard. Then the experts send Bobo to the exact spot of the Bigfoot sighting. The witness then points out, “No, no, the creature was much taller than that.” At this point, the experts then deem the witness as extremely credible, since the measurements reported by the witness concur almost exactly with other reports of the height and breadth of a sasquatch (or “squatch,” to those in the know).

One time a witness described a series of footprints where a Bigfoot had come through. The experts recreated the footprints and decided that no human could possible duplicate that gait. The female biologist, ever playing devil’s advocate, quickly ran through the footprints demonstrating just the opposite. Bobo said, “Yeah, but how far could you have kept up that pace, huh?”

At this point the experts pick a spot to stake out during the night. They separate into pairs and proceed to make bigfoot calls hoping to attract one or two. The first night usually ends in disappointment.

Next comes a commercial break including Bigfoot trivia like:

“True or False. A bigfoot can run up to 30 miles per hour.”

“True or False. A bigfoot can swim.”

Amazingly, both of those statements are true! Not sure how they figured it out, but I guess they timed Bobo in a forty yard sprint and figured an animal twice his size can run twice as fast.

Next one member of the team will spend a few days by himself/herself in the woods in a solo field investigation. This usually involves a scary encounter with a raccoon or deer via night vision goggles. Meanwhile, the others continue interviewing more witnesses.

Finally, the whole team spends another night in the woods making Bigfoot calls and hitting trees with baseball bats because bigfoots like sports (another true fact, you heard it here first). Then they will stumble into an area where tree branches have been mysteriously bent, which we learn is obviously caused by a Bigfoot traipsing through the area. Then we reach the startlingly climax where someone will suddenly say, “Stop!” or “Ssshhhh! Did you hear that?” and cut to commercial.

After the commercial, we see everyone looking around through night vision goggles which will display a small blip in the distance. “Yep, that's Bigfoot,” or more likely a raccoon, or a deer, or a jackalope. Sometimes they'll say, “I heard it! There's definitely a squatch in the area!” Amazingly, they never record the sounds.

In the end, they gather up in the dark and assess the mission and congratulate themselves: “Well, there was definitely a lot of activity in the area, and this mission was a success!”

By contrast, perhaps that's where Ghost Adventures succeeds: the ghost hunters realized after several seasons that they needed the viewer to hear the sounds of ghosts, so they came up with devices that would interpret the white noise for us, while the Bigfoot crew just says, “Yessirree, we heard a lot of ‘squatches tonight! Trust us. Would Bobo lie?”

But I always have to stay up for the ending, because I don’t want to miss when they actually capture a Bigfoot on film.

The Working Life

By now you may have heard the uproar about Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer requiring employees to report to the office rather than working from home.  There are certainly many arguments for and against the policy, but the absolute worst argument is that work-at-home employees nap all day while office workers are pillars of productivity.

As a computer programmer, I’ve worked in a corporate setting for over 20 years. For the past ten years I’ve worked from home, going into the office usually only once a week, so I think I'm in a good position to provide detailed summaries of both realities. Let's take a look at a typical workday for me at home (the real “me,”) and me in the office (“me” being a composite of the many office-mates I’ve had through the years).

Working from Home

7 a.m. - 4 p.m.

7:00: I sit down at my desk in sweats and a t-shirt with a cup of coffee, activate my computer.

7:05: I scroll through my work emails to see if anything urgent happened since I logged off the night before. If not, I pull up my personal emails and respond as needed.

7:15 - 8:30: I scan my newsfeeds via twitter to see what happened in the world while I was asleep.

8:30 - 9:00: I check the weather forecast etc., warming up to the idea of thinking about maybe getting to work.

9:00 - 10:30: Procrastination over, I actually work.

10:30 - 11:00: Work continues with a conference call. Read online newspaper during meeting.

11:00 - 11:30: Too close to lunch to get any more computer work done, so . . . a little housework.

11:30- 12:30: Lunch hour! But not really. I usually do one of the following:

A. Mow the lawn

B. Empty the dishwasher

C. Ride my stationary bike

D. Laundry

12:30 - 1:00: Eat last night’s meatloaf at my desk while working (if there’s a time-sensitive project) or scanning newsfeeds.

1:00 - 2:30: Work continues.

2:30 - 3:00: Break time: I fold clothes, clean up from lunch, or take a walk if the weather is nice.

3:00 - 4:00: Wrap up whatever work I need to finish for the day, then read my newsfeeds and hope no co-workers contact me before 4:00.

4:45: Get a call from my boss. I answer it because she thinks I might be gone golfing so she's checking up on me.

Working in the Office

8 a.m. – 5 p.m.

8:00: Park, lock my car, and head towards the building. Being parked by 8:00 is considered “on time” because it's not my fault the parking lot is so far away from my office. Plus, the elevator takes forever.

8:10: Activate my computer then head to the break room to get coffee. If the coffee pot is empty, make a new pot and wait for it to finish. No one else is there yet.

8:30 - 9:30: Back at my desk I go through work emails and then personal emails. Hearing co-workers’ voices, I wander back to the break room to hang out for a while and discuss the absence of a Starbucks in the building, how much we hate our jobs, “the Man,” and non-present co-workers.

9:30 - 10:00: Check newsfeeds while being subjected to a loud conference call that Leesha two cubicles down puts on speaker phone.

10:00 - 10:30: Go downstairs, walk outside at least twenty feet from the building, and take a smoke break with the handful of employees left who smoke.

10:30 – 10:45: Work, alternating with video games on my cell phone.

10:45 - 11:20: Attend a meeting. Everyone except the person giving the presentation plays with his/her cell phone.

11:20 - 11:45: After the meeting, hang out in the conference room and argue with co-workers about where to go for lunch.

11:45 - 1:15: I win! It’s the Japanese steakhouse around the corner. Eight of us sit and watch the chef do an impressive stir-fry on the grill in front of us. We all split three slices of fried cheesecake.

1:15 - 1:20: Drop off the to-go box with leftovers at my desk.

1:20 - 1:45: Smoke break, then I take the Wall Street Journal to the restroom.

1:45 - 2:00: Back at my desk. Across the aisle Kip yawns/growls like King Kong, burps loudly, and makes other bodily noises I haven’t heard since the 5^th grade. He hollers at me that he just sent me a funny video.

2:00 - 2:15: I check out the YouTube link of “hilarious cat farting.” A few other videos catch my eye, so I return the favor via an email to Kip.

2:15 - 3:00: I wander down the corridor, alert Kip to the email I just sent, pause at Rodney’s desk, and we discuss either:

A. Our previous night's league softball game

B. Fantasy baseball or football

C. How much we hate our jobs, “The Man,” and non-present co-workers

D. How hilarious that “cat farting” video was that Kip just sent

3:00 - 3:15: The afternoon’s flying by so it’s time to multi-task: Coffee break and smoke break.

3:15 – 3:45: Get afternoon work done while wearing headphones and posting IM status as “busy” so no one will bother me before 5:00 quitting time.

3:45 – 4:45: Catch up on Facebook, twitter, and my gaming forum.

4:45: Time to leave! Woo-hoo!

4: 46: Get a call from the boss on my cell phone. I ignore it; she should have called me on my work phone before I left for the day.

So yes, there are advantages to working from home. Although, I would argue that my typical work clothes are a step up from the “casual” office-wear I’ve seen some of my co-workers show up in. But all in all, the idea that you can measure productivity by the number of hours that someone “shows up” is absurd.

Confessions of a Chili Judge

A couple of weeks ago, I had the good fortune of being invited to judge a chili cook-off. Alert readers will not be surprised because in the past I have judged beer contests, owned a restaurant, plus I enjoy the Miss Universe pageant (and as the saying goes, how come the winner always resides on earth?). However, the judging requirements at this contest were a little less demanding.

On a cold, windy, rainy day, I happened to be wandering around the outside of a large sporting goods store waiting for my guns to be serviced (not the real reason I was there but I need to demonstrate some Texan bona fides). Someone grabbed me and asked if I liked chili. I said yes, and the next thing I knew, he was placing a “judge” lanyard over my neck and escorting me to a table. (I suspect if I had said, “no”, the next question would have been “Are you capable of swallowing food?” and my affirmative answer would have established my credentials as a chili judge.)

I sat down at a picnic table with five other very well qualified judges who could write numerals and remember not to double dip his/her spoon in the chili. An elderly woman (who I will now refer to as Mrs. Wolf) at the end of the table passed out scoring sheets and pencils. She noted that we all had bottled water at our places and that we were not to touch her beer that she had hidden in the box with the twelve bowls of chili.

We casually introduced ourselves, and I alertly noticed across the table the woman with the low cut top who put her best feet forward if you know what I mean. Anxious to start judging, I immediately penciled her in as an “8”.

Mrs. Wolf gave us instructions: we were to judge the chili on aroma, color, taste, consistency, and after-taste, and that we would assign a single number between 1 and 10 for each entry. We needed to keep our scores hidden from other judges, we were not allowed to talk about the chili, and most important of all, do not double dip your spoon! Always use a fresh spoon to taste! (At the time, I didn't think about it, but the thought of passing those bowls around on a cold, rainy day in the middle of flu season and relying on strangers to not double dip makes me question my sanity.)

Finally, Mrs. Wolf passed out the first set of bowls, and we got to work. I opened the lid on the first entry and inhaled a very nice fresh chili aroma. I studied the color then took a taste, allowing it to linger on the tongue, then chewed lightly to check the consistency. I dropped my spoon in the dump bucket to avoid the temptation to double dip before giving deep thought to the after-taste. With the exception of a little grease around the edge of the bowl, it was very good. But this was my first taste, and the only thing for me to compare it with was my own personal chili history. Not wanting to score it too high, I gave it a 6, closed the lid, and passed it on.

By now, three chili bowls had stacked up beside me. Apparently, I was judging much slower than the other judges, perhaps giving too much deep thought to each of the five criteria. I watched the Ms. 8 across from me as she judged. She opened the lid, took a quick taste, closed the lid and wrote a score down, all in about 4 seconds. I wondered if I should complain to Mrs. Wolf that perhaps other judges were not taking this as seriously as they should be. But the man next to me cleared his throat loudly to alert me to the four chili bowls piled up next to me. I demoted the non-judgmental Ms. 8 to Ms. 7 due to a lack of integrity and decided I needed to keep my eye on her.

The second bowl of chili didn't smell as good as the first, but other than that, it was about the same. I scored it a 7 and started thinking I had under-scored the first bowl. By the third bowl, I knew I had under-scored the first as the third tasted the same as the first two. Half-way through the samples, I had scored one “6” and six “7”s. I became despondent. If Mrs. Wolf studied my scores, she might kick me out as a failure of a judge.

I decided to be more open-minded. Unfortunately, this caused me to slow down. I avoided making eye contact with the other judges, but I felt their stares.

I ignored them. As I went along, I noticed that besides the first bowl, none of the others had any aroma at all, so I downgraded their scores as appropriate. Then I realized I had a runny nose from all the spiciness and really couldn't smell anything anymore. Just as I opened the lid of the next bowl, the man next to me reached across the bowl to grab a packet of crackers and nearly dipped his elbow in the bowl. I jerked the bowl away and gave him a sharp look.

“Sorry about that, hope I didn't get in your way,” he said.

“Well, I did almost have to note that this entry tasted like a dirty flannel shirt.”

“Don't talk about the chili!” Mrs. Wolf admonished us.

The next entry was a bit salty. But it was good and except for the extra salt it tasted just like the rest, so I gave it a 6. At this point, I felt like I needed to declare a winner. Even though we were only judging twelve out of the 130 entries, I felt like I needed to make the decision that one entry­--a single outstanding specimen of meat, tomato sauce, chili powder, and MSG--reigned supreme. So when I got the next bowl, I noticed it tasted just like the others, but I gave it an 8. The champion!

I still had two bowls left to judge when I noticed everyone staring at me. Again.

“No judge may leave the table until all judges have finished,” Mrs. Wolf said.

The woman formerly known as an 8 sighed loudly, leaned over the table and glared at me. “Some of us still need to get our ammo,” she said with a sneer as she jerked a thumb towards the mammoth front doors of Guns-N-Stuff-R-Us.

I grabbed my score sheet and marked her down to a 4. I finally finished and turned in my score sheet with two 6’s, nine 7’s and one 8. My only regret was not knocking the salty entry down to a 5 and not scoring the first entry as a 7.

So to all the chili contestants: I apologize for ruining your contest. You may as well have drawn the winner from a hat. But honestly, all the entries tasted nearly identical. So . . . you're all winners in my book!

I Don't Dream of This Genie

If you watch television, you are probably familiar with the DirectTV genie commercial where a mysterious genie appears in front of a television screen like Vanna White, and I guess adjusts the volume or changes the channel for you. I have nothing against genies and was a big fan of “I Dream of Jeannie” with Barbara Eden, and I even enjoy the genie from Bugs Bunny cartoons.  But for some reason I find the Direct TV genie about as appealing as a week-old tumbler of bourbon and coke with cigarette butts soaking in it. She looks like an underage streetwalker after a really bad night.

So, although the genie is supposed to entice us into ordering Direct TV, I just get horrific images of her materializing out of nowhere:

. . . I came back from the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn in my hand when I noticed the genie draped across my television set. She smiled and waved at me, then fell to the floor with a shriek.

“What the--?”

“I'm good, I'm okay,” she said, struggling to her feet. “So, you want some Direct TV?”

“No thank you. I have cable.”

She pouted, crossed her arms, then dropped to the floor cross-legged.

“How'd you get in here?”

“I'm a genie. I snap my fingers, wiggle my nose. Or something. Actually, Direct TV pushes a button and sends me through the television.”

“That's impossible.”

“Says the guy that still has ancient cable.” She stood up and walked towards our bar. “You got any vodka?”

“No, just Scotch and tequila.”

“Cranberry or apple infused?”

“No, and I don’t think you should have--.”

She interrupted me by grabbing the tequila and heading back into the living room. She plopped down on the couch and took a swig from the bottle.

She swiped her mouth with the back of a hand then burped. “Anything good on?” she said, pointing at the television.

“I was just getting ready to watch a basketball game.”

“Pppffft. Bo-ring! You need Direct TV. Turn on Downton Abbey, and we'll do a shot every time someone says, 'my lord' or 'my lady.'”

“I don't want Direct TV, and I want to watch basketball. And you shouldn’t--”

“Whatever.” She pulled a cigarette from somewhere in her lacy outfit. “Mind if I smoke?”

“Yes. In fact, you should leave.”

She produced a lighter shaped like a grenade, lit up, and took a puff. A funny smell wafted my way.

“Is that--”

“Yeah,” she said with a smirk. “Should I have brought my bong?” She said this while holding her breath, holding the wet end towards me.

“No thanks. You need to go. And I don't think a 14-year-old should be drinking and smoking.”

“Fourteen? Ha! I'm legal.”

“Really? Old enough to drink?”

“Well, old enough for your dirty thoughts.” She winked. I shuddered.

“Get out of here!” I looked around as if an older, wiser genie was going to materialize and offer to take her off my hands.

She giggled. “Call some friends. Let's have a party.”

“You're the genie. Why don’t you call someone? Better yet, order us a dozen pizzas.” My freezer was empty at the moment.

“No wishes granted until you order Direct TV.” She stood up and walked to the kitchen. “Got any food?”

She came back into the living room munching from a bag of cheetos. She wiped her hand on her dress, ate another handful, then smeared the orange stuff across the back of the couch.

That was it. “Stop! Look, I'm not interested in Direct TV. You need to leave. Now.”

“Suit yourself.” She blinked, snapped her fingers, wiggled her nose, then crossed her arms and nodded. “Whoopsie! Still here! Looks like you’re stuck with me until you sign up.”

“Fine, sign me up,” I said, figuring I could cancel as soon as she left. I went to my office and grabbed an expired credit card, came back, and handed it to her.

“Great! I'll have to go swipe this and bring it right back to you.”

She started to snap her fingers then ran to the bar and grabbed a bottle of bourbon.

“A little something for the road,” she said.

This time she snapped her fingers and disappeared in a cloud of smoke through the television screen. I waited a minute then turned off the television. I haven't watched it since.

Don't Put a Cap On It

With Valentine's Day coming up, it's time for a public service announcement from this blog.

I've written about the problem of menunderdressing their women before and yet for some reason, my pleas have not changed the world. So let's start slow and small with something very specific: the baseball cap.

I've seen too many instances of women dressed nicely waiting for her date, only for the date to show up in some sort of ensemble of t-shirt, shorts or jeans and to top it all off, a baseball cap! And sometimes the baseball cap is on backwards.

Gentlemen, if you are preparing for a date, and you find yourself rummaging through your closet trying to find which baseball cap you think your date will find you more attractive in, please stop! Yes, it will make you look younger except that it will make you look younger than the age of consent. The baseball cap should be banished from your wardrobe when you have retired from little league or whenever it was that you last played organized baseball.

The baseball cap is not a fashion accessory. A good rule of thumb is when dressing for a night out, if you wish to put something on your head, if it cannot be considered a chapeau, you shouldn't wear it. A baseball cap is not a chapeau even if you call it Le baseball cap. And don’t be cute: a vintage Le Montreal Expos hat is no exception.

The only acceptable time to wear a baseball cap is if you have to go in public and haven't washed your hair (i.e. you are sporting a classic bedhead) or you are partaking in some strenuous outdoor physical activity and you need to protect your scalp from the sun. Wearing a baseball cap while golfing is acceptable, but once you reach the age of forty, you are culturally obliged to purchase one of those expansive Tom Kite or Greg Norman straw hats.

If you are over the age of 22, you shouldn't even wear a baseball cap while attending a professional baseball game. Grow up and get a derby, or a homburg, or a Panama, or even a fedora.

And God forbid, a baseball cap should never be worn backwards unless you are a professional baseball catcher or a successful rapper.

And if I can't get through to the gentlemen, I'm going to appeal directly to the women:

If your date shows up wearing a baseball cap, at the minimum swat it from his head. That's what the bill of the cap is for. If he manages to dodge that, say, “Oh, did you win your little league game? Shall we go get a sno-cone?”

Or, you can just flat out dump him. [To all you non-cap-wearing guys out there waiting to pounce on the fallout of this global “dumping”: You’re welcome.]

So Gentlemen, as you prepare for your big Valentine's date next week, remember that if you don a baseball cap for the Big Night Out, expect to have it knocked off. And not in a moment of passion.

[St. Pauli Girl interrupts this blog to ask how many baseball hats I have.]

Yes, okay, I have somewhere between ten and twenty, but I have never worn one on a date. And after I finish this blog post, I am trading them all in for a homburg, a bowler, and a giant Tom Kite hat. Except for my Augusta cap. I might need it in an emergency.

Devil's Got a Squeezebox

Awhile back, I heard the classic 70's song, “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” by the Charlie Daniels Band on the radio. I listened closely to the devil's fiddle solo and realized it wasn't very good. This left me very perplexed about the song.

How did the devil lose, and why did he make the bet if he knew he wasn't very good?

To recap the song:

The devil is in Georgia trying to steal some souls when he comes across Johnny playing his fiddle. So the devil bets a fiddle of gold against Johnny's soul that the devil is a better fiddler. They both play some songs then the devil bows his head because he knows he's been beat, and he lays the fiddle of gold at Johnny's feet.

So where did the devil go wrong?

( you can listen to the whole song here or just the devil's solo at about the 1:25 mark)

The devil's solo is introduced with “and it sounded something like this” and we immediately hear a guitar and/or funky piano. Apparently, the devil brought a backing band. Is that allowed? Okay, he's the devil so we should expect a little gamesmanship at best. A few seconds later, we can hear the fiddle coming in with a slight smoldering touch, but the fiddle never really takes over the song. I'm willing to bet the devil had never even played the fiddle before.

Simon Cowell probably would have said, “Satan, that was not your best effort. You needed an inferno and you brought a bic lighter. I mean, you're playing for someone's soul! You just let the background music take over and stood there like a demonic Stu Sutcliffe bringing nothing to the stage. I really doubt you'll be back next week.”

Was he forced to play the gold fiddle? I would think that would be pretty heavy and would throw anyone off his game. Plus I imagine it would sound metallic at best.

The devil had the upper hand too. He had already heard Johnny playing before he made the bet. He had to know he didn't have the chops to take Johnny down. He should have insisted on having judges for the contest:

“To be fair,” the devil could have said, “we'll need an impartial group of judges. Luckily these fine gentlemen followed me here: Hitler, Stalin and William Tecumseh Sherman.”

There's no way Sherman lets someone from Georgia win.

He could have at least demanded two out of three.

But the whole reason I got to thinking about the song again was because I recently listened to the version by Those Darn Accordions from my massive music library.

Their version has the same basic plot except the fiddle is an accordion and Johnny is a girl named Big Lou. (Granted they should have changed the setting to Milwaukee or Waukesha but that's beside the point.) Most importantly, in this version, the devil pulls out his accordion and puts down the squeeze. You can hear the fire coming from the bellows. Big Lou still wins but at least the devil puts up a fight.

So I believe the accordion version is far superior to the Charlie Daniels version because in that version the devil brings a backing band to a fiddle fight while in the accordion version it's a fiery, one man accordion solo.

But most of all, we can all be happy that Steve Miller didn't write it as it would have gone something like this:

“Devil went down to oooh, old El Paso

Bet a gold fiddle against Johnny's soul

Father Mahoney ain't gonna let Satan escape justice

Headed down south and Johnny's still fiddlin' today”

(And they would probably do a drum solo for the devil's fiddle part)

Notes: There's actually a youtube clip of Those Darn Accordions playing the song live. Surprisingly, it defeats my argument as it sticks closely to the Charlie Daniels version. However, if you look up the studio version on itunes, you can actually sample the pertinent parts of the song I'm talking about. And if you do check out the youtube clip and you're a fan of The Who, you owe it yourself to check out “Baba O'Riley”.