I WILL BE ON VACATION THIS WEEK

Carty will be guest blogging this weekend. Leave any questions you have for him in the comments section or e-mail them to bonogabaldon@yahoo.com.....I be off getting away from my usual busy life. Have a nice weekend.

It's been a while.....

I didn't intend to wait this long before I blogged again. But I has been a very busy couple of weeks. For the last month or so my Mama has been working on her jewelry/art for a craft show this weekend. She was working it pretty diligently. Even canceling a vacation to San Diego to get work done. Well, I got caught up in all the hoopla. Her and Cindy split a booth at the show. I just had to get in on the action. One problem. I suck at art. I doubt my Derby Easter eggs would have went over well at this thing. So I got to thinking about what I could do. Then last weekend it finally clicked. I mix a wicked margarita. I decided I was going to move in on my Mama's territory at her show. I was going to set up a margarita stand. I was going to call it Bono's Paw Crafted Margaritas. I went to work on it right away. I tested all sorts of recipes. I spent a fortune in ingredients. Not to mention waking up hung over every morning. Carty was testing the recipes with me for the first few days. He tapped out sometime on Wednesday. He said his liver was sore. Lightweight. My Dad helped test also but he was a wet blanket all week when it came to my idea of setting up a booth at the show. He kept saying that you need a licence to sell booze. I dismissed his comments. I figured people sell all kinds of crap at these things. Nobody would even notice me. Plus, I thought he was jealous because he didn't think of the margarita stand idea before I did. It turns out he was right. On Friday morning I was wheeling my wagon full of ingredients in to the show. It was held in a vacant suite in a strip mall. I wasn't 10ft through the door before some lady asked me what I was doing. She was like "excuse me ahh, sir, cat, whatever. Is that alcohol there". I was like "yeah". She said "you can't sell that here. You need a license". I tried to talk my way out if it. I came back with this "License?, Your sign outside is made out of bed sheet? You'll be lucky to get any customers in this place begin with, I highly doubt whatever government agency that enforces licensing laws will be coming by this place. Plus, there is a lady over there selling fudge. Where is her license? She could be making that stuff in a kitchen full or rat turds for all we know". It didn't work. My dream was over before it ever got off the ground. I hung around for a while anyway. I found out Cindy(Bono's Best of Vegas '08 winner for best local artist) is an "art celebrity". It was quite an experience being part of her entourage for a while. I finally left after fighting through the paparazzi.

I wanted to touch on one subject. I guess in my Mama's little art world, there has been some controversy lately over the possibility of people copying other people's work. It seems some people are really pissed off about it. I think its silly because this art world that my Mama is part of really is small. It a circle of people that take the same classes, study the same techniques, read the same books, magazines, blogs and web sites. Now they're surprised when they all start creating the same shit. What do they expect to happen? Stuff like this happens even in larger artistic realms. Just look at music. Everybody is ripping everybody else off constantly. I thought Creed was Pearl Jam the first time I herd them. I swear Garth Brooks sings all of Keith Urban's songs for him. Play Garth's early stuff. You'll be amazed how close it sounds to Keith Urban. My Mama listens to a Christian singer names Jackie Velazquez. It's J-Lo singing about Jesus. She even lifts the beats from J-Lo. I guess what I'm saying it that nobody is truly original. That's just the way it is. Sorry you had to find out this way. With that said, I do think you need some level of creativity. The booth across from my Mama, the people were selling signs(see photo above). Painted wood with words, quotes, lyrics, symbols and letters. Anybody can do this crap. It takes lumber, a jigsaw, stencil and paint. Not to mention the copyright infringement. One sign said "My blood type is Starbucks". One had the lyrics to "Take me out to the ball game". Wow, not that's what I call art. Thank God nobody was buying this garbage....Also, to not be hypocritical I'll share some recipes from Bono's Paw Crafted Margaritas. They took countless hours to perfect. Feel free to rip them off...on all the recipes just assume the base is lime juice and Triple Sec unless otherwise noted. You can use the pre-mixed stuff also if you want...

Bono's Key Lime pie-arita...use key lime juice, add just a touch of heavy cream, shake well, plus add whipped cream on top. Garnish with a graham cracker on the whipped cream mound.

Bono's Maui Woowie Margarita....replace 1/2 your lime juice with pineapple puree. It adds a great texture. Garnish with pineapple slices.

Bono's Jamaican-me crazy margarita....replace tequila with Jamaican rum. Add sugar/sweetener to bring out the rum flavor better.

Bono's Sandiarita.....It's a watermelon margarita(Sandia means watermelon in Spanish)....puree watermelon and add watermelon liquor for best results.

Bono's El Patron Margarita.....must use Patron tequila. Use key lime juice, reqular lime juice, lemon and orange juice. Add a shot of Grand Marnier Orange liquor. This was named in honor of my late Uncle Cheesie. He was my Mama's Cat at her childhood house in Edgwood, NM. My grandpa gave him the nickname of Patron, hence the El Patron name. My grandpa used to scratch his head so much in one spot that eventually he was bald there. He also knocked up all the lady cats in the neighborhood so there are lots of decendents around. I hope none of them call to ask for money one of these days......

My Mama is not going to like this.....

I'm reluctant to blog about this because my Mama gets really jealous when it comes to other women being in my life. I don't know why. You'll have to get that explanation from her. I went out on another date with the girl I brought to my Dad's lame birthday party. Oh, I found out why strawberry margaritas were not on the invitation. There were no invitations! That would be a good way to get people to a party. Anyway, a few days before his party I met a lady kitty named Reba at a get together a mutual friend of our's had. She lives with a redneck couple a block or so down the way. Darrell and Mabeleene. Since we were both named after musicians we got to talking and kind of hit it off. After the birthday party debacle we kept talking but we didn't have a 2nd date till Saturday. I took her to the Peter Frampton concert. It went really well. Since she endoured the party and the concert of my choice, so I thought I would do something nice for her. With her being a country girl I took her to Toby Keith's I love this Bar&Grill at Harrah's. Some people think this is a total sell out by Toby, but I don't. Just refer to my last blog for my thoughts on celebrity commercialism. Also he needs as many sources of income as possible to keep up with Exxon, Halliburton, Blackwater and Iran as the entities that have benefited the most from 9/11 and subsiquent wars. On walls of the restraunt they run a video of Toby's song "Love this Bar". Go here for the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q85rPq1u9sc . I've got to tell you this place does not resemble the bar in the video at all. When we got there, Reba wanted to sit at the bar. We sat down and the "bartender" was I guess making drinks. It was kind of hard to tell. He was back there juggling the bottles around, flipping glasses, throwing an ice scoop ten feet in the air. Basically doing everthing but making a drink. It took me about 10 miniutes to finally get Lance Burton's attention. I ordered a Bud Light, Reba ordered an Appletini. Bozo the Clown immidatley went into his act. In the middle of his routine I asked if he could just hand me my beer. I'll open it myself. No need for theatrics, thank you. This would never take place in Toby's video bar. In fact if the bartender tried something like this in a redneck bar like in the video, I'm pretty sure this bartenter would get the shit kicked out of him. Also they have sirens go off every now and then, I have no idea why. Then the bartenders start running around the bar blowing whistles. All this did was scare the living shit out of us about every five minetes. Also, there were a few Blacks and Mexicans in the place. With the Confederate flag hanging behind Toby in the video I doubt any of them would have been welcome in the bar. We'll toward the begining of the video there is a fat Mexican guy that kind of looks like New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, so I might be wrong. I doubt the video bar has $6 beers also. Does Toby know they charge six bucks for beers? The food was pretty good though.... All this got me thinking, all this bottle juggling got started back in the late 80's when the movie Cocktail came out. It's actully one of my favorite bar movies. So in the next day or two I'll be back with my list of Best Bar Movies and Songs.

I have a big weekend planned....

I'm going to Red Rock Casino this weekend to see Peter Frampton(washed up 70's/80's guitarist), Dave Navarro(washed up Seattle grunge guitarist, now more famous for banging Carmen Electra) and Diamond Rio(washed up country band). It's all part of a summer series of outdoor concerts at Red Rock featuring a slew of washed up musical acts. It's freakin awesome!! I've already seen Crosby and Nash(washed up folk rockers) a couple weeks ago. I don't know where Stills are Young were at. Last week I saw Slash(washed up Guns+Roses guitarist). If you look at my favorite musical acts I have a thing for music acts that are either washed up or dead. I can't explain why I like it. Maybe it's seeing people trying to grasp at past glory. Maybe the thought of these guys needing their next paycheck as much as the rest of us makes me feel a little better about my own standing in life. I don't know. But what's really cool is this is all taking place right down the street. I don't even pay to get in. I can just slide through the cracks of a couple fences and I'm in. I just lay back a little and pretend I'm a stray. Not that anybody really notices me anyway. We'll actually one of the security officers did. It turns out it was some black dude that lives down the street from me. We ended up splitting a doobie and debated which bar-b-que is better. Memphis or Kansas City. It's KC paws down. Now he clears a little spot out for me on a ledge. It's worked out great....I noticed one thing a couple of these guys have in common. Slash and Peter Frampton have recently been featured in commercials. Frampton is in a Geico commercial. They must be in a contract dispute with the Gecko. Slash is pitching for Guitar Hero the video game. Product endorsement used to be highly taboo in the music industry. Frampton would have never tried to pull this off at the height of his powers in the 70's and 80's. Some people still frown upon this. But it's usually from people that are fans of musicians that would never be offered endorsements anyway. You'll hear some jerk-offs that like metal or punk rock criticize these guys. But the people they listen to would never get endorsement of because their favorite "artist" are either a)strung out on heroin b)wear dark black eye shadow c)worship satan d)all of the above. Not much you can endorse with that profile. That is unless they start making commercials for methadone (don't put this past pharmaceutical companies). So it's easy to bash others for taking the money. I bet if Marilyn Manson was offered a Geico commercial he would take it in a heart beat. I haven't heard from that guy in years. He has to be in dire need of a paycheck right now. Well back to Slash. He does a commercial for Guitar Hero. Since we got the Wii I've sofend my stance on guys that play this game that think they are really are Guitar Heroes by playing a little plastic guitar. After becoming addicted to Wii golf, I find these guys slightly less pathetic. One thing I hope this commercial helps is the re-emergence of the top-hat. I love those things. With my black and white fur I really think I can make one of those work on myself. Considering they haven't been popular in roughly 60 years. I doubt it will happen. But I hope it's the new big fashion trend. It worked for Willy Wonka, Fred Astaire and Mr. Peanut, I think I could make it work as well.

My Mom and Dad finally shelled out for a Wii....

we played it all day yesterday. Me and Carty played more today. We played mostly golf, baseball, boxing and tennis. It's very addicting. It also causes you to use muscles the you don't know you even have. I'm sore as can be. I'm dire need or massage. And I mean a real massage. Not one of those kind you get at one of these Asian joints on Industrial. Not that those kind of massages can't come in handy sometimes. Get it, handy!! Can anybody remember when a male could tell somebody that they were going to get a massage with having to put a disclaimer in that it was a massage and only a massage. I can't. It had to be well before I was born. I like to be accurate in my blog, so I did some research to find out when this change took place. I couldn't find it. There is not much documentation on the history of the Happy Ending Massage. Anyway, back to the Wii. It can be pretty dangerous. When we first started playing baseball Carty thought that the Wii could capture your running movements as we'll as your hands. He learned the hard way it doesn't. We pulled the coffee table from the middle of the room where we thought it was out of the way. Shorty after Carty ran full speed into it while he was trying to run down a fly ball I hit into the right-center field alley. He bruised his ribs. Your supposed to use the little joy stick to move the fielder. Carty didn't know that. The little computer Ichiro was just standing there. I got an easy triple. I didn't come out unscathed either. Carty accidentally whacked me in the head with a backhand return when playing tennis. Carty takes his tennis seriously. He was calling himself John CatEnroe. He wore a headband and kept yelling "you cant be serious" everytime a call went against him. I can't say the games give an actual representation of ones skill at a sport if it were played in real life. For example Me and Carty played a round of golf as a threesome with the computer Tiger Woods. I beat Tiger but I got beat by Carty? That bastard shot a 67. He was dropping putts from everywhere. With bruised ribs! The Wii also confirmed my theory that my Dad and Carty like bowling just for the stale beer and powered cheese nachos. They bowled a game against each other and they were lost without it. After each roll they would turn around to walk back to the table to take a swig and grab a bite only to see it wasn't there. Their games were way off. Even my Mama beat my Dad at bowling while talking to my grandma on the phone. My Mama mostly played a game called "Cooking Mama". A cooking game obviously. It's one of those games with Japanese origins but has been adapted for America. Except they didn't quite adapt it all the way, so the voice on the game is a stereotypical Asian voice. With all the technology and money they invest in these games you would think they could consult with an American interpreter to make sure proper English is spoken. It says things like "I will help for you". What the hell does that mean? I was anxiously waiting for it to tell me "me love you long time". It never did. Maybe it will say for me in next year version.