Southern Journal
I grew to love it, though. City time is like dog years: A year in New York equals 7 in Alabama. So when I moved home last April, I had some reentry problems after spending 42…
Oh Christmas Tree
Not for amateurs, this business of picking the perfect Christmas tree. A real tree just makes Christmas—pine in the air, sap on the furniture, needles in the carpet, the whole…
Putting on the Squeeze
Sure, there are some rules. (As a former youth counselor advised, keeping the Holy Spirit between hugging and dancing young folk is probably a good idea although there seems to be…
Bright Lights, Small Parts—no prizes
Where the devil is my Pulitzer? Here I am, slaving away in New York, writing humor columns week after week—where’s the the fame? Where’s the glory? Where’s the money? Where is the…
Celebrities don’t throw their own parties
Parties are expensive. They take time. They take extensive preparation. They take going to Sam’s Wholesale Club and buying those little quiches. But New Yorkers have found a way…
That’s Mr. Murphy to you, bub
“Morgan?” the voice on the other end of the line asked when I answered the phone. I thought it was a friend, or perhaps my dad. “Yes?” I answered. “This is Bill from AT&T. I have…
Space Invader
Sometimes, strolling over kudzu-covered hill and dale,I’m comforted by the thought that when the Souths’ last barbecue smolders and dies, when the last pickup truck sputters to a…
It’s Tree-Trimming Time in the Big Apple
Advice: when trying to hail a t cab with a 14-foot holiday deco-ration, it is best to hide said tree behind a pole of some description, hail a cab, and then mention that you have…
Turkey puts him in a foul mood
I’m betting you’re probably down to the dark meat and giblets by now. I’m betting you’re probably down to the dark meat and giblets by now. Each year around Thanksgiving,…
Stuffed bear served his childhood purpose
I sat bolt upright in the bed as a crash of thunder shook the whole house. White light flooded the room and I could see thirty-five sets of glass eyeballs looking back at me.…
Don’t Mess with the Velcro Folks
As it turns out, velcro was not invented by NASA. It was invented by a French person named George de Mestral who went on a hike in the 1940s and found a giant ball of plastic hook…
Lead Foot Edwina
Edwina routinely drives at a speed equal to her age-which polite grandsons don’t mention in major magazines. Let’s just say it’s over any legal limit here in America. “I know I’m…
The Green Peril croaks in NYC
This summer I ran an experiment to test with the environment up here in New York City does the average person. I figured it would be grim, what with all the cars and smoke, but…
Clone found to be defective
Cloning me was a piece of cake, some Pop-Tarts, and a couple of barbecue sandwiches. I mixed that stuff with a little primordial ooze and scientific fluids that bubble and fizz.…
Ever wondered why Cupid is armed?
The inspiration for Valentine’s Day was a man named Saint Valentine. He was a martyr. The definition of “martyr,” according to Webster is “one who gets whacked for no good…
The world of fashion is a scary place
Perhaps because I am a native of Alabama, I am not an expert on haute couture (French for “expensive clothes.”) But this week I was invited to be a style critic at the men’s…
Grandmama could handle Bill
As your New York City columnist, I had to ask myself some pretty difficult questions this week. Boy, it was a big news week. Let’s see here: the Super Bowl, the pope was in Cuba,…
The lucky lottery winner
This is my last column. Why you ask? Because I have just won $10 million from Publisher’s Clearing House, and if you poor saps think I’m going to sit on my patootey, week after…
We have a lot to be thankful for in America
What I want to know is how Khartoumians meet one another without getting arrested? Does the minister say “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the barrier.”? I have…
Yankees just don’t get Iron Bowl
Football. I’ll bet I just doubled my readership by beginning with that word. If you were born in the Great State, the mighty pigskin is a part of your consciousness. Alabamians…
Babies bring out strange behavior
Last night I witnessed a distinguished group of elderly ladies suddenly disintegrate into babbling, wide-eyed, blithering idiots. “OOOH!” the women said, “oodle, oodle,…
Problem with France is the French
Normally, I devote this column to those things that have made this county great, things that make you proud to be an American, things that Norman Rockwell might have painted had…
Columnist vs. roach battle ensues
When I opened the rusty-white door to the Frigidaire, what seemed like a thousand watts bashed me in the eyeballs in the late night of a South Alabama summer. Arm over my eyes, I…
New Hampshire motto sparks questions
I am about to devote an entire column to something I know is probably on your mind right now. A subject that is pressing on the cerebral cortex of Andalusians everywhere: New…
Southern Jell-O recipes
It’s hard to believe, but one of America’s silliest foods is a billion dollar industry. It’s even harder to believe the various food items that are routinely mixed with Jell-O.…
Yankees planning invasion
But trying to stay fashionable in New York costs roughly the same as a toilet at the Pentagon, so I never even tried. In defiance of every fashion magazine and shop window, I wear…
Alien sightings not confined to the Southwest
The year was 1947. People still took trains back then. My grandfather had just seen his first jet airplane a few years earlier. Werner Von Braun was tinkering around in Huntsville…
Open mouth and insert foot
Never in all my years of professional ogling at various women with my cronies have I ever heard a man say, “Hey look at that babe! What eyes, what hair! She’s gorgeous! Oh, but…
Math is not a Southern Skill
My science/technology/math comprehension ends, I mean stops dead, at the lever and pulley. I know how that stuff works. I can fix a lever and a pulley. You want someone to explain…
Northern psychobabble puzzling
New York is the psychotherapy capitol of the U.S.. Everyone has a psychiatrist, couselor, therapist, or “group.” The entire city seems to be trying to figure out who is normal and…
Escaped cows panic New York
New Yorkers think they know everything. They think they got it good up here. They think they’re smarter than we are. They think they won THE WAR, and if you’re a Southerner, you…
Danish mom pleads ignorance
A Danish mother visiting Manhattan left her baby in a carriage outside a barbecue restaurant while she was eating with her husband on Tuesday evening. Alarmed New Yorkers called…
Anyone can be newsworthy
Back when I was a civilian, and hadn’t done any reporting for the media, I read about other people in the newspaper and thought wow! How did they get to be so special? But now…
New York cabbie draws rave reviews
In Alabama, we leave a lot of stuff in our cars: hats, cheeseburgers, small children, books, movies, cameras, purses, and even the car keys. And that’s just in the front seat. The…
Oscar party in the Big Apple
“Uma, Ophra, and Op, Alabama,” can you tell me how these things go together? “Not very well,” is the answer. Your roving South-Alabama-native-but-living-in-Manhattan columnist…
Pickups in NYC don’t meet Bama standards
After living in New York City for neigh on two years now, I am beginning to miss strange things in The Great State of Alabama. Sure, everybody misses grits, sweat tea, houses with…
Redneck phonetics
Some New Yorkers have the nerve to make fun of the way Alabamians talk. They say it is unintelligible and sounds ignorant. Right. Like “Hey youz guyz, move dat #%@* truck out of…
Delicious Southern fried okra
Fuzz and slime are hard to come by in New York. No, I’m not talking about the NYPD. Oh sure, fuzz and slime may seem like a natural resource what with the subway system,…
Language barrier poses dining, Romance problems
Last week I gave a bit of advice about taking a cast-iron skillet with you whenever you go to the country. Let me exend that rule to French restaurants. They don’t have much to…
New York City grocers are too powerful
The New York City grocery store business is made up of a vast mafia cartel that controls, among other things, monetary prices in South Korea, the Academy Awards, Pop-Tart…
Christmas tree tempts young handyman
Ever since I was a boy, I’ve loved Christmas trees. Problem is, I usually find a way to accidentally obliterate at least one Christmas tree every season. Christmas trees are…
Christmas in Andy
Twas the night before ChristmasAnd lo it had snowedThough less than an inchcovered the road.“Blizzard!” cried some“Nor’easter” hollered more.Even the mayorCouldn’t get bread at…
Wedding a good place for laughs
Here comes the bride. Thankfully, I’ve had a moment of respite from weddings. I went to five this summer. I suppose all my friends are of the marrying age here at 24 years old. In…
Christmas shopping budget skimpy
This week, Bill Clinton, a.k.a. the Big Mac President, alias the Commander in Beef, leader of the Feed World and of the last “supersize me” nation, came to New York City and did a…
Where’s my Park Ave. Penthouse?
Every month, I pay about $3 a square foot for a crummy little apartment on the fifth floor of a former tuberculoses hospital on the East side of this island called Manhattan. I’m…
Grandfather Guy celebrates 81st birthday
At some point in a man’s life, the weather becomes more than a subject for light chit-chat. It becomes religion. On any given day, Guy Wiggins can tell me the dew point pressure…
Smutty times call for smutty measures
The world’s second oldest profession is no doubt, politics. However depending on the politician, I’d say public office-seeking often resembles the job description of the world’s…
UFO’S won’t be kept secret in America
Let me tell you why space aliens aren’t being hidden by our government. Look at our politicians. Look at the publicity shaking hands with an alien would generate. Look at the…
Roughing it in New York with the Scouts
I decided to do a little volunteer work this year for the Boy Scouts of America. I was a proud Boy Scout, and I figured Yankee boys couldn’t be that different. I have said it…
Mr. Dillon has taken Bama out of Alabama
There’s no place in New York City to stomp up some peanuts. And that’s a pity. Fact is, New Yorkers don’t know squat about peanuts except that Jimmy Carter grew ’em and JIFF is…
Ups and downs of sailboat repair
My Uncle Mark emailed me a note this week that read: “Morgan, I noticed that you haven’t slandered any of your relatives in your columns recently. What’s happened?” You know,…
Columnist heads to new career
Depression is the natural state of all New Yorkers. Being miserable and treating others like dirt is every New Yorker’s God-given right. Thus it should come as no surprise that…
Oops
The sawing lasted 45 minutes. It was accompanied by the sound of my roommate reciting every swear word in Christendom. When it abated, Alex appeared dripping in sweat, out of…
Get yourself a “dawg”
And everybody says that cats are smarter than dogs. Well, I’m not buying that. Perhaps cat owners are smarter than dog owners (they always seem to be women and literary types), I…
I can sympathize with Hunchback
Hunchback is playing in Andalusia. I just saw it. And now that I’m living in New York City, naturally, I’ve become the know-it-all expert on just about everything, including the…
The Perils of Yoga
I want you to sit down and grab your big toes. That’s what I said: your big toes. And while holding your big toes, bring your feet up to the same level as your ears. Yes, both of…
The New York Observer: “Alabama Slammer”
I took umbrage to a snarky article in the New York Observer about Alabama and took pen to paper to complain. I still laugh, re-reading the letter, which the Observer printed on…
New York Cabbies Defy Laws of Physics
The average speed of traffic in Manhattan is three miles an hour according to New York State Highway and Thoroughfare Department. Seems that a bunch of scientists came up with…
Taxes are a yearly, if not daily, event
We’re coming upon a day of the year that I just am not real fond of. April 15th. Uncle Sam’s payday. If there are two things to which I am morally opposed, it’s paying taxes and…
What is a genteel Southern woman doing in New York City
My mama recently came to New York City. Talk about panic. New York City isn’t any place for a genteel Southern lady like my mama to be gallivanting around. No sir. My mother is…
Test devised for local aliens
Thirty-nine cult followers “shed” their “containment units” a few weeks ago to meet up with an alien spacecraft traveling in the shadow of the Hale-Bopp Comet. It should come as…
Ballet sissy? I think not
There are uptown little towns, and then there are not-so-uptown little towns. Fortunately, Andalusia is in the “uptown” category. What makes an “uptown,” you ask? Cultural things…
Rollerblading in New York City
My first day in Central Park on in-line skates was filled with excitement. The threat of permanent brain damage always gets me keyed up. I certainly got closer to New Yorkers.…
Hanging by a String
There are basically three kinds of elevators in New York City: old; new; and scary.
New York Snowstorm unleashes Acid Snowmen
What happens in Alabama when it snows? People go crazy. The weathermen get excited. There’s a mad rush for the grocery store (as if two inches of snow might actually force people…
Boxes Hanging by Strings
So in the mighty Empire State Building, I paid five bucks to ride to the top in an Otis. We stopped prematurely around the 73 floor. And there we sat. Four two hours. Dangling by…
Some suggestions for Olympics
As I have said before, I’m just not real swift at sports. Blasphemy, I know, in Alabama. We are a state of sportsman. Shoot, “Bear” Bryant is a deity. God may have created the…
It takes a move to the city to appreciate ‘big hair’
Why Big Hair is all the rage in the Deep South
Trying to figure out the best way to burn extra fat
I do not ever plan to don a thong.
