Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wanted to be sure that none of his readers missed this, the 75th anniversary of the birth of Elvis Aron Presley, the late King of Rock and Roll.

Your Maximum Leader is a big Elvis fan. His iPod contains over 740 Elvis tracks. (Many different versions of the same songs from different recording sessions…) He has watched a number of Elvis movies and TV shows (but only owns one video of The King - a gift from a friend that contains highlights of his career). If you happen to look over at the right sidebar you will see “Saint Elvis” over under the Pantheon of Greatness area.

Yes… Saint Elvis…

In the MWO (or Mike World Order for those of you just visiting for the first time), your Maximum Leader will exert some pressure to proclaim Elvis a Saint. Your Maximum Leader knows that this may be a contraversial view. But he (Elvis that is) is a unifying cultural and spiritual figure. Your Maximum Leader is sure that we can find someone who has been healed of their illness by heartful prayer at the grave of Elvis. Indeed, your Maximum Leader and his college roommate once made a pilgramage to Graceland. We stood at the grave of Elvis and sang (a cappella) “Heartbreak Hotel.” We also made sure to sing with British accents. Yes… Like in Spinal Tap… Whilst we were singing, a middle aged woman in a “be-dazzeled” jean jacket came up and listened to us. Upon our finishing, she declared that what she had just seen “Warmed her heart” and that she was sure that “The King in heaven is smiling on us now.” Your Maximum Leader told her he was impressed with her “be-dazzeled” jacket. The “be-dazzling” rendered a profile of Elvis with his name beneath. The woman was glad that we liked the jacket. She apparently made them for friends, and sometimes profit.

Anyhoo… If that woman knew that Elvis was smiling on us in heaven for a song, then your Maximum Leader is sure that we can find some (former-) cripple who was healed at Elvis’ graveside…

Anyhoo (again…)… Your Maximum Leader will get the traditional Elvis Day celebratory dinner tonight. Steak. Mashed Potatoes. A veggie (likely ochra). After dinner there will be a big cake and the singing of “Happy Birthday Elvis.”

He hopes you will celebrate as well…

Carry on.

As many of you already know, my best buddy Kevin’s mother passed away yesterday. It is hard to express the emotions that crowd one’s mind and heart at such a time. There is sorrow because of the permenant loss. There is relief that her suffering has passed. The contradiction of emotions one feels is often more difficult to deal with than the power of the emotions singly.

I spent time yesterday evening trying to shoo away my family for a little quiet reflection. I eventually did get some time to myself. I regret to say that I didn’t come to any great and noble ideas in my reflective time. I remembered the many kindnesses given to me over more than 3 decades. I remembered camping trips, picnics, concerts, and so many other moments. There was joy, sadness, embarassment, grief, and I suppose some calm at the end.

After my quiet time I went to bed a little earlier than normal. Strangely upon waking this morning I realized I’d been dreaming of the old cartoon “Star Blazers.” Star Blazers was a cartoon that Kevin and I watched together so often afterschool when we were younger.

Strange how the mind works.

Rest in peace Mrs Neidlinger. I will miss you.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was looking over various twitter feeds he follows today and found an obituary in the NYT that was so interesting: Knut Haugland, Sailor on Kon-Tiki, Dies at 92.

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t want to steal the Amazing Ben’s schitck from Badass of the Week, but Knut Haugland seems to be a real badass. Resistance fighter against the Nazis. Sailor on a balsa wood raft across the Pacific. That is pretty awesome. That he seemed to be a decent man as well was an added benefit.

Your Maximum Leader used to regularly read the Obits in the Times of London to catch the interesting passings. He’s grown out of the habit recently. It would serve him well to start again.

RIP - Knut Haugland.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader couldn’t wait until tomorrow to post this. Although he’d turned off the computer he had to fire it back up to report this.

He just finished smoking 6 pounds of his own home-cured bacon.

Oh dear God in Heaven. It is sooooooooooooooo friggin good.

About 14 days ago he put the pork bellies he’d gotten from his hog (Thanks Smallholder!) into the cure. Villainette #2 dutifully turned the bacon in the cure every day. Time got away from us and we were overtaken by events so we didn’t smoke the bacon last week as intended, but had to do it today. Rather than taking 2-2.5 hours, it took nearly 4 and a half hours to smoke the bacon. Your Maximum Leader belives that this was mostly due to the fact that his smoker was sitting in 34 degree temperatures and it was hard to keep it hot without over-doing the coals.

After letting the bacon cool for a few minutes (perhaps 5) after coming out of the smoker, he cut off a little slice. Oh it was good. Then Villainette #2 got a slice. Then Villainette #1 got a slice. Then Mrs Villain. Then before you knew it, we’d all had two or three slices. Then we had to stop. We couldn’t just eat it all right there. Well, we could have, but we resisted.

Your Maximum Leader can already tell that he will have to buy more pork bellies and make more bacon when this runs out. He only had about 6 pounds to start with. (Now he has about 5 and a half…)

Thank you Michael Ruhlman for your wonderful book, Charcuterie, without which your Maximum Leader may not have ever had the guts to try this. Also thank you Smallholder for raising such an awesome and tasty hog. Oh this is good stuff… Your Maximum Leader (almost) wishes all of his long-time readers could be here with him to try it… (Almost.)

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wishes you all a happy new year in this, the last year of the first decade of the Twenty-first Century. Your Maximum Leader can’t tell you all how friggin annoyed he is by all the “decade in review” peices he’s had to suffer through. If President Obama wanted to do something useful he’d go on tee-vee with some flip charts and timelines and have a “teachable moment” with the American people explaining that since there was no “Year Zero” that decades begin on ones and end in zeros.

Who the hell starts counting with the number zero anyway? Do we have nine fingers and one digit symbolically stands in for zero? It annoyed me when the year 2000 rolled round. He fears that this annoyance will grow to near rage as he gets older. Indeed he’s been more annoyed about it this year that he was in 2000. Perhaps he was willing to psychologically grant people a “waiver” because it isn’t often you see the calendar roll over to three zeros. But it is just friggin ridiculous.

Happily, your Maximum Leader’s loving wife Mrs Villain was teaching her children (her second graders that is) that the decade really doesn’t end for another year. We can hope that some of these kids will remember this lesson and stand up for decade integrity.

Your Maximum Leader would have written yesterdary, but he never thought about writing a post from his PDA. He got up early and took the train from DC to New York City to visit Kevin and Kevin’s Mom. Your Maximum Leader must say that he likes that Acela train. Very nice. He thinks it is now his preferred method of getting to the Big Apple. This was the most focused trip to NYC your Maximum Leader’s ever taken. On all previous visits he’s had time just to “do” something. But this trip was much more goal oriented. As he left Kevin and the hospital he lucked out and found an available cab on E 70th street (he’d excpected to have to have to walk over to Second Avenue to catch one) which would take him to Penn Station. Your Maximum Leader asked for one indulgence, namely that we drive slowly past Bloomingdales so that he could look at how they had the windows decked-out for the holidays. (The Wee Villain would have enjoyed the windows. There was a big superhero window with Batman and friends in it.) He tried to snap some photos of the windows from the cab (and another of Herald Square and Macy’s as he passed), but they didn’t turn out well.

Today your Maximum Leader will be smoking some bacon and relaxing.

Carry on.