Hicks In My Mat

I looked down at my mat and thought I saw HICKS in the fringe. The S could probably be more distinct, but my imagination makes it out of the last little bit.

Shop Around

The opening of "Shop Around" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles goes:

When I became of age my mother called me to her side
She said 'son you're growing up now, pretty soon
You'll take a bride'...

That's nice, to have a mother who's looking out for her son's development. I can lovingly picture Old Mother Anymom working at her knitting, crocheting, needlepoint, or stamp collection, looking over her brood of one or more children, peering over her glasses and rocking and mentally marking her place as to where she sees each child in his/her development.

I'm sure my own Mother Anymom was that way. We kids were in a kind of ongoing reverie, thinking we were independent and free, physically and mentally, while all along we still existed and drifted along in the womb and placenta of life. Mentally, we really hadn't gone beyond the thumb-sucking stage, in the larger existential sense we couldn't discern whether our diapers were empty or full.

Connect the dots, make the link from one star to the other (larger sense), and thank God that Anymom was watching, making this connection with her sewing and that connection, glancing down at our feet -- they were getting bigger -- looking up at our legs -- they were getting hairier -- noticing our development further up -- getting gonadier -- then our chest -- more and more like a barrel -- our chin -- a nascent Maynard G. Krebs -- then our eyes. Our eyes were very telling, because we were glancing all around for any passing of our true love, at least his/her eyes.

The real reason we're not falling all over ourselves on the street, the reason there aren't shameless orgies on every corner, is that we avoid eye contact. It's not the ordinance against such things, because nature can't be so easily contained. We've been brought up with the idea that eye contact is an invasion, and, yes it is! Even Mother Anymom doesn't go there, because that's how she got to be Mom Anymother; she made eye contact with Dad Anyfather.

Back to the spinning loom, she's glancing over at our eyes -- any more than a glance and we'd be in the icon with her forever, never growing up, with her remaining supremely big -- and she sees our own glancing about, looking for our true love, for the on ramp to our own ecstasy, and she decides, now is the time for the talk.

So, "when I became of age my mother called me to her side."

Smokey Anyson battles against the thick placenta, slicing it like vines with a machete to get there, avoiding eye contact lest he be set in a gold-framed icon. "Yes, Mother dear?" "Son, you're growing up now." He glances down to his palpitating heart; his whole body is a massive pump -- that's true. We're one with existence, breathing, thrusting, pumping, making those eye connections, to the point where to even say it's us is to leave out 99% of the infinite truth. You must notice this anytime you have sex, or even vomit, it's obviously not the conscious you, the ego, doing it. Mother Anymom knows, really meaning in that way that every birth is the Virgin Birth!

"Yes, I'm growing up now ... give me my marching orders ... my dispatch papers ..."

"Pretty soon you'll take a bride."

--------------------------

"Shop Around" was written by William "Smokey" Robinson & Berry Gordy

How About Bacon Almost $9 A Pound?

 

I went to pick up a pound of bacon today. Afterward, I chose something else. $8.69 a pound, the "Low Price!" on this particular brand. Which as far as I'm concerned can rot on the shelf, phooey on them!

Someone else, in a post called "OMG! the Price of Bacon!" said a couple days ago that many brands were $8/lb, and "I honestly felt like I was walking into the 'Twilight Zone'."

I hadn't noticed this. It's been a while since I've personally shopped for bacon. And now it might be a while longer before I do it again!

Harold Camping: The Old Deceiver

I listened to some of Harold Camping's radio show tonight, following his failed prophecy of the Rapture on May 21, 2011. Of course, Christians were going to be lifted into heaven and the working out of the endtimes would be unambiguous, present for all to see.

I tuned in tonight hoping to hear him eat a little crow, say he repented, say he has decided to move on from apocalyptic predictions and be a credit to society and the church. But that wasn't what we heard. Instead, we heard the old deceiver now claim, without giving any evidence, in the time I was listening, that the Rapture, or whatever it was that happened on May 21, was spiritual and invisible. He pointedly said that Jesus Christ had in fact returned on that day and that the world was now under judgment, meaning some judgment that it previously wasn't under. I saw someone on Twitter say that Camping said no one now could be "saved," but I didn't hear that myself.

The other big difference from what he was just saying a few days ago was this, that the world won't notice very many different phenomena between now and Oct. 21, 2011, but that it will still be destroyed on that date. All along he was saying it'd be destroyed on Oct. 21. The difference is, it'll be sudden, apparently out of the blue. While I was listening, he didn't offer any evidence for this. And he was admitting that he had certain things wrong, but that in the last couple days he'd had a chance to read and study from the Bible and that he had discovered these differences were there all the while.

The show on the radio was a press conference, but no one asked him what specifically he had seen different in the Bible to justify the changes in his teaching.

Among the questions he was asked, someone wanted to know if he would give away all his property, Family Radio, etc., on Oct. 20 or 21. He acted befuddled by the question, even though of course he had to know the meaning behind it; he's not that dumb. Why, he wondered, would I give it all away? What good would it do anyone since the world was ending? It's obvious that he's hedging his bets, since of course the value in giving away everything would be to show he's "all in" and without doubts, and that he's willing to pay the full price if he's wrong.

It's very telling that he evaded the question in a few different ways. Because on the one hand, he admitted he's not infallible, that he's always learning, that the Bible is very difficult to understand, etc. And yet he still wouldn't verbally hedge his bets on Oct. 21, he wasn't leaving the door open that he could be wrong. Isn't that a weird way to think? I was wrong two days ago, but I can't be wrong now.

He sounds like such a nice person, such a faithful Bible student/teacher, and even intelligent to a certain extent. And no doubt that's part of the reason so many of his followers were deceived. But he is a deceiver if he can't come completely clean on being wrong (1994 and now 2011) and what that means for the value of his remaining prediction. It ought to be obvious to anyone that if he's a two-time loser, he's bound to be a three-time loser. Third time's the charm!

Guess what. The world isn't going to be destroyed on Oct. 21. Five months from now, Harold Camping will once again be exposed as a fraud and deceiver. It is simply inconceivable that the man can hope to add and multiply a bunch of arbitrary numbers, numbers scattered throughout the Bible and numbers with supposed spiritual meanings, and hope to arrive at definite dates like the end of the world, Christ's coming, etc. It was plain from the git-go that his May 21 prediction was a fraud, and Oct. 21 won't work out for him either.

So what will his response be on Oct. 22? That it was a spiritual and invisible destruction of the world, and that none of us are actually here? LOL. Or will he find some other teaching in the Bible that indicates the true date is now March 2012, always leapfrogging ahead five more months?

The man of course will eventually have to give it up. For false prophets, the calendar is always their greatest enemy.

My Outer Space Armored Car Heist Prediction

I've been very jealous of the international attention Harold Camping got for his rapture prediction, months and months of attention leading up to it, then of course tons more when the big day arrived. All indications so far point to his prediction -- in spite of his 100% rock solid guarantee that it would happen -- as being false. It could be that he needs to start predicting safer things, like who the Republican presidential nominee will be in 2012. If he says Mickey Mouse, he won't be too far off.

Anyway, I thought maybe I should jump into the game of predicting things. Then let the chips fall where they may. If there's the potential for panic, so much the better. Nothing gets people's attention like a mortal threat, then couple that with a financial meltdown. It's the perfect recipe for disaster, just what I need. I'm rubbing my hands, thinking of all the money I'll be making off Google Ads, which I will reinstate on my blog when the day gets closer.* But for a while I want to appear like I'm not trying to profit off everyone's misery.

But the rapture? It might be a little soon for that. Who's going to believe in the rapture anymore, after this guy's failure(s) and everyone else's? Although, now that I think of it, I actually did predict the rapture, building on Camping's data, but since the date is pretty far off -- 2032 -- by then I could very well be dead. And unable to cash in.

And I don't want to predict anything too routine, like Santa Claus coming on Christmas. The Weather Service has that one well in hand, even tracking him on radar, with NORAD's help and the Air Force escorting him. You know, I really could predict that the North Koreans will capture Santa when he enters their airspace. Or easier yet, when he goes down the chimney at some kid's house. Then they're torturing him, like they did with the Pueblo crew back in '68 -- did I say torture? Of course I meant enhanced interrogation, which is a much more polite label for it. We wouldn't want anyone to get in trouble, except we're not talking Americans here but the North Koreans, so I guess torture is still a good word.

Anyway, here's my prediction. Which I thought of just today when I saw the Brinks armored car go by, seen in the photo. It said Brinks has been in business for 150 years. Isn't it about time that someone messed with them? Who better to do it than aliens from outer space? We've been extending our reach into space, just like they said in the movies from the '50s, and naturally that can't be good for advanced civilizations, since we're such barbarians. So it stands to reason they would want to come here and destroy us, starting with our financial system, represented by the Brinks truck. Brinks doesn't show up at banks, people don't have money, we'll be looting in no time. Then eating each other, with cannibalism on a large scale.

So here's my prediction, and I'm not hedging my bets. Just like Brother Camping, this is going to be 100% guaranteed. I'm staking my substantial credibility on this being true, even though I'm quite aware that I'm simply making it up, pulling the date and place out of thin air, simply at random. That's the way inspiration works. If you put too much thought into it, that's when the mind's delusions take over. But if you just intuit it and say it, it's always true. Like your first guess on test questions, the mind knows.

I predict -- and I guarantee it -- that at 11:38 a.m., on Wednesday, August 17, 2011, in every time zone around the world at 11:38 their time, that space ships will appear over the earth, each having a powerful tractor beam (like pictured), and will lift armored cars from the ground and do something with them. What they'll do with them doesn't make any difference; they'll be gone! There'll be so many runs on banks that the bankers' drink of choice will be Kaopectate. It won't be long till they're wiped out. Then total and complete collapse!

Spread the word, gin up the panic, let's get this thing going. What's that I hear? I think I hear the ships hovering above me right now! Yes, yes, it's them!

*Update - An obvious problem I didn't think of is this, what good will my profits from Google Ads be if there's no banking/financial system left?

The Biggest Bag There Is

If you do any shopping at a health food/coop type of store, you'll know what I'm talking about. To get a bag to carry out your stuff is the worst thing you can do. We've finally decided the biggest obstacle to environmental health is the shopping bag.

I'm smiling, really. This isn't a post in which I'm the angry guy, lashing out at my enemies real and imagined. There's enough time for that on other subjects. I too am a little pissed off at people who need bags to carry their stuff in. If you want a bag, go to Walmart. It's de rigeur there, and since you're already showing your hostility to the environment, and humanity itself, as you're the master of thousands of Chinese slaves, you may as well take two.

I say I'm smiling. Actually I can see both sides. I'm not the savior of the world, and Walmart is good in this sense, that at least it gives the Chinese something to do. I'm there all the time. And the environment can take care of itself; if it was able to go from a molten hellish stew five billion years ago to the lush, hospitable place we have now, it can handle a few plastic bags.

Still, there are quite a few people who feel they should apologize for living. And the way they recognize one another has to do with the bag or no-bag test. So you go to a health food/coop store, and they've got a few bags at the end of the checkout lane -- they're only decoys. They're there to test you. When they ask you if you need a bag and you say no, you can pass through the door and leave. But if you say yes, a hole opens in the floor and you're swallowed up. You'll notice they're never lacking for Soylent Green back in aisle 13.

I've been there plenty of times, and I've faced the bag/no-bag test many times. I'm smart, I always say no, then I gather up my items in my arms and make my way to the car, dropping things, making multiple trips back to pick up things, etc. It's surprising how resilient a dozen eggs can be.

But not today! I decided I'd had enough, and I'm in a piss-and-vinegar mood anyway, so when she asked if I needed a bag, I said, "I'll take the biggest bag you've got," and spread out my arms to let her know I wanted one the size of bedsheets. She reached for the button, I felt the floor opening and quickly straddled it. Some green zombies came running from the back room and I snatched up my two items and ran to the car. Stuff isn't that hard to carry when your life depends on it.

New Evidence In: Latest Rapture, March 20, 2032!

The Rapture did not happen on May 21, 2011. We repeat, it did not happen on May 21, 2011.

This just in, additional evidence now suggests the actual date as March 20, 2032.

We've been working with Harold Camping's data, feeding it into a Super VIC-20 routed through our own Bibletron 316 software. The key thing to say about his study and figures, they're 100% accurate. It's stunning, yes.

However, this is also true, Mr. Camping left out one Scripture, much as he did in 1994 when he failed to take into account important data from the prophet Jeremiah. He retooled, factored in Jeremiah, then went with the 2011 date. Big mistake, but entirely forgivable, because it allows us to take his information one step further and add to it one critical data point.

What Mr. Camping failed to account for was Revelation 8:1: "And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour." There will be no Rapture until this space of about 30 minutes is accomplished! Meaning we have to take Mr. Camping's May 21, 2011 date and add on the equivalent of a prophetic half hour of time!

Any reading of the verse, however, comes up against a problem. It says "about the space of half an hour." Assuming that God thinks pretty much like us, we can safely say that anything before 15 minutes is not about a half hour. If Mom said we'll get a candy bar in about a half hour, we would probably have to wait 25 minutes or so.

Now, how do we handle a period of time like this? As Mr. Camping demonstrated from 2 Peter 3:8, a day is like 1,000 years with God. So an exact half an hour would be 1/48th of that period, 20.83333 years (for simplicity, I dropped off some of the 3s.) Adding 20.83333 years to May 21, 2011, that would bring us to March 20, 2032, being 304.16654 days after May 21, 2031, with .16654 of a day being virtually 4:00 a.m. He could literally come as a thief in the night!*

I'm trying to work with the phrase "about the space of half an hour." And just going out on a limb, I can think we can assume it means at least 99.99999% of a half hour, since I had a very precise mother, or prophetically somewhere around March 20, 2032, give or take .000001 minutes, which equals only .00006 of a second, less than a twinkling of an eye!

(Just as an aside, it's interesting to me that 2032 will bring Harold Camping's 111th birthday, which seems to be prefigured in the date picked this year, May 21, 2011.)

*I'm going to give credit to my calculator for these figures, a Casio, usually very reliable. If I made any errors in my calculations, please factor that into your own work and guide yourselves accordingly.

When And W

hen you use a big ornamental letter like that, you need to know in advance what your first word is going to be. There's a lot of planning that has to go into it. The letter needs to be scanned, cropped, and touched up, at least the way I do it, since I don't have the entire alphabet in that font, or any other ornamental font as far as I know.

It's a big honking thing, isn't it? A real artist had to come up with that, an artist good at rendering likenesses of fruit, looks like lemons, and one who knew how to make a decent W. In this case, I love the crossed bars in the middle, almost literally a double U, or the best you can expect from back when they used Vs for Us.

Double U, that's a weird letter when you stop to think about it. It's the only double letter we've got. Twice as many Us as a U, a clone of itself, or twin. Two twins, the first one, then its handsome double. Joined at the hip, no way for surgeons to separate them. A siamese letter.

Grandpa's Toiletries Kit From The '60s

I recently ran across Grandpa's old toiletries kit from the '60s. I think he got it that time he took the plane trip. It brings back a lot of indistinct memories for me. I remember he went up in the clouds, like Elton John's "Daniel," then after a while he came back. It could be, like in the Family Circus, that Grandpas spend time together up in the nether regions, that way (pointing up).

Ever since he died, of course he's had a lot of time to exist up on the clouds in a Phantom Zone, transparent, black and white, thin lines around the edges, form. That's Paradise for you, an eternity without the toiletries items you left behind on Earth. Certainly if he could've taken them with him, he would've.

It's actually nice for me, in an esoteric way, of finding old physical items like this from Grandpa's past. It gives me a living connection to the old bird himself. And the other reason is a lot more esoteric, that physical things somehow manage to maintain their form years after you last saw them. I haven't quite given up my childhood thoughts that things turn to vapor and disappear if you don't see them frequently enough. That happens with rubber, and I think that's where I got the idea. Whether it's rubber's propensity inexplicably to rot away, or lose softness, or to fail to maintain air pressure, there's something to the whole theory of entropy and stemming it by periodically checking on your possessions. Anyone else ever noticed that? A monitored balloon lasts a lot longer than one abandoned?

Which brings us to the toiletries kit. There it is again, just the way I remember it. Although the molecular qualities of the contents might be different by now. I wouldn't be too sure about the Aqua Velva and toothpaste at this point, or the deodorant. So we either should've used it years ago (Grandpa) or gotten rid of it in the meantime, donating it to a toiletries pantry somewhere for the poor. By now, since this is nearly 50 years later, it's obviously too late.

The comb still looks good enough.

In case anyone's interested, I did a major thing, a big thing for me ... I threw away Grandpa's toiletries kit from the '60s. I really didn't want to do it. I was thinking I might make a few bucks off it on eBay or craigslist, but you never can tell what irresponsible person out there you might sell it to. Then they try to use it, and something in the bottles makes their skin fall off and they end up suing you. So I thought it'd be better just to throw it away, get temptation out of my way, and go on with my life.

Sorry, Grandpa, up in the Heaven, your toiletries kit ... is also dead.

My Humorless Hermann Hesse Period

If you've noticed, I've been a sourpuss lately. I'm literally sitting here right now unable to think of one funny thing to say, nothing.

The problem -- I may as well say it -- is I've been reading more than usual. Which of course is highly recommended if you want to be smarter. But if what you're reading is basically cheerless, or extremely serious itself, it's going to carry over. That's how it is with me.

I've got a stack of Hermann Hesse books I've been carrying around forever, since college, and decided to read a few of them. Or reread, as the case may be. So I've been doing that, and while they're interesting enough to me, they leave my brain in a humorless mood, in a serious gutter.

The first one I picked up at the end of April, "Rosshalde." This was one I'd never attempted before, mostly because the title "Rosshalde" sounds boring. It doesn't suggest anything to me, nothing sexy about it in the least. But I was thinking, 1) I want to read something; 2) I don't want to spend money on Kindle editions as long as I have books on the shelf; and, 3) It could be these are actually good. Even this one with the boring title, "Rosshalde."

So I picked up "Rosshalde" and actually read it. As good as it was, there went my cheer, turning me a little bit into a sourpuss. It tells the story of an estranged couple, she living in the main house, he an artist living in a smaller building on the estate, called Rosshalde. They have two sons, a snotty older son and a favored younger son. The artist gets the idea from a friend to move to India and makes plans to do so. The younger son gets sick and dies. In the end, if memory serves, the father is about to go to India. I really wanted the kid to die in the middle and to see what happened to the dad in India, but it didn't work that way.

The next one was "Demian," which I had started before and gotten through the place where Kromer is torturing Sinclair and the intro to Demian himself. But I started over and hated to go through all the Kromer part again. It reminds me of the Andy Griffith show where a bully shows up and wants Opie's milk money. Parallels in literature. Anyway, the book picks up when we meet Demian, although there's no predicting where this book is going to go. It's a surprising narrative, with lots of cool bits of religious thought.

I knew of it, the stuff about the god Abraxas from one of Stephan Hoeller's books, a gnostic scholar, so it was nice to see how that worked out in the actual book. The main character, a boy, has this intuitive/spiritual connection with Demian and Demian's mother, and, guess what, it's already slipping away from my memory what it's all about. (They've got the mark of Cain!) As good as it was, it turned me a little bit more into a sourpuss.

The next one I just finished today, "Beneath the Wheel." This one took me a little longer, even though it's an easier read than "Demian." Hans Giebenrath is a brain, gets the opportunity to go to the Academy and has a bright future ahead of him, if he studies and really applies himself. But he meets a little more eclectic, poetic character, Hermann Heilner, another student, who, in my opinion, is a bad influence on him. So Hans starts doing poorly and eventually gets kicked out of the Academy. He goes on to apprentice as a metal grinder, then on that very weekend goes on a drinking binge and ends up dead in the river.

I guess Hesse was making some comments on schools taking away people's freedom, making them part of the system, stealing their childhood, or something, crushing them beneath the wheel. Well, I'm not that much of a conservative, but, dammit, I don't see it. If I had it to do over in college I would really apply myself and try to excel. In my opinion, they should've kicked out Hermann early on, or not let him in, a bad seed, and kept Hans' nose to the grindstone. Nothing wrong with being a scholar! So that made me quite a bit more into a sourpuss. I did shed a tear when he died, and that didn't help.

Then the other one, which I just started on today, is "Steppenwolf." This is one I've already read twice, but now that I'm 58 I'm hoping to see different things in it. Which is entirely possible, because I barely remember anything about it really. This stuff is easy for me to forget. Anyway, I read it in college, when I was probably 20. And I read it sometime between 30 and 40. And now I'm reading it at 58. I've gotten through the intro, the one guy's impressions of Harry Haller, and next up is the found manuscript. I'm sure what I read will jog my memory, but at this point I'm blank about what's coming up.

Here's an interesting note that I wrote when I was 20, right inside the cover. There's two review blurbs, then below those I wrote, "It is my sincere conviction that I stink. -- H. Haller." So that's what I thought back then.

Maybe after "Steppenwolf" I'll read something more cheerful ... and it'll be better for me.

I Was 18

One of the first things I read today, but can't now find where it was exactly, is that men generally consider themselves old at 58 and women at 29.

I didn't really look into the reasons why that might be -- I can guess. But it's interesting just on the surface of it that 29 is half of 58. It's kind of weird in this sense, that women typically live longer than men. We're busy dropping off at 60 and they go to 105. Yet they feel old at 29?

Speaking of 105, I was telling some folks the other day about a lady I knew who was 105. She basically didn't have much to say except, "I'm 105." True story, brief but true. She lived 105 years and is immortalized in this paragraph, and whatever obituary there happens to be out there. Of course if she had kids, that's something too.

Another reason the 58/29 stat is interesting to me is, I just happen to be 58. I've been feeling oldER for a while but I've been more openly calling myself old since I turned 58. So maybe I'm more typical than I like to give myself credit for.

58 ... I'm looking back ... 40 years ago wasn't that long ago. 18 ... I was 18. But since then we've had other generations turning 18 and advancing on. Let me just list them ...

18 -- I was 18.
18 -- Others were 18, now they're 40.
18 -- Others were 18, now they're 22.
4 -- Others aren't 18 yet, just 4.

Let's review: 58, 40, 22, 4. I'm obviously no longer a brash kid. I was 18 40 years ago. No wonder I'm looking old. I look like an old man. I have a hard time focusing on myself in the mirror because I think I look like I always did, younger. But if I force myself, the focus shows, yes, I look like an old man. There's no getting away from it, I'm looking old.

My Kafkaesque Photo (Or Maybe Not)

The other photo I got today (the first one is here) is the portrait of the guy on the left. On the right is Franz Kafka, the famous author. I was thinking my guy looked sort of like Kafka, but maybe not. Kafka's face looks a little wider.

I don't usually buy portraits like this, since they're usually kind of boring, but there was something odd about the guy's right eye. The white at the bottom eyelid looks like it was a photographer's touch-up, for whatever reason. At first it looked like the eye was too big compared to the other one.

Here he is with part of the cardboard frame. The photo was taken by the Hodge Studio of Topeka, Kansas. If anyone knows who he was, you can let me know in the comments. Thank you.

Pink Professor -- Beautiful Things, Beautiful People

The other day I bought a beautiful bracelet for the Pink Professor. We were prowling around a quaint little shoppe specializing in the magickal and all things esoteric. The cat she (the proprietress) had was also prowling around us, and we joked, perhaps she knew our innermost secrets!

We were there, and, I don't know, maybe I was psychically overwhelmed by the incense, or maybe it was the magick of the wall tapestries, but I had an irresistible urge to get the Pink Professor something, going by the old rede, "An it harm none."

As soon as I bought it, I instantly felt 5x more romantic -- amazing! -- and it wasn't that much. But combined with the beauty of the thing, and the treasured thought that the crafty witch on duty had made it by hand, it upped my romantic inclinations fivefold, six tops. I put it on his wrist, declaring the truth, "I get beautiful things for beautiful people, the beautiful people in my life." That's nice, isn't it? I had observed it setting there, I observed the need for it on his wrist, and finally I bestowed it on him as a gift. Because a thing of beauty needs ... more beauty.

The Pink Professor, no slouch himself when it comes to all things romantic -- a string orchestra ought to be following the dear around -- told me, "It is lovely, but not as lovely as your smile." Aww, I think he might be blinded by love, because my smile isn't that lovely; I have what I'd call bad teeth, even though I go to the dentist, so they're at least functional; but I think what he was getting at was the look of delight on my face, as I could barely squelch my smile in seeing his delight at receiving it. Plus, what's bad teeth when you're in love? He treasures the whole me, and of course the feeling is mutual.

I tried to cover up my romantic sloshing around with a joke on the subject, "Your beautiful response I will milk for all it's worth. I can already hear it splashing in the bucket." And I swear, all this happened way before I got the 1934 picture of the boy with the milk bucket yoke! But it's an interesting coincidence that the rare picture came into my life so soon following!

The rest of this post will be pure fantasy, as I put on a Ricardo Montalban demeanor and speak in his voice:

We share a laugh -- perhaps a little forced -- but it stimulates something genuine -- making it well worth it to force a laugh.

I give him a good appraisal. My eye is drawn to beauty. I'm intuitive, unerring, able to see the underlying truth of appearances and presentation. From your bracelet, I see many glints in the light ... how resplendent!

We retire to the divan. I finger his new bracelet. We contemplate it over coffee and croissants.

1934 Photo - Boy With A Milk Bucket Yoke

Sometimes I'm in the mood for old pictures of people I don't know, if there's anything interesting about them. If I see one I really like and don't get it, I have serious regrets for about a day.

I haven't bought any old pictures for six months at least, but was out today and got a couple. This is a snapshot that's interesting to me, since I don't see that many milk bucket yokes.

Shopping Around My Biography

I've been reflecting back over my life a lot lately. Age does that for you. And sharing some things with friends, who all say, "You should write a book!" You've probably heard that a million times too. But who has time to write a book?

Still, it's a great idea, if I could just find a "with" guy to actually write it for me. He could listen to me talk for a few hours, then pad it out from his own imagination, double-space it and use three inch margins and we'd have a book. I'm hoping to get Edgar Rice Burroughs, since I like the treatment he gave of Tarzan, but there's a chance he's dead.

I'm something of a hero like that, only more so. And it all came back to me with the killing of Osama bin Laden. That led to a minister somewhere being outed for lying to everyone about his once being a Navy SEAL. It really got me thinking, I actually was a Navy SEAL, and if it's such a big deal, I ought to be capitalizing on it.

It's true. When the Navy one time said they were getting some SEALS together, I happened to be there, and they said, "Hey, you!" To make a long story short, I signed up, went to Vietnam, killed Ho Chi Minh, and the rest is history.

After that, with my confidence totally boosted -- in overdrive -- I went on to many other achievements. I'm way too modest to list them all, but I could mention a few of the more minor ones, like the Oscar I won for my portrayal of a bit player in Bonnie and Clyde. Ever since then, I've dodged the paparazzi, but one day I had trouble. A guy came to my door claiming to be a homeless guy looking for a handout, pointed at me and exclaimed, "You're him!"* And there was a very nice write-up in People.

Gosh, just going over the list in my mind, I guess there's more than I remembered. Like the Nobel Prize I got that year for developing a bean that expands to a full steak dinner with just a drop of water. Now starvation is completely a thing of the past, except for vegetarians, they're still dropping like flies.

Then there were my years at the New York Times, where I got the Pulitzer Prize for my series, also having to do with food, "Peas Porridge Hot." It was an expose of the Russians, feeding children porridge made from peas irradiated at Chernobyl. They put a drop of water on one pea and it expanded to a full bowl of porridge, but it was extremely hot. In their defense, it would cool, but it'd take 500 years.

I probably should mention my gold medal in the Olympics; I only hesitate because I pawned it and when I remind people, they always want to see it. I was in one of the events the Palestinians didn't attack, and, frankly, the only reason I was so fast that day was I heard they were coming.

Among my other sports accomplishments, I served as the winning quarterback in the pilot game that launched the famous Super Bowl series. It was a little known game, but I led the Mudville Mudmen over the Oakland Raiders in a 98-6 rout. We were trying for one more safety to make it an even 100 when time ran out, a great disappointment to me.

I've also had the privilege to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Purple Heart, and a Medal of Citation for serving as the dunk tank guy in one of the Chamber of Commerce's fundraisers.

All in all, it's been quite a life, and I'm not done yet. I wanted to mention something that may sound trivial, but honestly it's been a source of pride to me for many years. That would be the time I substituted for Ringo when he was sick and the Beatles were on tour. Actually, they got a guy named Jimmy Nicol, but then he stepped off stage feeling queasy too, and George Harrison motioned me to the drums to fill in. I hadn't played the drums up till then and I haven't played them since, so thanks to the girls screaming, no one could hear me anyway.

Time doesn't permit me to go into all the details of my Participant Certificate in the 2nd grade sack-race, so I'll just leave it with a bare mention.
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*This really happened. A guy kept saying, "You're him! You've got to be him!" and so forth. I finally talked him out of it.

The Pink Professor -- Concerned About Our Health

(I cheerfully add this post to the corpus of my Pink Professor oeuvre. Today is the 13th. This was written on the 12th, but because Blogger was down till today, I had to hold it. So if it feels like it has more of a May 12th vibe than a May 13th, that is the reason why.)

I guess I haven't written much about me and the Pink Professor lately. Sometimes it's uncomfortable getting so personal, with my whole life on display. There's definitely nothing wrong, that's for sure, if that's what you're thinking; everything continues on in a great way; we're still two old slippers very much in love, to use our pet phrase for it.

Being old slippers, with the emphasis on old or aging, we've always got concerns about each other. Before we met, I thought I truly had enough concerns just worrying about myself. Now it's all doubled -- it's hard to believe I can cope at all! -- but the upside is at least there's someone to share it with. Plus, that's what love is, looking at another person's aches and pains, even cancer if it came to that, and being there together.

I just had some dental work done. I think I wrote about it (looking around I don't see it). I have a tooth that's now a king, since it has a crown. King Tooth! It went bad, breaking off while I was eating something like a granola bar, so the dentist had to crown me. The Pink Professor of course needed to be in on all the anxiety of those moments, since I had a few days for my tongue to wander over the original bad tooth when it broke. He also encouraged me in the unpleasantness of going to the dentist, assuring me that it's never as bad as you think. Which is true, although the actual truth is it's still pretty horrendous.

We shared some coping pointers -- and I guess I could throw one or more out. For me, the dentist chair is a place to longingly seek out the divine, I'm driven to it. You think how coldness touches a nerve, or a drill touches a nerve, even with the deadening, and you can feel something. Just as fast, you can connect with the divine, since the body is a congeries of psychic centers with an overall microcosmic oneness. And as long as they're suctioning out the debris, you're free to focus on higher things. So to focus, that's our coping pointer for the day!

We ask each other how your health is doing. Any aches and pains out of the ordinary? Have you completely gotten over the bronchitis? Cough, cough, apparently not. How did the shingles vaccine go? Does your arm still hurt? How close to 10 years has it been since your last tetanus shot? Is this the year for your TB skin test? Does cancer run in your family? Heart disease? Are you mortal or immortal? What about a colonoscopy?

We had a joke about The Colonoscopy From Hell. I'm at a Fall Festival bobbing for apples. For some reason, I'm nude at least from the waist down. The doctor creeps up behind me for an ambush colonoscopy. Pretty soon I have a big pointer coming out my mouth, hitting the water, interfering with my ability to bob for apples, but thanks to the pointer I'm able to impale a few. 

The Pink Professor recently went in for his yearly physical, which is something worth talking about. Who knows what women go through in a physical? I don't know. I'd suppose there are things that are unpleasant. Certainly for us guys, that's true. He really didn't have to spell it out for me, the prostate test, the turning of the head and coughing. I actually feel more sorry for the doctor, who must hate the whole procedure on multiple levels. If he or she gets the wrong patient, they might sue for sexual harassment. But the average patient simply hates it, meaning the sensitive doctor has to hate it too.

I mentioned being mortal or immortal. We both believe there are elements that are immortal, but whether there's a continuance of the same personality and ego, that's at least doubtful. If we're just part of a cosmic soul stew, to me that's fine. It should be fine to anyone, since what is is, and there's no getting around it. Wishful thinking won't make it different. Meaning, if we continue on with the same mortal consciousness we have now, and it's even so uninterrupted that someone has to work at it to convince you that you're dead, then that would have to be OK too. I go back and forth on the subject.

We'd love to be together forever, but right now we're content with "till death do us part." And not a second more! So no one be upset if I show up at the funeral with a date! (That's a joke.)

But those are very heavy things, say one of us got cancer and died. I honestly don't mind very much, just looking at it realistically. Still, it's nothing I'd choose. Those are heavy things, but our biggest concern is the day to day stuff, sore feet, sore knees, a pain in the abdomen, too much earwax, not enough earwax, a rash, an odd pimple, hair loss, accidental scrapes of unknown origin, and bumps and bruises. I got a blood blister a little over a week ago and it hasn't gone away entirely. So that's something to talk about. He says I should lance it, but I say there's nothing there to lance. It still hurts a little if I press it but it's far from agonizing.

This is the life of love, all the miscellaneous junk we suffer together. It's not all roses and fine wines, dancing and galas. The typical stuff of love is what hurts now and what do I have to do to make it go away? We're like old cars, piles of rubble waiting to happen.

Are You More Important Than A Pizza?

It's an interesting question, isn't it? ... Are you more important than a pizza? I hear a question like that and it really makes me think.

A question like that comes to me because I think a pizza is a pretty important thing. It costs quite a bit of money for one. You take good care of it in the car on the way home. And if you went to the pizza place and robbed them with a gun, they'd put you away for a long time.

I've bought a few pizzas in the last few days. I get carryout only because I don't like to pay fees and tips for delivery. That shows a pizza's importance, they'll even bring it to you. Since I get it carryout, my going there, risking my life in traffic and spending gas money, shows its importance.

When I get one, it's for my appetite, which is important. Whether I eat and live or starve and die is important, and nothing takes care of that need like a pizza. And a pizza rewards your attention by making sure its first few slices are always the best. Then the less there is, the less important the pizza feels, and so it starts rotting on the vine. Just a few pieces in the box, especially if they're separated, are almost like poison. You should eat pizza fast; a pizza's resentment is not something to tempt.

I've demonstrated the importance of a pizza. And yet how many times do I see commercials -- like I saw one today -- where there's a bunch of party-goers, usually sports fans, who'll have the generic pizza boxes up on the table, mixed in with everything else, like it's just so much garbage! The people are laughing it up, acting very loose, with little regard for the pizza. As far as I know, they're not even thinking of it, except as a bit of cooling food in a junk cardboard box. Putting a drooping slice in their big fat laughing mouth. Probably have horse teeth.

These people, the ones I saw, I had contempt for. To me, they're not more important than a pizza; I'm thinking of an old fashioned term of derision, Philistines.

As to whether I'm more important than a pizza, I want to tread lightly, because no one likes someone with a big ego, who toots his own horn. I'll just say, it's close, but, yes, I believe I am more important than a pizza. One bit of evidence in my favor, I eat a pizza, a pizza doesn't eat me. In that sense, the people on the commercial would also be more important than a pizza, but I'm going to stand on my original conclusion, the pizza's still more important than them.

Next time you get a pizza, beware!

I Owe My Life To My Mother

Well, here I sit, flesh and blood, a person who owes his life to his mother. Before she came along, I don't remember being here. Then she met dad, and they obviously got to know each other fairly well, and next thing, there I was. How that works, precisely, is anyone's guess. There's the biology of the matter, but how precisely the kid turned out to be me specifically, I don't know, I guess it was my turn.

It's weird to think back and realize I had to form to sufficient maturity inside of someone to eventually be born. Of that, I swear I have no recollection, and I don't swear lightly. I can only imagine what it was like, dark, moist, warm, with various bodily noises going on around me, my hair a sticky fright. I definitely know it's the longest period in my life that I went completely nude. Since then it's been more or less only nudity during showers, and an occasional game of volleyball up at the colony.

Anyway, eight months of that, all settled in, then I spent another month looking for the exit. I guess nature might have finally taken its course, but I hate to trouble anyone. So I'm looking, looking, looking, never quite believing that I'd come out where I did. That's getting awfully personal, very familiar... But still, seeing no other alternative, I started hacking my way through the thicket, feeling the jungle close in on me the bigger I got, and next thing I knew, the curtain, so to speak, parted, and I was able to see the light of the delivery room.

The first words I heard were, "It's a boy," causing me to glance down to see what all the fuss was about. I signed the papers for the circumcision and we went from there. They placed me in the loving arms of someone, and this person was later identified for me as my mother.

The years have now come and gone. Including breastfeeding -- seriously, tough to believe, I know. Then she made a bunch of Spanish rice, I remember having a lot of Spanish rice. And homemade pizzas. And lunch meat cut like windmills. And bread mixed with milk. Back then they didn't go out to eat a lot, so we ate everything at home. I don't know if it's coincidental or not, but today I never eat Spanish rice, windmills, or bread in milk. And the last time I had a homemade pizza was probably 15 years ago.

Happy Mother's Day. Everybody have more children so we don't run out.

The Kool-Aid Stand

It's a hot day, and driving along I saw a Kool-Aid stand manned by some kids. Poor deluded little entrepreneurs, I thought, since I remember making one of my first dimes selling Kool-Aid, and I think so far I'm up to about 35 cents for my lifetime.

But hope springs eternal, I thought, until later I found out how truly well off they were. They made it big-time.

It's tough these days to watch children do anything because everyone's so suspicious. My own intentions in life, however, of course, are entirely beneficent. When it comes to people watching, you're really leaving out half the human race if you leave out children. Or a quarter, since they're so small. But I like to watch kids to the degree that I'm able, for many reasons. One, it reminds me of my own darling memories as a child. It's great to feel everything revolve around you personally. That's one of the things I like to try to maintain as much as possible, but it's tough, because I'm old enough to know the truth about the way the world revolves.

Like I said, everyone's suspicious. It would be hard for me to go up to a Kool-Aid stand just out of the blue these days, lest the parents come running out with a machete. Because, let's face it, anyone who shows up at a Kool-Aid stand, really, there has to be something wrong with them. I remember back when I made some of my 35 cents, 25 cents of that was from some guy who was obviously doing us a favor, but we figured his money was as good as anyone's. That was way before all the current suspicions. Back then we knew how to take care of ourselves.

In this particular instance, for me to get this story, I had to employ a stratagem. I carry in my car a Big Ear like you see at football games and a pair of binoculars. I parked about a block away, then sneaked around some houses on the opposite side of the road, came through a narrow lane between houses, and shimmied up a tree, mostly hidden. It was good enough to give me a great view of their stand.

Pretty soon, an old guy showed up, like clockwork. But this guy was different. There was already something wrong with him. He seemed to be mistaking their Kool-Aid stand for a strange open-bar or neighborhood party. He pulled up one of their little stools, put a ten dollar bill on the table, and said, "Leave the pitcher."

The kids had little else to do but sit there watching him serve himself, with the little girl periodically running to the house for another pitcher and the boys collecting the ten dollar bills. The old man was telling his troubles to the kids like they were bartenders, something about his wife kicking him out of the house and taking custody of all their drinks. He was sick of the old battleaxe and very thirsty.

I said something above about parents being suspicious. But these kids' didn't seem to be. The little girl, while inside, must have alerted them to the man's profligate ways, because I saw them -- the mom and dad -- alternating at the front window, pointing and laughing. The mom seemed the more boisterous of the two, slapping her knee each time another ten dollar bill made its appearance. The dad only made sly calculations in his head.

I watched attentively as the man finished off the fourth pitcher, then was apparently so drunk he could barely get off the stool. One sign of his perceived (imaginary?) drunkenness was, he pointed to his own car, the only car on the block, and thought it was a only one car among many. "Which one is my car?" Then he stood up to walk to it and staggered and fell off the curb. I know that alcoholic humor is totally out these days, but I couldn't help laughing, since it was obviously nothing but Kool-Aid.

After a while, thinking the coast was clear, I shimmied back down the tree and walked across the road with my binoculars around my neck and my Big Ear accidentally still plugged in my ears. The kids told me it was $10 a pitcher and about broke my eardrums.

Raising Cage-Free Tomatoes

Well, the long wait is over, with Mother's Day it's time to plant tomatoes!

I went out and bought a bunch of plants last night, and got my garden spot all plowed, the best I could do with a hoe and shovel.

There's so many different kinds of tomatoes to get, it's unbelievable. It makes you wonder which one is just the plain old tomato, not putting on airs. Instead, there's the Early Girl, the Big Boy, the Beefsteak, the Beer Belly, not to mention the many smaller ones, the Cherry, the Marble, and the Pellet. I don't know what the ones they sell at the grocery store are called, but whatever, if you get nine guys together they make terrific baseballs.

This year, though, I'm doing something different, very different for me. I've been getting into the whole "No Cruelty Against Plants" movement, where they're agitating against any kind of restraint on plants, even including fences! Personally, I think a fence around a field is a nice look; it lets you know where the ditch ends; but apparently for the more radical members, a fence is the same as telling a plant, "That's as far as you go," which to me sounds very logical; why would you want your plants running across the road where they might get hit?

So, while I may not endorse everything about it, I do think it's a good idea to keep away the restraints that are closer to where the plants actually call home. Meaning, this year I won't be using tomato cages. I threw them all away after last season -- totally gone -- and I'm proud to say I wasn't even tempted to get new ones when I was at the garden center. In fact, an elderly couple was picking up some cages and I gave them a dirty look, as if to say, "At your age? Someday they'll lock you up, and don't be surprised if a tomato isn't there to help."

Anyway, I got home with my plants and lovingly set them in their garden space. I put them under the dirt just enough to get their roots soiled, not enough to tie them to one spot, in case they feel like migrating to a different place. And not only that, if they need to get in on a stormy, rainy night, I'm leaving the garage door open, and I've arranged some nice dry dirty blankets they can sleep on. Of course they need water, so I put out a little bowl for them to drink from.

You know how tomatoes have seeds when you slice one? They get them from pecking on the ground, like chickens*. That's why your free-ranging tomatoes will have a lot more seeds, and that's where the flavor is. That's why the grocery store tomatoes taste something like chalk, not enough seeds since they're grown inside in about a half ounce of dirt.

But my tomato plants will have the entire half acre to hunt and peck. And if they feel like doing other things, like going out to pick up some chickpeas, that's fine with me. Bring the veggies home to Daddy! And if I happen to eat their friends, and later them, so far that doesn't bother my ethics.

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 *I think chickens should be kept in cages, because they chase the tomatoes away and try to take all the seeds for themselves.

The Boy Who Cried Sex

Little Johnny was the paperboy in a small town. Everyone knew they could look to him for the news, whether it was on the front page or just something he picked up wandering around town. He was on the front lines of whatever was happening since he knew all the back alleys and dark hallways.

He was getting about that age when he was becoming curious, but maybe he wasn't familiar enough with all the various positions and moves. Since he was just a kid, probably the less we say about his prowess, owing to modern sensibilities, the better. Although prowess would be the wrong word, since he was still just scratching the surface of what was true and what was just what other kids said.

When you're that age, thinking about sex, you really don't know what to think.

Anyway, being a newsboy, and always crying out the headlines, such as "Shark Eats Local Dog," and being one who had this budding curiosity and not really knowing what to do with it, he naturally cried out when he thought he saw something going on. Because maybe others would be equally curious, although I'm sure, looking back on it now, that no one would want their personal affairs blared around town by this kid. Still, when you hear it about someone else, it's definitely worth looking for details. The way I remember it, everyone else made everyone else's business their own.

So it happened one bright sunny morning, Johnny was out walking and saw something that got him excited. He went running up the path into the town, crying out, "Sex! Sex!" When the townspeople gathered, he said he saw some old guy playing with someone's tits. They all went running and burst through the barn doors with great anticipation only to see Farmer Miller milking his cow. Of course the townspeople were very disappointed.

A little later, Johnny was walking through town and made his way up an alley. He heard some activity from inside a place and climbed up on a brick to look through the window. What he saw, he couldn't believe, and so he went running out into the street, crying, "Sex! Sex!" He said he saw a woman feeling up some guy. The townspeople about had heart attacks as they ran after the excited youngster. They got to the window and peered in, only to see a nurse at the rest home giving an old resident his morning sponge bath. They weren't impressed.

That same afternoon, Johnny was walking downtown, and happened to be looking in the drugstore window right when the druggist and his female helper each had a big armload of boxes of rubbers, going into the back room. "Good grief!" Johnny thought, "They're going to do it all day long!" So he went running into the street, crying out with all his might, "Sex! Sex!" He explained the scene and the townspeople burst into the drugstore and went to the back room. But instead of having sex, the druggist explained the rubbers had passed their expiration date and he didn't want any ladies from the town accidentally getting knocked up, so they were disposing of them and ordering all new stock. The townspeople shrugged their shoulders and rolled their eyes.

Then toward evening, as I recall it was around 5 o'clock, Johnny was walking down by the railroad track, which had a big park just to the south of it. He was amazed when he saw a whole troupe of gypsies climb out of a boxcar and make their way to the park. He couldn't believe his eyes when they stripped down and were all buck naked and began to play games, starting with Nude Red Rover. Then as some became excited, they peeled off and were over near the south bushes going at it. The remaining group played a game in the nude that needed less people, then some of them started going at it near the west bushes. That left a smaller group to play a game in the nude that only needed seven or eight people, then a few of them were going at it on the east, where there were no bushes. That left three gypsies, who skipped any further games and went straight for the good stuff on the north side. With all their rolling and writhing, eventually they all came together in one big mass in the middle, several on top of the others then turning over, a lot like you see earthworms do on a rainy night.

The tangle of nude bodies, so many huffing and puffing lovers, then periodic climaxes, then diving back in for seconds and thirds, was almost too much for Johnny, but he tore himself away and forced himself to run as fast and furiously as he could back to town. He was sweating like a cold glass of tea on a hot afternoon. He cried with all his might, "Sex! Sex!" explaining the best he could without any breath the whole situation with the gypsies, all the writhing, and the coming together of naked bodies not only at the four cardinal directions but in the exact center of the lawn.

Of course by now no one believed a word he said. Old Ted Mack held up his hand and spoke for the townspeople, "We've heard enough of your cock and bull stories!" Then a few other voices chimed in, "We've all seen farmers milk cows!" And "We know nurses bathe residents at the old folks' home!" And "Of course druggists have to rotate their stock, no one wants outdated rubbers!" And so they dispersed, going back to their own homes to do who-knows-what -- one can only imagine. Leaving Johnny alone on Main Street.

"So they think I'm a big fat liar, huh?" Well, he did what any curious young man would do, unzipped his pants, pulled out his shirttail, and ran like an elk back to the park. Unfortunately, the gypsy troupe had gotten back on the train and by now were long gone. He surveyed the scene and found some empty rubber boxes they'd left behind. Apparently one of the gypsies had taken them from behind the drug store.

Her Beautiful Puffy Red Lips

Gorgeous! I see so many beautiful women passing by, each with the whole package and probably more. It's something to wonder about whether they think they're beautiful, or are they hung up with appearance issues? I'm interested in self-image stuff, also on the stuff of attraction and of course the biological imperatives that direct it.

Big Words I Know

That's true, big words I know. "Rigor Mortis" and "Vigor Vivus" are big words, terms I know and use regularly.

And I feel great knowing them. I've found that exercising my brain with big words like this gives me even greater brain capacity, making my feat an everyday thing for me. In fact, to me at this point, it's trivial.

Using the words (or terms) is one thing, praiseworthy in itself, but really knowing the concepts behind the terms is the critical thing, and that's where I really shine. I know all about Rigor Mortis and Vigor Vivus, just to use this example. Rigor Mortis is death thinking, yielding to death as a way of life, and Vigor Vivus is life thinking, living life to the fullest, being vigorously alive.

How did it happen for me? They put me in school at a very early age, 5. My love of learning wasn't even that great. I guess I was content knowing the little I knew up till then. But still, by repetition and years of having to go, I managed to at least absorb something of what they were saying, however boring it may have been.

I suppose anyone could do what I've done. If you're not an infant or in a coma. The challenge would be too great for infants and coma victims, at least that's my guess. But the rest of you -- currently stumbling around in darkness, ignorance, hopelessness, and pessimism -- could probably chin up a little and set your mind on knowledge. I myself am not all that optimistic, because I see how dumb others are.

Sometimes I wonder how'd we get vast libraries and universities if everyone's so dumb. The answer is, years ago people were smarter. But who today are the dunces going to them if they're really so mentally dull? That's something to think about.

Just among my first guesses would be even the dimmest man has some ascendant instincts. Even in the worst hopelessness, at some obscure level there's every now and then, like five seconds when the night is pitchest black, a random spark. A disconnected wire flares up, jumps, and goes, "Zitz." The man arouses, has an inkling of an idea, than immediately loses it and goes back to diddling his lips and making a bubbling noise. You've heard of Fox News?

Anyway, you get enough of these random sparks -- it might take a million mornings and nights -- and pretty soon he's learning the ABCs and is beginning to sound out simple words like CAT and ERECTOR SET. This is no failure, this is glorious success.

How it came to be that I alone was spared this misery and became so smart, I was very careful with my opportunities. I too looked at and considered eating paint chips, playing video games, and availing myself of easy albeit disease-ridden sexual experiences. But some innate sense of restraint I had -- call it a good upbringing -- told me, warned me that that path, the broad way, led to destruction. So instead, I sat glancing at books now and then, and the rest of the time I sat contemplatively, digesting the words I'd read, and engaging myself in independent thought.

It wasn't till several years, 20-25 years, of this activity -- I was like an intellectual Rip Van Winkle -- that I peeked out the window and noticed that everyone looked like dullard stragglers. I went to the local library and they had big stacks of books in the bathroom for toilet paper. It was a post-apocalyptic scene, which I was able to recognize because everyone looked dirty and disheveled -- and a few guys were wearing those scruffy gloves without finger ends.

A couple of them came up and grunted a few noises. I thought if I were an aural sculptor -- like one of those imaginative dreamers on ghost-hunting shows, who are able with a few hisses and cracks to discern words and whole sentences -- I could make sense out of this throat litter. I replied in kind, not wanting to come across as an aristocrat, as though they'd know what that meant.

Of course, lest I lose my superior abilities -- I got the heck out of there as fast as possible, went to a room by myself, and spent some time enjoying my own knowledge. I'm pretty good company, if I do say so myself, certainly better than my fellow man, although if I need someone to pick bugs off my back and eat them, at least I know where to look.

It's hard to know what to do next. I'll probably continue to read and learn more big words. My mind is like a sponge -- a lot like a sponge -- attracted to smart stuff.

Bin Laden Mortis Vs. Obama Vivus

Let's review the facts concerning Rigor Mortis vs Vigor Vivus. There's no contest, with Rigor Mortis begging off, "No mas..." Vigor Vivus stomps around the ring, taunting his unworthy opponent, "Get up! Get up! Get up!" With the crowd in throaty response, "USA! USA! USA!"

We've seen in the breaking news of the last few days this exact match up being played out on the international stage. We've witnessed the turn of historic events, with Osama bin Laden being brought down like the Towers he attacked so long ago. It was justice in its rawest form, the big, bad, mighty terrorist getting a taste of his own medicine -- How About Them Bullets?! To the face, to the chest! Not so powerful now, are ya?! LOL!

It's true, pure and simply true, Osama bin Laden lived for death, meaning he had to taste death in an ignoble way, with our finest Navy SEALS putting the deathly kibosh on him and his best laid plans. Am I sorry to see the son of a bitch go? Don't count on it! LOL. I seriously would've loved to see it myself, say I was hidden safely behind a big pane of bulletproof glass, with a safe egress out the back way, somehow avoiding all danger. I could've been the government's civilian witness, fist-pumping my way out of there on the helicopter, and holding the bloody bullet that went through his left eye which the SEALS plucked from the wall and gave me as a souvenir.

I would present that bullet here as a living witness to the ways of Rigor Mortis, the life of death, lived out in its most miserable display, the life of these scurvy, piss-ant terrorists. If I had a roomful of them, and knew they were guilty of heinous offenses, I'd love to flip the switch on each one. Let them sizzle, let them fry, and say, "You lived the life of Rigor Mortis, rejecting the ways of Vigor Vivus (true life in its most vigorous spirit), and now you must receive your own, the death you have so craved!"

The biggest trouble with bin Laden's death, in my Vigor Vivus opinion, is that it took so long. The day that son of a bitch took credit for 9/11 was the day of his death. Should've been. But we had a bunch of foolhardy Rigor Mortis leaders here in the United States, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the rest of their whole life-denying, anti-Vigor Vivus crew. Even the good guys (Colin Powell) succumbed to the Rigor Mortis way, at least temporarily, when he lied his socks off at the United Nations. So naturally they didn't catch bin Laden.

Remember right at the beginning of the Afghanistan war. We had bin Laden trapped in a Rigor Mortis cave called Tora Bora. And Geraldo Rivera was standing right outside, saying it was a matter of hours before they'd haul him out. Well, hours became years, and George Bush and his Rigor Mortis team squandered the whole thing, screwed up, fucked up, and let us down. The only time they cared JACK about their Rigor Mortis buddy bin Laden was when they could score electoral points by boogy-manning the nation. So we had the Red Alert, Orange Alert, Idiot Alert, whatever it was called, and, in a decidedly Rigor Mortis move, they had us duct-taping ourselves in our homes. I still know Rigor Mortis families who haven't come out of their duct-taped room. They're probably dead by now, in actuality, sadly.

Well, enough about Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the death-cravers. They were worthless for our nation and the world, and probably set us back a century. To think anyone was filled with enough Rigor Mortis to vote for these Anti-Saints of the Walking Dead is beyond me. But of course I'm filled with Vigor Vivus. Death has no grip on me or my spirit. I'm an American in the truest sense of the word, Vigor Vivus all the way!

And that's why I'm so happy that we now have a President with a Spine of Steel, a Brain of Pure Intellect, and a Heart of Gold to lead us. He is a constant inspiration to me, and I believe I can speak for the world, for the world. The man has leadership skills that no Republican has ever known. And don't get me started on Ronald Reagan, the Rigor Mortis party's sainted knight. I was an adult and alive -- and full of Vigor Vivus -- in the days of Ronald Reagan. That man sucked royally as president at the time, and no amount of Rigor Mortis revisionism is going to rehabilitate (or habilitate in the first place) that loser. Never! Whether he was the Antichrist or not, I'm revising my take on that, but if not, they were at least on a first name basis.

Today we are fortunate enough to have a Vigor Vivus president indeed, President Barack H. Obama, who truly does have a Vigor Vivus heart of gold. And that's how he was able to take on Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice, or take justice to him. It was methodical, rigorous, the training was done, the intelligence was real, they had it down in a precise way, with coordinates you could depend on, they anticipated problems and planned for alternatives, they kept it under wraps, and they executed it to perfection. It was brains and brawn from the top right down to the heroes who had boots on the ground, putting a gun in bin Laden's Rigor Mortis face.

That's what happens, my friends, when Vigor Vivus is unleashed in the face of Rigor Mortis. You know Bush couldn't have done it. Too many screw-ups when you don't start with an actual brain. And if you've got Rigor Mortis yourself as your driving instinct, it's tough to kill Rigor Mortis. Did they get Saddam Hussein? Yes, he was in a particular place, with no Army, Navy, Air Force, Pea Shooters, WMD, nothing. Everything evaporated as soon as we went in. It was a matter of looking for the right hole and pulling him out. And I give credit to our heroes on the ground, who did it bravely despite the fact that the Commander-in-Chief at the time was Rigor Mortis incarnate.

We look at Barack Obama and we stand in awe at his Vigor Vivus spirit, his Vigor Vivus drive, and his Vigor Vivus heart. Rigor Mortis can't stand up to Vigor Vivus, and so bin Laden's days were numbered. Obama went into the Situation Room, and sat there pulling the strings, working his magic, and bringing forth the better angels (key to Vigor Vivus outcomes). The USA was back, baby! Vigor Vivus once again had its way and saw its day!

The thought of those bullets going into bin Laden's chest and left eye ... I'd love to slow the film down, like on one of those Science Channel videos, where you can see the water balloon exploding all around its circumference stretched out over eight to 10 seconds. A bullet touches the perimeter, then makes its eight to 10 second journey through the heart of that wet space, emerging out the other side. The balloon goes completely haywire, and the water's beside itself: "Do I fall, do I drain? What?!" To see, especially, the bullet going into bin Laden's left eye like that, in slow motion, with the still-forming look of painful contortion on his face, then emerging out the back and embedding itself in the wall, what a beautiful, wonderful sight that'd be!

And to know that Vigor Vivus has won again! Hallelujah! I would stand behind the bulletproof glass cheering, and that is why the SEAL would take the extra time to pick it out of the plaster and give it to me. Because he would know the man who was on the side of Vigor Vivus all the while, me. Me and Barack Obama.

If Barack Obama isn't reelected in a landslide, we'll know that to a certain extent, Rigor Mortis has still got a grip on our nation. That's what the Rigor Mortis Republicans hope for. But if it turns out as I fully expect, that he gets close to 100% of the vote, we will know that Vigor Vivus is staking out a New Day, giving us the Next American Century, a century in which Vigor Vivus will fully blossom and be shared, not just internationally but around the world.

I Had Labs This Morning (Thanks, Bin Laden)

I had labs this morning. I always dread this, no more so than when I'm sitting there waiting.

Usually I have something to mentally psyche myself up with. Some sin to atone for. Accepting adjunct pain for the sake of meditation. Whatever. But today there was nothing. Whether any of that's good psychically or not in the long run, it comes in handy when they're drawing blood.

I started thinking about bin Laden being killed, since it was just announced last night. How much worse it'd be to have someone shoot you in the face, I thought. Yet waiting for the needle, at least it's antiseptic, and you've got a nurse who does it everyday, and people usually survive.

I heard the guy before me talking about bin Laden with the nurse. I was trying not to listen, but there was no avoiding it. I needed some alone time.

Then the nurse called me to the chair, and didn't say anything about bin Laden. I didn't want to excite her in any way. The radio was playing Kelly Clarkson's "Behind These Hazel Eyes," but it was just coming to the end when the needle went in.

Next came on the local announcers laughing it up about bin Laden and giving the "Top 5 Reasons to Celebrate Bin Laden's Death." The last thing I needed was some local guys' attempts at humor. The needle was in, and it was painful today, and I would've much preferred another song. But, no, it was The Morning Crew with their idiotic yuks.

The Top 5 Reasons weren't actually funny. They've had 10 years to write the list and this is the best they could do? It was weighing on my mind. My face was grimacing. Still, I was actually glad it wasn't funny, since I didn't want the nurse to start convulsing the laughter, not with the needle still in.

The Department Of Repeating Dates

I think it'd be a good government office where we had officials busy repeating the dates of time. It's mildly painful, and equally fascinating, that once they're used, they're gone for good. And that's not a good thing for anyone who likes to recycle.

It'd be a very tidy way of keeping track of the past, rather than just letting it set out there at loose ends. It's nice that each date had today, but then to be cast aside and swept up in the dust bin of history, it's not a fitting end.

And even if we didn't care about tidiness, surely we should care about the psychic value of honoring the past. I know I've had things happen to me on particular dates, and those dates come to have a sacred quality. But you tell someone, even pulling out a calendar to point it out, and they spit on it and walk away. It's enough to make you hulk out. How many calendars ripped in two I've left behind me, you don't want to know!

So let's say we had a big department, and since time passes all the time, it'd have to be growing to keep track of it all. But it wouldn't really have to be that big, because there's only 365 days in a typical year. One guy could easily keep track of 20-30 years, reciting them kind of like we do with the names of war dead or victims of a disaster. He could just sit at his desk (or walk around), listing them off sequentially. And it'd be even better if it was on the radio or internet. My first choice was speakers on public poles, but since people stay home so much, the radio or internet would be better.

I picked December 1963, not because it means that much to me, but just as an example. Although most of us of a certain age have to remember the Four Seasons song, "December 1963 (Oh What A Night)." It meant something to someone. The Four Seasons (the writers, let's say) had a roll in the hay with some chick and it was unforgettable. And yet, "You know I didn't even know her name." That's tragic, to me that's tragic. Leading me to think we need a Department of Sexual Experiences, too. If we could just all be honest enough to list them for the government. The chick would step forward and tell her name, then we'd all know. I just hate the idea of not even knowing her name! Honestly, I'd say, "Baby, nothing's going to happen here till I at least know your name. I'm into people, not body parts..."

Anyway, December 1963. We remember the song says it was "late December back in '63." So I highlighted the last days of the week of Christmas, figuring if it were Christmas or New Year's Eve, the song would say so. Then I highlighted the first nine days, because any recitation of the days of December would start at the top. Why December 9th is given a larger highlight, I'm not going to say; suffice it to say, it doesn't mean a thing to me personally.

OK, we've got our government employee, speaking for all of us, with his sheaf of calendars, in a clear voice, and taking it seriously, reciting the days of the past, "December 1, 1963, December 2, 1963, December 3, 1963, December 4, 1963, December 5, 1963, December 6, 1963, December 7, 1963, December 8, 1963, December 9, 1963," etc. and maybe it'd be a better idea to include the day of the week it was too.

Among the benefits, it shows that we take seriously the times of our lives. It doesn't allow the past to be forgotten, but we're continually naming it and keeping it alive. Also, and this is just my opinion, in some way it seems like it'd help atone for things and placate our karma. At least it hasn't been proven that it wouldn't!

The Most Interesting Man In The World

Help me, I'm bored with the most interesting man in the world. How can that be?

This guy -- this old weather-wizened fart -- is the most interesting man in the world? I don't recognize him as anyone. Is this guy an actual personality, such as the brewer of a beer? Or is he an actor simply for TV commercials? I don't know.

He's recently invaded my consciousness. I'm pretty good at tuning out the extraneous bullshit of popular culture, including commercials. Someone will say to me, "Did you see that?" And I have to say I really didn't because I wasn't paying attention. Then somewhere along the line, my mind was drifting as usual, like an Iowa ditch in winter, and I looked up and suddenly became aware of this guy on TV sitting at a table with a few women.

It's truly original-sin stuff to suddenly become aware of something. Because, like Adam and Steve, you immediately lose your innocence about that area of life. I'm not one of those guys who goes around feigning ignorance of stuff just to seem cool. Like the Royal Wedding. Just because I didn't watch it didn't mean I didn't pick up a few details about it, and I saw the replay of the couple kissing twice. Really hot stuff. So I'm not trying to seem cool by saying I came to this "most interesting man in the world" character apparently long after everyone did. Although I'd actually like to have my innocence back.

Then a few days ago I was out to eat and there he was again, as part of a coaster on the table. That's what my scan is from, since I thought I'd take one as a souvenir. So there he is, apparently meant as an Ernest Hemingway kind of guy. He's been off to the jungle, off to the mountains, has been fishing for marlin somewhere, and fought at the Battle of San Juan Hill, cracking manly stuff. And now, despite his aged appearance, still the young ladies (yeah, right) are attracted to him and his table. Because somehow they're really into "the most interesting man in the world." Fat chance, of course.

I probably should give him more of a chance. He's only got a few seconds to play up his interesting side. The beer company gives him time to say a sentence or two, mostly that we should "stay thirsty." That's it, they do a tight zoom on one of the ladies' cleavage and we fade to black. To me that's the most interesting thing in the world, although of course her cleavage isn't a man's, thank God.

If this guy is an actual person, like an explorer or astronaut, and genuinely is interesting, I apologize for calling him a weather-wizened fart. But if it's just any old anonymous spokesman for beer, foisted on us as the "most interesting man in the world," then that's a terrible scam. Away with the boring varmint! Bring in someone with some real interesting qualities. Like me! 

I'd take a taste of the beer and immediately pronounce it as good as any beer I've had all day.