Let's Stamp Out Juvenile Delinquency

I'm plenty old now. How it happened, I guess, is no more than the passage of time. I'm sitting there going "la la la" as a kid and next thing I know, I'm over 70! Lots of times I don't get too excited about anything. Today, though, isn't one of those days. Today, I've actually got my hackles up about something which is generally the environment of much younger people, vandals, morons, anti-social sicknicks, petty thieves, and evildoers. I hear about it and think, No! That's no good! But I try to justify it, saying, It's the environment.

I've never wanted to put the full kibosh on youthful activities. Of course I wouldn't be able to condone or sanction murder, robbery, and every other criminal offense that's on the OUT-THERE side of life. You can still do pranks on your friends, let's say, like dipping into their popcorn when you're at the movies. It's a kind of jovial socially-permissible prank that friends terrorize friends with. Ha, ha, really takes me back, yes, yes, there was this one guy who stole my popcorn at the movies, and it seemed disastrous to me, but, what can you do? Do you want friends or 100% of the popcorn that's legally yours? [Point of advice: You can make popcorn at home for about a dime. Eat at home, THEN go to the movie.]

One thing that is sometimes forgotten by our younger compadres is, You have to be someone a little self-censorious. Which starts, of course, with a baseline of common sense. Then along with that there's the various penalties that the law sets before us readily. The milder penalties, say, a $20 fine, are one thing. The greater penalties, like life in prison suck in an everlasting way, especially if there's truly no way back short of death. It eventually becomes a matter of one's self-interest to sketch out for yourself that certain paths must not be taken! If you need more information on avoiding prison and death penalties, there's an encyclopedia somewhere you could borrow...

OK, I feel for you. And I know that stupid things happen. You just want to get on the right side of life. As merciful as I sound, I'm all for stamping out juvenile delinquency. My feelings have run the gamut, winking at minor offenses, all the way up to an outright rejection of murder and murderers, summed up nicely in an old quote I once gave in an informational speech at school: "Juvenile delinquency ... This old crap's gotta cease!"

And, indeed, that's still my conviction. I remember, truly, thinking about it over the decades. At 20, I agreed. Then 30, 40, 50, 60, and even on my last birthday, No. 70, I was thinking the same thing. Now that I'm old, though, I'd guess I didn't sound as forceful about it. Picture me eating cake at my birthday and chewing with loose dentures, while also offering a few out-of-context jibes at criminals today, with most the guests figuring I was in LA-LA land: "You wanna live to a ripe old age without a rap sheet, don't do nothing wrong! Got that, you little whippersnappers?" I looked around the table at all my 70 and 80-year-old peers, and lifted my Milk of Magnesia as a hardy toast.

Of course! Of course this old crap's gotta cease! Let's do our utmost to be the last generation who has to sit in a nursing home judging the craziness of society outside its doors. "Juvenile delinquency is bad! Down with it!"

Top of The Morning to You!

Just like it's been most of my life, so it is today, feeling a little out of sorts, like maybe I got up on the wrong side of the earth. And if that's overkill and beyond belief, at least think of what it must feel like, that I got up in the wrong hemisphere. Woke up, that's for sure, with a thud, with a cry. I cried out, "Damn! An iceberg just pulled the elastic on my shorts (the back side) and let them snap." It was like an earthquake, the snap snapping at me so hard that I tottered on the brink of an ice floe. And nearly went Man Overboard!

Something like that happened when I was a kid. I was checking rabbit traps and managed to fall through the ice and got myself sopping wet. And since that took place at a creek about a quarter mile from home, I had to run in the cold to try to get home. Didn't mean to put my own terrible memories on display, but I'm the only guy with my terrible memories to recall them. I huffed and I puffed and nearly died in a ditch. But pressed on, thinking, "Better get going before I freeze to death," and since I'm here today recalling it, apparently it worked. From that time on, I stayed away from the cold as much as possible, and left the rabbits to their own devices. If they're not smart enough to get caught closer to home, I'm not even going to bother with them. Leave 'em, let them live out their own stupid lives ... and I'll live out mine. We left on good terms.

Have I ever wished I could go to the arctic regions? There's two poles, of course. The North and the South. I don't want to brag, but I have a sense of direction. I could step out from my house -- right this second without preparation -- and tell you which way's which. The Sun comes up over that way and so forth. And I think maybe we're getting a few close calls with it. Either that or it's just showing off for the the others and will soon be gone. It's a thing, though, of real power. Being 93 million miles away and yet close enough to give you a sunburn!

You've heard of course, there's a whole thing going on now with radical weather. The south is mad at the north, the north with the east, the south with the west, and I'd be remiss to omit the west doing whatever it does. California's that way somewhere, which is a place I've been to two or three times. Probably never again, since I'm stationed here where I live, keeping track of the directions just locally and not doing so from particular places. There's also this to consider, I'm fairly old now, not a spring chicken or tom turkey with a lot to prove. Everything I needed to prove, with so many connections dead and off to heaven, is already proven.

With that, let me wish you a hale and hardy "Top 'o the Mornin' to Ye!" You see an igloo, respect it, someone might be cold and on his way home. You see a seal or otter or even a reindeer, stand back and give them room, every creature is one we want to survive! And rabbits. Environmentally yours! Pick up litter, dispose of it in sanctioned places, respect the environment, etc., etc., always words to live by.

God Bless the Pusher Man

I know we're all "environmental" sympathizers these days; I know that's what I am. My feeling is it's better to take care of what we have, kind of like the truth you follow if you're shooting for 50 years of wedded bliss. You take care of what you've got, first and foremost.

But every case isn't like the last case. In this case, apparently the man has some authority over that piece of land. 1) It could be his own mountain and he's out moving it around for aesthetic reasons; or, 2) He does it for a living and the boss told him to get out there and get it cleaned up. Most of us have had a boss who throws around his weight, guiding we the workers in accomplishing the task before us after his will. For us the employee, it'd be better if we won the lottery and bought all the mountains we wanted to tend to. Which is really just a dream, gone when I wake up.

If it's your own mountain, naturally that's happier than tending to other people's mountains. My assessment is, he's got a skillful eye on the task. He wants things to be as nice as they can be, but he knows it's going to look terrible for a while longer, can't build Rome in a day. So it's time for lunch.

Have we decided which is the most important meal of the day? I've heard good arguments for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But it could be controversial, so I'll leave it to each of us to decide his or her favorite meal and just keep it to ourselves. If we're together for any length of time, I'll figure it out.

I spoke about environmental sympathizers, and said I am one. So I'm going to assume this man has the same wisdom that I have. Anyone who has an argument about it, there's a different mountain about 8000 miles east of here, it's more interesting, for sure, so get going!

The Last Good Guy on Earth?

I'm usually so optimistic, giving good kudos to my friends, family, and neighbors. Which entails thinking highly of them and feeling assured that they're A-OK, nothing wrong, nothing shady, nothing hidden, such as schemes, criminal and/or crooked stuff. I suppose I could push my thoughts out there occasionally, just to make sure that I'm not being overly optimistic.

Because according to what I'm hearing, things aren't that way at all. And I used to be so optimistic that when I'd see wanted posters at the post office for guys who were WANTED, I figured they were just razzing them, like neighbors laughingly making so-called accusations about them just for kicks. Get a rise out of them. Well, I was talking with a friend and he caught a whiff of my innocent thinking and laid it on thick about how apparently rotten ("to the core") the heart of man is, firstly, and how an indwelling "evil" is manifest in things like robbery and killing, taking it all the way down to pilfering packs of chewing gum at the gas station.

I've gone out of my way, too, in waving at everyone, giving everyone a smile, and I've even trusted them farther than I could throw them. Loaning out lawn equipment, for instance. And, yes, sometimes I never got it back, but I always figured they had it at the garage somewhere cleaning it or having the blade sharpened before they returned it. I'm the most honest guy in the world, it seems. I guess that's how I have to see it. Since I have no good way of knowing where everyone is on the scale.

If anyone could PLEASE, PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE (with sugar on it), could tell me and reassure me that I'm not the last good guy on Earth, I would appreciate that. It might tamp down my recent insights and bring back a lot of it or even a smidgen of my old optimistism. If this is how it is, though, I'll never loan out my lawn mower ever again, assuming I get it back after loaning it out yesterday.

Welcome To Testville

I got a new computer. Full disclosure, I think I'm losing it ... not the new computer, but my mind.

It's kind of an awful thing. Feels like crap, really. Which is at least something of an encouraging word. Encouraging? Why? Because if I'm able to discern that my mentality is in uproar, at least I'm looking at it from a sane perspective, possibly my main consciousness battling this alternative narrative. That's great. Because, as the song says, "Seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are overcast."

Another paragraph and I'll be able to test this TESTVILLE post. What would the town of TESTVILLE be like? Their whole civic thing is to explore, to test the great and the small. No test is bad, although in tests there's lots of pain. But if the test gives you more to suffer from, then you need to try to get your house in order.

Food for thought. Big huge steaming platters of food for thought. The butler sees the crowds waiting for their food. Bibs around their necks. And we'll see how the test ended, probably a burp.

Old Me Doesn't Know How to Make a Blog Post Anymore

Wondering if I just type a paragraph of stuff? Then wondering what happpens next? I don't remember ever having to screw around with this stuff. So on and so on, son.

That would have been the top set of paragraphs. Then this is a longer paragraph, starting with the para and ending with the graph. I'm presently grapling with what I used to do as a GIVEN now sort of a cranky old dishtowel.

And if that ain't not nothing, I'd hate to see something. 'Cause if I saw something, I'd cry, "That ain't not nothing, it is manifestly something! Amen? Amen? Can I get a hale and hardy Amen, or are you all just a bunch of reprobates and maybe even robobates. If you're 'bating with a robot in charge, beware, the business you lose might be a business that doesn't register on the Wall Street Top 5.

So I march along, getting my blog post an ever-expanding nature. I'm not worried about anything, except it is somewhat discouraging. What I used to do like instinct, now I'm given to meticulous wondering. Not an overjoyed fellow, but, hey, who gives a rat's patootie anyway? Except the rat, and we haven't cared what rats think all these years. I'm of course sympathetic to all creatures, but I'd rather rats worried about their own challenges and merely left me alone. But I'm INURRED to that slate of events, which may have gone out of fashion.

And there we are, rallying with our old family back at the old family place, Grandpa as the head of the place. (Keeping it to himself that he himself was once a baby like us. Imagine that, Baby Grandpa, my Grandpa as a baby. They hooked a diaper to his lower quarters and checked it throughout the day. The old people smiling and laughing that he's called Grandpa, when, of course from their perspective THEY'RE the grandpas and he's still an infant. These things are mind-blowing.

Fireworks Fundamentally Evil?

Fireworks have a way of making a mess wherever they go. We used to think they were great. Then, I guess it was the danger and all the warnings I heard from parents and grandparents. Everyone knew someone missing a finger, an eye, a head of hair, and it was all something I took to heart. Joining that of course with the realization that everyone eventually dies, and, if that's true, the events along the way are obviously not guaranteed to be favorable to our desires. When life gives us a given, receive it for what it's worth, with at least a speed bump of realization and wisdom.

Well, we had a few explosives, firecrackers occasionally, but usually sparklers. That's my history. Sparklers of course are not completely safe. Just like everything else, there's a downside. Relatively speaking, they were safe(r). But if you neglected the basic safety of the thing of course you could be in big trouble. My outlook has always been to LOOK OUT!!! The eyes you save could be the ones you're using to read this.

So, anyway, there's your big fun for the holiday, celebrating (in America) our great liberties, blah blah blah, and trying to make sense how fireworks really fit in. It's better to have something to celebrate than not. Celebration of our national place and society's benefits having to do with our heritage, preserving it, etc. If you manage to burn down your town, you probably have less to celebrate. But if you're smart and maintain some degree of temperance -- good virtues -- you'll have a pretty good common sense understanding of what the threats are, (1), and what the payoff is (2), everyone going "Whoopie! I just ignited a firecracker, aren't I a good boy? Yes I am.

Now let me end with my testimony to America and what have you: I, CITIZEN OF THIS LAND, THANK THEE FOR THE BESTOWAL OF LIBERTY, AND SO ON AND SO ON, until the sacred cattle of the fields (even them) crow and moo, "We too have a great place in our country's heritage ... people gotta eat."

Studying The Thing-a-Marod

I'm going to confess right up front here, I'm not 100% sure that I remember what this graphic relates to. I've got a few memory issues stemming from one time getting hurt right in the head region. Ever since then I've been on a strange overload, a condition where it's hard to focus even on a limited number of things. Instead it magically flowers and there's anywhere from 10 to 100 perspectives that, once the attention space is lost on a few perspectives, the others become overwhelming. Where the focus should be is seldom definite. Kind of like saying, "I want a white car, but I need to test-drive all the other cars to make sure white wasn't a mental trick.

The graphic features no one that I know of, at least in the present memory path. I may wake up in the middle of the night convinced, let's say, that she's my mother. Or my dog in a past life. Something entirely different would be the focus then. But what if she were actually someone I glimpsed on the sidewalk one day and my brain is giving me false positives about the potential relationship we might be subliminally toying with. Or maybe she's an old teacher of mine and a scientific study would center on what made her a good teacher, in the event she was. 

Seriously, I'm starting to think the female look of the graphic might be related to me, although I generally answer to male. Naturally, that could immediately make us think of things that are all mixed up. This one might be beyond me. Is that what the tongue looks like when it's seen in its entirety? It looks like a surfboard, and maybe there's some big waves today, and we'll ride it like wild horses, in this case a definite filly. Or whatever a male horse is called -- a stud -- with makeup. I'm big on gender identifications being the particular person's judgment, not so much based on equipment but what comes out of the mentality. In this case, with the graphic, it's "Ride the wild surf!" Or it's similar to the diving board by the pool. She's got a thought, the words form on the edge of the diving board, and jump in unison with the body into the wild surf, or sedate pool of water (water pooled in one place.) 

Is there any value in it? I believe so. I think it'd be cool to get together with a few other explorers, you know, and bat it back and forth what we think. Say we have 10 members in the discussion, and we're charting our course, not so much to come to conclusions, but it keep the discussion focused on the theories that are thought up in a brain storm, with lots of affirmation. Each member has a different theory, and we can't declare the next guy wrong. "I'm not saying you're right, but I'm also not saying you're wrong." 

The scientific study goes on. Perhaps I'll dream of it. Perhaps in my dreams I'll know how she (or he) fits in the scheme of things, who's right, who's wrong, blah blah blah. Each member of the discussion has something valuable to say. And if they say nothing, it could be because there's about to be the one with the most valuable thing to say. In this case, what could it be? "There's a thing-a-marod, and what it is isn't exactly clear. And what's going to become of it? Museum or city dump, albeit city dumps aren't anything like they used to be. We used to shoot rats in the city dump and of course there were lots of interesting things to discover once the rats were gone. The stuff they stashed away.

I'm Overwrought!

It's like I've been locked out of the opportunities that I've always taken for granted. Point A leads to Point B, then Point C; I do nothing but the elementary things that have always worked. Then suddenly, WHAM! Then the results, when results are manifested, are but balls of confusion. You could put your finger horizontally on your lips and blast out a noise and stretch it by wiggling your finger up and down and make more sense. Rationality, are you my old friend from back in the day? Or have you been hijacked and are now at the mercy of unsympathetic hijackers, about to plow your way into an edifice, perhaps a rural silo, meaning to rub it in: This terrible fate laughs, even chortles, then says in that old perfectly structured robotic voice, "No success for you!"

Well, I'm not giving up, you evil heinous polluted spirit of imposed failure, let it be YOU that fail, and upon that realization find your own deadend to your aims. Already I'm thinking the last laugh shall be mine! Usually when I have this sweat-out with seemingly insurmontable odds, I keep thinking, try, try again. It's in there, my normal sense of confidence even when the results start out so poorly. Whether it's riding my bike to the post office and get a stifling headwind, or I'm on assignment from the FBI trying to nab and take in the top 100 Convicts of History, I know the task is big, but not so big it can't be done. Have you noticed we don't hear much from Jesse James anymore?

Anyway, that's both the problem and the solution in the challenges I've been facing. What needs to be done can be done. The bigger they are, the easier they fall. My problems gang up on me, my inner self rebels, albeit temporarily, but in the end the little minions, the rebellious spirits in my mind and outlook, are surmounted, and either granted leniency for minor offenses or are strapped in electric chairs and jolted either into hell eternally or easily forgiven with a slap on the wrist. Forgiveness keeps the electric bill down.

I'm not a bad master of one's self, as is probably clear to you by now. Have you doubted me? Thank you for that hale and hardy "No sir!" It's gracious people like you, whether pushovers or not, that are the true heroes. We depend on you, don't let us down.

I Got Stung

I forgot what all the lyrics are for "I Got Stung," to me one of the greatest songs that Elvis recorded. Which is a weird state of being for anyone who sings the snippets of the song and can't quite get the lyrics right. I know, I could google it and memorize it, but I'm old. I'll reserve the rest of this paragraph for any future excuses I might thing of.

Anyway, I have a manic style in mind when I'm even humming this song. It's flagrant, the style I'm thinking, flagrantly improvising the lyrics, which for me, when forgetful, is to stock it up with sexual imagery, with thoroughly priapic apparatus and conduct in mind. If the real Elvis appeared in my room, I'm sure he'd enjoy the craziness of it all. But then he'd start singing and completely owning the song, leaving me for royalties a piece of chocolate out of my own pantry. Or, who knows, maybe he'd take me a few suburbs over and get me a new Cadillac! Anything from bright red to something less fun.

I can't go on, because I almost launched into a whole cussing thing, which would probably mean I'd be locked out of the system, a stinging rebuke from whoever owns Blogger, which I believe is Google. Great guys, but with trillions of blogs being their pride, I don't want them looking askance at me, not even for a minute.

I got stung by a cute honeybee.

Floundering with a computer about half here

Yes, when it comes to verbs describing me and my activities, there's not one as close to perfection, vis-a-vis ME, as "floundering."

I'd like to tell the whole story, but I think it only comes to me in bits and pieces, here and there. Memory lapses, memory faults, did I already mention that?

Anyway ... Speaking of "anyway," go watch a few YouTube videos of Don Rickles and count how many times Don says "anyway." Virtually continuously. After a joke, "Anyway...." 

What's one of the weirdest things about my computer? It was unused for maybe a year. When I went and opened it, there was something I wasn't expecting. Big black dots on the screen. Like it was ON with some intensity and burnt through the screen. Except no computer of mine has been plugged in for a year and had the capability of burning through the screen. Where would it get the power? Yet it's true, those big screen hogging black dots are part of the problem!

This might help me. How did I get memory loss? Two ways, 1) Old age, 2) Hit my head on a rock, I'll withhold the details.

Friends, I'm Half Whack

 I've spent the last hour or so trying to sign in. But it's been a mishmash of floundering and failing. Finally, now I'm here writing something

The big deal will be when I log out and try to do it again. The mishmash is still in sight.

This is A TEST. Not an actual blog post.

From My Internet Bunker

Haven't got time for a fancy graphic to accompany this post. Screw it, I'm desperate. Listen to me. They're doing a real number on the internet, OK? Understand at least what I'm hinting at? They're coming to take me away, my blog, my hopes and dreams, and I don't know precisely how it's all going to turn out. Although I have at least a clue. It's similar to a bug hitting the windshield, it's unceremoniously wiped out, with its final word (not being consciously thought out but more of the onomatopeia-ick variety) "SPLAT!"

Let me introduce myself. No, wait, we haven't got time for that. I'm a victim, and you know what, I heard that victimhood was pleasant, something of the perfect egoic sort that it sees you through life with great meaning. I'm here to tell you, no, that's crap. This feels like crap. Like G--- and the Major Powers have taken over, putting us "little guys" out to pasture, which is not pleasant because it not only feels like crap, because in the pasture, it's actual crap you're subjected to. Chart your steps carefully!

I've already said enough, I know, and The Bastards That Be Will Be out to get me very soon. You know how the garbage guys come by the house and pick up your two bags full? They carefully tuck the bags in the truck. Well, this is different. The big guys crushing the little guy will not be so careful. They know we're behind the eight ball when it comes to torture. A dead Hefty bag has no feelings, at least none that we've been able to measure with various sensors. But a living body has those nasty nerve ends that provokes a hideous response to pain. The Powers That Be are screwing us alive, and it isn't pleasant!

Where was I? Need to look back and see if I can recapture the thread of the argument. (Nodding my head as I read.) OK, I think I see it. They're screwing around with our blogs. Including my old blog, which I just recently thought about reviving. It turns out it was just in time for new rules, new policies, and so forth, and none of it is fun!

So I know there's big CRAP coming down the line. Somehow the major search engines -- is there more than one? -- are acting within their own headquarters, and presumably are in league with any others that likely exist. With the brief conclusion being, little fish like me and littler fish like you are screwed, yes, up one side and down the other, with the center orifices -- one major one come to mind -- being about to be hideously packed with the length, breadth, and the whole solid girth of these sadistic monsters and their overgrown ilk even now standing at attention.

Are we gonna take it? What choice do we have? My recommendation is not to be taken literally. It's make yourself new underpants with 2" by 4" lumber, because these guys are not just naughty, but haughty, You'll see! Hang in there, Grandma!

DB Kundalini Is Back, Baby

What you mean, Baby's all grown up? The Baby's my blog, and finding out it's "all grown up" apparently means it's had to be "grown up" when I was apparently neglecting it.

Thank you dbkundalini fans, I'll try not to wander far away from my calling here. But the way it happens, you think "I'm going to take a few days off," then you take a few more days off, then a few more, till it's been years. And every good habit you had in the past, such as daily updating, filling in the important information that my readers need, etc., is replaced by the bad habits of neglecting the basic mission. I understand, at least I can pick out the likely threads of truth, but going that far doesn't mean I'm free and clear, innocent. I spent a full three hours today literally kicking my own ass. With the unexpected result that my foot and leg hurt more than my ass. It's either an ass of steel or something to do with the foot and leg. Which I'm thinking has to be this, No one spends an hour or more literally kicking his own ass. That takes more of a toll on the leg and foot than it does the ass! An interesting discovery...

Anyway, I'll let it go at that. Put some ice on my leg and foot, etc., everything will turn out all right. 

Join me, if you will -- your religion doesn't matter -- in a group singing of Kum By Yah.