PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION

Blog number 356 **** 23 December 2009

On the way to Phoenix the other day, we saw what I at first thought was a dog, but as we went by and I looked in the rear view mirror, I saw the unmistakable outline of a coyote. What threw me at first was the coloring. It was brown and on its back was a dark spot. I always figured coyotes were tan in color. This thing was also very healthy and I have come to view coyotes as rather mangy critters. I think I got that idea imprinted from watching road-runner cartoons. So far, every coyote I have seen since moving here (3) have been well fed and healthy. One wonders why they are so well fed, since there is not much for them to eat in the desert here, but there are a lot of little dogs and cats in the suburbs, and one hears every so often on the news about a coyote jumping over a wall and grabbing a pet - even when a human is in the back yard. In fact, one woman got into a tussle with a coyote over her dog. She won.

The behavior was definitely not that of a dog on a freeway. A dog would have been searching for his master - or any master, being rather fickle creatures, running up and down the road and even into traffic trying to stop a car and climb in. This coyote sniffed at something by the side of the road , paying no attention at all to all the cars zooming by. It was doing its research not more than three feet from autos traveling 70, 75 miles an hour past it. It completely ignored all traffic. As I watched in the rear view mirror, not once did it look up away from what it was investigating on the road.

Beautiful creatures!

WRITE ME A POEM TOO, BABY

Blog number 355 **** 13 December 2009

In the late fifties we - my wife and I, got a hold of a book called, "Write Me A Poem, Baby." It's a collection of writings by youngsters with the original misspellings and ignorances. Funny book.

Late in the seventies we got to talking about this book and we wanted to read it again, but couldn't find it anywhere. Several times over the years we would make another attempt to find it with no luck until finally just a few weeks ago, my wife got one from Amazon.com.

I'm going to give you a few excerpts. I hope you all enjoy it as much as we did. The first one is a one-act play entitled, "Grandmother Has Gone To The Bar - Huk." It was written by a nine year old girl. Here 'tis.

STEP-MOTHER - I'm tired of living here, I've always wanted to be an actress.

FATHER - You certainly don't care for the children think of what they'll go threw grandmother is always getting drunk.

MOTHER - If the children can't get along by there self its to bad I can't help it if grandmother gets drunk.

(children enter)

JO - Guess what I don't have any homework.

FATHER - Good do you have any Clover.

CLOVER - A little bit.

DICK - A little bit my foot.

(Grandmother Enters)

GRANDMOTHER - I've huk squesed the potatoes, huk and pealed the huk, lemons.

MOTHER - Oh dear.

FATHER - Granny wouldn't you like to get some water.

GRANDMOTHER - later on I'm going to the bar now.

JO - If you don't go to the bar more than twise a day I'll eat my hat.

GRANDMOTHER - You don't have any to eat huk.

MOTHER - Come on in and eat children.

FATHER - Grandmothers gone to the bar.

MOTHER - Thank Gonnese.

FATHER - You know the children can't stay with her.

MOTHER - They are not my children where is there real mother.

FATHER - Its a long story but you remember that big tank full of gas that started leaking in Gayton well we lived a block away and I was reading a paper and my wife was soing on some close and I opened the door and a man said the gas tank was busted so I ran for the boys and my wife ran for Clover. It was so fogie outside I couldn't see.

MOTHER - The children must have very bad memerys not to remember this.

FATHER - Well Dick was only two but he slept threw the whole thing Jo was one and Clover was 3 months well the streets were crowded my wife sliped on a rock I don't know exactly how we got apart but I notised she was missing many a times I looked for her but i never found her.

MOTHER - How queer.

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When Nora Johnston was ten she produced her own newspaper called, Mairsy Doats. Nora's newspaper was dedicated to eternal resistance to tyranny - the tyranny of parents. Two of Nora's fighting editorials follow.

CLEANLINESS IS NOT NEXT TO GODLINESS
We have discovered that in the soap factory they throw the soap by bushels into dirty old tubs, they don't care what happens to it, and most of the soap you get has been left standing at least two weeks. They call it anything they can think of and the labels are mixed. Soap is impure to the body and creates a rash on the limbs.

CANDY
One of the most nutritious foodstuffs is that delicious object, manufactured all over the world, namely, candy. There are lots of kinds of candy, old fashioned sugarplums, stick candy, molasses, fudge and candy drops. The two principles of candy are hard candy and soft candy and they're both good. DID YOU KNOW THAT candy and sodas and sundaes and ice cream of all kinds have more vitamins and calories than any food in the world? That fudge should be made every day to sustain life?

FREE WILL, MY DONKEY!

Blog number 353 **** 05 December 2009

Many years ago I attended a magical "growth" seminar called, "est." Very often the trainer would make a prediction about how the audience would react to certain exercises and statements. The predictions always came true, although some predictions seemed to at first seem almost impossible. For instance, the consistent refrain that nobody was to have any timepieces in the room at any time - whether they were broken, didn't work, not used, or many of the other common excuses for having a timepiece in the room, even after repeated admonitions.

Came time to start, the trainer asks, "Does anyone have a watch on their person?" Several seemingly intelligent people raised their hands, and sure enough, the predicted excuses came out. My already low opinion of the average person's awareness fell several more points.

Before starting on a logical progression of the evidence for the total lack of free will in humans, the trainer told us that some of us would laugh, some of us would cry, some of us would become frightened, some bored, some confused, some angry, at the conclusion. And sure enough, that is exactly what happened. The argument went like this; when we are born, we react to something which produces a response, which produces another reaction, another response, another reaction, response, reaction, response, reaction, until finally comes the realization that nothing is happening except response, response, response, response.

Until death.

The final response.

The actual argument was in more detail than I just gave you, and it involved mathematical probabilities, among other things, but that is the gist of it.

There is another way to argue this, which I like better because it involves actual observation of what exists. For instance, I cannot grow any more arms or legs, I cannot get a different body, I cannot sit if I am standing and I cannot stand if I am sitting. Everything is as it is.

You might say, "But I could stand up, using my free will," but I would respond, "Only if you had the desire, and if you have the desire, did you will to have that desire or did the desire to stand just come to you out of the void? Was the desire created by you or was it given to you?"

Notice also that we cannot do anything unless we have an interest in doing that thing, and if we have an interest in doing that thing, we cannot be stopped from doing that thing if it is physically possible, which once again is not up to our free will.

And we don't pick our interests. They pick us.

Now why do I think this is important? Because obviously, if we are not choosing to do what we do, who or what is? I know it's not me, because I raise my arm by just willing it to raise. I have absolutely no idea how to raise my arm. It is beyond my ability to comprehend how I use any part of my body, from oxygen interchange in the lungs to digesting the food that my mouth somehow without my understanding, prepares for the next step. BUT SOMETHING KNOWS.

And it doesn't have to be God, it could just be, "All That Is." SOMETHING. Something is using us. For some purpose? For no purpose? Who knows?

This morning I noticed in the papers, "bombings here," "killings there," "mass murders here," "sibling killings there." If nobody is really, basically "responsible" for these tragedies, then it is possible to say, "It is just time for these things to happen now, that's all. Not my problem."

When the school killings started, it was a new thing and we tried to figure out how this happened. Bullying was, I think, the consensus. But I really believe it was just that it was time for that to occur - like leaves come on the trees in the spring and it is not anyone's fault - it is not even the tree's fault. It's just time.

People tend to think in terms of tragedies and blessings because they are thinking in terms of THIS life - as if it is the only one we have or will ever have. But there is no evidence that such a thing is true. It's just that our culture has conditioned us to look at things in this way. It sells newspaper, if nothing else.

I don't like the term, "think outside the box," but dammit - think outside of it! Get a life!

I love you.

MEN WHO STARE AT COATS

Blog number 352 **** 04 December 2009

We went to our Credit Union to pick up my $2 bills and we noticed a sign on the front door that said, "Please remove sunglasses, hats and hoods." This sign is a result of a holdup man who visited this establishment a couple of months ago wearing sunglasses and a hoody.

My wife was wearing sunglasses, a man at the counter was wearing a hat and a man sitting in a chair against the wall was wearing a hoody. We mentioned all of this to the teller and asked if she mentioned to any of these people that they were not to wear those things in there and she said, "Oh they know they aren't supposed to do that. We stare at them."

THIS IS ALL ABOUT ME FOR A CHANGE AND IT'S ABOUT TIME

Blog number 350 **** 01 December 2009

Okay, this all started when I began reading a book called, "Eating the Dinosaur." The author, an interviewer by the name of Walter Kiran, tries to understand why people answer questions posed to them by interviewers even though there is no obvious benefit for them to do so, and in fact many pitfalls to their reputation abound in answering interviewer's questions for publication either in print or film.

"So why do they do it?" he asks.

He gives six reasons why people might answer questions about themselves when they are under no obligation to do so, and then he dismisses all six motives using pretty good reasons. The motive he dwells on as most likely, is that ordinarily nobody listens to people. He says good interviewers are those that are interested in what the interviewee is saying. This experience of finally being listened to encourages people to continue talking.

The one reason people answer questions about themselves he doesn't mention and the one I find most likely, is that people see themselves as the most interesting thing on the planet. "Me and mine" as the saying goes. My experiences, my ideas, my beliefs. Let's talk about those, OK? Great!

So I guess what this new book did to me was to pique an interest in interviewing and being interviewed. I get to interview myself this time. The results follow.

I went back to visit my folks when I was in my forties One early morning I saw my dad playing solitaire on the kitchen table. At first glance it looked like an ordinary solitaire game, but then I noticed that he would place the cards in ways that seemed to make no sense at all. I knew from knowing him, that he wanted me to ask him what he was doing. But I was afraid to. I didn't want to hear his answer.

My dad would very, very seldom answer any of my questions in a serious way. His most common answer if I asked what something was for, would be, "Cat's fur to make kitten britches." I hated hearing that.

Many years ago two of my friends confessed to me behavior of their respective dads that they hated. I realized immediately that these two commonly did the same behavior that they hated in their dads. Did I also do that? I looked, and sure enough, I realized that whenever one of my kids asked me a question I usually replied with a schizophrenic answer and never ever really answered their serious questions.

I never thought that I was especially curious about people's motives, outlooks and reasons until my wife started complaining about my going up to people and quizzing them about one, two or all three of those things. I started doing this behavior when I was about 45 years old. Strangely, while shyness prevented me from doing this earlier, I also had no interest in other people, which also prevented me from doing the behavior.

It seems that my interest in people arrived at the same times as my fear of them disappeared. It doesn't seem to me that either of these phenomena came before the other, but rather that both arrived at the same time - as if both were caused by some third phenomena. It seems, from looking at myself from the inside, that this interest in people seeded an interest in other creatures, and this in turn created an interest in existence itself, which still blows my mind whenever I ponder upon it.

That was fun for me.

Was it good for you?

THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY III (3)

Blog number 349 **** 01 December 2009

In the book, "The Old Way" by Elizabeth Thomas about the pygmies of central Africa, the author tells about the time she was trying to determine the ages of the children, and since the bush people do not pay any attention to the number of years that people have been alive, she wanted to look into the mouths of the children so she could determine somewhat, their ages.

She said she didn't have any trouble with any of the children, who opened their mouths willingly, but one child objected, so she squeezed his cheeks in order to get him to open his mouth and he grabbed hold of a poisoned arrow that had carelessly been left leaning against a tree by a person getting ready to go on a hunt.

The author quickly backed away and the child's older brother knocked the arrow out of child's hand. Nobody said anything to the child, but there was a definite uncomfortableness to those who happened to see the incident. Elizabeth said it wasn't exactly like this, but this was as close as she could get, she said it was like when a person farts and nobody says anything for fear of embarrassing the miscreant. The child looked unhappy at the ostracism he was given. Everybody ignored him with perfectly blank faces.

One time a child wanted to go hunting with the father, who refused and the child threw a tantrum. This was the first and only time Elizabeth had seen such a thing and it was so unusual that the parents didn't know what to do and looked beseechingly at the others for help. The "others" didn't know what to do either, so they pretended they had important chores that needed done right away.

THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY II (2)

Blog number 349 **** 30 November 2009

In a very interesting book by Elizabeth Thomas called, "The Old Way" about the pygmies of central Africa, and where the three tales about the effect the rising and setting sun has on animals that I wrote about three or four Blogs ago entitled, "Father, Sun and Holy Ghost", she tells of the use these people had with poisoned arrows, which I will try to summarize here.

In this Blog.

Now.

They poisoned the arrow heads on the shafts of the head, not the tip - for protection against getting accidentally poisoned by being stuck with the sharp point. The arrow heads were not as we commonly know them - like the American Indian arrow heads, but more like darts, commonly made from porcupine quills.The poison is made from the grub of a beetle that lives on the Baobab tree The grub buries itself in the dirt by the tree and is dug out by the pygmies. They pound on the body of the grub until it is mush, then remove the head and smear the innards onto the arrow head and Viola! Poisoned arrow.

One drop of the poison will kill a full grown man.

When they are done with making the arrowhead poisonous, they burn the leavings, being very careful to stand away from the smoke made by the fire.

Elizabeth says that she was standing downwind from such a burning with a tiny scratch on her hand, preferring to stand in smoke because of its warmth. Almost immediately the wound started hurting so much that she got a little worried, so she told someone about it. He smelled the wound (evidently flesh infected with the poison has a definite smell) and immediately started sucking on it. She said that she started feeling the effects up to her elbow and wondered how much farther it would have gone if left alone. She said she must have gotten only two or three molecules of the stuff from standing in the smoke from the fire.

Kinda makes one wonder how they found out that the innards of a grub was poisonous when injected into the flesh. Probably a pretty interesting story back of that.

By the way, they get their knowledge of the environment from experience and also much of it from what the older ones tell them. If you ask a question about something and they don't know the answer, they will say, "I don't know. The old ones didn't tell us that."

I guess the old ones didn't tell them how they come to be making poison from grubs, more's the pity.

POTPOURRI PARA TI

Blog number 348 **** 29 November 2009

Yesterday I was watching a documentary about a killer whale catching a great white shark off the coast of California in 1997 . The story itself was interesting, with the people telling of what they saw and the film of the whale carrying the shark around in its mouth and the comments from the biologists about different pods of killer whales eating different foods, and the supposition that this whale learned how to kill great whites from a pod off the coast of Australia, or else he learned it on his own.

One thing curious to me was that none of the whale watching captains, the killer whale expert biologists, the narrator - none of them, ever referred to the whales as, "Orcas" but always as "killer whales." Wonder what that's all about.

Anyhow, the main curious thing to me was that a crew of fish biologists were at a group of barren islands off the coast of California - the Fallon or the Farron islands - I don't know which and I'm too lazy to look it up and it doesn't make any difference to my story anyhow, studying a group of about one hundred great white sharks that came there every year in October to feast on the sea lions that gathered there.

After the whale killed that shark - evidently a very unusual thing - never before seen anywhere outside of the Australian waters, no great white was ever seen that October in their gathering place in the Fallon or Farron islands. Over a hundred great whites disappeared immediately from the area after the killing of one of their own by a predator in that area. Think about that.
*******************************

On another program I watched that same day - a program called "Alaskan Patrol," one of the cops was saying that of the fourteen villages in that area, twelve of them were voted dry because alcohol caused so many problems. He said that there was a lot of unemployment in the villages so the villagers tended to drink out of despair and boredom.

Later on he says that the people could make an alcoholic beverage out of yeast, sugar and water, and it was ready to drink in 24 hours. (yech!) He then went on to say that a gallon of this stuff sold for $7. Then later he's talking about people buying a fifth of whisky in Nome for six dollars and then selling it in the villages for two hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars a fifth.

Now I'm thinking, "these people are unemployed, so they buy whisky at three hundred dollars a fifth to get drunk so they don't have to think about not having any money."

Neat trick!

BOOoooo! HiSSSSSSSSSsss

Blog number 347 **** 23 November 2009

I found a place where one could "fly" using giant air fans to keep you in the air. The movies I saw of it made it look like one could fly fifty feet into the air. Kinda scary. Excitement scary. Great! I was so excited about going. My favorite dreams are about flying, so I had visions of having that same feeling of flying while awake. Fifty feet in the air, doing summersaults, Yay!

This morning we took a trip over to see what it was like. In the distance we could see this large white "building" which consisted of a building and shooting into the air, four white funnel-like things. We headed there.There were a lot of mobile homes, several large buildings, since they also hosted sky diving events - a drinking establishment called, "The Bent Prop," young men and women walking around shirtless (except for the females), some wearing sky diving clothes. Lots of activity, lots of people. On a weekday yet.

We stopped at a building that had signs advertising free-fall sky diving and asked directions to the indoor flying. We were shown the road to take and were told to watch out for sky divers coming down. On the road driving there, we saw a sign that said, "Watch out for canopy traffic." I told my wife, "Look at that sign." She responded, "What's canopy traffic?"

I looked up, and sure enough, it was raining men. Since we weren't in a convertible and therefore wouldn't be able to see those coming down on top of us, I thought it would probably be better if canopy traffic watched out for us.

Maybe not.

We got to the right building. I walked up the stairs, my wife walked up the ramp. Somebody was smoking in that clear desert air. It did not compute. Without thinking about it, I never expected smokers. Why, I dunno. I didn't really expect young people, although I should have, and once I would think of young people, I would have thought, "Uh oh. There's gonna be smokers."

That was the first unpleasant incident. Actually, the sight of all those bare chested youngsters reminded me of spring break at Lake Havasu that I watch on the telly. That was really the first unpleasantness I felt. People that age are nuts, especially around alcohol and mixed sexes. The Bent Prop carried new significance for me.

So we get to where the blowing fans keep the flyers in the air. I watched a "flyer" in a glass enclosed room with a trainer, lying on his back, held up by the air from the fans to a grand height of three and four feet. I asked a woman how high one could go. She said not above the glass enclosure - a height of about eight feet. It was impossible to go higher than about fifteen feet - the top of the room. Not scary at all. Not exciting at all. Boooooooring!

"What a crock," I thought.

We left.

We won't be back.

Phooey.

Phooey.

Bleh.

FATHER, SUN, HOLY GHOST

Blog number 346 **** 20 November 2009

Now this is strange.

Most of us know of the yoga position, "Salute to the sun" that is given at sunrise, and also of the many different ancient religions that worshipped the sun as a god.

In the book, "The Old Way," Elizabeth Thomas writes, "flocks of ducks, geese and other water birds who swam there would wait for the last red flare of the sun to vanish below the horizon, and at exactly that moment they would all fly off as if at a gunshot, all together, in a rush of wings. On cloudy days, when the sun could not be seen, they flew off more or less as dusk gathered, one flock at a time.

Equally impressive were two captive wolves whom I met years later in the United states who would crowd together at a window and wait for the sun to rise, and as soon as its first bright ray came into view, they would howl together, each voice singing a different part in a breathtaking song that set on end the hair of all who heard it. But, like the birds, if the wolves didn't actually see the sun, they took no special action. On cloudy mornings, they paced around below the window without howling. They did this every morning until [their deaths].

As a third example of an animal responding to the sun, I offer an observation of a lion in Etosha Park in Namibia whom I watched one evening. When we first saw the lion he was all alone on an open plain near a natural spring, lying propped on his elbows with his head raised, apparently watching the sun set. At least he was facing the sun, which was sinking toward the horizon. He seemed patient but alert, as if he were waiting for something. As the sun touched the horizon, he began to roar. He continued to roar as the sun sank out of sight, and fell silent the moment it vanished. His mission seemingly accomplished, he then stood up, turned his rump to the gorgeous western sky, and slowly walked east across the plain."

Early one morning just before sunrise by a lake in Denver Colorado, I witnessed tens of thousands of bullhead fish suddenly churn the whole surface of a placid lake. Just as suddenly it stopped. Then it happened again. And again stopped. This continued every few seconds - six or seven more times, until the sun's rays hit the lake, then it stopped, never to be resumed - at least in my presence. I have never seen this before or since. (ed. note)

When I am ruminating on the magic which surrounds us, I sometimes imagine the sun being the physical manifestation of God, and that "fact" accounts for the reverence shown the sun by so many creatures. The sun does give life to all creatures, yes?

Elizabeth's story of the wolves reminds me of something I read in a book about General Grant of civil war fame. This one soldier is telling a story of traveling with Grant (now here, I am not sure of my footing. It might not have been General Grant, but rather some other fellow soldier) anyhow, they heard wolves howling. The other soldier (Grant?) asked if the story teller knew how many wolves were howling. The story teller knew the other soldier came from Indiana (I think) where there were wolves. He also had heard that wolves howling always sounded like many more wolves than were actually there. He thought it sounded like twenty or thirty wolves, So he said, "ten."When they came around a bend, they saw two wolves standing in the road - evidently the only two howlers.

CHICKEN LITTLE MY ASS

Blog number 345 **** 20 November 2009

Two days ago I saw on a newscast that a big ball of ice fell from the sky and tore up the roof of a house. The ball was about eight inches in diameter. One explanation was that it must have come from an airplane. I didn't buy that for a minute.

Teresa read this Blog entry and says that the ball of ice was eight to twelve inches in diameter. I thought that myself, but I like to err on the side of conservatism. My wife doesn't. So now we have two interpretations of a news event.

I really love that girl.

Then today I'm reading in my book Stranger Than Science, of chunks of ice falling upon cars in a car lot, "... I looked up and I could see the sun shining on big pieces coming from 2000 feet up... I looked for a plane, but there weren't any."

The meteorologists promptly dismissed the whole thing as chunks of ice from a plane; but their explanation is dismissed as worthless by aviation authorities who point out that it is impossible for ice in such massive chunks to form on any plane.

"We have hardly scratched the surface of the astounding list of things that have fallen from the skies... Unable to explain them, science does the next best thing... it ignores them."

BAH! HUMBUG!

Blog number 344 **** 19 November 2009

Just got back from the movies. Mom drug me to see "A Christmas Carol." I really didn't want to see it, having seen many different renditions of it. I know the story - it never changes. I thought it would be a waste of time, but in order to please my lovely, I consented to go see it.

It was magnificent. The artwork was unbelievable. Terrific. Outstanding. The story had just the right amount of new touches, making it a much more interesting story. The comedic touches fit right in, none of them were forced. Scary parts were scary. Damn good movie.

I was very pleasantly surprised

CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, DAMMIT!

Blog number 343 **** 18 November 2009

One of my favorite TV shows that I look forward to every week is, "Curb Your Enthusiasm." This is not a show for everyone. You have to acquire a taste for it and many people never do acquire that taste. Kinda like anchovies on pizza, I guess.

The reason I am entering this entry on my Blog will become clear later on, but first I have to report a puzzling aspect of last Sunday's episode.

Larry David - the star of the show and one of the creators of the Seinfeld show, along with Jerry Seinfeld, is producing a "return" episode of the Seinfeld show. During the rehearsal, a friend of Larry's comes to watch and tells a very long, not at all funny to me, obscene joke which the character Jerry finds extremely funny.

The puzzling aspect of this scene is that all writers agree that only something that furthers the plot or illuminates a character's character, or furthers some other explanation is written into a story. You don't put anything in that you, the writer, wish to perpetuate - such as a moral or political code. Or soft porn, which is very commonly put into stories for reasons known only by the producers.

You don't use the story to tell anything except the story. So what was this joke so long, so unfunny, so obscene, doing in here? The character telling the joke is a minor character, appearing every forth or fifth episode, and only for a short time. Why did Jerry's character find it so funny? Did Larry David find the joke funny and wanted it in the show for the humor?

Couldn't a shorter, funnier, not obscene joke be found - like the one about the Priest, the Rabbi and the whale going into a bar?

So that's the puzzling aspect. Now, to me, the interesting aspect of that show was that Kramer is worried because his doctor told him that he had Groats' disease, from which people usually die. I Googled Groats' disease and first it says that it is not a disease, it is a symptom, and not only that, it is not a real symptom, but rather one that is imaginary, created on the "Curb Your Enthusiasm" show.

The symptom is akin to drinking five cups of coffee.

LIFE IS A HIGHWAY

Blog number 342 **** 17 November 2009

Three days ago I was waiting in the middle of the road waiting to make a left turn - exactly like it says to do in the driver's manual, and when the oncoming traffic slowed because the light turned yellow, ready to turn red, I started to make my left turn. But then I noticed the first oncoming car was speeding up, so I stopped, and as he drew next to me, he slowed way down. I didn't look at the driver, but I am sure he slowed down in order to glare at me for trying to cut in front of him. He ran through a red light in order to do this.

Later that day I legally parked in a handicap parking at Fry's at the same time this car pulled up in front of me and the driver got out and said, "You didn't pull in far enough. Someone's going to hit the back of your car." I thought he was talking to someone else because I had pulled in far enough. He said it again, so I said, "What?" - checking to see if it was me that he was talking to. He told me that again, so I looked at the back of my car, saw that it was pulled in far enough, but in order not to piss the guy off, I said, "Thanks," got in, started the car up, pulled up about two feet, stopped the engine, got out and started to go into the store. Then I noticed that where the guy had parked, which I had assumed was a parking spot and he was indeed trying to be helpful, was NOT a parking place.

Let's see now. This guy pulled into a non-parking place in front of a handicap parking spot, got out of his car in order to accost me to tell me I should pull further in. I thought, "What the hell?"

Now that's two "funny" drivers, so all that day and the next two, I kept looking for my "third" funny driver because those things usually happen in threes. I gave up looking today.

Funny thing, though - and this may well be that thirdie I was looking for. There is a chance that both cars and both drivers are the same car and driver. Same color cars, same "big" cars, same aggressive "I'm entitled" attitude.

The parking guy, I think what he was doing was expecting to cut through the parking lot until I pulled in front of him and stopped that. Why he got out of the car and gave me that strange warning, I have no idea. Dork.

LET'S GET REASONABLE

Blog number 341 **** 16 November 2009

I came across a statement that always kinda bothers me, in this book of oddities that I am currently reading. It goes, "Science has learned a great deal about the mind in the past three decades thanks to new instruments and new techniques; but, reduced to its fundamentals, it becomes a program of the mind studying the mind, and that complicates the problem."

The mind studying the mind does not COMPLICATE the problem! What it does is make it IMPOSSIBLE.

The eye cannot see itself, the finger cannot touch itself, the ear cannot hear itself, the nose cannot smell itself, the mind cannot know itself. It ALWAYS takes an outside agent to investigate anything. That should be obvious to everybody, and especially to purported scientists.

With these newfangled instruments and techniques, scientists have learned about some of the things Mind can DO, but of Mind itself, nothing.

Think, Dammit! Don't make me come out there.

I AIN'T ODD. YOU'RE ODD!

Blog number 340 **** 16 November 2009

I'm reading this book, see. Stories about weird happenings. I was going to write some excerpts from it, but upon reflection, what good are oddities that can't be explained, except to realize that Existence is a really, really odd experience? And one can realize that, just by pondering on how a group of cells can let another group of cells see hear and feel, for instance. One doesn't need stories about oddities. One can use ordinary happenings, because if we look deep enough into anything, we will always find that "THAT CAN'T BE!"

I loved the stories about people, ships, airplanes, armies and whole villages disappearing.

Never to be seen again.

The first story was about a man on a farm in Tennessee in 1880 disappearing in front of his two children, his wife, and two men who happened to be passing by in a buggy. But what good is it to know about that incident? Pleasure from reading about it is all one gets from it, I guess. I like to share pleasures I receive, in the expectation that I can also share the pleasure another gets from experiencing what I experience. I get pleasure doubled, tripled, quadrupled, in that way - depending upon how many get pleasure from reading what gave me pleasure reading. Like telling a joke I enjoyed so that others can get the same enjoyment, which gives me a further enjoyment.

Too much explanation?

Too bad.

AND WE KNOW THAT HOW?

Blog number 339 **** 10 November 2009

"Conditioning" is a term coined to denote cultural myths disguised as truths. "Dogs, cats and horses are pets, never food," is one of the common myths in our culture. We have been conditioned by our culture to see these animals in this way. It is not logical that these animals not be food while cows, for instance, are. It makes no logical sense. It is an emotional sense. A conditioned sense. It is not a fact that horses are not food.

Another myth disguised as truth in our culture is the "fact" that everyone by law is innocent until found guilty. I am not a lawyer, so I don't know if this is a law or not, but if it is, I have heard Judge Judy - a lawyer, say to defendants and plaintiffs, "being found not guilty does not mean that you are innocent or have been found innocent." So how does this jibe with innocent until found guilty? Is a person not found guilty, innocent or not? Let's be consistent.

And are not tens of thousands of "innocent" people in the United States jailed every day even thought they have not yet been found "guilty" of anything? Do we jail the innocent? Of course not. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

The means of this conditioning is very subtly done. Someone tells us something, or we read it, or it is insinuated, or we interpret something to mean something, and it goes into our "belief basket." We never think to check the "fact" out. We simply accept it. And it has to be that way, for if we checked everything that came to us as fact, we would never get anything else done.

Buddhists say that life is suffering.

A recent song lyric says, "I am pain. You belong to me. You'll be with me for a hundred and ninety four years. I am pain. You are all I want."

That last about the number of years might not be exactly correct.

So sue me.

No, please don't.

I don't want to go much further with this, but it is my personal opinion that people take way too much umbrage at death, and those whom I feel take that umbrage is to whom this Blog entry is pointed. I don't think it is too far from the truth to state that the afore-mentioned umbrage comes from cultural conditioning and not from looking at facts. Facts such as the ones insinuated in the five and six lines above this one.

And of course, I am right.

SILLY QUESTIONS NUMBER ONE

Blog number 337 **** 10 November 2009

We (Teresa and I) went to Mimi's this morn. Teresa ordered a cup of coffee and it was sitting there when a server came over with something - I don't know what - I was reading, when I heard the waitress say, "Do you want me to bring a napkin for that?"

I looked and Teresa's coffee had been spilled - Teresa says by the waitress. It ran under the plastic covering the table cloth, on to Teresa's book, and on the newspaper we had brought with us. Looked like almost a quarter cup or so of coffee.

"Maybe a mop," I said.

No I didn't.

PEOPLE CAN CHANGE. CAN TOO!

Blog number 336 **** 08 November 2009

The author of the book I'm reading (see Blog number 335 below) seems to me to suffer from a bit of naivety. He seems like such an intelligent and thoughtful scientist that it surprised me no end to find that out. I can't get over it. What's the matter with that man?

Let me explain.

After WW II, and after the Germans had invaded the peaceful kingdom of The Netherlands and killed many innocent civilians and destroyed much of their property - all without provocation, much as has been done by another country to another country in our present time, the author states that since that time the Dutch have been less than enamored of their neighbors to the east (the Germans).

As an undergraduate of at the University of Nijmegen, he was taught by several German professors who spoke Dutch with a heavy German accent. One of these professors was a grumpy old man who was rumored to have been a concentration camp guard. Then the author goes on to say, "Obviously this couldn't be true, since he would now have been in jail or worse."

Well, that's good enough proof for me. How about you? O. J. didn't go to jail when he killed his ex, so he must have been innocent too. Right?

But wait. Besides being old and grumpy, was there anything else about that man that might make one suspicious of the truth of that rumor? Well, let's see.

"To make matters worse, this professor manually killed the mice needed for our anatomy practicum. He didn't believe in death by ether, and would simply take a box with live mice and stand with his back turned to us. A few minutes later, a pile of dead mice with cracked necks lay on the counter... you can imagine we found this professor a bit scary."

YEAH! WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU?

Blog number 335 **** 08 November 2009

I'm reading, "The Age of Empathy" by Frans De Waal.

Talking about the difference of opinion about social bonding amongst social biologists "recalls that famous dinner conversation between a Russian literary critic and the writer Ivan Turgenev: ' We haven't yet solved the problem of God,' the critic yelled, 'and you want to eat!' "

CAN WE GET AN AMEN FOR REASONABLE LEADERS?

Blog number 334 **** 03 November 2009

I'm reading a history of The Simpsons. One story contains a remark by the first President Bush's Drug Czar, William Bennett.

Willie admitted that he had never seen [an episode of The Simpsons] adding, "I'll sit down with the little spike head [Bart Simpson], we'll straighten this out ...there's nothing that a Catholic school, a paper route and a couple soap sandwiches wouldn't straighten out."

The Simpson writers responded, "If our Drug Czar thinks he can sit down and talk this over with a cartoon character, he must be on something."

WISH I COULD WRITE LIKE THAT

Blog number 333 **** 01 November 2009

I'm reading a kind of a biography by James Lipton - the "Inside the Actor's Studio" guy?

James was an actor when he met Harold Curman - the name's not important. Harold was a greatly respected acting teacher. Harold would talk with the students after classes, telling stories, One night James asked him, "Weren't you a play reader for the Theatre Guild in the Twenties?"

When he said that he was, one of the other students asked him what were the greatest plays he ever read.

He said the best was one that he never went beyond the title page because nothing could equal it.

"It said, Act one, Scene one; Ten million years before the first living creature crept out of the primordial ooze.

Act one Scene two; Two weeks later. "

Hah! Delicious!

I'M PRETTIER NOW

Blog number 332 **** 30 October 2009

Back in the seventies and early eighties, I could ask a mother if I could hold their babies and they were always pleased with the request. Then danger started increasing in the Good Old United States - going to a high of slightly over 32%, and suddenly I could no longer touch the little dears out of the fear held by the mothers.

I used to only stare at babies because I couldn't touch them and they would usually look at me with a blank face. It took me awhile before I realized that the blank stare they gave me was not interest, it was usually fear. I found that out as soon as they started crying. I guess to them I looked like a predator looking over a menu. At least that's what Teresa told me.

I went to slightly more than twenty years without holding a baby. Then I got a buzz cut haircut, and the first day with it, babies started smiling at me right away, and I was approached and hugged by two babies. Last week I was hugged by still another.

So the mothers might be afraid of me, but it looks like the babies love me. And all because of a different haircut. Beauty may be only skin deep, but that's deep enough for me.

NO WONDER HE LOOKED LIKE AN ALIEN

Blog number 331 **** 30 October 2009

This morning we went to see "This Is It" at the movies, and he was.

We saw the Michelangelo of sound. Amazingly amazing, brilliantly brilliant.

What a guy.

GIMMIE AN EL

Blog number 330 **** 28 October 2009

Yesterday the lovely Teresa and I were sitting in Barnes and Nobles and this Black lady with three adorable children came by and we started talking. At one point we got to talking about Halloween decorations at houses - she thought some of them rather gross. Then she mentioned that she knows a family that has a cat that is named after the Devil. I guess we looked blank because she said, "You know. The Devil's name. I don't want to say it. It starts with an el."

I was stumped, so I got to thinking. "The Devil's name is..Beelzebub...no, doesn't start with an el...Lucifer!"And just as I thought that, she says, "You know. It rhymes with useifer"

Ah, yes. I smile at her. But I don't say that obscene name.

People are so funny!

I hypothesize she was of the Pentecostal religion because those people have a thing about the Devil's power. I think they wish he didn't exist. But then why would we need God? I dunno.

I don't think she didn't want to say the devil's name for the same reason some religious people don't want to say God's name - out of a sense of awe, but more likely something like, "If I say his name, he might think I am calling him and come to me." I know some cultures don't like you making a fuss over their children in fear of attracting Satan's attention to the children.

If I get to know her better, I'm gonna ask, you betchum.

Row, row, row your boat

Blog number 329 **** 28 October 2009

I have several "triggers" to remind me that I am dreaming so that I can "wake-up" in my dreams; so I can dream a lucid dream, so I can know I am dreaming while I am dreaming.

If I dream I am naked in public places, if I see houses, cows, or any unusual thing floating in the sky, or if I find myself flying, those are supposed to be triggers to wake me up to the fact that I am in a dream.

Last night I dreamed that a large branch was floating in the sky, as if the wind was holding it up. I watched as if plummeted to the ground, barely missing a car, hitting the highway with a thunderous crash, bouncing across the road, raising a maelstrom of dust.

I also dreamed that same night that I was in a room and I started floating up to the ceiling in a circular pattern. I thought at first I might be dead, and then thought I might be dying, then I woke up. Two triggering dreams in the same sleep, neither of which worked.

What we normally call "being awake" is also a dream, but with different "laws." In this dream, I am trying to always be kind. I am also trying to never speak if I am angry, to always think of others as sacred beings. I guess you could call these rules, "triggers" for the "awake" dream.

Being in these states consciously, being awake to them, like being awake to one of my night dream triggers, would create a more aware and informative and enjoyable environment than if I slept unconscious through them. Today, two of these rules were broken. I was not kind and I spoke in anger. And I was totally unaware that I was supposed to be working to do neither. Just like I was totally unaware that I was dreaming triggers in my dreams last night.

Is there a connection between the failure of the triggers in the two "dreams" happening so close together? Is that concidence a trigger for a third type of dream? Inquiring minds want to know.

CHICKIE BABY REVISITED

Blog number 327 **** 04 September 2009

In the Chick Publications book entitled, "The Warning," we are visited in the first panel with a car T-boning a police car. Not just ANY car gets T-boned in a Chick publication. It has to be a POLICE car.

The guy ran a stop sign.

In the next panel we have a little boy asking, "How did that happen, Grandpa?"

Grandpa asks his own question in response. "What do you think CAUSED the accident, Bobby?"

Bobby answers his own question. "That driver ignored the stop sign, didn't he?"

Maybe I'm being picky, but I don't think that CAUSED the accident. Lots of people ignore stop signs without having an accident. If there was a cause of that accident, I would say it was because somebody wasn't paying attention. Probably mostly the car that ran into the police car, but it seems that the cop was a little unaware too. Just a mite?

Anyhow, Grandpa takes this opportunity to give Bobby a lesson in believing in warning signs. He says, "When my father was a little kid, he almost died...because he didn't believe in warning signs." Grandpa then takes apiece of barbed wire from what looks like a dresser drawer and declares that it was this little piece of barbed wire that saved his life.

It seems like it would be kinda hard on any clothes kept in that dresser alongside that barbed wire. Barbed wire gets rusty after a few decades, so not only would Grandpa's clothes be torn, they'd have rust stains all over them. But maybe that drawer contains only trophies that saved Daddy's life? I can't believe it only contained that one piece of a barbed wire fence.

Now two things. First, evidently it was not the obeying of a warning sign that saved his life as the theme of the story might suggest. No, indeed. Turns out it was because his overalls got caught on a barbed wire fence and he couldn't get to the water in time to die with his three friends.

And second, what is it with that father's unborn-at-the-time's son doing with a piece of barbed wire from his daddy's childhood? Who cut the fence in order to have the trophy?. And is it the exact piece that the Daddy got caught on or would any part of that wire fence had been good enough? And was the needle from the hypo that vaccinated the father from getting smallpox and dying from that also saved somewhere in one of the drawers?

The next panel, after we get to see the foot-long length of barbed wire that Grandpa keeps in his dresser drawer, shows us some boys that come over from a neighboring farm. They say that "...someone found a new swimming hole." SOMEONE found a new swimming hole? Wonder who it was? Someone they knew? I hope so.

Bobby asks, "Where?"

One of the boys answers, "It's somewhere behind the old Simpson's place. We're on our way to find it."

Think about that. Three teenage farm boys, obviously entranced with swimming holes, never having heard of one on a neighboring farm.

So the lads go through a corn field, past a barbed wire fence with a "No trespassing" sign on it, through another barbed wire fence with two signs on it, one saying, "Stay Away," the other, "Danger!"

They finally come to the swimming hole, which is rather close to a windmill, which makes it a little more difficult for me to imagine how this swimming hole stayed lost for so many years. And oh, yeah. There's a sign in the water that says, "No Swimming."

So they jump in - all except Grandpa's Dad whom we know got caught on the barbed wire and was thus saved. The other boys died. They didn't drown, surprisingly. No, no. They got bit by snakes which were living in the water. Surprise, surprise.

Seems like Jack T. Chick's theme took a little side trip to look at the world's biggest ball of yarn. We now get five panels of a preacher talking at the funeral of the three boys, about Adam and Eve. We get to learn about the "the worst snake attack in history that took place about 6000 years ago." And, "the sad part was that those victims had also been warned of the terrifying consequences [of not heeding a warning]."

We get to learn about the dangers of ignoring warning signs while at the same time get a review lesson in how bad snakes are, all wrapped up in one Jack T. Chick story. Funny guy.

CHICKIE REDUX

Blog number 326 **** 15 August 2009

Blog number 325 visited the dinosaurs' disappearance in Chick Publications. I commented then on the weirdness of Chick's pulling facts out of the air. Today I ran into another one.

A character is telling the story of Thanksgiving because one of the children at a Thanksgiving dinner, asked, "Hey Uncle Mort...what is Thanksgiving? I've never heard of it," while another child says, "We can't say 'Thanksgiving' in our school."

So Uncle Mort tells the story of Thanksgiving. It seems the Pilgrims were starving at Plymouth Rock until "God let them find corn that had been buried by the Indians." By winter's end, half of the survivors were dead and the other half, sick. Just when all seemed lost, two Indians stepped out from the trees, one of whom spoke perfect English.

Now why did Chick add that last little tidbit? Does it add to the plot or does it kinda make the story a little less believable? Why say that? For what purpose?

I think what is happening in Chick's brain is that he accepts everything in the Bible as God's truth, and he believes that that is all that is important. Anything else he might say about ancient history, true or not, doesn't really matter. It's beside the point. "Just get the story told" kinda thing. That's why he can say humans killed all the dinosaurs for food and the first time an Indian is seen, he speaks perfect English.

I myself have been guilty of this type of reasoning. I sometimes do it when the listener seems to have missed the point and gotten stuck on some minor detail that doesn't matter. I'll just say whatever will shut them up. I think that is what Chick is doing.

CHICKIE, BABY!

Blog number 325 **** 11 August 2009

When we lived in Sacramento, I used to find Chick Publications religious tracts lying on bus stop benches, in restaurants, Sac State, all over. Stamped on these tracts was usually the name and address of "Bethany Temple," "First Pentecostal," or some other evangelical Christian church.

These tracts are about five inches by three inches, 16 pages in length. I had a collection of them that I brought from Sacramento, and having mentioned them to my son Kavi, he sent me some more that he had found. I don't believe I have ever seen them here in Arizona.

A couple of days ago I saw a documentary on these tracts. I found that there are only two known photos of Mr. Chick - one from a High School yearbook, the other when he enlisted in the army shortly thereafter. He was born in 1924.

Nobody has ever interviewed him.

Seeing this documentary, I got interested in looking at them again, but I couldn't find them. I had misplaced my set and I couldn't find them. My wife, believing I had a great interest in seeing them again, bought a set for around $20. She likes to please me with purchases.

These tracts, although obviously meant to be always serious and important, inadvertently are often humorous and kinda weird. The weirdness comes mostly from Mr. Chick's belief that what you do in life has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you wind up in Heaven or Hell. What does matter is if you have taken Jesus Christ as your personal savior by the time you die. In other words, you can lie, cheat, steal and murder, as long as you take Jesus as your savior. On the other hand, if you live as a saint and do not take Him as your savior, it's down to the burning depths for you immediately upon your earthly death.

One tract I had never seen before is entitled, "Congratulations." The congratulations refers to whomever has been fortunate enough to have bought an assortment of Chick Publications tracts.

This Congratulations edition tells you how to feel when you get berated for passing out these things.On the next to the last page the caption reads, "When you get past the fear of simply laying down tracts, try HANDING one to the box boy at the store." Then there's a drawing of a box boy holding one, with a smiling excited look on his face, saying, "Wow! THANKS!." Hah!

Showing how the Egyptians drowned Jewish boys to keep down the population, two men are shown tossing something into the water that goes, "splash" and a crocodile is watching going, "Mmmm. Yum, yum."

In this same edition, this boy wants his father to put lamb's blood over the doorway because all the firstborn are going to be killed unless they have this sign over the door. He hassles his unwilling father until the father asks him, "Why should you care anyway?"

The kid answers, "Papa, I'm the first born!"

Today I was reading one of Chick's tracts about what happened to the dinosaurs. He says humans hunted them for their meat. Then Chick portrays all dinosaurs going onto the ark two by two. Then he says scientists claim that the dinosaurs disappeared because of a comet hitting the earth but, Chick says, it didn't happen that way. No, what happened was that the flood killed trillions and trillions of plants, which left earth with a scarcity of oxygen, which made the dinosaurs run slower, so humans were able to hunt them down until they were extinct.

It is never explained why humans were not affected by the lack of oxygen.

What really amazes me is though, is why Chick would engage in such a grasping of straws to explain why the dinosaurs disappeared. Boggles my mind, it does.

HOLLYWOOD, BOLLYWOOD

Blog number 324 **** 09 August 2009

So I'm watching a movie on commercial television called, "Come Early Morning" starring Ashely Judd, a run-of-the-mill, predictable, "I've seen this plot before" type of movie, but entertaining nevertheless - probably because nothing else any good is on, and I see a scene where Ashley comes upon a pickup truck being loaded with a juke box carried out from the bar which she frequents.

She goes inside and asks what's going on with the jukebox, and the bartender tells her that the patrons want new country music, being tired of old country music and I'm thinking, "What is Hell's wrong with those Hollywood people?" They think juke boxes come with music and if you want different music you have to get a different box? Am I missing something? I don't think so.

But maybe.

Nah.

I LOVE TELEVISION

Blog number 323 **** 06 August 2009

Some years back there used to be a commercial on the telly - selling furniture, I think. Anyhow, they had a refrain, "If you can find it cheaper anywhere else, buy it."

What reminded me of that old commercial was an incident on "Cops." The officer had this guy in his car - in handcuffs, and he told the perp, "You've been Mirandized, so you can say anything you want." Hah!

I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND

Blog number 322 **** 23 July 2009

That strange weight machine in Mom's (we call her, "Mom." Or "Mother Teresa, Jr.") bathroom, I don't understand. It has four gray metal-like areas which the instructions tell you that you are to make sure your heels and balls of your feet are touching. It has a battery. So it's electrical.

I went in there this morn - nakid, and I weighed myself. One hundred eighty pounds US. I had brought in a fifteen pound barbell that I had lain on the table by the weight machine. I picked that up and I still weighed one hundred eighty pounds. Hmmm. I then stepped off the "scale," got back on and weighed exactly fifteen pounds more. So the damn thing does measure weight! I thought maybe it had something to do with body fat or something.

Maybe it is an electrical pressure type of thing, although Buddha knows how that could work.

I told the lovely Teresa about it and asked her if she ever wore shoes on it. She told me what happened, but I forgot, so I asked her again and she said the numbers stayed on zero. I don't believe that. Teresa often gives an answer to a question not asked, while not answering the asked question. So I put one of my sandals on and I weighed one hundred eighty-four pounds. Now I know my sandals don't weigh four pounds apiece, so I put on the other one too and gained a pound. One hundred eighty-five.

That's a crazy weighing machine. I'd like to been there when whomever got the idea to make that conundrum.

HISTORY CAN BE FUN

Blog number 321 **** 21 July 2009

There is a new genre of history books out now. They started being written about the time Doris Goodwin's "Team of Rivals" was being written. Used to be there was not so much detail in historical figures or events, but now books like "Team of Rivals," "The Somme," "Vicksburg," etc. - books running from over 600 to over 800 pages packed full of interesting details seem to be the way to go.

There is a good word I wanted to use in place of "way to go" back there, but I just can't bring it up from my memory banks. If anyone can think of what that word might be, send it to me and you might win a brand new car!

Another interesting fact about these types of book is that they read like novels and are not that dry date-packed morass which we used to have been fed.

Goody.

I LOVE GOOD PHRASES

Blog number 320 **** 21 July 2009

I'm reading this book about WW l called, "The Somme" by Peter Hart and he tells of a dispute between British authorities on how best to beat Germany.

General Haig wants to beat Germany itself, British politicians think it better to beat Germany's allies first and then Germany will fall.

Whenever these politicians visit Gen. Haig's Headquarters, he has to listen to what he terms their nonsense. Gen. Haig said of their arguments, "That is like a boxer leaving the ring to beat up his opponent's seconds."

I MIGHT BE AN INTELLECTUAL

Blog number 319 **** 21 July 2009

I was sitting in the dentist's office waiting for mi espousa and I noticed a magazine entitled "Biblical Archaeology." At first I just kind of ignored it because I thought it was one of those children's magazines they pass out in Bible school. As I kept glancing at it, I began to think it wasn't. So I picked it up and found that it was a very erudite rendition of a host of Biblical Archaeology topics - seemingly mostly fights between archaeologists and Jewish museum authorities concerning what was and what wasn't fake.

Within the pages was a discussion of whether or not ancient mosaics of Orpheus were the forerunners of mosaics of Jesus. Orpheus was the hero of an ancient Greek myth who supposedly could play the lyre so well that he could charm the animals. His wife Eurydice, whom he loved desperately, died, and Orpheus went into Hades to try and charm the Keeper of Hades into letting Eurydice come back. Orpheus got permission with the caveat that Eurydice follow him and he would not look back at her until they were back in the upper world.

Orpheus looked back.

My point in telling this story? I am reading a novel called, "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion" by Yukio Mishima and I read, "... I felt that if I were suddenly to turn round and look again, its form would vanish exactly like that of Eurydice."

I felt like one of those intellectuals at a cocktail party that could understand the discussions of the Cambridge educated. I was so happy to be able to understand that phrase without resorting to Google.

Doesn't take all that much to make me happy.

Mimi's bread pudding would do it too.

OLD IS BETTER

Blog number 318 **** 21 July 2009

I unexpectedly saw myself in a mirror a couple of days ago and for the first time I saw an old man looking back at me - an old man like my beloved Grandpa.

Now that I know I am an old man, I feel freer than when I thought I was still young. I now feel free to ask questions of strangers that I used to not ask because I never felt comfortable asking questions of strangers about what they were doing. Males might think I was being aggressive, females might think I was trying to pick them up.

I can be even more proactive with babies and young'uns now, too.

It's a good life.

GOD PROBABLY JUST GOT FED UP

Blog number 317 **** 17 July 2009

I got an E-mail today from one Mrs. Susan Shabangu, Minister of Mining, South Africa, regarding "Urgent transfer assistance." She says, "after due deliberation with my children," (why she had to talk it over with her children, I can't imagine.) she decided to contact me for my assistance in standing as a beneficiary to the sum of US$30.5M (Thirty Million five hundred thousand United States Dollars.) How sweet. She then goes on to say that only I can view her profile at (and here she gives me a website address.) I thought it big of her to give me an exclusive look into her profile.

She's very secretive, you know.

I felt honored.

Evidently her husband stole this money from his government and she will give me 20% of it if I help her to continue keeping this money in its original stolen state. She goes into much detail, including a promised visit by her son to set things up, then she gives best wishes to me and my family.

How nice.

My first thought upon perusing this missile was that anyone who fell for this scheme would do so only because they wanted to help steal the money and therefore monies scammed from them would be fair dickum. Then I thought about all the hundreds of people that did fall for it. Some of them showing up on Judge Judy and Brown. Dishonest people, wouldn't you say?

This led me to thoughts of the rampant criminality of most humans - many of our elected leaders, the CEOs, managers and salesmen of corporations, common street thieves, selfish graffiti artists, hit and runners, and all the myriad scumbags inhabiting the earth and it struck me that at one time God probably just got sick and tired of all those lowlifes and that's why He drowned them. Except for Noah, et al.

I can see His point.

A person can only take so much.

Too bad about the saintly and the innocent, but you gotta expect some collateral damage when you engage in a punishment campaign. Dunno why He picked Noah and his family to save. Must have been some other good folks around there somewheres. Maybe Noah was the only one that knew how to build a big boat.

I can't believe Noah and his family were the only good people alive.

I could be wrong.

But I don't think so.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND

Blog number 316 **** 17 July 2009

We have, in the bathroom, a scale that measures weight not by using springs or balances or any other obvious weight measuring device. Instead it uses what appears to me to be the electrical resistance between the heels of the feet and the balls of the feet. Can you believe that?

I don't understand.

NOW THAT WAS A BAD MOVIE!

Blog number 315 **** 17 July 2009

We went to see the movie, "My Sister's Keeper" today. It had, in order to hold our interest, lots and lots of flashbacks accompanied by photos, photos, photos of the family making funny faces and having fun, fun, fun. Ever watch a family's vacation photos for an hour? A family you never met? Like that.

I kept thinking, "Damn! So die already! Reminded me of that Academy Award winning movie, "The English Patient." I kept praying for death all through that one too. Another match between the two movies is that we walked out on both of them.

NOW THAT WAS A GOOD DAY!

Blog number 314 **** 11 July 2009

We went to Fry's for groceries yesterday. I drink espressos while mi espousa shops. I carry only two dollar bills and fifty cent pieces and the bills are folded up in my change purse, so when I go to pay, I take them all out (just the bills, not the fifty cent pieces) and peel off the number of bills I need. When I peeled off three yesterday, one of the two girls standing there said, "Where do you get all those two dollar bills?""

I buy them," I told her. "I only pay a dollar each for them."

Still holding the bills, she looked at me in amazement and I could see the gears grinding away in her head. I grinned and waved my hand in front of her, saying, "No, no."

She laughed and said she had plans already forming about buying a lot of two dollar bills and making a fortune. She continued, "I'm so gullible."

I said, "You know, they took 'gullible' out of the dictionary, don't you?" She kind of nodded, like she'd heard it before, but the other girl said, "Really? Why'd they do that?"

Hah! Fun day.

WEIRD WAR STORIES

Blog number 313 **** 07 July 2009

I'm reading a book called, "Vicksburg 1863" - a story about the siege of Vicksburg Mississippi during the American Civil War.

The Federals have Vicksburg surrounded, but the Rebels have been able to prevent them from entering the city. The Federals tunnel under the Rebel's trenches and breastworks, fill the tunnels with barrels of black powder and then set off the barrels, blowing up the breastworks.

The Rebels start a tunnel on their side, hoping to blow up the Federals tunnel before the Federals can set it off. The Federals blow up their tunnel before the rebels can set theirs off, killing six men. Because of this, the Rebels started using slaves for tunneling, with one white overseer.

One slave had been working deep underground when the tunnel was set off. The blast sailed him clear over into the Federal line. When asked how high he thought he had been blown, he replied, "Dunno, massa, but I t'ink about t'ree miles."

A contingent of Iowa soldiers set the man up in a tent and charged fifty cents for people to take a look at him.

On another page, there is a description of a man about to eat from a spoon who has the spoon shot out from his hand. He said, "That was cool." - one hundred years before it was cool to say cool.

IT'S BEEN A NICE DAY

Blog number 312 **** 01 July 2009

Back in the early seventies I worked in an office in the Air Force with a secretary. She was taking a literature course in Junior College. She let me read a short story in one of her books about a married Japanese couple that had to commit seppuku - Hari Kari to the uninitiated. The story was mostly a detailed account of what constitutes seppuku.

That story has remained in the back of my mind ever since.

Two days ago I finished reading a book called, "Rogue Messiahs" by Colin Wilson. It's an interesting book about people like Jim Jones and Alister Crowley, et al. Mentioned in the list of rogue messiahs was one Mishima Yukio, and mentioned in his list of stories and novels that he had written, was "Patriotism," which was that same story I had read lo those many years ago. It was like running unexpectedly into an old friend.

Then today, reading an autobiography by Robert Klein called, "The Amorous Busboy of Decatur Avenue," I find that Mr. Klein had directed a one-act play called, "Crawling Arnold" - a play in which I had a large part when I took Drama in Junior College. THAT was an even closer "old friend." I haven't been in all that many plays. One in seventh grade, one as a Senior in High School, and then Crawling Arnold. Three.
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Tonight we went to Mimi's for dinner. One of our favorite waitresses was just getting off work and Teresa stopped to talk to her. I, standing behind Teresa, heard this sweet voice to my right. I looked and a brunette about four years old was actively engaged with her family. I reached over and put my hand on top of her head. She didn't respond, but her mother told her, "That man said hi to you."

The little girl turned around, looked at me with pleasure and said hi. Then she scrambled to get out of the booth, hurried to me, grabbed me around the legs and gave me a big hug. What a surprise, after so many babies being afraid of me. I never expected that. Teresa saw this and said hi to the girl, so she ran to Teresa and gave her a big hug. She then proceeded to tell us who were her sisters, her brother, her Daddy and her Mother.

Sweet, sweet, child.

YOU NEVER KNOW, REALLY

Blog number 311 **** 01 July 2009

I can't help but think that there is an untold story to Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme shenanigans. He always looks so like a kind old man - in newspaper pictures and on the telly, and it has been my experience that people's innards show in their faces. Nixon looked like a slimy person, George W. looks slow of mind, Barney Franks looks like a "to hell with you if you don't like it" person, Hitler looked nuts, Goering looked self-satisfied.

Madoff never, to my knowledge, ever showed that hubris that is so common to those who rule by deceit. He was the only Ponzi schemer that, instead of being caught, confessed before anyone knew what was going on.

I wonder if his relationship with his wife had anything to do with it - that it started by him acceding to a wish or two of hers and just grew. I have trouble believing that he started out thinking, "I'm going to cheat a lot of my friends out of a lot of money." Not with that face, he didn't.

MAUS

Blog number 310 **** 20 June 2009

So I'm reading this comix called, "Maus." It's a biography about a man's father who describes what it was like in the concentration camps in Germany during the Good War.

One of the stories tells of this old man who, at every appel (a counting of prisoners) would loudly complain, "I don't belong here with these Polacks and Yids, I am a German like you. I have medals from the Kaiser. My SON is a German soldier."

He eventually disappeared. The man telling the story couldn't remember exactly, but he was either sent to the gas chambers or a guard pushed him down and jumped on his neck.

Now what struck me was not so much that his guy was being treated unfairly and nobody would listen to him, but that he was thinking only of how badly HE was being treated. He had no concern at all of the thousands of other human beings there with him that were being treated as he was.

And more, I don't believe that that man was all that different from the great majority of humans that populate this Earth. We have not yet matured enough as a species for that type of behavior not to be the norm. Seems a shame, but there it is. Nothing anyone can do about it.

Me and mine, not you and yours.

I woke up this morning thinking about the above and it struck me that if the guy was really a Jew and was just trying to get better treatment or even get relased, then that would seem an honorable thing to do. Like trying to get out of a body of water instead of drowning. It was him complaining that he wasn't like these other "guys" and thus didn't deserve the same treatment as they did that struck me as maybe in a pre-karmic way, "deserved."

I wonder what I would have done in similar circumstances.

Bad Mojo any way you look at it. Bad times. Bad people. Yuk.

MONEY FOR NOTHING, CHICKS FOR FREE

Blog number 309 **** 20 June 2009

A few days ago I dropped Teresa off so she could go into a store in order to buy a marking pencil for counterfeit money detection. I walked down to Ace hardware for some bug spray. On the way back I passed by one of the ubiquitous Dollar Stores acclimated to Casa Grande and a nine year old boy standing outside helloed me. I asked him if he had bought anything in the Dollar Store and he said no, he didn't have any money. I asked him if he would like a dollar so he could buy something and he said yes. I then remembered that I only carried two dollar bills, so I told him I would give him two dollars. Pulling the money out of my billfold, one dropped on the ground, so I told him, "There. Pick that one up. It's yours."

He did and then looked at me and said, "But it's only one." I told him it was a two dollar bill, but he didn't seem to grasp what I was saying, even though I pointed out the "2" on the bill. His mother and another lady came out about then and he got real excited, telling them about the man giving him the money and said he now could buy their lunch. He seemed really excited about the whole thing, which made me feel pretty good.

When I was about his age I use to stand in front of movie theaters hoping that someone would buy me a ticket, but nobody ever did. So I have some idea about what that little boy was feeling.

A MORNING OF BABY CAKES

Blog number 308 **** 21 June 2009

Back in the 70's I would ask a mother if I could hold her baby and never get refused. Then American "stranger danger" fear mongering started and after a few refusals, I stopped asking.

A few days ago Teresa, Derek, Kiki and I went to Mimi's for breakfast after Mass. A man and two women sat down in the booth next to us and they had this cute, cute, five month old baby with them. I kept peeking at the baby, smiling, and when the baby saw me, she would give this goofy smile. We were all commenting on how cute she was, and one time I noticed that the mother was holding the baby with one arm while trying to eat with the other. I humorously commented that if she wanted me to hold the baby while she ate, I would. I didn't think I spoke loud enough for any of the people to hear me, but the mother handed the baby over to Teresa and then Teresa gave her to me. She was one of those babies that just loved people. I got to hug her and kiss her on the back of the head. Pure joy. That age baby is my very favorite.