Dorothy Parker: "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."
Robertson Davies: " There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity."
I guess I keep polishing up the mechanical parts of the blog(s) and forgetting to write and publish any new posts. As long as I'm kept busy, what difference does it make? Maybe some, but not much and not to me!
Anyway, I've put a few bookmarks in each blog so that people can "Go to" various locations within the blog. It's probably more for me than anyone else, though. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm so lazy that it appeals to me very much! Enuff said?
Dogger Gatsby and Diamond-Brand Matches
Dogger Gatsby was strange, I admit. He once sent a letter to the American manufacturing concern who made the Diamond-brand box of matches, about the falling quality of the matches. This was back in the day when we all still smoked. The little wooden sticks were getting more infirm all the time, things like that. I think he wrote something like
“I would not intentionally buy your product except when forced to it.”
“All this,” he told me, “after they’ve continued to raise the goddamn fucking price over the years as if it was once again a Luxury item, well-made and hard to acquire. Bat-shit!”
Yeah, I guess so.
Joe Demon thought on one hand that it’d be easy and on the other that it would be ridiculously hard. He’d met her recently on the Internet and he knew it was completely silly, but he wanted to court her, charm her, disrobe her with his most charming charms. When he could remember that she wore clothes, he wanted to remove those, too! Did he think she was ignorant of sex in this day and age? No, he didn’t; maybe she was ignorant of men her father’s age (which she knew he was) wanting very badly to screw her! That’s what he wanted, so badly that it was hard not to say so. But such crudeness would not work for anyone much, Joe thought, much less on a woman so utterly charming and cute but who just barely existed on the Internet. He was no longer even sure that he existed there!
Francois de La Rochefoucauld: "When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere."
APARTMENT AIR CONDITIONER BLUES
The worst thing was the people, not the broken air conditioner. And not the repairman, either, but the office people, the ones I had to talk to until the repairman showed up, and that never seemed to know anything. Okay, if they didn't know when the guy would show up. I'd done service jobs and understood something of that. But the office fools had no sense of the history of the thing; they didn't know what was wrong with the air conditioner the last time, they didn't know how many times it had been broken over the years, they didn't know the history! And one of them was so new that she didn't even know me, and she was the one I had to talk to. Shit! Finally I did get to speak to the manageress, someone that knew me, but she was on a short wire. Not mad, exactly, but impatient, with one on hold on the phone and me smirking at her in person and saying something crazy, maybe,
"If I ever get over being lazy, this is the one thing that I really hate about these apartments. It's the reason I'll pick up and leave. Not now; I'm paying the rent today, I just gave the other girl the check."
But everything has a history, I felt, and this was meant to be part of it. Only I knew what the hell I meant, though. Was everyone but me brain-dead, or was I included?
Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876: "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys."
Unknown: "Eat a live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day."
“Jesus Christ, why—why can't you just—just love me?” he asked her.
“Nobody ever loves you like you love yourself,” she said enigmatically. It wasn't much of an answer, certainly not the answer he wanted.
“No, I guess not. But I can't do anything about that. What am I supposed to do?”
“Well,” she said, starting to look tired, “there's always masturbation, I guess. You're awfully good at that.”
“Thanks a lot,” he said. She acted as if he couldn't see what she was doing and it was driving her crazy.
“Nobody said you had to do anything,” she told him. “You don't have to do anything you don't want to do.”
“God, I hate people like that,” he told himself. It did make it easier to stop thinking about love, though.
“Sometimes it's just biology that tells you what to do, you know?”
“Maybe so,” she said. “But this is survival of the fittest that we're playing here, not what's fair for everyone. And you're unfit.”
He realized then that she wasn't as calm or casual about all this as it seemed. If she could have ripped off his cock and handed it to him, she probably would have. He was ready to give up.
“Look!” she said. “Don't you see what I'm doing? Does it really look like I need you very much?” She added sharply, “Why don't you just go home and fuck a box of Kleenex? That's probably all I am to you anyway, just a great-feeling box of tissues!”
“No, that's not how I felt about you. But I am beginning to think that that is all you are.”
Everybody’s face had turned red by now.
4th draft: 12/20/06
©1990 Ronald C. Southern
Dorothy Parker: "If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised."
Among other small items, I put the Babel Fish translator back in the sidebar, pretty far down. I don't know how much it will ever be seen. I don't know how much it was ever used before, but I like the idea of it very much, even it is seldom used. I don't know that many people who are bilingual. Most of the people I know are one-language clods, I guess, like me. But for me it expresses the hope that some people in the world wonder what people in the rest of the world are doing, saying, thinking. Aliens, welcome to my alien world!
Tallulah Bankhead: "If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner."
Rainy day thoughts is a blog that is often thoughtful. It comes from a part of America unfamiliar to me, but it sounds good. Rainy's post, Caretaker or Destroyer is a good one!
I had a busy day, or at least a tiring one. I woke up somewhat late and felt tired from the beginning. Then I needed to confirm with the Eye Center whether I could come alone (and drive myself home). They said Yes, but added I could bring someone to listen in to the consultation and instructions, so I did that. Someone will have to drive me home on Jan. 2, don't you know!
There were all kinds of eye measurements (More?!) to be taken and though I was not blinded or dilated, my eyes were poked and prodded and it was all I could do to mostly not blink. I really wanted to close my eyes during some of that, but of course they said, "No, don't do that!"
I didn't get mad, but I did want to ask them what kind of tough guy did they think I was?! Jeez. Well, at least I got out of driving that trip into town.
Later in the day, evening was closing and I had to hurry and order some fried shrimp from the nearby restaurant I often use. By the time I came out of there with my "platter" in a sack, it was getting pretty dim outside for a guy with cataracts, one especially bad. I don't think I see as much light as I used to or as much as others do. But it's only 4 or 5 blocks to get back home, so I didn't squash any squirrels or urchins in the street. I don't think I'll drive further than that again until after I've had the cataract surgery. Driving is starting to get on my nerves. I see so unclearly out of my left eye, you wouldn't like to be on the road with me, I don't think! Don't you love it when I remind you of all the reckless people who are out there on the road with you?
I've gotten some nifty thank-yous lately via Email for helping a few people with their Blogger problems. Sometimes they really make me feel good. I almost want to wrap my arm around their shoulder and take them out for a beer. But I don't even drink beer! They would all have to be long-distance drinks, anyway, so I'll have to stick to "You're welcome!"
Is everyone circling the wagons for Christmas? It seems to have started, at any rate. Some people have already announced a Holiday Absence. Not me. If you don't hear from me, it'll just be because I'm puking tired of being so talkative! Uh, and empty-headed, too. Can't think of jackshit to write about. There IS world peace, of course, but how convincing would an American be on that subject just now, anyway? I'm afraid somebody might beat me to death with a dead Iraqi if I got up on that soap box! I may come from the Decider's home state, but that doesn't go very far; I can't convince him not to shit where he lives, much less to let bygones be bygones. George don't play that; he's a cheerleader and a chipmunk, sinks his teeth in and never lets go. Better just to leave it alone. Don't make waves. Never make a fuss when it's Christmas. We always kill a few people over the holidays, even if it's just on the highways.
I've got a holiday dinner to go out of town for tomorrow, though. Hopefully, nobody will crash on the way there or get poisoned while we're there. I already am poisoned, but I'll survive. At least, I have so far.
Theresa is a real person way out there on the Internet whom I've never really met and yet who I am very familiar with. I'd like to paw her and caress her on a crisp moonlit night, but since I can't, I'll just luxuriate in her lively sexcapades and stinging thought processes. She's just good fun, though if I had plenty of money I might go stalk her! She's safe from me, though, more's the pity. She's in Iowa and I'm not! I wish I was the only man who fell in love with her so easily, but it's pretty clear that I'm not!
So here's a good post from 1 of the 2 hot chiks. It's called Blogging About Blogging
I am some days late about mentioning this one, but that's okay. It really doesn't matter which day you look at, The Night Shift looks good and has a touching story to go with it most days! This one is about an old acquaintance in Victoria's post, Some Like It Rough
I got up early this morning and showered and put some air in my slow-leaking front tire and went to the doctor's office. I was only there for them to take my blood again and I thought that'd be quick. Well, I had to wait a while, anyway. I wasn't in any hurry, but I hadn't brought anything with me to read, and that was a drawback. I stared at the four walls and at a few patients and office workers; eventually I was called by a very handsome woman. I began to wonder how old she was; she wasn't young and she was very attractive, but I still couldn't tell if she was 50 or 60. Either way, I didn't mind. She was very serious, but not unfriendly. I didn't flirt with her much; I don't like to make ladies nervous when they're sticking me with needles. When she got through taking blood, she told me they just needed a urine specimen and I'd be through.
"Oops!" I said.
I didn't even notice if the handsome nurse grinned. I never can tell when I can or can't pee these days until the moment arrives. The nurse had taken several vials of blood, I was wishing that could suffice! I took the cup and went to see. I was there "seeing" for a long time, but no peeing ensued. By the time I returned to tell the pretty lady that I'd come back later in the day since I live close to the doctor's clinic, I'd pretty well disassociated my crummy uncooperative penis from any connection to sex or the handsome nurse. I'd like to report that I went back later and got finished with my business there (of any kind), but even that's not the case.
I ran the leaf blower and raked leaves and burned leaves and generally distracted myself, and got very tired. It got to be nearly 4 p.m. and I drove down the road headed back to the clinic, but Oops again! The evening traffic was VERY bad, and the goddamn sun was in my eyes and I was too blinded to see the oncoming traffic. I had to turn around and go back home. Shitfire! I feel like I pissed the whole day away (ha) failing to piss (or anything else)!
Sappy Larry Jones at Revision99 has written my post for me today (sorta) about a tearjerker movie that we all know and love in his post: You Are Now In Bedford Falls
NEW FEATURE: I have various blogs that I recommend all the time, though I don't make much of it. I keep them listed in the sidebar and seldom refer to them. It has occurred to me to prove that I read them (and others) at times by listing a particularly good post here for you. I don't know how often I'll do it or whether I'll list more than one sometimes. Whether you should sniff it and follow it to it's source like it's a tasty dog biscuit is up to you. Today's nice-and-easy Intelligent Post about a thoughtful but deceased father is at Maya's Granny
The taste of the world as I get older
Is nil, perverse, and what I see is worse,
And everything I thought was verse
Is merely something I nursed so long
It seemed worthwhile,
Then burst like a dropped bag of shit.
More Notes from Dogger
What do you do when you fall in love with someone you can’t tell it to? With someone you can’t mention to anyone else, either? Someone so lovely that you don’t really care if you love her or not! Maybe it’s not love, maybe it’s more precisely infatuation. But even that feels nice. Arf arf! It ain’t so bad, you know. Maybe I’m a fool, but what’s new about that? How can I slide half a planet round and be with her? Or just down there to the uptown street or up on the downtown side? It’s not feasible. Nothing about it will work. I have egg on my face even before breakfast, that’s all.
I fall into infatuation pretty often, I guess.
Who Are They And Why Won’t They Go Away?
I admit that “barbarity” is a purely subjective cultural thing, a matter of quibbling over details. To me, the barbarians in the current culture might first have seemed to be the hip-hoppers and the country-and-western elements, who both seem to make such a matter of pride out of their ignorance. To be “different” is one thing, to insist on being “one’s self” is not a terrible thing. But I fail to see the point in being so prideful about never having learned anything to start with. And, in the case of some who have learned a little, they hide it, pretend to despise it, talk extra “down-home” or ultra home-boy. Is it homey or “homie”—if they can’t spell it, how can I?
What makes one “civilized”, I think, is a willingness to absorb a little—hopefully, the best—from all cultural influences you encounter. But the cultural norm these days is to pretend to never change, to never learn, to never improve. We’re all going to end up as cornpone gangstas if current influences and pretensions continue.
That’s the group who are proud to be stupid. The other new barbarians are the people on TV who think that everyone else is stupid. We are overwhelmed by all the overwrought vulgarians of the entertainment talk shows and all the in-your-face argumentative screamers of the News Talk Shows. I wonder how it all came down to this Pride about shallowness and rude behavior?
Unreeling The Roll
Am I losing friction or is the universe (including toilet paper) gaining static electricity? I never used to have trouble with a roll of toilet paper, but these days there’s never a loose flap of paper that I can get hold of with any ease, it is always pulled back toward the roll and lays down flat and neat. Then my sad old stiff sore fingers are too dry to get purchase on the thin modern edge of the ostensibly loose toilet paper. Ha, what fun! Thank you very much, American manufacturing.
Randy K. Milholland: "Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren't distracted by the total lack of content in your writing."
Well, it's not much of a post, but I'm amazed that I haven't gotten any shit (or praises or prizes, either) for my photo at the very butt-bottom of this blog, the one in which I strike the pose of the angry rat on the left at the beginning of the blog. The rat who wants to give you such a smack! Perhaps everyone has been too afraid or too lazy to dip that deep into the mire. It could be. No one hangs out in blogs and explores every nook and cranny like they used to.
See if I care!
It seemed to him that she had slept by now with everyone he knew except for him. He was a little less enthusiastic about her now. More and more he wondered if she had a screw loose. Was she just a little eccentric or was she bats? Or was he just unlucky? He wondered if he was crazy to keep fooling with her.
“I must be,” he thought.
Dogger Gatsby was nearly forty that year--ten years before his death--so much too much in the middle of life that he often felt he couldn't judge any woman's age or beauty any more. Some women ten to twenty years younger seemed about to become attractive and some women ten to twenty years older seemed still attractive, and in-between it was almost impossible to find someone unmarried near his own age who wasn't either brain-dead or--something. The eighteen to twenty-year-olds coeds were certainly sleek and attractive, like young animals, but most of them seemed so witless to him. Not that the old dog was any more attractive to them! Their beauty, he thought, was little more than the glow of youth in their flesh. They were like Jell-O that hadn't gelled, too unformed and too uninformed to ever be really attractive to him. They weren't Keepers! God knows what they thought, if they could think, of him. Not much, he presumed. Some of the older women could stand to take him as a lover and to talk to, but most were far too stable in themselves to become in any way addicted to him. He wasn’t exactly a keeper, either. It was his fault. It was always his fault.
Based On A 1980 Letter to Janice
In 2000, on the 20th anniversary of John Lennon's murder, this billboard was erected in several major American cities by Yoko Ono and others. For those of you into the macabre, those are John Lennon's blood-splattered spectacles in the photo… We never get enough sensationalism, even when the point is to decrease that sensationalism.
Late December In A Very Bad Year
Dear Janice: I had meant to send a Christmas card. You are getting this letter instead. It seems like such terrible tidings for the season that John Lennon is dead. Dead at 40; that's really obscene. It was the first thing I heard when I woke up that day and I wanted to go back to bed. But I went to work. It was cold and rainy here, appropriate to the terribleness of the day.
A Friend
I admit that I had no longer concerned myself with expecting "great art" from Lennon, not for years. At any rate, I had not been tracking his career. But as the day passed, I thought of all the events and times and moods of my life that were colored and keyed, that even now are reflected through, inflected by, the life-provoking music of the Beatles. John Lennon wasn't just a musician who died, but a magician who expressed so much for all of us who felt it, believed it, maybe even said it-but we couldn't say it or sing it like that. And the music brought us together, so many times, in so many places.
I thought, "My God, the number of friends who have had more effect on my life and feelings is not exactly large." And so, like a lot of others that day, I realized I had lost a friend.
Perspective
I held out through the day, but I got home and saw how every network news program was featuring that one story, and I saw how the sorrow of it, his death, had brought us together again, had brought all of those heretofore-disappeared flower-children out of their closets, out of the woodwork, out of their co-opted niches and daily jobs—maybe even brought some of us back from beyond the pale. For a few days, at least, this man's death was more important than the financial decline of Chrysler. Let Chrysler fall, I thought.
Mourning
When I saw on TV so much intense international mourning, I really couldn't take it any more. I had to be alone, and when I was, I cried. It was such a great and curious shock to me—maybe because I'm so screwed up, I don't know—to find out that I cared so much. And then I realized that for me—and perhaps for some of these others—that was John's last gift, one that I fancy he would have appreciated and approved: to make us know we care. This being the season, Janice, I thought I'd let you know: I care. — rcs.
I don't pay much attention usually when I delete Spam posts, so I was taken aback just now when I saw, just as I deleted a pile of them, that one of them was from "Frenchy Cow". Doesn't that get your blood flowing? I wonder what she's selling, French couture and etiquette, or just cow patties? I guess I'd be afraid to find out. She might be selling bits of Spam that she's kept nice 'n warm under her armpits. 'Nuff said.
Mary Wilson Little: "There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it."
Well, I'm liberal. And I'm hip. And vulgar and depraved. Sometimes rude. I try not to lose my temper, but eventually I do. I try not to play with people who are too "sweet" because they can't seem to stand it.
But my niece (10) and nephew (2) are sweet and they can't help it. If they don't run too fast for me, I'll play with them.
For those of you who may have noticed a slight difference by now, I finally returned my background color to oldlace and wiped away the last of that drifty sky at the top of the blog. Then I had to "sample" the background color so that I could retint the white background of the earthshadow pic. All is well. I think I now feel as comfortable about the blog appearance as I ever did before Beta came along. It's kinda like slipping on a clean, comfortable condom. Ah, yeesh! Better than an old gooey one, isn't it?
(From Dogger Gatsby's 1978 Notebook)
Dogger Gatsby continued speaking sympathetically to her about her health, but at the same time he looked distracted, as if he was having other thoughts. Even the bearded man who’d started watching them could tell that Dogger’s eyes were traveling up and down her long slim body. She looked pretty plain and unprofitable to the older man, but Dogger seemed to think something else. The older one chewed his food and wondered what she thought about it. He wondered what it'd be like to fuck her. He didn't realize it at first, but he'd begun to chew his beard along with the sandwich.
I had already recognized the singer on the radio as Sinead O'Connor, but it took a minute longer before I paid enough attention to what song it was. It was one of Bob Dylan's better odes to God, a song I was not aware that O'Connor had recorded. I think back to years ago when she blew herself out of the water with the public when she tore up the photo of the Pope on Saturday Night Live. I had always liked her and the Pope was never any very great entertainment to me, so I was sorry that it had happened. I felt like the general public never realizes that the truth is that one of us can't really hurt (unless we shoot!) someone as big as the Pope or Jesus or the President of the Kiwanis Club!
Nonetheless, it all happened, and I suppose she's had a thorn in her hoof ever since. The Pope is dead and she's not, but there's another one already. He didn't die from any barb or disrespect of hers, and that's good. But the woman can sing very well indeed, and I hate censors of any kind, so I'm in favor of whatever recovery she's been able to make in her career.
I don't know if her choice of songs here is indicative of a change of heart or just an appreciation of a well-written song. I wasn't a Bible Beater when I originally liked Dylan's version of the song many years ago, so I don't mind if she's being very ironic or is Reborn herself. I'm tolerant, I congratulate myself. I hope she is, too. If The Public weren't such a senseless beast, I'd wish they were as well, but I think I'd be pushing my luck. Let's see, who was it nailed Christ to the cross? Was it the Romans or The Public? The Romans may have done it, but it was The Public who insisted. That's my story, and I'm stickin to it!
In any case, it brought this atheist's attention back to some very good song lyrics. Attaboy, Jewboy Bob! Manipulate us again!
I Believe In You
by Bob Dylan
They ask me how I feel
And if my love is real
And how I know I'll make it through.
And they, they look at me and frown,
They'd like to drive me from this town,
They don't want me around
'Cause I believe in you.
They show me to the door,
They say don't come back no more
'Cause I don't be like they'd like me to,
And I walk out on my own
A thousand miles from home
But I don't feel alone
'Cause I believe in you.
I believe in you even through the tears and the laughter,
I believe in you even though we be apart.
I believe in you even on the morning after.
Oh, when the dawn is nearing
Oh, when the night is disappearing
Oh, this feeling is still here in my heart.
Don't let me drift too far,
Keep me where you are
Where I will always be renewed.
And that which you've given me today
Is worth more than I could pay
And no matter what they say
I believe in you.
I believe in you when winter turn to summer,
I believe in you when white turn to black,
I believe in you even though I be outnumbered.
Oh, though the earth may shake me
Oh, though my friends forsake me
Oh, even that couldn't make me go back.
Don't let me change my heart,
Keep me set apart
From all the plans they do pursue.
And I, I don't mind the pain
Don't mind the driving rain
I know I will sustain
'Cause I believe in you.
Copyright © 1979 Special Rider Music
I have a cataract surgery at least tentatively scheduled for early in January. I'm not sure my brain has yet absorbed it. It is expensive, but not as much so as I feared, so suddenly I feel like it's something doable! I see that they say in general that surgery can really help, though the eye doctor warned that it may be only a degree of help in my case due to mine being diabetes-induced. Or something to that effect. In short, though I've heard good things can come of it, he soft-pedalled it to me with that caution. I guess I'll be back to thinking of it as very expensive if it doesn't make much improvement.
Shitfire in a basket! (Maybe that's a Texas idiom; I learned it as a child.)
She took his penis and encircled the forefingers and thumbs of both hands around it and overlapped them, working that grip back and forth while she kissed it. Then she slipped it between her breasts and held it there while she rubbed the head of his penis against the tip of her chin.
That hint of fellatio came close to frightening him. She'd told him once that she'd never had oral sex, not even with her husband. He'd therefore assumed she'd never do it for him, either. Perhaps she never would, yet suddenly she'd done this! It mystified him, horrified him, electrified him. He was all for it. Though it was momentary, it was unquestionably great!
There were other thrills during that night, he said later, but not that one.
I don't mind this Harbor template all that much, now that I have added back some of my decorations and background colors. The sky is nice enough, but I have no fondness for the Lighthouse or whatever it is. I think I've seen in the template 2 or 3 jpg's that appeared to be separate parts of that background image, so I may later figure out how to delete one or all of them. Since I have enough colors in the post backgrounds, I wouldn't mind getting down to the minimum or to a blank page.
I put my photo back in at the top due to complaints from the peanut gallery! If some of you other peanuts now hate it, that'll just have to be the misery of the Silent Majority; it is not something I consider much. I always figure that "the squeaky wheel gets the grease"--or the squeaky rat! Know whut I mean?!
William Shakespeare - Sonnet #29
When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
I keep forgetting to write this up, though I've pestered most of my friends with it by email. Blogger Buzz has given me along with three others an attaboy (pat on the back) for useful work performed in the Blogger Help Group. We have been declared Blog*Stars!
Hell, everybody likes recognition, even a rat-bastard like me. Though the fame is small and the fortune less, it's still a pleasant thing. My ego may balloon up and carry me away in the first strong wind!
Is this what they mean about being a big frog in a small pond? I expect so. Of course, prestige is not usually a horse that one can ride very far. Most shining moments are soon dimmed, but this is pretty nice!
All you little frogs, beware!!!
I thought I'd never guess my way to the template location to glue this rat! It was all "trial and error", but you can see that it's now at the end of every post, even back to the beginnings of time (well, 2004, anyway).
Chuck Croll (The Real Blogger Status) advised me to expand the widgets and I did. I was still guessing, but I managed to place the photo URL in the right place, as shown below.
If I had not expanded the widgets, I wouldn't have found all the code. In fact, I can't search for "artsy" in the template even now without again expanding widgets! A new trick from the Blogger bastards!
<div class='post-body'>
<p><data:post.body/></p>
<div style='clear: both;'/> <!-- clear for photos floats -->
<img alt='artsy rat' border='0' src='http://photos1.blogger.com/
x/blogger2/6621/3732/400/748907/artsy%20rat.jpg'style='CURSOR: hand'/>
</div>
</div>
Yes, there were no slap dash cucumbers eaten this Thanksgiving! Not a one. The day came and went. Miles were driven and redriven, all in one day. I was just a passenger. Home again, and the garbage truck came early this morning and carried all the debris away. A clean start. What could be better?
I don't know what that means. I just thought it sounded good. If you have a story or blog to go with it, take it, it's yours. I can't be bothered with it! You think it's an escapee from a sandwich? It could be. I like cucumbers, but seldom eat them; they give me burps. How about you--is your backwards on head? Mine is. On head, I mean. Hey, don't crowd me, leave room for the cucumbers!
I hope that I've now placed my Site Meter back in operation here and the StatCounter in MFBQ. Not long enough to see the numbers increase, so I'm guessing. I've determined that my mailto is scrambled, but it's at my end; readers can apparently still email me with it. I don't need it to work for me on my own site. However, I won't be able to use the mailto on other people's sites, so I guess I better know the important addresses already! I think I do. So, uh, fuck the universe! You know?
Every time I tried to compose a comment just now, a thousand things collided in my head and wrecked my brain. I have nearly nothing to do with American natives (Indians), but I can recognize when a people is being crapped on by self-deluded white people who congratulate themselves as humanitarians since we didn't ACTUALLY exterminate the last remnants.
No country's history is much different or much better, of course--everybody's land was stolen from someone and their cultures destroyed or nearly destroyed in the process. The original Hawaiians would have probably disappeared by now, if it weren’t for the tourist trade.
Anyway, you are quite right and I have to shut up now as my face always gets quite red and my heart beats too fast when I think about it. Where did anybody ever get the idea that justice or fairness really exist, I wonder? I guess I was sold a bill of goods when I was a child, then didn't grow up.
I guess you can see that I got some of the color back into my posts. My little Disneyland. Possibly some of the new templates aren't as sneaky as this one, but it was hard at first to see where the "style sheet" or CSS part of it was located. This template uses a code for it, so the only place you can find "style" or "CSS" is in the source code, not in the actual template. After I knew that, I was able to get my bearings again and to introduce my carefully crafted instructions back into the template! It is actually a very butt-boring procedure unless you are the one wrestling with it, so I'll hush.
Now my email isn't working. I thought it was working yesterday, so I don't know what it is. I'll try to correct it if it doesn't fix itself. For those of you who know my email, it is still working; just the mailto is stifled!
Whatever may happen with that, I took the easy way and turned on the damn Blogger comments! So I will not feel so all alone! Haloscan was good, but it was too much trouble to turn back on, at least for now.
Hmm... When I finally customized and upgraded the last remaining one of my blogs, I suddenly didn't have to log in to Blogger every time any more! Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it's a sign. But it chose to actually "Remember Me" and not just promise to do it!
The great God Blogger has been appeased (and is getting off my back a little)!
Comments Missing!
Well, I spoke too soon! Not only do I appear to have lost all my Haloscan comments, but the stupid Blogger comments didn't turn on. Give me time. I guess I can find the Haloscan code in an old copy of the template and restore it. It's like being thrust into the light with no clothes on. Fortunately for me, the only people who will notice are already on my side...I hope!
Also, I lost at least a couple of the Intelligent Blogs. Email me if I left you out. This is getting confusing (to me, at least!).
I don't know when I'll get around to completing the Beta process on this site. Eventually, I will. I will have to start building from the ground up. I built the site an hour or more at a time over years, I didn't get it done all at once. I used to have old versions of the template saved that went back to the beginning. Now I've changed computers so often that some of that history got lost. It never mattered except to me, of course. My four years of blogging stretches out in my memory, and seems almost as lengthy as my life has been (though at 58, that's unlikely!). In any case, I remember a lot of the stages that the blog template went through. I remember learning HTML before I even discovered blogs.
I am starting to feel a strong itch to just go on and start the process of change and rebuilding. But it's as if new cars had suddenly been redesigned to run on beer cans and garbage and no one was selling gasoline anymore! It's a forced break with the past. It won't matter much to many people, but it will matter to me. I like my blog like you like your dog; I'll hate the change when it's gone. Yet I'll go on and on till I'm dead.
What was it that Country Joe and The Fish said all those years ago? "Whoopie, we're all gonna die!"
While I am still dithering about Beta Blogger, I may make more new entries in TRS #2 than here. Don't forget about The Rat Squeaks Two for the present. At some point I may merge them and have only one again, but so far I'm getting some practice and not able to be as decorative as I used to be. Maybe that'll be better in the end, to dump all my old ostentatious habits!
I've gone along in a long funk the past month or two, partly annoyed with Blogger making the change to Beta just when I'd begun to master the old Blogger, partly fucked up because of medical situations. I grew more and more bored and more helpless and more intimidated by it all.
I have now come out of that funk just enough to jump into the Beta pot! Is it hot chocolate or is it glue! Or is it shit? I don't know. Although I'm not really utilizing Beta for this TRS site, I am using it in a dummy site (test site) called TRS TWO (see sidebar).
I am also using Beta in Most Frequent Blogger Questions, utilizing it for the presentation and appearance, but all the info presented is still pre-Beta. I am not master enough of any of the new info to try to disseminate that Beta info. Not yet. In Beta, I am still bouncing along and asking myself, "Whut was that?" or "How do you do that?" over and over again.
Welcome to another new absurd world, I guess.
You may have heard me go over all of this before. But it's what I keep having to mull over.
Thomas Jefferson: "In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."
For those of you daffy enough to wonder about it, this is the address of the site I've been playing with to see what's what in Beta. You can't tell that much, I guess, though I'm sure you can plainly see how far afield and in the dumpster it is. Far from my preferences! I started with an exact copy of the TRS template, then "customized" it a little. I'm still discovering things by hit or miss! I put an intro and one post and one comment on it. My main goal was to at least get it to where the various text is readable to an old guy like me. It may look terrible to those of you out there, so take a look if you like.
I'm confused. Though I've "gone" to Beta, I think I'm stuck in some halfway nether world. In order to "customize", you seem to have to "upgrade" your template to one of Blogger's boring current ones. If I do that, I'll lose all the hundreds of hours I spent in customizing this blog! I started out with a much older blog template, but it's no longer normal, since I've made many changes and Blogger has also made changes in the template styles it provides.
I hope I'm missing something, but it appears to me that I have to throw away a great deal of past effort before one can begin to utilize all the new Beta features. This will require even more effort if one is to end up with a template that even looks interesting, much less looks like my old template.
Maybe it's possible to do some things that I haven't understood or found yet. I hope so. I made this change because I was bored and because it was ultimately unavoidable. The change was coming within a couple of months and would at some point have been forced on us. Maybe I'll have to give up this old style of extreme decorations in the end. I'm not eager to do so, however.
Wow. I pushed the Beta button about 3 minutes ago and it translated all my blogs in quick time! I have fallen into the next world, for good or bad. I haven't had time to figure out what might be askew, but it looks like nothing is wrong at the moment! Everything looks normal. I'm astonished. It probably won't do simple stuff like tie my shoelaces, though.
True evil always discerns what you care for —
more quickly than love, it knows what you dare for.
True love is impulsive, implosive, impendent;
intuitive and perplexing and repentant —
yet never more knowing or caring
(never more reckless or careless)
than evil's discerning eye.
What judgment can be made?
In what book is the judgment made?
We see the light pass clearly through the glass,
yet still the pages fade.
See how the pages turn?
The words appear and disappear
and reappear in smoke —
but what does the message mean
when the final word's a joke?
True chaos always knows its master;
time is reframed by time
and sex is infested with sex —
now as your heart beats faster,
everything simple grows slowly complex.
Through the long dormant season
everyone’s sullen and silent:
the right, and the wrong, and the dead;
men who must only listen
care nothing for what is said.
See what the words have wreaked? Our souls
are not passions to be carelessly piqued,
nor iron in the fire to be easily wrought;
we are intemperate, yes, yet steel,
no matter what pleasures we've sought.
[Oh see that girl with the red dress on,
She know how to shake it, just for me!]
Love comes by surprise, by unreason,
by unfeasible touch in a hot, dry season —
so cool, cool to the touch,
the touch of unpressable flesh pressed,
the rise of unraisable hope risen.
True love is impulsive, implosive, impendent;
intuitive and perplexing and repentant —
yet never more knowing or caring
(always more knowing and caring)
than evil's discerning eye.
rcs.
6th draft: 04/22/05
What? Are there no complaints or remarks that I changed the Description below the blog title? I can't believe it. I thought you rapacious guys and shapely lasses monitored my every move and mood! Is it possible that you had something better to do? I hope you weren't having sex with your cat.
Alexandre Dumas: "Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest."
I drove to the county health department this morning to get a flu shot. I can’t believe I let myself be scheduled for 8 a.m. but that’s what happened. It was so early for me! I usually don’t get up for an hour or more past 8. My eyes were wide open (no sleepy sand, you know), but I guess I was so taken aback to be abroad in the land at such an early hour that I got lost and ended up 20 minutes late, though no one seemed to mind. Except for me; I was embarrassed about it. One trouble with that hour is getting caught here and there in the heavy traffic going to work. I’m not used to that any more!
I seemed to be the youngest person who was there as a patient. Only some of the workers were younger than me. The flu shot was $20. I overheard a couple of elder men being told that the pneumonia shot would be $45—ouch! So I got by on the cheap side, I guess. This is only the second year that I’ve gone for the flu shot in recent years, but I’m getting to where I think I need such things. I’ve been so sick with diabetes and fatigue and such over the past year that I’d hate to cultivate any extra diseases or disabilities.
I don’t guess I will, but I feel like going back to sleep. If death were as good as sleep, I don’t think I’d even mind about death any more. Sleep is damn good, except that it’s hard to wake up.
Dogger's 49th birthday was coming up soon when he sat down and wrote this out in an old notebook. Later he typed it on an old electric typewriter in the year of his death. I came along later and entered it in my computer, where it was almost forgotten the past 9 years or so.
"What could possibly be more boring than this? Nothing comes up, arrives, or develops lately. Life just goes on. No fruit, no regards, no pity. I've been so polite and estranged for several years now that the concept of Old Flame seems to be bogged down in some cave age anti-diaspora, blistered by desert rays and hot stray winds, a fancy form of remembering someone else's life, not mine.
Shall the form ever be reassumed? Will there ever be a gain amidst this loss? What loss? What gain?
The Harlot and the Harvest are heavy symbols, but take me flightily and fightingly along. I'm light and bowled over and out of sync with myself. I've ceased to anticipate and pray that I stay so. But oh, alas, such beautiful strangers come along, disturb my day, my heart, my head! Where do they come from? I come to know them, of course, but on the surface of the skin and in the narrow of my marrow, and out on the way to Mayfair I realized that I had finally arrived alone at last. My ribbons were in a tangle and my clothes improperly zipped and everything I've worked for is in a hapless pile at my feet.
I'm on the sickbed to Disaster at a galloping gait, on the nightmare to that fear factor fate we dread at a gutbucket rate, on the way to my last slow defense and defeat by addle-pated nomenclature. Now, next, out the gate on the other side. I'm restless, I'm tired, I'm worn completely out. How much worse can it get... "
Who knows where the time goes?
Phones ring and fiends sing
And nobody puts down a deposit.
The TV talks incessantly in color
While politicians show their teeth and fester
And never say a thing.
As usual, our hearts remained unmoved
And only our bowels tremble.
The men in charge are Murderers.
The men in charge are Us.
Girl
Is there anybody going to listen to my story
All about the girl who came to stay?
She's the kind of girl you want so much, it makes you sorry
Still, you don't regret a single day
Ah, girl
Girl, girl
When I think of all the times I've tried so hard to leave her
She will turn to me and start to cry
And she promises the earth to me and I believe her
After all this times I don't know why
Ah, girl
Girl, girl
She's the kind of girl who puts you down
When friends are there
You feel a fool
When you say she's looking good
She acts as if it's understood
She's cool, ooh, ooh, ooh
Girl
Girl, girl
Was she told when she was young that fame would lead to pleasure?
Did she understand it when they said
That a man must break his back to earn his day of leisure
Will she still believe it when he's dead?
Oh girl
Girl, girl
Ah, girl
Girl, girl
I suppose I must strike many people on the Internet as a Sick Diseased Character who is self-obsessed and not kind to strangers. I know I feel that way, whatever the truth may be. If I didn’t have a sense of humor, I couldn’t be tolerated! It is hard, however, to keep my humor honed and my intelligence sharp at the same time. In the backdrop of Me, there is always this diabetes and fatigue and organ pulsations and my vision going badly.
Maybe it’s only that I notice the sick bloggers because I’m at or near those stages myself, but it does seem like a lot of bloggers have now or have had health problems. It is a curious impetus to Writing, isn’t it? I have not lately gotten appreciably better or worse, so I just drag on and usually don’t talk about it. Lately I haven’t written as much as I used to and I don’t know if the trend will reverse eventually or not. I’d like to think it will.
Maybe I should change to Blogger Beta as soon as possible, and thus have a source of anger to keep my juices flowing? That’s been my impression of it, but I’ve only been looking at it from afar, studying the kinds of questions posed on the Blogger Help Group. I may yet wait until I am forced to “migrate”, then see what happens.
I think if winter comes on and gets here, I may buy me a hat, a more expensive one, a more beautiful one. I’ll replace these $3 working hats or beach hats or whatever the hell they are. How does that sound?
Maybe I’ll change my underwear, too, while I’m at it, but No Details on that! You’re welcome.
Robert Benchley: "It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous."
George Burns: "The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, then having the two as close together as possible."
Umberto Eco: "I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth."
George Santayana: "To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood."
Once again notable blogger Nobius (see side bar Intelligent Blogs: White Rabbit-Black Hole) has printed one of my poems in his skinny publication, Calliope Nerve. Another one is supposed to follow that soon, but whether I have any poems there I have lost track. If you email him your street address, he sez he'll send you one or two. Mention what it's about in the subject line so it won't just disappear into his Spam box!
Email Nobius!
by Bob Dylan
Well, they'll stone ya when you're trying to be so good,
They'll stone ya just a-like they said they would.
They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to go home.
Then they'll stone ya when you're there all alone.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.
Well, they'll stone ya when you're walkin' 'long the street.
They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to keep your seat.
They'll stone ya when you're walkin' on the floor.
They'll stone ya when you're walkin' to the door.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.
They'll stone ya when you're at the breakfast table.
They'll stone ya when you are young and able.
They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to make a buck.
They'll stone ya and then they'll say, "good luck."
Tell ya what, I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.
Well, they'll stone you and say that it's the end.
Then they'll stone you and then they'll come back again.
They'll stone you when you're riding in your car.
They'll stone you when you're playing your guitar.
Yes, but I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.
Well, they'll stone you when you walk all alone.
They'll stone you when you are walking home.
They'll stone you and then say you are brave.
They'll stone you when you are set down in your grave.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.
Copyright © 1966; renewed 1994 Dwarf Music
Though I started reading these books (The No 1 Ladies Detective agency books) only because they were in Large Print, I have become hooked on them. There are 8 of them, but my library doesn't seem to have all of them. At present I have read 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6. Set in Botswana in Africa, they tell about the low-key adventures of Precious Ramotswe's detective agency. I will not attempt to compel you to be interested, but you're missing out if you don't read some! The books are written by Alexander McCall Smith.
1. The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (1998)
2. Tears Of The Giraffe (2000)
3. Morality for Beautiful Girls (2001)
4. The Kalahari Typing School for Men (2002)
5. The Full Cupboard of Life (2003)
6. In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (2004)
7. Blue Shoes and Happiness (2006)
8. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (2007)
ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH has a double existence. He is a Professor of Medical Law, but also an author who has now written over fifty books on a wide range of subjects. These range from specialist titles such as 'Forensic Aspects of Sleep', (the only book on the subject) to 'The Criminal Law of Botswana' (also the only book on the subject) and from the widely translated 'The Perfect Hamburger' (a children's novel) to 'Portuguese Irregular Verbs' (a collection of stories about eccentric German professors). His collection of African stories, 'Children of Wax', received critical acclaim and has been the subject of an award-winning film.
Leo Tolstoy: "Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them."
Fran Lebowitz: "No animal should ever jump up on the dining-room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation."
It's been raining pretty steadily since midday yesterday. I'm getting cabin fever and very tired of walking the flooded sidewalk between here (my study) and the house. I don't know why, but I've always disliked trudging through water. If I weren't sick and therefore so unsurefooted, I might leap from high ground to high ground, but as it is I've only stepping feebly from puddle to puddle! I used to be fat and smoked cigarettes and had good balance. Now I'm thin and smokeless and dizzy all the time.
"Must be some kind of way out of here!"
Wonder what that means?
Haven't been able to get on the Internet all day until now. Now that I can, I've little to say! It's bad enough to lose one's connections without losing ALL connection! Without the Internet, I couldn't even look up how to say "Shit" in 27 languages! Now that I can, I'm too lazy. Shit, shit, shit!
Though it is true that high and wide above these ships
that smell of salt and earthy damp and slight dry-rot,
eagles soar and mate while sea gulls sail and call
as if to tell some yet-unfathomed fate,
though through the tangled rope and cloth
a feather falls and something true aloft turns false below,
here where this craft, becalmed and yet deranged,
lets drowning horses churn the glassy sea to froth,
though in the seascape's mist my dreams completely shift
and my careening mind storms back to land to find
I can but shake my lifted fist
against the pounding of the waves...
Still, in that sinking moment, comes an
unexpected rise, a flight as full
and swift and bright as seabirds' glinting vanes
of gold and gray and white. Now, once again,
I find my heart attendant to your sorrow
and for a moment unentailed by gathered furls,
cloud-white and high and wide yet windless sails,
I still have eyes to see you as before.
Now though adrift I stand ashore and view
old visions drawn out anew in this reflecting glass.
Between those always-closed old wooden blinds you opened our first
date, the small compulsions of my house and heartbreak gravitate--
stale scents of nicotine and ash, black coffee rings
and cans of Coke, pale sugar ants and salty crumbs--
slight things, I guess, largely unseen, yet how they marred
and mar the white wood shelf above my hearth.
Now in memory or in fact I stand still,
too close again, before the mirror hung above
this cold white mantle and heart's dark fire--face to face,
the same as then, as when you said I'd gone too far,
as when you pled that you would suffocate
if I kept pressing my demands
or that we might explode if I could not just love you
and not hate your husband's plain bright wedding band.
And for a while, that worked. Still, all my heart protests
that what it is I love in you
I wish to plainly see, and wish to fold
all fantasies complex into a simple scheme.
If with insistent words
or with a brave compassion
I could dare this growing mist
which makes me your displeasure,
if from my bold and quelling hateful stare
you could tell that
part of me would gladly die
to keep your heart my treasure,
if I could clutch
hell's phantoms by their throats,
make them dance
and cease to prance and gloat,
if all the things I love to say came true--how one
can love and not possess, for one--but, no, not me.
Confess: grim truth is what is true;
the rest is jagged jest, on land or out at sea...
For truth or dare, that seabird breeze could not become
a gossamer of warm air uplifting me with ease.
No flight enlivens or relieves this flagging flesh I bear,
not till the final horse's plight and the last feather's fall.
Still, though I sank and swam, and swim and sink here yet,
and though so brief (those bright reliefs!)
I think myself a better man that you and some
fair few have loved me so, absurd and errant as I am.
So, yes, it's me you see out there,
a sailor all at sea, one of those
jerry-built, jimmied, jangled lives astray,
as aimless as jetsam at ebb tide,
a muddled mariner amidships who strives
to soar, yet always goes over the side,
a churning hoof, a lifted fist,
that strains against and to the waves
till in the frothing sea
I sink and swim no more
and drown.
rcs.
15th draft: 07/28/04
©1976 Ronald C. Southern
I Need A Fix
I need a fix, only I don't know what it is. It isn't dope or drink. It isn't admiration, though that's good stuff! It isn't patience with my sorry ass, 'cause I get some of that, too! I don't need much to feed my ambition, for generally I have no ambition. It has to be beaten out of me what I want to do next, eat next, read next. Do I want a drink of water--I'm not sure! People cut in line in front of me pretty often because they can tell I don't much care when I get there or whether I get there.
I don't need to go the beach. I don't think about going to Austin, even though there are some friends whose heads I haven't bitten off yet. That isn't much of an imperative, is it? Cousin JW might say I need a good fuck to shine me up and sign me off for the evening, but not being married or very well, I might as well be a criminal trapped on the edge of town, most of the time.
"Fix me a fuck while you're up, willya?" cries a voice from the sofa.
“Ah, shut the fuck up!” says another.
I'm in the mood for love. Or even just humping, if luck fails me. I want some lovely to be kind to me, affectionate, touchy-feely. A few carresses would go a long way, I'm thinking. I know I'm not usually the handsomest man in the room, But I'm not so bad. It's probably my idiotic personality that prevents my progress. Sometimes I'm too funny. Sometimes I'm too mean. Maybe I should sell chances for a nickel, but I doubt the take would amount to enough money to get me to wherever the winner lives! But I live here, disassociated from land or sea. I should try harder. But everything already seems more difficult than I can handle.
The harder you are, the harder you fall.
Come back around Christmas and see if anything loosens up.
Bertrand Russell: "Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man."
I wish I knew what was going on. Nothing is right any more, or at least not consistently. Maybe my computer is full of vermin and gremlins. Maybe I'm just dominated by internal glitches. Sometimes my NEW computer seems to have already slowed down; my fine DSL gone to hell! Did I just that quickly get used to it? I don't know.
One thing that happens somewhat often is that all these Google passwords and usernames aren't the CORRECT ONES even though I always offer the same ones. Over and over again, it's wrong. Until it's finally right! Is this a corruption made available to us by Google (Gmail, Blogger Group, etc.)? Or is it a misfire having to do with stupid-ass cookies in my goddamn computer or something like that? I don't think I have the concentration any more to worry about these silly things. I want a computer with an on/off button and no bullshit in between! I DON'T WANT PASSWORDS! Or anything resembling it. Not any captcha perigrinations, either. Can you spell Geek Fuckhead? I am older than I used to be, get it? I'm not as firmly rooted, anymore, in any sense. Jesus, stop making it harder!
Alice Roosevelt Longworth: "If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me."
Joseph Wood Krutch: "Both the cockroach and the bird would get along very well without us, although the cockroach would miss us most."
Overheard At The Water Fountain
“You’ve got all the negative prejudice of a man too sure of what is right in a world that’s all wrong,” she told him.
“Then I can leave you alone, right?”
“That’s right,” she said, and threw her pencil at him.
Doris Day: "The really frightening thing about middle age is that you know you'll grow out of it."
Kill Gmail, Google, Blogger, Beta
I am having a damnable time getting Gmail to accept my tried and true username/password, so it may or may not continue to resist me today! I don't think I've spaced it out, and I even keep the password in the computer and on paper, but swell Gmail doesn't like those, either. I think Google is going to be the ruination of the planet, if Microsoft doesn't beat them to it! This Googleized bastard, Blogger, sometimes refuses my password in the same way, over and over again! I can't prove what causes it, but I know it didn't start until about the time of Blogger Beta! So far, Beta has done everything but murder babies in their crib. I hope they all get thrown in jail and sodomized! So there!
Hubert H. Humphrey: "The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously."
I have an artist’s foul mood, I guess. That’s what I blame the crazy part of me on, anyway. When I see a woman who’s really made a mark in business, I’m very much impressed because she’s doing something I couldn’t do! But then, I don’t want to, either! If she were an artist I’d know her somewhat.
Of course, men have done business for long centuries and I am not going to worry about praise for them any more. When Bill Gates first started having success, I gave him some credit for being so young. But it was the young innovator that impressed me so much, not the young businessman. He ain’t young any more, and I don’t entirely admire the middle-aged businessman. Maybe he’s doing as well as can be expected. Save that for another day! But the curvy or clever businesswomen fascinate me. Martha Stewart fascinates me, though maybe not as much as a female poet would fascinate me. That’s one thing I like the blogs for; they’ve allowed lots of women to write, and many of them write poetry. I like to see that, whether it’s very professional or just to decorate the blog. Poems are more essential than other writings. They show a more essential part of us, a part where everything is shaped and cultivated and pared down. The desire to craft it carefully and to make the words sing for someone "out there" is sometimes a very great one! Such impetus and imagination should not be suppressed or thrown aside.
Love you all, ladies!
Okay, okay, I like you, too, gents—at least the ones with any brains!
What's the best paradigm in your life or in you? Or do you have one? I'll answer it, too, but later. If 3 or 4 of you should find that you're not dead or gagged and bound, let me know. Otherwise, I understand. You're lazy.
I guess I do this rather than drink whiskey or beer or smoke pot. I miss smoking pot, though; I bet my tastebuds would wake up a little! Would abnormality lead to normality? I don't guess I know any reliable dealers any more after 20 years and more of being Clean. There's nothing wrong with pot except that there's alway government officials who detest it. They never die, the sons of bitches! I wonder if they drink formaldehyde to stay fresh while they're deteriorating inside?
sycophant \SIK-uh-fuhnt\, noun:
A person who seeks favor by flattering people of wealth or influence; a parasite; a toady.
I've known a few in my life, less often have been one myself, but no one's immune.
We'll ride you in the Car-car. You can do the driving, even though your legs are too short. I'll ride beside you and push the pedals once in a while. Maybe we'll find you a tall block of wood that we can tie on your right foot! We'll use your belt. We'll listen to Beatles CD's as we go, especially the White Album with "Helter Skelter" and we won't give a damn if we crash! What can we lose that we wouldn't lose later anyway? No regret, no regret, don't think about it or get your feet wet with that drip you've got!
People on the Internet may think you're funny or they may just look at you funny. This may be more than most people want to know, but I came to be a little acquainted with one young woman who concluded that I had "stalked" her since I seemed to know her email at her private college or whatever it was. I felt like I'd just been slapped hard on the snout with a rolled newspaper. I told her and maybe she believed it, that the Blogger Help Group (which is where I encountered her) lets any of us write another person on the site directly and they sent it on with the sender never having seen any email address. I call it a blind email. My young lovely had concluded that I'd worked hard at my stalking all on account of not knowing that. I guess she thought I was hot for her body. Could be, but not in the Slob fashion that she apparently viewed it! Then I cursed her, and that didn't help anything. She wanted nothing further to do with the stalker and I wanted nothing to do with the stupid girl (which I guess she wasn't, not really, if she'd given herself a chance).
I hate that. But things go to blazes on the Internet sometimes much faster than they do elsewhere!
"Why of course the people don't want war... It is the leaders...who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along...all you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." Hermann Goering
I've loved these last two books (see sidebar) I've read. Actually I'm not quite through with Crusoe, but I love it already. I loved it after the first 2 pages! If I read it in my youth, I don't recall it, though the general story is known to all via movies and TV, I think. It's a greatly interesting book to a sod like me, who can't be pleased with car crashes (been there, done that) and grisly killings by the pound (ditto). I'd forgotten (if I knew) all the trials and tribulations poor Robinson Crusoe endured before he ever came to the deserted Island where he had to spent so many years alone. I won't detail it, since some fraction of a per cent of you out there might decide to read it. You guys have probably forgotten it, so go ahead, read it again!
The Horse Whisperer was also pretty primo. I read it pretty quickly and really hated to put it down when it was over. Go for it if you run across it.
Sue Murphy: "Did you ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in? I think that's how dogs spend their lives."
(Overheard On The Go)
I went to the convenience store where I usually buy gas the other day, but it kept saying my card was unreadable and to go see the attendant inside! So I did that. I wondered aloud if my card was too scratched up (it didn't appear to be). The nice young lady said it might even be the fault of the machine needing to be cleaned. She turned on the pump and I ran some gas and went back inside to sign the Visa card.
While waiting in line, I overheard a drunk old man talking out loud to himself. Actually, he may only have been 5 or 6 years older than me, but I'm pretty old myself. At any rate he was talking aloud about a recent crime in which two cousins had decided to punish a crippled man who was behind in his rent. The cripple was renting from somebody's mother. Anyway, they went too far, and left the man for dead after they beat him. They'd thrown his prosthetic legs into the creek below and threw the man down the steep bank. The old man in the store was talking about how the injured man spent 8 or 10 hours crawling up the bank far enough for the highway patrol to see him when they passed. But the injured man died at the hospital. The drunk was outraged and couldn't stop talking about what he'd do to those young men. The law had them in custody already, of course, for they were very stupid. The kind of young men that you see on TV and you just KNOW they're stupid. Not to mention the stupid things they'd done!
"I'd cut off their fuckin' heads!" the drunk old man said.
I signed my Visa card ticket and left the store wondering what street he lived on.
I can't write a daily post any more. At least, not a post of any consequence. I can blather. I can squeak. And squeal. And protest that there is oxygen! I also protest that there is fire. Whose idea was that? Okay, warmth in winter, we need it for that. You think it was a byproduct that we began cooking meat and potatoes with it? Animals eat it raw, why shouldn't we? If we had no fire, that's how we'd eat it. Sushi has a name that's not revealing. We could just as well call raw hamberger Plutzy!
"Oh, Mommie, Let's have some plutzy sandwiches tonight!"
"If Daddy doesn't eat all the plutzy during the first commercial, Bambi!"
Daddy is such a pig.
Is that hostile enough? Perverted, too. But life is strange. Why shouldn't it be perverted, too? There's no one sensible left awake except you and me. And I'm not so sure about you. Sounds like I'm referring to some sort of intimacy, doesn't it? That's not what I mean. I don't mean that anywhere on my upper seven levels of consciousness. Maybe on the 8th level, but I'm not there yet. I know it's wrong to dream so much about Christmas and the other holidays. We don't seem to have an intelligent God, since he allows these things, but maybe we do. Maybe it's just that God is NOT laughing WITH us! But I'm alright; the instant I get outside I'll believe in God again. Maybe not in the good will of Man, though.
I wonder when we'll wake up about all this ethnicity and hatred? If I was a Negro or an Arab in this country, I'd know to be nervous. Why? Because white men have swollen heads and will find some reason to mistrust you. We know we're better. How can you find your way around that? I know I haven't. In 58 years, I've seldom had a foreign or colored friend. I've met lots of them, I've SEEN even more on TV, but I don't know them. I couldn't base a trust OR a mistrust on their behavior. The few I've known were about 20 years ago. I live with and around all these crazy white people now just like me. There's no escape. I wonder if I need to? I don't think I've ever met a person from Arkansas. Not even Bill Clinton, I didn't meet him, either. I must be one of the few!
Who talks to me on Internet? All kinds of foreigners and some Negroes. I think the Negroes are both women and both writers. Not famous, but not bad, either. Maybe I should give their links, but I don't think I will at the moment, since I'm in the middle of this pity fest. It's right, but it doesn't seem right at the moment. Besides, they might give me such a smack! Onward thru the fog, folks!
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DEAR SIDEBAR JUNKIES: Have I been eccentric enough lately? Lord knows I try. I'd hate to be accused of being too kind. |
