Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Wretched Beauty By Beatles

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


Sick Diseased Bastard

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.


Monday, October 30, 2006

Are We Too Famous Yet?

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."


Sunday, October 29, 2006

Make It Quick

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."


Saturday, October 28, 2006

The Truth?

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."


Friday, October 27, 2006

A Trifle More

It’s rained so much around here the past few days, I’m dizzy. Much flooding has taken place in neighborhoods or cities all around me. I was up last night watching the water rise in the yard and then, as always, wondering if it was time to panic when the water started inching its way into the front garage. Would the house be next? The yard had disappeared, as well as the sidewalks and roads all around. It came in about 2/3 of the way into the garage, not quite to the front car tires. Fortunately the downpour ceased by midnight and I didn’t have to keep checking the water level.

When you’re a kid, you think you can make Christmas come faster if you really concentrate on it. In a similar way, stressed adults seem to think (each flood) that they can make the flood waters back off if they just obsess about it. Both anticipations are wrong, of course. I was so stressed that it felt like I’d been working all day, though I had not. Several days of dry weather are predicted, but next week there’ll be more rain! I can’t stand it. I used to seldom (or only lightly) worry about such things. I guess I believed in my power to turn the flood back. It had never happened to me before, so why would it now? I guess that false sense of security was smashed to bits by Hurricane Rita last year. Once more I dodged the bullet as far as flooding, but I had other damage. Now I’m a jumpy old geezer.

All my life, I’ve tried to at least select things to worry about, if not to just avoid any worry at all. I guess it doesn’t work any more. I can’t even narrow my worrying to myself. Others worry me, too.

I may not pray for any of you, but I worry.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

How To Treat The Arrogant

George Santayana: "To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood."


Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Poetry Publication: Calliope Nerve

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!


Something

Mitch Hedberg: "I like rice. Rice is great if you're hungry and want 2000 of something."


Monday, October 23, 2006

Rainy Day Women #12 and 35

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


Saturday, October 21, 2006

Some Fun Books

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.


Thursday, October 19, 2006

Yimma Yibba Yamma

Leo Tolstoy: "Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them."


Monday, October 16, 2006

Conversation

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."


Said the Joker to the Thief

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?


Get On

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!


Saturday, October 14, 2006

Horse Latitudes

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



Horse Latitudes: Plural noun. Either of two belts of latitudes located over the oceans at about 30° to 35° north and south, having high barometric pressure, calms, and light, changeable winds. Etymology: Possibly from Spanish golfo de las yeguas, mares' sea. Reports that horses often needed to be thrown overboard, to lighten the load when no wind was present, in order to move the vessels on the water may be apocryphal.

Philosophy of Mood

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.



Friday, October 13, 2006

Honestly?

Bertrand Russell: "Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man."


Monday, October 09, 2006

Dirty Damn Internet!

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!


Saturday, October 07, 2006

Light-Weight Stuff

Miss Piggy: "Never eat more than you can lift."


Thursday, October 05, 2006

Just Tell Alice

Alice Roosevelt Longworth: "If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me."


Tuesday, October 03, 2006

No Child Abuse

I have increasingly run out of steam. I have less energy for writing or for fighting or for creating anything new. It seems like I get worse or that I at least feel worse about it all.

In world news, our man Bush is such an embarrassment to humankind, I can't believe that he's tolerated. America has always been afraid of revolution. Maybe we do need to kill some people over here, it just ought not to be the little children in the schools. Of course if the children survive reasonably long, they may grow old enough to meet the buttfucker perverts in Congress. Of course, the bad part is not the worst part; the worst part is the coverup afterwards by shitheads worried about how they all look. Of course, it doesn't look at present like Speaker of the house Hastert has been porking any pages, it just looks like he devours one or two every morning for breakfast. What a gut that man has!

There will be no child abuse on this site; that's not to say that there will be no adult abuse.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Without Us

Joseph Wood Krutch: "Both the cockroach and the bird would get along very well without us, although the cockroach would miss us most."