Monkeyminding in NY

By the way, the blog that should precede this one is called "Is there an easier way?" It's dated 10/24 for reasons too mundane to explain, but was actually written just a couple of days ago.

Woowoo Charly and Yorestrewly, call me Yores for short, are ensconced in Kira's 4th floor Brooklyn apartment overlooking the third, second and first floors of other Brooklyn apartments.
The view, charming as it is, is not the principal incentive to live here, it's the low rental of a square foot of large bills per square foot that makes the building so attractive to New York's middle class. Hey, come on, I'm almost not kidding. The smallest monetary denomination of any practical use here in the Big Apple is a twenty. Singles are the new pennies. Yesterday Charly and I had lunch at a place called Snookys. We had the Special. After that I got carried away and ordered a second beer. Lucky for me the bartender needed a watch.

Today we are going to take a long walk in Prospect Park. I don't know what that is going to cost because I'm told the price varies depending on the guy wearing the ski mask who does the collecting. After that we are going to see the baby. Our daughter is going to give us a nice discount on the viewing because we are the kid's grandparents. Just don't tell the other people in line.

The weather has been nice though. Indian Summer. Of course I don't know what that means, Indian Summer. What do the Indians have to do with it and which Indians are we talking about? The ones over there or the ones that used to be here? Did Little Brain chief of the Wahhunkas and a distant relative take advantage of a warm November day to catch some rays at the beach and declare it Summer? Some body look this up in your Funk and Internet and get back to me. I need to know and I'm on the need to know basis so it's okay to tell me. Don't tell anyone else though, it's against the Patriot Act and we all know how Patriots act. They applaud when the Dems take the Senate, the House and several hotels.

Okay it's clear the monkeymind is loosey goosey which is mixing both metaphors and animals so I'll close for now because I didn't really have anything to say anyway which is a thing that goes without saying in most cases. Just not mine.

A guy pointed at me as I walked by him and he said, You walk like a New Yorker, you've been living in Brooklyn way too long." I have no idea what that means and he didn't explain. It's a mystery. Like Indian Summer.

New kid on the block

I'm sitting on one of those large exercise balls people use to work out with for a day or two before they roll them into a corner. This one is fitted into a desk chair frame of some sort so it doesn't roll around or bounce your butt right off. It's comfy and easy on the cheeks but it makes you sit up straight backed and perky like. I'm not sure that's the right fit for my corkscrew spine and lazy mind. I think I'll write faster than usual.

Here's a word about the miracle of birth...Yikes! If all miracles were this messy, bloody and painful we wouldn't hold them in anything close to the high regard we now do. Miracles would be up there with dentistry and bone resetting on the scale of desirability.

"Aunt Sally's sinking fast, I'm praying for a miracle.

"You never did like Aunt Sally, did you?"

Of course at the end of the birth miracle you do get a nice reward. Once you've wiped off the slime and the blood you get a crying poop machine you can love for the rest of your life. The latest one of those in our family, Jackson Walton Hyde, made his appearance on the big stage at 1:26 p.m. November 3rd to a big round of applause, his mom's "Oh my god oh my god!", his dad's look of wonderment and, in the distant background, his new gramps saying, "alrighty then!" Jackson himself seemed to take it all in stride apart from a couple of facial expressions that could be read as "Whoa Dude" and "It's cold out here."

There were a number of interesting things that happened before Jackson made his debut that I will detail at a later date. I am recovering from shock and awe and an airplane cold and don't really feel up to the task at this moment. The highlight though, was when the heavy set woman doctor crouched over center like an NFL quarterback, put her hands up where, fortunately, my view was blocked and said something that could have been hike but probably wasn't and a second later took a one step drop and reappeared with the ball, I mean the baby in her hands. A smooth handoff was then made to the mom and somewhere, on some scoreboard, points were awarded.

Go Jackson!

New York Blogging

Walking down the street in Brooklyn on a warm Halloween night with my very pregnant daughter; costumed characters of all sizes streaming by. One guy, bearded and garbed in something that could be a costume, but may also be his regular Tuesday night look, approaches us from the opposite direction. "Hey, he says, pointing at Dara's belly as he passes by, "THAT is very convincing."

We had landed in Newark earlier that day and negotiated a ride from the airport to Brooklyn with a guy whose name was beyond the grasp of both my Spanish and English tongues and who, we learned as we rode along keeping our eyes on the road - a skill that frequently eluded our driver - was a Sikh from Punjab, India. Alrighty then Toto, we've put Kansas in the rearview mirror. Sikhs, we learned as we sped along through Newark's thick traffic and thicker smog, represent only 2% of India's poppulation. (And of course I'm thinking two percent of India is what, the population of Europe?) We also learned that it is possible to drive with one hand on the wheel, one hand waving about for either emphasis or air stimulation and that an Indian's life story could be told by looking back at both his past and his passengers, life and traffic to the fore be damned. A thing, I might add, that by journey's end, had made me real close to Sikh as well.

Nevertheless Horatio, we are here! New York City, The Big Apple. The place where our daughter will either explode or give birth to a son in the very near future. Both seem like very real possibilities to me so I'm doing the smart thing and staying at her back. It's weird though, for a person who could blow at any moment, the kid looks great. Clear skin, bright eyes, shiny hair, lots of smiling. She isn't even impatient to have the whole thing over. In fact she acts as if being pumped up like a pair of Nike Airs is kind of fun. Weird I tell you, weird, but then women and their stuff are always mysteries so stay tuned and see how this one plays out. It will either be "It's a boy!" or "Thar she blows." Either way, it's gonna be messy.









Stay tuned as the

Is there an easier way?

My muse is doing the limbo along with my mind. It's ducking under the bar to Jamaican rhythyms played on steel drums. I can't focus, get present or buckle down winsockie buckle down. New York images appear and fade like blinking neon signs. Yesterday I read on an awning overhanging a fifth Avenue sidewalk the words "Chinese Mexican Food." I wasn't tempted because what is that anyway, stir fried burritos? Chicken chow mole? Yikes.

Our first grandchild is named Jesse. Our latest is named Jackson. Jesse Jackson. I can't imagine what that means...if anything. In between we have Cody, Carson and Keely. We Waltons are an alliterative bunch. Or should I say an alliterative American amalgamation? Probably not. It's too hard to spell.

So there's my kid on the bed, legs spread, knees hiked up, husband, sister, mom and doctor in close proximity while I sit in the corner under threats of death if I make even the smallest of jokes. I'm not even allowed to comment when the doctor says, "You're not pushing you're just scrunching up your face." Is this rude or what? I'm thinking, yo suture breath, you wanna switch places with the kid and do some pushing your own self, see how that feels. I mean who's doing the work and who's making the big bucks? C,mon, cut the kid some slack. I didn't say anything though. The duct tape on my mouth was pretty tight.

Even after being there I'm still at a loss as to the whys and wherefores of the whole thing. Really. Isn't there some easier way to induce babies to come out? Tempt them with video games or movie tickets or something. Do they have to be shoved out into the world? Maybe if we just talked to them a while longer, they'd come out on their own. Tell them how good ice cream tastes and how much fun it is to read a book. If that doesn't work, sprinkle in a little guilt.
"Hey Baby, you're taking up space your dear old mom needs for other things. She's been lugging you around for months. Come on out now and give her break. We'll put you right back, I promise." Has anybody even tried this approach? What about, "If you don't come out right now, you'll miss the kickoff. " Woulda worked for me.

Birth

Woowoo Charly is reading a book entitled "Birth" that our pregnant daughter sent us. It's a history of baby bearing and aborning and not a compartment on a train. That's a berth. Of course, they are pronounced the same, so I can understand your confusion. Periodically, she reads aloud a passage to me in her lifelong, but so far futile, attempt to educate, inform and enlighten not only me, but anyone else who may be within earshot. Yesterday she shot me in the ear with a chapter about midwives. Who would have guessed they were women who aided in the delivery of babies. I though those were storks. Midwives were the wives between your first marriage and your last. Anyway, midwives were apparently pretty useful back in the day until priests and doctors came along and declared them witches, took away their brooms, burned them at the stake and in their gingerbread houses and treated them in generally rude and unkind ways. After that, it didn't go so well for the pregnant mothers either. Instead of having motherly Molly and caring Katie helping them through the rough patches, they had Deacon Zacariah, Reverand Stern and Father Let-the girl-suffer-it's-God's-way standing by to help out. Makes me glad I'm a guy, but then I'm always glad I'm a guy even when I have to swap out car batteries. Just now Woowoo Chuck read me a part about how painful giving birth can be. This is something I don't understand at all. If it's so painful, why do women have more than one kid? I mean, I broke my leg back in high school and it hurt like hell. I've tried seriously to not break my leg again. There are six billion of us on the planet. Man that's a lot of pain. And did you know, (like I now do) that women used to give birth squatting, but after the men took over they made the ladies lie down because it was easier for them, the men? Did you want to know? Me neither. In fact I'm thinking of writing a book called "The Mystery of Birth And Well It Should Be." The first chapter will be about midhusbands. These will be the guys who help husbands stay in the waiting room and out of the delivery room. That's why they have waiting rooms, to wait in. Husbands aren't cheerleaders. They don't belong on the sidelines, they belong in the stands passing out cigars and getting pats on the back while saying that's my boy or that's my girl. And now in the background I'm hearing words like uterus and contractions and placenta. There's no need for this. These are not words men should know. Especially midhusbands. All they have to remember is "quit pacing and sit down. It's your deal."

Alrighty then. I've just shown this to Woowoo Charly and now she's stopped reading to me. In fact, she's stopped speaking to me altogether. Apparently she feels that men should be at their wive's bedsides during the birthing. Well, maybe she's right. When we have our next kid, I'll give it a try.

Guy Stuff

I suppose it is ironic that during the rainy season we ran out of water. From our taps that is. For three days we had the "ah there it is" and "whoops, there it goes" experience as I studied complicated water schematics and discussed options over the internet with our California visiting landlord. ( On the chain-of-command, who is higher, the Land Lord or the Land Baron?)
I say complicated in the sense that "righty tighty, lefty loosey" is pretty much the extent of my mechanical knowledge. It's the skill I use for putting in light bulbs so I can go back to reading my book. Nevertheless, I tested this and that and several times the other thing to no particular avail, which was a circumstance that surprised me as even though I know nothing about anything, I always assume I can do something. Luckily ( a word that describes my life) that assumption ultimately proved correct. The thing I did was I called a plumber. (If you think that last sentence was oddly constructed, you've never read Elmore Leonard.) (I copy the best.)

Oscar Torres showed up with his box of tools and his bag of tricks and we discussed the problem over coffee before getting started. Oscar has less English than I have Spanish but, clever fellow that I am, I had prepared my crib notes for the test and had them handy. Words like pipe (tuberia, valve (valvula) (both of which may also be women's body parts; the dictionary wasn't clear on that, but plumbing is plumbing) drain, overflow, locate and excavate were all at my finger tips. After the coffee we set about going over the same things I'd checked for days and came to the same conclusion which was, ta da... nothing's wrong but, ah... something's wrong.

It wasn't until we got to the last resort, a dangerous place to be because once past the last resort there's nowhere to go for vacation, that we discovered the actual problem. Our plan was to excavate (cavar) the pipes that exited the water storage tank and then bypass where we deduced a blockage might have occurred. When we exposed the said pipes, lo and behold, (does anyone say that anymore?) there was an on/off valve three quarters shut. When we turned it fully on, to no one's amazement, water was restored to our casa. The mystery of how the valve got turned to almost closed or had it been so all along and then got clogged just enough to restrict our water flow, remains. It doesn't really matter, we no longer have to consider air showers, (mimes do air showers really well) and we made a new friend, Oscar, who is a funny and very nice guy. (At one point I asked Oscar how to say "leak" in Spanish. He replied the word was gotear but that Panamanians don't use it. He said they say," esta leakyando" (it is leaking) an inglisimo (an englishism). We both laughed because leakyando is a funny word in any language.

I thought at this point my days as an alpha male construction guy were over and I could go back to being the absent minded book worm peering over his half glasses and saying "well actually my dear fellow" that I like to think of myself as when I'm not scratching my crotch and shouting something obscene at the football game on the tube. But nooooo.

The next day I went down to start our friend V's car to keep the battery from dying while she is away. Too late. Doornail. The car is parked snug tight to a wall at the top of a long steep, narrow driveway. There is no way to approach it with another vehicle for a cable jump start. I considered pushing it from the flat area at the top to the steep drive and then letting it roll to the bottom where I could gain access with another vehicle and effect the jump. What stopped me was the thought that some cars have no power steering when they are not running. If this were the case, I would be forced to stop the car on the steep slope and have to effect plan B at a treacherous angle. No way.

My B plan, (C would have been to call someone which was the plan I have used for most of my life and has saved me years that would have been lost to frustration and aggravation, but lost me instead piles of money that, saved, would have put me somewhere between Trump and Gates on the leaderboard) was to remove the battery from V's other vehicle, a pickup truck, and put it in her car. Wrongo again Lugnut. It too was doornailed. Still,there was another battery available, the one on my car. I walked back to my house, retreived my wheels and drove to V's. Removing V's car battery was a piece of cake which is a thing I enjoy when it is a description of doing something or is an actual piece of cake. Removing mine was a reminder that I do know and can use all the English language swear words and several more from Spanish. First I should mention that here is a list of all the tools I now own: a pair of pliers, a pair of needle nose pliers, a small adjustable wrench (I think those are called crescents and it just now occurs to me that that is because of their shape. C'mon, who knew?) and two screw drivers. Absent was, fortunately, a hammer and I say fortunately because I am sure I would have used one had it been available. The screw giszmos on my battery were on so tight and my tools were so inadequate for the job, none of them actually fit on the gizmos, that I was nearly, once again, at wit's end, a place I have already mentioned I don't like to visit because it is far too serious. Perseverence was with me though, that and a lot of rain, did I mention it was raining, and I eventually freed my battery from its restraints and carried it up the hill. By the way, is there any reason they have to be that heavy? I put the battery in V's car, started it up and then, while the car was running, I removed it and put V's battery back in. This was a thing I learned was possible a couple of years ago when I saw a friend do it. (Woowoo Charly says that his battery died so that I would learn that lesson and have it handy on this occassion. Poor guy had to suffer for my education, which is a thing I thought only my school teachers had to do.) I put my battery in the back of V's car and drove it to the bottom of the hill. I put it back in my car and then drove both cars, simultaneously, to my house. No, I'm just kidding, really. Gus drove one.

And so ended my week of he man stuff. It was interesting, fun even, in a sort of manly man way. I restored water to the cave and transportation to the tribe. I kind of miss it. Think I'll go lift something...heavy.

Spooky Stuff

It's a quiet morning with a cool, gentle breeze flowing over my keyboard and playing with the steam from my cofee cup. It's a friendly, non intrusive breeze and it feels nice, clear but not overly brisk. I'd call it morning fresh if I was of a poetic bent, but since I'm bent in some other way, twisted really, I'll just dispense with the description of air and get on with today's topic...horror movies.

Just by saying horror movies, I've probably lost two thirds of my audience of three, four on a good day, although losing two thirds of four is a lot tougher to do, but after watching a movie last night called "The Boogeyman" I feel I need to clarify a few things for you The Lone Reader and also in my own mind where clarity is, as you know, a transient kind of thing.

First off, Horror movies have several sub genres, any one of which can scare the pants off of you, a bit of a horrible thought in itself, and all have had some winners on the silver screen. A couple from the Sci Fi genre that ran off with my drawers were "The Thing" and "Alien." That's "Alien" the original and not any of the sequels which were more action/adventure than horror movies. Giant bugs and what not have traipsed across theatre screens since the original King Kong made his debut as a leading man and most have left me unmoved. Big, just isn't that frightening.

I'm not a serious fan of the religious horror track either, but both "The Exorcist" and "Omen" were dandy scaries in their day. Lately, movie writers have been putting vampire films in this category by linking them to the devil. I think this is a mistake. Vampires are just the undead, period. They don't need any help from the devil to scare the bejeezus out of you. The whole bit about displaying a cross to ward off evil has never rung true to me. I mean, really, if we could do that, Bush would never show himself in public.

Then there are the reality based horror flicks of which "Psycho" and "Silence of the Lambs" are shinning examples. This kind of movie gets to a lot of people because the horror seems so possible. I mean, who's not afraid of crazy people? There could be one right next door or down the street or waiting for you in the parking garage. Who really knows who they are and what they are up to?

Which brings me to my favorite genre, the what's under the bed, in the closet, making that noise in the basement, out in the alley getting closer, genre. Movies where you imagine the horror, but don't really get to see it clearly until the end. Last night's "Boogeyman" was a good example.
Early in the movie there is a little boy in his bed unable to sleep because he thinks there is something bad in his room. He calls for his dad who comes to reassure him that all is okay. The dad looks under the bed and behind the curtains. When he gets to the closet, he opens the door and pokes around inside for a little while. He then (ha ha ha, I love this!) turns his back to the closet and says to the little boy, "See, there's nothing to be afraid of" at which point something comes out of the closet so fast you can't really see it, grabs the father by the ankles and yanks him back into the closet where his screams are mingled with some kind of snarling. The poor old dad gets one more quick shot as the door flies open for an instant and you see him trying to escape something dark and terrible among the clothes. He's clearly torn and bloody. The door then slams shut, this time very loudly, there's a second of dead silence and then the scene comes to an end. Now that's my kind of scary!

What's yours?

Night Stalker. Yes!

Kolchak the Night Stalker was a televison show in the early Seventies that lasted perhaps a blink of an eye. It featured Darrin McGavin as crime reporter who weekly (and weakly) encountered all sorts of things that go bump in the night. Vampires, werewolves, mummies, zombies, first wives, you name the monster and it got stalked and ineveitably done in by Kolchak. I loved it. Of course I was at an impressionable age then, where the odd, the unexplainable and the superstitious have a strong appeal. I was, you know, 32 or 33. I liked horror movies, rock and roll, good books and sports. Now that I am older, far less impressionable and much, much more mature, I find that I like horror movies, rock and roll, good books and sports, so it is no surprise that when I discovered a new version of the Night Stalker played every Friday night on my AXN (Awfully Xenophobic Norwegian) channel I was happy as a kid in a crypt when the candle atop the coffin starts to slide and there's that creaky sound of old hinges as the bony hand appears and begins to slowly lift the lid! What delicious spooky creepiness!

The new show is played in a very straightforward, sober manner. Events are taken seriously and presumed to be possible. Kolchak is believed by his compatriots when he tells them of the latest weirdness. This is very unlike the Seventies version which was played lighter, more tongue-in-cheek, with suspension of disbelief called for in heavy doses. But then, the Seventies themselves were lighter, more tongue-in-cheek years by comparison to this decade's where it is reality and not television that more often requires the suspension of disbelief.

There are other shows available now that feature the strange and mysterious, "Supernatural" and "Invasion" come to mind, but they both play at a late hour here in Panama. I have stayed up to watch each one once and neither caught my imagination enough to make viewing them a habit. Night Stalker starts at seven, a perfect hour for we early to bed early to rise-ers. And to think, I used to stay up for Creature Features which didn't even begin until Midnight. Of course, that WAS the Seventies. There were drugs.

A Long Walk

I ran a marathon in 1979. A marathon is a race that is a tad over 26 miles in length. It made me tired, but at the end I got a t-shirt. Yesterday I took a walk. That made me tired too. It was a long walk, but well short of 26 miles. Of course they don't really have miles in Panama, they have kilometers. Miles are forbidden. If you are caught with a mile or two in your possession, you will probably get off with just a fine. If you're nabbed with 26 of them, they'll get you with "intent to distribute" and you could be sentenced to remedial math. With that in mind, I held my walk down to only kilometers which, fortunately, add up a lot faster than miles. It still took me three hours to cover the distance - whatever it was- which is an hour and a half quicker than I finished the marathon. What I did yesterday, was I walked to town. This took me thirty five minutes. I could have made it faster, but at about the two thirds marker, which is a house with a well cared for eucalyptus tree in the yard, my dog's leash broke. Gus is a well trained dog though, so when I say "heel" he will do it three or four times out of ten. If, however, another dog is present, his obedience quotient drops into the "you're wasting your breath with that heel stuff" range. Since most Panamanian houses have at least one small to middle sized dog in their yard and most gringos have dogs the size of ponies, a thing that speaks to U.S. paranoia, having no leash was going to be a problem. After walking about fifty yards, I mean meters, hunched over like Quasimodo and holding Gus by his collar, I decided I needed an alternative solution to the problem. Clever fellow that I am at roughly the same ratio as Gus on that one to ten heel scale, I realized that I was wearing a small back pack that could be utilized, somehow, to hook onto Gus and allow me to stand upright. It was either that or use my belt which I considered not a good idea as I've lost a few pounds, I mean liters, and my pants would then no longer be secured at my waist. Anyone who has tried it will tell you how hard it is to walk with pants down around your ankles. You have to take those choppy little Charlie Chaplin steps which are quite unsightly and besides that, YOUR PANTS ARE DOWN. I hooked a strap at the bottom of the backpack through Gus' collar and held onto the shoulder strap at the top. It worked just fine. It looked silly as hell, but it worked just fine. Our first stop when we hit town was a pet store where I bought a new leash. After that it was on to the video store to return a movie, across the street to the deli to pick up a few items, down the street to Mailboxes Are Us to check on a package that hadn't arrived, then back to the deli to pick up the umbrella I had left there. My umbrella, I should note, is equipped with a hard rubber, cane tip at its pointy end and thus makes an excellent walking stick. Thinking back now, I could have hooked the umbrella to the dog's collar and walked him that way, so there are lots of solutions to these small problems. It's just a matter of which looks the least absurd. After the paragua retrieval, I was struck with a brilliant idea. Well okay it was brilliant idea if brilliant has a synonym that means, "are you out of your mind?" I decided that I was feeling really strong and that instead of taking a taxi home, the original plan, I would walk back. And what's more - you can't just go with a small crazy idea, you must build on them - I would take the long way. The going 'round the mountain route instead of the concrete stairway short cut that we had used to descend. Off we went like Dorothy and Toto only without the skipping and singing. At the end of the town part of our town there is a combination bar and real estate office, a combination that makes sense if you think about it. When you are going to spend house sized money you should have a drink or two first. Gus and I stopped there for water. His came in a bowl and mine came in a green bottle. Fifteen minutes later we continued our trek. There is a very steep road, now paved, that goes up our mountain all the way to the top. Gus and I needed to ascend only about half way where we would turn off at another marathon marker, a basketball court, and then continue along the side of the mountain for what is just a short drive over a rough road until we are home. If you are driving, that is. As it was, walking, by the time we reached the basketball court, Gus was dripping drool from both sides of his mouth like a mini Cujo or Old Yeller at the end and I was just dripping from pretty much everywhere. I had made other jaunts from the house to this point on the planet, the basketball court, so I knew there was about another hour's worth of hoofing still to go. It felt kind of like hitting the 20 mile mark at the marathon. My thoughts ran along the lines of, "what there's more?", and, "are you kidding me?" That is, when they weren't thinking, "I hope that pain's not serious." It's another steep climb from the b-ball court to El Explorador. We made it there in a walking style best described as trudging. Neither of us so much as lifted our heads when a black lab came bounding out a driveway barking his own head nearly off. Yeah yeah yeah give it a rest was kind of our attitude at that point. Our lives were saved at El Ex, okay we weren't really dying, but we were dying to be done, by long cool drinks of water followed by a nearly frozen aguacate batido that tasted like frosted heaven. Onward Laddies, I thought, which was really weird because who thinks "Onward Laddies " these days?, the end is in sight. And so it was, as thirty or forty sweaty minutes later, we crossed the finish line, our front doorway. Gus, panting rapidly, headed immediately to his favorite shady corner while I plopped heavily onto the sofa. Both of us were exhausted, happy and thinking the same thing: Alrighty then, where's my t-shirt?

Finding a Topic

I'm on my third cup of coffee and I still haven't decided on today's topic. I've read all the news... everybody's mad at North Korea, personalized jet packs are coming, Broncos release Sauerbrun, kids need more playtime, the world is going to hell in a handbasket and we still don't know who's hand is ON the basket, Iraquis are dying, Streisand sings again and blood tests reveal Bush is reptilian in origin... all things that either go without saying or need no further clarification leaving me still topicless.

There was one thing I found interesting, but I really don't know what to say about it beyond way-ta-go and that is this: Scientists from the U.S. have won every Nobel Prize awarded so far this year. Only the prizes for Peace and Literature remain. I know what you are thinking and yes I should be in the hunt for both, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Some of the other writers under consideration are pretty good too. And as far as Peace is concerned, I think I have made it clear that my feelings are pretty much aligned with the guy who does the announcing at boxing matches. Two seconds after he shouts, "Let's Get Ready To Rumble" he leaps the hell out of the ring and disappears. Maybe he'll get the prize. I think he's American. We're going for the sweep.

Speaking of literature, do self-help books count? I've just finished one, "The Extraordinary Healing Powers of Ordinary Things" and I'm reading three others simultaneously. These are "Life After Death, The Burden Of Proof", "The Book of Understanding, Creating Your Own Path To Freedom" and "Writing The Fire, Yoga and the Art of Mking Your Words Come Alive." (Something about non-fiction writers makes them feel they have to put everything in the title. If fiction guys did that we'd save time reading. "War and Peace, A long, rambling story about people and events in Russia that lead you to the conclusion that War is bad and Peace is good." Or "Cujo, the story of a big dog that bites people.") I'm making progress in all three of my self improvment books, but so far I haven't really gleaned the message in any of them. I mean, "Life After Death..."? You bet, I'm for it. "Understanding..."? I will, I hope "...Making your words come alive"? You have to be careful with this one. What if you wrote "werewolf"?

I think I'll go for a fourth cup.

Vote For Me 7

Last night's Bronco game was exquisite torture. Not the kind of torture that Bush has authorized in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Blue States to ferret out Democrats, I mean terrorists, but the kind more closely associated with delayed gratification. You wait for it and wait for it and wait for it and finally yeehaw! there it is. No I'm not talking about sex, I'm talking about game winning drives, game ending interceptions, ninth inning home runs, buzzer beating jump shots and, okay I am talking about sex. Last night's game was truly sexy. Two terriffic defensive teams battling to the end and the good guys, the Broncos, winning it late. If I still smoked them, I would have fired up a cig, turned to my wife and asked, was it good for you too?
As we Sevens are prone to saying, Big Fun!

Yeah, I know, more sports stuff. But seriously, what else can you watch that gives you the excitement of not knowing the outcome? Real life? Get a grip. As someone once noted, life is a sexually transmitted disease with a 100% fatality rate. We know how it ends. Movies and Plays are scripted and although a good book may keep you in suspense, if you read it again next week, it will end the same. You can't say that about the next Red Sox tiff or Bronco game. Political races are a little uncertain, but now that the Republicans have learned how to win without actually winning even those have become predictable. And besides, there are serious consequences to Politics. Your world could be stolen. In sports the worst thing that can happen is that your team doesn't make the playoffs. Not to worry, we'll get 'em next year. So pick a team, any team and cheer them on with me for a couple of hours. After that we'll go get our world back.

Vote For Me.

More About Nothing

I've got nothing on my mind.

Take a look at the sky and imagine the Universe. I've just read that scientists have determined that all the clutter out there, stars, moons, planets, etc. and all the elements they are composed of, represent less than 5% of what's there. The remaining 95% is nothing. They have given the nothing names, dark energy and dark matter, but it is really still nothing, invisible, unidentified, unknown.

I love a mystery. When you've got that much of something, even if it is nothing, it has to make you wonder. If 95% of the Everything is nothing we may have a really useful, and obviously abundant, resource to work with, so let's put our heads together and think about nothing. I do it by myself all the time.

Lao Tsu, who used to pitch for the Taoists and was a contemporary of Confucius, was a big fan of nothing. He said: Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub; it is the center hole that makes it useful. Shape clay into a vessel; it is the space within that makes it useful. Cut doors and windows for a room; it is the holes which make it useful. Therefore profit comes from what is there; usefulness from what is not there. Which, he added, is why you never draw to an inside straight. It just isn't there. It is clear then, that nothing is good for something. We just need to figure out what.

Scientists also point out that as the universe expands, that is, as nothingness expands, it will ultimately be sameness, starless and lifeless...forever. Another famous philosopher, Woody Allen, after noting this, laments, "More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroad. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." Alrighty then, Woody.

I've got nothing to do today and that's okay with me. Doing nothing from time to time is an important part of remaining helathy according to Larry Dossey, M.D., whose book "The Extraordinary Healing Powers of Ordinary Things" could use a shorter title, but includes a chapter on nothing. Since being healthy is something I want to continue to be, I'm going to proactively do nothing as often as I can.

I'm just not sure I know how.

Answering the Critics

One of my critics has written in to say that I use too many sport's references in my campaign speeches. Personally, I think this is an in-your-face attack on my game plan. When my strategists and I get together to break down game film of our opposition's offensive and defensive positions, our intent is not to hit a homerun in our next campaign incursion into the the red zone, but merely to matriculate downfield by just moving the chains in a steady manner towards the goal of our parties nomination. Call it small-ball. We are not trying to score using the bomb and we are not blitzing the media. We are simply trying to penetrate the Republican and Democratic zones for the occassional slam dunk like healthcare and when we can't, we kick it back outside for the long range shot at world peace.

I realize as I quarterback my team through the campaign that the presidential race is no sprint. It's a marathon. We may have to go the full 12 rounds to get the decision. Still, I like to take it day to day, one issue at a time because, as Vince Lombardi said, "winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" and even though he was out-of- bounds on that one, throwing up a brick, it does remind me that I have to keep my eyes on the ball, my head down and not try to swing for the bleachers. A good President not only scores big himself, but he makes his teammates better. You'll never catch him playing ball with the opposition.

And so in conclusion I have to say to my critic that sure I use the occassional sport's reference, but he has to remember that once the coin is tossed it's sudden death out there and I don't want to leave my game in the locker room. I know some presidential candidates who did and they didn't even get to first base. I want to get that first serve in because getting ahead in the count is so important. It is so much easier to play with the lead than to come from behind and I know you've got to keep playing until the whistle blows and the fat lady sings.

Because, after all, a presidential campaign is no rose bowl of cherries.

A Swell Veldt Part 11

When Bongo arrived at the Earl’s deserted campsite he feared at first that Sackable might have been carried off by one of the veldt’s various predators. A quick reading of the signs though, well not so much the signs but rather the actual tracks, told him that his employer was safe and had set off on a path to, he thought in error, no place in particular. A more thorough study of the tracks had indicated that the Earl had done so in some haste, but not before spinning about and then performing what appeared to be dance steps. Bongo placed his own feet in Sackable’s footprints mimicking their movements and quickly realized he was doing the Watusi, a dance his own tribe had invented to amuse white people with movie cameras. In private they waltzed.

Slinging his rifle onto his shoulder, Bongo set out after the Earl anew. He could tell from the general direction his tracks pointed to that his former boss was headed for difficulties. Perhaps even trouble if that’s another way of saying a horribly painful death. Ahead lay lion country, rhino country, leopard country, hyenas, wild dogs and a mean species of impatient buzzards. Ahead lay The Great Water Hole, where all the veldt’s toughest creatures came to bathe, drink, and annoy each other. The bumbling, but still bellowing Earl was making a beeline, which, if you’ve ever watched bees, is not the straightest of lines, towards this, the veldt’s most dangerous place. If he didn’t stop to take on pollen, he’d be there in no time a’tall.

Vote For Me 6

I will be adding a new Cabinet Level post called the Department of Woowoo Considerations. Woowwoo Charly has declined the directorship of the department, but does wish to be involved and consulted on a regular basis through the usual channels. In other words, extrasensory. I had suggested to Deepak Chopra that he take the job, but he declined, opting instead for leadership of my Department of Health, Education and Welfare of Former and Future Lives, so the position remains open. If you wish to be considered for the nomination, send me your name in a dream.

There will be many tasks falling under the umbrella of the DWC. Here are just a few:

Aura reading. As President, I want to be advised when I'm dealing with someone who is throwing off a bad color.

Vibrations. Are they good, good, good... good vibrations? Or are they bad?

Past Lives. How do they affect our current situation? What did we do to deserve this?

Animal speak. Special emphasis here on whales, dolphins, manatees and my dog. What are they
trying to tell us?
Plant speak. I've never heard them myself, but I'm told they're quite chatty.

Magic. The real stuff, not smoke and mirrors and sleight of hand. You know, like levitation without trickery and my long ago jump shot. Magic.

Seldom Seen Creatures. Leprechauns, gremlins, faeries, mermaids, bigfoots, yetis, etc. Why are they so shy?

UFO's and Extra Terrestrials. Latest evidence suggests UFOs are really biological entities themselves and not just space vehicles. We need to know more. Oh, and what's the deal with abductions? (If anything is already known and being kept from the public, my administration will reveal all.)

Rock speak. What are crystals and other shiny stones trying to tell us?

Time travel. I need to go back and fix a few things.

Earth speak. What is the planet itself trying to tell us. I mean apart from, "quit it."

Indigenous peoples. Why do they seem so harmonious and we don't?

Energy. I'm running out. Going for coffee.

Vote For Me.

Vote For Me 5

"Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light" yaddidah yaddidah yaddidah "that our flag was still there?" Hmmm. That is one run-on sentence. And a question at that. The Star Spangled Banner - now there's a title for you - used to be considered a difficult song to sing. Not anymore. Pop idols belt this baby out like it was no tougher than Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Of course they deviate (because they're deviates?) from the original composition to the point that I'm not always sure what it is that's being sung. No matter, I just wish they wouldn't take so long. There's a game that needs to get started.

I like our national anthem. As anthems go it's a top tenner on the charts. And even though it is a toughie for we regular folk to sing, it is sung in English and that helps a lot. Most of the others, I've noticed, are in foreign languages and are real tongue twisters. My objection to the thing is simply that it's warbled before getting on with the game and I just don't see the link. Anthem, Packers versus Bears. Why? As I've already proposed an alternative to our national symbol for special uses, I see no reason I shouldn't now offer an alternative anthem specifically for use at sporting events. In other words... "Ah you reddy faw sum foopball? A Munday nite potty? Here we keep the tradition of asking questions in the anthem and the content is more specific to the event. Of course we can change the foopball to baseball or hoopsball or tennis or whatever the sport is along with the day of the week and then we won't have to wonder what "bombs bursting in air" has to do with the soccer moms watching their kids get kicked in the shins. Sure the song will present some vocal problems when the singer has to phrase "are you ready for some synchronized swimming,"but our rappers have shown us with our other anthem that anything is possible. When I'm in office, I'll put it on a ballot.

Vote for me.

Vote For Me 4

I've always liked the bald eagle as a national symbol, it's regal and majestic and we need regal and majestic once in awhile. Once in another while though, we need warm and cuddly so I am proposing a basket of puppies as an alternate national symbol to be used on days when visiting dignitaries are in town. It will make them feel good, relax their guard a little and make them more open to our suggestions. I'm thinking Beagle puppies at the moment, they're cute, but mutt pups might be more appropriate for a country of people as mixed as we are. We will all get to vote on the breed as soon as I am elected.

The issue of church and state has come up and I want to say there is no issue. The two will be separate. In fact the two will be so separate they won't be able to see each other with the Hubble telescope. One will have nothing to do with the other. Even my own church, The First Church of The Blessed Sacramental Holy Marys of the Virgin Pentecostal Zen Sniffing Catholic Buddhists On High will have nothing to do with government. Religion is there to control people and make a buck. Government, well at least my government, will be there to protect people, preserve the arts and make golf more affordable. The two will not cross paths. Spirituality, however, defined as "a sense of god" - which, I'm told by a former President is also the definition of orgasm - will be permitted so long as you keep it to yourself and don't do it in the Oval Office.

And speaking of formerPresidents, there is one who shall remain nameless because a lot of people still don't like him, who managed to take on the worst deficits in our country's history, not counting today's, and not only balance the national budget during his term but to leave office with a a big fat surplus. I forget, tell me again why we don't like him? Anyway, I'm going to get he and his team back on the economic job. I don't know the numbers just yet, but I can promise this: Minimum wage will go up. Maximum wage will go down.

Vote for me.

Vote For Me 3

As President I will continue the tradition of throwing out the first ball of the new baseball season. However, as a testament to my non-partisonship, I will create a new traditon in which the leader of the opposition party gets to run back the first kickoff of the new football season.

Before I get back to specific issues like should we legalize Gay abortions, I want to say a few words about my overall political philosophy. I feel it is time to end this us against them mentality that the previous administration has foisted on the American people. I want, instead, to implement the sense of us and them working together against ignorance, intolerance, bigotry, poverty, hate and, especially, war, until there is no them at all. Only us. A world encompassing us that permits diversity and cultural differences but recognizes that we are all one people. As diferent as the Alabama farmer is from the Connecticut antiques dealer they are both a part of our current definition of us. Why not include all the world's peoples in that definition. Wouldn't it be harder to go to war if you had to say, "General get the troops ready, we are going to attack us?" And wouldn't it be easier to help if you said, "Some of us are having a problem. Let's the rest of us lend a hand?" Unity creates harmony. That's why the founding fathers named us the "United" states. My administration will work to unite the world.

Vote for me.

Vote For Me 2

Sunday is often a misnomer. The sun doesn't always shine on Sunday. What does always happen on Sunday is sports. Therefore, during my presidency, a constitutional amendment to change the name of the first day of the week to Sportsday will be proposed. Friday, Saturday Sportsday. It sounds right to me.

Health care is a given. Ours is too wealthy a country for anyone to go without basic medical services. Most of the developed countries of the world already have systems in place to treat their citizenry. It is shameful that we don't. I will commission a study of all the best health care systems in the world to date and we will quickly devise a plan utilizing the best of these systems and this plan will be implemented in my first term. Of course there will be problems initially, we expect that, but we will learn what is best and iron out the wrinkles over time. For all the wealthy people who say they deserve better care than the unemployed non tax paying mug down the block, you are right and that care will be available. But you will have to pay. Non essential care like elective surgeries will be billed higher. Every nose job, boob job, penis enlargement and the like will be billed at a rate that will allow the hospitals and physicians to perform procedures on needy patients that are uncovered by our basic plan. Plastic surgery, for instance, on a child who was disfugured in a fire or car crash. People who feel they need care in excess of what is provided may either pay for better or continue to subscribe to the scam called health insurance companies. Their choice. Billions of dollars are currently being spent to wage an unnecessary war. In my administration, much of that money will go to this toast: To your health! Vote for me.

Vote For Me

After today I won't be blogging on quite such a regular basis. Since we the people are being discouraged from being funny, I've decided to run for President of the United States. I expect this will take up a lot of my time. I am going to make my run for that high office from here in Panama to avoid the temptations that other candidates are subjected to as they travel about the States. The last thing I need is some large corporation trying to sway my stance by offering me millions. I am, however, open to being bribed not to run. Make your best offer.

The following are some of the issues and my position on them:

It is clear that we the American people are some of the dumbest folk in the developed world. If I see one more graph showing we are ninth in math, sixth in science, eleventh in literacy, etc., I am going to puke all over the Oval Office. In my presidecy we will be among the best in everything, because we have the resources to be so. Education and the environment will be my two highest priorities. The largest parts of our national budget will be to fix these two problems.
First off, teachers will be paid salaries that will be large enough to draw the best and the brightest to the field. Better teachers mean better teaching and better results. My goal is for our national IQ to rise by the end of my presidency and continue rising with each successive generation after that. In other words, a reversal of the current trend that sees us dumbing down day after day. Yes, some students will be left behind, but only because they just don't have the mental capacity to attain our minimum educational standards. These people will receive training to lead productive lives in less demanding jobs. As I see it, one of the reasons we have become a second rate nation (apart from military power) is that we are unaware of just how stupid we are. Past Presidents have encouraged this blindness of reality as it is easier to manipulate a stupid populace than it is an educated one. My Department of Education will have a national newspaper on the order of USA Today that will provide educational tools and tips gleaned from successful programs around the world and will also alert our people to what is going on educationally in other countries and how we stack up. We Americans are a competitive bunch. I think we will make rapid gains in education as soon as we realize how stupid we are to begin with. The newspaper will be monitored by an oversight committee with members from all Parties to see that political opinion stays on the OP/Ed pages of regular newspapers where they belong. America we must wake up, read a book, get a clue!

Funding? Funding will be easy, but I'll get to that later.

The Environment must be preserved and protected. Any person, corporation, industry or who or whatever that does anything to damage the environment as a means of making money will be fined by whatever amount it takes to make them desist. There are countless ways to make money, you're a bright fella, do something else. Clean air, water and soil standards will be the highest in the world. To achieve them, my presidency will offer huge rewards for the development of clean energy and tax breaks extending into the far future for companies that implement the use of clean energies. That's right, reward and punishment. Show me another way to motivate the environmental abusers and I'll get right on it. We need to be an environmental model the rest of the world will aspire to.

We will continue to have a Defense Department. Obviously, if attacked, we will defend ourselves with all the will, determination and resources we can muster. Super Bowls are won with good defenses. Super Powers need them as well. What we won't have is a Department of Offense. No country will ever again fear an invasion by the U.S. without an offical Declaration of War by Congress and an approval of that Declaration by A NATIONAL VOTE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. The people will decide if their kids should go to war. There is no question in my mind that after 9/11, America would have voted YES to Afghanistan and, had they not been repeatedly lied to, NO to Iraq. War is too hideous to be left in the hands of a few powerful people. An educated populace must decide for itself. An immediate withdrawal from Iraq will occur when I am elected. ALL our intelligence services say that our presence there is a detriment and is creating a jihad mentality (holy war) throughout the Muslim world. A poll of the Iraqui people indicates that a majority are in favor of the incursions against our troops. If they want us gone, we can't get out quick enough. As for the War on Terror, there is no such thing. Terror is an emotion not a country. If you want to go to war against an emotion, get a shrink. Terrorists are criminals not soldiers. They should be caught and brought to justice. My administration will deal harshly with terrorists while trying to eliminate the causes and conditions that lead to terrorist thinking. As much emphasis will be placed on the latter part of that sentence as the first. My administration will address the fears of the American people and try to alleviate them in any way we can and fear itself will never be used as a tool to achieve political ends.

Vote for me. More tomorrow or whenever I think of something good like making The Broncos our National Team.

Be Serious

I can't be funny anymore. I can't even try to be funny. I've just read an article that says we have over done the funny thing and we have to get serious again. Apparently we suffer from the Seinfeld Effect, to wit, everyday life is funny, therefore my life is funny, and in truth, most people can't pull that off because, most people and their lives are NOT funny. Or so the writer contends.

Hhmmm.

This is very deep. It speaks to the very nature of personality. I think (there I go again with the headaches) that if you see the world as a funny place and life itself as a funny endeavor, then by all means, carry on matey. On the other hand, if you see the world and life as otherwise then be true to that otherwise. Unless, of course, the otherwise is sick, twisted and evil like the people who serve canned spinach and fundamentalist anythings. In those cases, intervention by funny people will be necessary. Should that fail, the STE's should be banished to a non funny place and be quarantined with other non funny people. Any of the Red states will do.

The other hilarious bit I read this morning was the list of the most banned books. The Harry Potter series led the way with "To Kill a Mocking Bird" a close second. No explanations were given for why any of the books on the list were banned, but it's fairly easy to deduce why these first two should be heaved onto the fire. Potter is magical fantasy and we newly serious people don't do fantasy and there is no justification for killing mocking birds. They are too small for a decent meal and besides, they taste funny. Funny is out.

So enough of this having fun stuff for me. I've got to get on with my serious day in my serious life. Charly, hand me my glasses. Not those, the Grouch ones with the nose and the mustache. I want to make an impression at the bank.

Observations on Important Stuff

Here's an observation and a question: In every shoot-em-up movie I've ever seen there comes a moment when the hero dives to the floor because bad guys are firing at him through the windows, walls or doors usually with automatic weapons spitting out dozens of rounds. The hero never gets hit though, because the shooters only fire at what is roughly a waist high level. My question is, have bad guys never seen a movie? Don't they know the hero is on the floor? Is there something wrong with their guns, they can't shoot ankle high? Okay that's three questions, but c'mon, do they all have low IQ's?

And speaking of Bush.

Another thing I need to know is about sneezing. Sneezing is one of those things that I suffer from. Anyone else share this? When I sneeze all the heat leaves my body and for 5 or 6 seconds I am just frozen from head to toe. Is this weird or common? Somebody take a poll.

Flipping the dial, I come across reruns of a tv show called, "Everwood." This is not a pornographic show as you first might guess or even a medical condition requiring treatment by, say, the E.R. staff, but rather a show about, among other protagonists, a teenage boy, which, now that I think about it, would also be a good guess. Everwood. Sounds painful and no doubt requiring a clever tailor.

Straight must be a word that drives people learning English totally bonkers. Even little British and American kids.

"That's right Dear, sound it out."

"Strah ig hut."

"Good boy."

A Swell Veldt Part 10

It was not going well for Lord Sahib Sackable who now thought of himself as Lord I Need a Drink, as he stumbled across the vast veldt. Some of the spots he was seeing before his eyes took to landing on parts of his exposed skin and nipping him viciously while the others remained in place despite his efforts to wave them away. Bongo and his boys had slipped off with the Earl’s gin, but had left him otherwise well provisioned. No matter, where the Earl was least equipped was between his ears, the place where good sense had been replaced with bad temper. Without Bongo to lead him about the bush, Sahib was hopelessly inept.

It would be difficult to say which of his many mistakes was his first, but among the early ones was the discharging of many rounds of ammo into the air. The Earl had done this, not in hopes that someone might have heard and rushed to his rescue, but rather in an angry fit of pique that to him, required noise above the decibel levels achieved by his bellowing. When his own ears had begun to ring from the sustained barrage, he had put down the rifle, the only weapon left to him, and taken note of the many shell casings lying on the ground about him. I wonder if, he thought, and then checking confirmed, how many bullets were in fact left. They totaled three.

As the day wore on and warmed on as well, Sackable began to discard the few possessions he had brought along. Back pack and utility belt were abandoned first and then bits of seemingly unnecessary clothing, jacket, scarf, pith helmet and whatnot were left strewn behind him. The Lord was not accustomed to carrying much beyond himself and, when fatigued, not even that. They don’t call them bearers for nothing was his motto at such times. In a little less than two hours he had reduced his burden to rifle, canteen and a mounting surliness that rivaled the fabled rhino’s. Beastly it was and beastly it would need be.

A Rant and a Rave

I guess in retrospect...if you are going to have spect, retro is probably the best kind...I didn't miss much by not seeing the Ryder Cup. The U.S. (Usual Suspects?) ...sus is a good kind of spect to have has well...got trounced by the Euros and there was little drama to be had. It's just that,well, in lieu of the RyderCup, our crack program selectors from Venezuela decided to air The X Games. Let me repeat, The X Games. Instead of an international competition featuring the best golfers from Europe playing the best Golfers from the U.S.A., we were shown grown men flipping bicycles and twirling on skateboards. "I give him a nine Ralph, that was a full 360 with no hands. I haven't seen that since like two minutes ago when the last guy did it." I realize that golf is not everyone's cup of tea, but if you are over 12 and you watch The X Games, I sincerely reccomend you get either therapy, a clue or mind altering drugs. You need a life.

Thank you, I do feel better now.

Afortunadamente, my angst ... a good word that conjures something both adolescent and lying on a couch spilling your guts to a german psychiatrist who says, "Ah so, and zen vatt happens?" and actually means "a gloomy,(Gloomy, in case you haven't noticed, is a perfect word. It sounds exactly like what it means.) often neurotic feeling of generalized anxiety and depression" so the conjuring is right on the money... was relieved by watching the Broncos playing and defeating the Patriots on Sunday Night Football after a long afternoon of short conversations, mostly chitchat (another on- the- money sounding word) with new pals on an old friend's, well relatively speaking, balcony, sipping assorted beverages -I had coffee followed by champagne (heartburn is my friend) - and munching most delicious foodstuffs including French dip sandwiches which, of course, cry out to be washed down by champagne because, you know, it's a French thing, and mingling about getting a sense of this guy and that gal. (Where would the Monkeymind be without run-on sentences?) In short - yes I can be short - party stuff for the over fifty set. All in all a day well spent.

The X Games....... Give me a break.

Worrier

You wouldn't know to look at me, but I'm a worrier. And for good reasons. For instance:

There are a couple programs I use to download music from the internet. They are free and some of 21st century life's nicer amenities. You probably use something of the sort yourself. The thing that worries me and probably you too if you think about it, is that these programs, in collusion with my computer, also download music I haven't asked for. I have at least a dozen songs on my random play list that neither I nor Woowoo Charly have ever heard before, and, in reality, wouldn't have chosen to hear a second time if we had. So what's the harm you ask? I don't know for sure... BUT... what if it's downloading other things you haven't asked for? What if it's downloading recipes or car repair instructions? Still so what, you say. Okay, what if it's downloading tiny devices that can emit rays that signal your dog to attack or cyber pods that absorb your personality and replace it with those of Aliens or Neo Cons, which are probably the same thing, or invisible beams of light that shoot into your eyeballs and blind you whenever you try to read Molly Ivans or Keith Olberman. What if you already have a program downloaded that's sending the subliminal message, Go Raiders? What about that huh? Still not worried? Well I am, but then I'm a worrier.

I'm also worried about Baru, our own personal volcano. It's been looking a little down lately. I think the constant shroud of clouds wrapped around its pointy parts that happens this time of year are beginning to get on its nerves. Last night we had a beautiful sunset that backdropped Baru in pinks and oranges and I thought I could detect a slight perking up of its shoulders, but this morning, what with the wind and rain back, they're all slumped and gray looking again. Don't know what to do to help. Maybe a big Prozac dropped from a copter into the chasm at the top might cheer it up. Of course, that might make it too frisky though. Might start spitting stuff back at us. And what do we do if that happens, being so close and all. Jeez, now I'm really worried. But then, I'm a worrier so it's all normal...right?

Nothing

Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, taking the floor at the U.N. the day after Bush had made his speech, said, " The Devil was here yesterday. I can still smell the sulphur." I don't want to rely on news to inspire my blog, I'd rather write about absolutely nothing, which is one of my favorite topics, but old Hugo cracked me up. "I can still smell the sulphur." The man has style.

He also used the word hegemony alot. That's a good word. I had to look it up. It means a country imposing its views on another country. Well, c'mon, what upstanding All American country would do a thing like that? It's a mystery to me. Anybody know?

But enough of that, let's talk about nothing. Nothing reared its ugly head while I was sleeping the other night, interrupting a pleasant dream about a girl I used to know in High School covered in chocolate chip cookie dough. One minute I'm mixing the batter and the next...nothing. It remained nothing for quite some time after that until my dog licked my face and woke me up to something. That being, of course, a dog licking my face. Where does the nothing go when you are on to something? And why is it so hard to get to nothing when you try for it? I was out on the blacony the other day for a good fifteen minutes following my breath in and out and om-ing to beat the band and couldn't get to nothing for nothing. There was always something. First it was why is that dog barking and then it was why is that kid crying and after that it was are they going to show The Ryder Cup on ESPN, the extra sensory perception network and then a whole stream of things like one liners from my subconscious. What's the deal with that. I was looking for a little relaxing nothing and instead I get a hit parade of my current concerns. That Ryder cup one, by the way, was way up the list. Right after the Bronco something and the one about what's that smell. Anyway, I'm going to leave you now and go consider nothing for awhile longer because, honestly, I've got nothing...else.

At a Loss For Words

Ninjas would be a good name for a sports team. Ninjas vs. Cardinals sounds like a mismatch though, even if the Cardinals are mucky muck catholics. Of course we already have "Tigers Maul Orioles" in boldface, so I guess it doesn't matter. I wonder why we never see violent headlines from the gentler nicknamed teams. You know, like "Angels Bomb Padres" or "Ravens Totally Flocked"? No imagination, I guess. The State colleges of Oregon have two of my favorite nicknames, Ducks and Beavers. I'm still waiting for the headline that says, "Beavers shoot back." I may have to wait awhile.

So, how's it going with you out there today? Everything okay? Good. Any requests?

I was just sitting here thinking about nothing in particular which is a semi buddhist thing to do. Thinking about Nothing. See, if you can get to Nothing, then you are open to Everything. Or so I've read. I must be open to Everything because I got Nothing. Just goes to show you shouldn't believe everything you read unless, you know, it's here where the truth comes to hide. For instance, I read this morning that if you drink five cups of green tea a day you will live forever or die from cancer. All other forms of death are excluded by the tea. Truth is there is still that bus bumper with your name on it. Besides, who wants to die from cancer? Have you ever had green tea? Yeah. Then you know. Green tea is to tea what light beer is to Guiness. There's no tea in the tea.

What else? What can I comment on? I'm taking questions from the audience. Anybody? C'mon, I'm at Wit's End which is a terrible place to be. No Wit. I'll have to go back to where Wit is. Tomorrow. Maybe. There's always a Swell Veldt.

Monkeyminding Galore

My mind is all over the mental map this sunny Sunday morning. Fueled by coffee, my neurons, electrons, protons and amateurtons are firing away in random order even if random and order seem to be opposites. It ain't called a monkeymind for nothin.

Is it possible that football, buddhsim, world peace, cookies, dreams and dogs can all occupy mental space in the same mind at the same time? It is if you're me.

Focus Doc, focus. Sort, separate and simplify.

I'll start with football first because I mentioned it first, even though world peace probably gets the nod by a smidgeon on a list of most important. Either that or dogs. The Broncos play today and the game is significant because they lost their opener last week. They can't start 0 and 2 and expect much from the season. They need to win and they need to win convincingly against a rebuilding opponent playing in Denver. The game is being shown here and I'm antsy to see it. I expect a win, in fact I expect a blowout and if I don't get both, I'll stress all next week in that small area of myself I reserve for inconsequential, I choose to have it, stress. This is a good form of stress. It's easy to put aside.

Jumping to the next brain cell branch I find buddhism. I've just read that the Dali Lama says you can be a jewish buddhist or a christian buddhist. In other words, buddhism will accomodate other religious doctrines. Alrighty then, that's makes me an agnostic buddhist. It's good to be something, finally.

In Denver Nobel Peace Prize winners are gathering to promote world peace. Why they are not in Washington where The Bush Administration is gathering to promote world war, beats me. Well not really. There is an organization there in Denver, Peacejam, that has brought these brilliant people together to hear their thoughts. So far their thoughts run along the lines of mine and I'm not smart at all. Bush sucks is one thought they have expressed in one way or another. I've had the same thought for quite some time. Hey, maybe I'm smarter than I think. Anyway, it makes me proud of Denver which I still consider my home town.

Tired of cake, I bought a bag of semi sweet chocolate chips and using the recipe on the back I made cookies. I'm afraid to eat them. There are mountains of butter and sugar inside them and even though I have them securely imprisoned in a zip lock bag downstairs, I fear they will escape and invade my body to clog arteries and grow massive mounds of fat. I'm going back to cake.

My dream was...well, see, now I can't remember.

Mostly I'm worried about my dog. Gus is a special, spoiled boy used to lots of attention, affection and care. We are going to be gone for a month and I keep thinking of all the things I need to tell his dogsitter to do and wondering if she will bother. I mean he needs to have the goobers cleaned from the corners of his eyes everyday. He needs to get his bone at four oclock sharp and his cookies meted out in a certain playful way. He has to have a fight with my sneakered foot almost nightly and a tug of war on demand. He knows that if we sit at the table and eat, he can't bother us, but if we snack on the couch, he gets some. He needs walks and avocado hunts and a noisy but not viscious scrap with Bobby his nemesis. The look on his face when we leave him alone for an hour or two is heart breaking. What will he do when we are gone for a month? Will he be able to stand it? Will I?

Keeping Abreast

The televison shows that are aired here in English have Spanish subtitles. In a perfect world, that is, in my perfect world, the shows aired in Spanish would have Spanish subtitles. (Also in my perfect world I'd be taller, but that's another blog.) I can read Spanish fairly well, but I don't hear Spanish worth a damn. Okay, I hear it, I just don't understand the meaning of what sounds like one long word. That word arrives at my ears faster than the many words on paper arrive at my eyes. At least that was the case until last night. Last night my reading skill was put to the test when "Justicia Ciega" (Boston Legal renamed Blind Justice) came on and there was no sound track. We have been following the show since we discovered it a week or so back and wanted to keep abreast of the ongoing story lines, so I just read and translated aloud the subtitles. They come and go muy rapido. Like flash cards of sentences.

Denny Crane pleasure remember time affair we you look hot same. So Alan no es possiblay me understand look at gorgeous can't expect comment no. Judge client suffers objection science intelligent design neither irrelevant schools we won. Man little will again kill sorry. Women cigars should have. My name is Schmidt.

Yeah. And me Tarzan you Jane.

In other news, I read this morning that nine Nobel Peace Prize winners meeting in Denver have come up with what evil is, to wit: racism, poverty and environmental destruction. I've got no argument there, although I would add long Par 4's to the list. That and green peppers. Green peppers are evil too. (The New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, Oakland Raiders and Rap music go without saying.)

According to some group I read about somewhere... an infallible source, the Dutch have now surpassed Americans as the tallest people on the planet. In my next life I'm coming back as a Vanderwalton.

Bedtime

I went to bed early last night. That sentence tolls an hour in most minds. Eleven? Ten? Surely not nine? Do you mean earlier than usual or just...early? Truth is, I went to bed at seven oclock last night. No I wasn't sick. No I wasn't tired. I wasn't even bored. I just had nothing better to do than a Dick Francis novel read sitting up in bed where the light is good and the pillows are cushy. Downstairs the muted sounds of Desperately Dramatic Housewives, CSI (Chemicals Surely Imbibed), Dr. House, Law and Order Pizza, that's the one with the two Italian guys, one handsome, one chubby, wait...the chubby guy might be Irish, and some show whose sound track I couldn't recognize, mingled madly together telling me that Woowoo Charly was either not captivated by the evening's fare or was just thrilled with having the remote control at her end of the couch.

As the night wore on...as the night went on...as the night did whatever it is that night's do to eventually become day, I gradually, in small increments, slid further and further down the pillow pile. Somewhere around the neighborhood of nine, a neighborhood that thirty okay forty years ago I would have considered going out in, I tossed two of my three pillows somewhere, abandoned Francis' protagonist who had just been heaved over a balcony by bad guys, hit the light and lay back to listen to yet another version of Law and Order. I can always tell it's L and O because every few minutes there is a sound indicating a scene change that goes, chunk chunk.
This is currently my favorite show to fall asleep to. There is lots of dialogue by players whose voices I recognize and despite it being a cop show, the Law part anyway, there are few gunshots, explosions and car chases. Little, in other words, to startle me from the downward spiral of sleep or, when arriving at sleeps's door, to provoke disturbing dreams. The only better way to fall asleep, as far as I can tell, is to have the book fall gently onto your chest as you insert yourself into the mystery of it's pages. This, however, can result in a mashed book and a twisted pair of glasses. Both of these sleep inducing methods, the actual drone of the tv and the mental drone of words losing their meaning, I understand to be white noise. That is, a masking noise that blots out other noises leaving you with only the hum of itself. I find it a near essential for a good night's sleep.

Charly begs to differ. Okay, she doesn't actually beg. It's more a noisy insistence. She says the way to fall asleep is to lie in the dark with no sounds whatsoever and let your mind follow its own path to unconsciousness. How weird is that? Not weird? You agree with her? But what about that rustling outside the window and what's that noise coming from the downstairs? Did you hear that? Sounds like somebody's on the roof. How can anyone go to sleep with all that going on? No matter to Charly, she drifts right off.

Over the year's, being the splendid partner she is, Charly has mostly tolerated my noisy departure from wakefulness as, once I'm asleep, she can turn out the light, turn off the noise and then join me in coma. The reverse doesn't work for obvious reasons. I can't wait for her to fall asleep and then turn on the lights or the white noise. This falls under the category of let sleeping wives lie. I'd rather face the guy on the roof then wake her.

Last night, then, as it turned out, worked for both of us. We fell asleep in our own happy fashions and this A.M. Charly's feeling swell, I'm chipper and even the dog looks refreshed. So... seven oclock, a good hour for bed? Nah. I don't think so. It's just too weird.

A Swell Veldt Part 9

Rhinos are a not particularly social animal. Rarely will you catch them clustered around the water cooler discussing Desperate Mouse Lives with others of their kind before setting off about their daily routines. No, they prefer solitude to company, which in the grand scheme of things, is probably to the betterment of all as Rhinos are quite cranky at the sight of the rising sun. Their attitude ascends from cranky steadily along to irritable during the day and I would be remiss if I failed to point out the completely appalling dispositions they achieve by nightfall. It was, therefore, as Miles Everhard squinted through his binoculars at the great black beast pawing clouds of dust around him, that he was looking at an animal, it would be fair to say, who was not in a good mood.

Miles made one of those slow motion, dry swallows lacking a trace of liquid that end in an audible gulp and reached for his flask.

“What is it Miles? Cynthia said, intercepting the flask and taking a belt herself. Lady Sackable was a modern woman and believed that the fair sex were quite capable of doing what men were doing, especially if what men were doing was shots. “What do you see?”

“Oh nothing, really, Lady Ess, just the longest horn I’ve ever spied, quite intimidating actually, and the fellow sporting it looks somewhat menacing as well. Here then, take a look for yourself.”

Miles and Cynthia exchanged flask and binoculars with Miles getting several quick swigs in the process while Lady Ess adjusted focus on the distant rhino. When at last the image sharpened, she jumped back at the seeming closeness of the great beast.

“Oh my word,” she exclaimed as she regained her composure and refitted the glass to her eyes. “He’s magnificent. I’ve never seen such a horn. Oh Miles, I must get my hands on it.”

“And so you shall if I have anything to say about it and I do have something to say about it” said Miles.

What he said next was a shock to no one who knew him well. He said in the best I’m in charge here tone he could muster, “Noblong, come over here. I’ve got a job for you.”

The Colorado Denvers

Did I say 12 and 4? What was I thinking? Make it 11 and 5. The Wild Horses That Can’t Be Tamed were butt butted by The Rams.

And speaking of lame team monikers it’s hard to beat the Utah Jazz, - “Ladies and Gentlemen let’s give it up for The Morman Tabernacle Choir as they cover the best of Louie Armstrong!” – but Colorado’s pro teams, as a group, should receive some sort of dumbness trophy. I’ve already mentioned the Broncos and they are possibly the best of the lot. Consider now the Nuggets, Rockies, Avalanche and Rapids.

The Denver Nuggets. Let’s just assume the average jamoke from Iowa knows that we’re talking gold and not chicken Mac. He’d still have to wonder what the team’s logo looked like. A pile of shiny rocks would be a good guess. Rocks of a certain size can be intimidating in a snowball fight, but apart from that not much help against the Hawks or the Warriors. I’ll bet if I called the front office to explain, they would tell me that you take the Nuggets to an assayer’s office, determine their value, swap them for cash, trot on down to Gart Brothers Sporting Goods, buy a gun and shoot the Memphis Grizzlies. Get a little bug spray for the Hornets while you are at it. Nuggets, jeez. Their mascot is a guy dressed up like a cougar. You can see the connection there right? Little pile of shiny rocks…cougar? Colorado Cougars! It should have happened.

Colorado Rockies. This might make sense if other states had Rockies as their team name as well. The Utah Rockies, the Wyoming Rockies, etc. We tack on the Colorado part so you know which Rockies we’re talking about. It’s not like the Rockies are exclusive to Colorado and here I am already assuming the average bear knows that Rockies is short for the Rocky Mountains and not, as I’ve noted somewhere before, people who are unsteady on their feet. Average Bears, by the way, would be a great name for this franchise. It would give them something to aspire to. The logo here is a mountain peak sitting majestically around doing nothing in particular to look menacing to the day’s opposition. Sort of like the team’s player lineup. And the mascot? I know, you’re thinking a guy dressed as a mountain. Nope, it’s a guy in a purple dinosaur costume. Fat and cuddly. Eat your heart out Diamondbacks. This is a team that should have been the Denver Bears, a named used by an earlier minor league team that played there and kept baseball in the public eye. There would be a nice historical connection in that. Instead we get Rockies which was the name of a former hockey team that played in Denver. Sheesh.

I kind of like Avalanche. The more I think about it, the more I like it. I like their colors, their logo and avalanches are intimidating and fear inducing. Our team will bury yours kind of image. I don’t know what their mascot is. Can’t be a guy dressed as snow, can it? Considering Colorado’s other choices it’s probably something with a nice avalanche tie in like, you know, a guy in a squirrel suit.

Then we have the soccer team which is the Rapids. I’m guessing that means their players are fast and their logo looks like the guy on the street light when it turns green. I’m afraid though, they just mean fast moving water. Doesn’t matter. This is soccer I'm talking about. Nobody is watching anyway.

A Rainy Day

It rained all day yestidday so I went down to da Bada Bing to shoot some stick and tawk to da guys. Paulie and Cristafah wuz already dere. Tone and Sil came in latah. Sil brought some gabagule and baked ziti wid im, so we din't have ta manja dat fuckin bah food. Aftah eatin an playin a couple racks, we moved to da back room to discuss some bizness. It ad been a coupla weeks since we whacked sum bahdy and we wuz all gettin a little itchy, a little tight, if ya know whad i'm sayin. Tone was havin some problems at home wid Carm, Paulie's mom was drivin im crazy and Christafah was all jumpy like, so I'm tinking he's back on da juice. Anywayz, dey looked like dey could use a little action ta blow off steam or sometin. Me and Sil was nawmal as usual, wich is ta say, always ready ta whack sum gavone for dah famly. Hey, mamaluche, idz my job. So aftah kickin it aroun faw an ow-ah or so, we tahget one a dah New Yawk mob dats been cuttin in ta ah supply of dansahs, you know, payin em maw to shake der tits at his club. Dis ain't nice. Dis ain't right. Dis ain't respectful. Ya gotta ask fuhst. Plus we heah in Jersey don't like dose New Yawk cocksukahs anyway. Da plan is dis. We're gonna get Christafa's girlfriend to go down ta dis mope's joint and audition faw im. Adriana's got a body on er like, how can I say dis, widout offendin Christafah, like vada vada voom if ya know whad i'm sayin. She's gonna come on ta da guy and ged im to take huh to huh houze. When he comes true da daw ah dah place, we'll all be waitin. I'm a simple, straight fawwad kinda guy, so ahm just gonna shoot im. Tone, he likes the wire so he's goin for da garrote. Paulie's a shiv man and Christafah he'll just plain beat ya ta death, so it shud be a fun time faw every bahdy. Aftawuhds, we'll chop im up and pud em in kitchen bags, take em to da shaw an feed im to da fishes. Mahhdone, dis is gonna be fun.

It did rain all day yesterday and there was a best of The Sopranos marathon on cable. Guess what I did.

Denver Football Fare

Although Denver is my team, I've never liked the name Broncos. First off, a bronco, bucking or otherwise, is a wild horse that cowboys catch and tame. "Break" is the term used for this taming. Who wants a team that can be broken to some other teams will? Especially by Cowboys... or Raiders. And secondly, Broncos is a funny word to say. Brahhn Cohz. I like horses though, and I like the fierce horsehead logo on the side of Denver's helmets so I won't advocate abandoning the name entirely. Instead I am now officially starting the movement to alter the name to The Denver Wild Horses That Can't Be Tamed. Who's with me?

Lest you think me frivolous, I feel I should point out that I was the one who lobbied year after year for the Broncos to change their featured color from orange to blue, noting that orange was a nice color on fruit, but rarely seen on winning sports teams. No team featuring orange, to this day, has ever won a Super Bowl. Tampa Bay claims their uniform color is orange, but it is really a shade of red. When the Broncos listened to me at last and changed their unies to predominately blue, they immediately won two championships and have pretty much been in the hunt ever since. Tampa Bay after tweaking their orange to red also got to hoist the Lombardi Trophy.

Attention to detail matters. Team nicknames, colors and especially the selection of cheerleaders and their outfits go a long way towards making a team a winner.

That said, here is my prediction for this years Denver Wild Horses That Can't Be Tamed:
12 wins 4 losses. The losses will be to New England, Pittsburgh and Kansas City on the road and to Baltimore at home. Denver has difficulty beating teams like The Ravens who wear purple. Check their record against Baltimore and Minnesota and you'll see what I mean. Ultimately, The Wild Horses That Can't Be Tamed will make it to the AFC Championship Game where they will lose to, and this is ironic, The Colts. The Colts will then go on to beat the Giants in a Manning vs. Manning sequel to their first game of the season shootout.

One final thought. If you think The Denver Wild Horses That Can't Be Tamed is a bit unweildly then consider this: I just read a book entitled "There's Nothing In This Book That I Meant To Say." So see, it's a trend.

The Jump Shot

I was watching the Shock Absorbers, Detroit's women's pro basketball team playing the Sacramento, I'm thinking, Monarchs, when I saw something that was, truly, shocking. One of their players, a woman named Deanna Nolan, shot a jump shot. This was amazing in that, heretofore, women did not shoot jumpshots. They shot push shots while jumping. Let me explain. The term jump shot is actually a misnomer. Jumping up while shooting does not constitute a jump shot despite the logic there. Jumping up, stopping at the jump's peak, then shooting, then coming down, is what I, and now the world - hey, this blog gets around- understands to be a jump shot. It would be called the jumping up stopping shooting coming down shot if there was any real rhyme or reason to the universe, but then, let's be serious, Dubya is president. Back in the day, at the dawn of jump shots, my own was a thing of beauty. I would rise effortlessly above the other players regardless of their size, survey my surroundings, find a pretty girl's face among the crowd, make eye contact with the sweet thing, wink, look back at the basket and then toss the ball in a gentle arc through the net, before returning to the hardwood. Okay, I'm fibbing a little bit. I didn't wink. The trick here, was to stay in the air until your opponent, who had jumped up with you, returned to earth before you released the ball. If you can't visualize what I am describing, think of Michael Jordon in the early years before he had to fade away to get his shot off. You know, when he could still jump and wore an "I want to be like Doc" t-shirt in practice. So it was surprising to see a woman actually shoot this kind of shot. The stopping at the top of the jump had always eluded them until now. Defiance of gravity, like car maintenance, a "guy thing." I guess it won't be long before they will be doing the full 360 reverse slam left handed tomahawk net ripper dunk and I won't have a single shot left I can call my own. Oh well, that's progress I guess.

Picture Painting

Jorge the painter speaks the kind of Spanish that makes me crazy. It's kind of slurry and sounds like Aaron Neville messing with the last syllabal of a song. There is nary a consonant to be found anywhere in the yodel and even a simple phrase like bueno dias becomes hard to decipher as it arrives as when-0de-ee-oss. I fear I will be technically fluent and still be unable to understand the regular speech of the everyday Panamanian. Not that that's a problem. I get by being clueless as to the lyrics of your average rap or hip hop song apart from the ubiquitous "fuck" and when I lived in the South as I young man I went weeks nodding and smiling at people whose language was theoretically the same one I was using even though only every fourth or fifth word was recognizable as such. So no big deal really.

"What's that Jorge?" Si, si, por favor. Whoops. I think I just agreed to have the window glass painted over. Ah well, we can always go outside for the view.

Jorge has been here since Tuesday painting most of the interior. It all looks good and is essentially the same sort of peachy color we had before, but a touch darker and, of course, less faded looking. Gus can't wait to get wet and rub himself dry against the bottom ten inches of the walls. I'm told though, that this paint is easier to clean than the old stuff. Gus is looking at me as I write this and has just said in dog, a language easier to understand than street Spanish, "you're sure to find out."

Displaced, discombobulated, disarrayed and other forms of being dissed short of disaster are what it's like to be living in a house while it's being painted. Nothing is where it is supposed to be. "Charly, hand me the remote will ya." Charly? Charly?" Now where have they put her. Amazingly, Gus remains the same color. I thought for sure, he'd end up peachy and we'd have to wait for movement to see him like picking out Predator against the backdrop. We've tried to vacate for as long as we can the last two days, but we've run out of things to do outside the house. I've had today planned for weeks now and I'm not altering my schedule for any reason. The NFL season gets underway at seven and as soon as I finish this, I'm going downstairs to sit in front of the tv to wait for it. I just hope there are air holes in those drop cloths.

There was one other thing I wanted to talk about today that has nothing to do with what I've already talked about but since a segue is usually called for at times like this - I once had a Toyota Segue that got 36 miles to the gallon- here's the one that comes to mind. Kevin Bacon once had his house painted by a guy named Kirk which just happens to be the name of the most famous character that William Shatner ever played. Shatner is now on a show called Boston Legal. Charly and I have seen commercials for BL several times and commented that it looked like something we would want to watch. Unfortunately, it never played here in Panama...we thought. This is not unusual, by the way, especially in sports. Many events are promoted, but never seen, which better not be the case with tonight's game or Gus and I will be completely out of sorts, which is a thing you should never be out of. Anyway, flippingthe flipping dial last night, I came across a show called Justicia Ciega which means, Blind Justice. Wouldn't you know, it's Boston Legal. I can only speculate as to the name change, but I think it has something to do with Mariano Rivera, a Panamanian, playing for Yankees. That and Boston being a hard word to slur in Spanish. Anyway, it appears to be a good show. We'll watch it again.

The 100th Blog

Today's is my 100th blog. Calls for a celebration. I think I'll have another shot of coffee in my coffee. You, on the other hand, being younger and more energetic, should go out to breakfast, lunch and dinner, see a movie, buy a new car and another dog and do something with fireworks that will get you thrown in jail over night. Oh and a toast is in order. I like mine made from rye, almost burned, crunchy with plenty of butter.

To further help you celebrate I will tell you how to get very rich, very quickly. Bring back the pocket T. That's right, the t-shirt with the little pocket that designers abandoned when cigarette smoking fell from favor. Apparently it never occurred to the people who brought us shorts that hang to mid calf - shouldn't they be called mediums - that those pockets could be used for other things like glasses, pens, or cocktail napkins with someone's phone number and email addresses written on them. Why have a usefull pocket when a useless logo can make your customer a walking billboard. Okay, okay, I see the wisdom in that from their point of view, but am I a maverick, a radical, looney tunes or a visionary - actually, I am a visionarian, we treat the short-sighted -when I ask, why not both? Everyone and I mean everyone I've talked to, and this is a number exceeding four, has found this to be a good idea. So lets you get right on that right now and flood the market before Nike swooshes in and makes all the money. Of course if pocket T-s are already back, I mean they could be, we here in Panama are a step or two removed from the fashion capitols of the world, then let me know and I will give you my back up idea for making the long green. Here's a hint. It has something to do with saving fabric costs by making shorts... ah... well... short.

And on a related subject, related in the sense that Kevin Bacon sometimes wears t-shirts while reading, I had a thought about why everyone should read my blog and everything else they can get their hands on. Now you know what happens when I have thoughts. First there is the headache and then the weird compulsion to either write or say aloud what I was thinking. This is usually followed by laughter and people pointing their fingers and snorting. It's all very strange. Nevertheless, as there is no therapy to stop my thoughts from coming here and there, I give you this latest. People who don't read much see only the lifestyles that are around them. Narrows their choices. People who read a lot are introduced to thousands of potential ways to live a successful life. This makes them more open minded and more accepting of the choices made by others.

Compassion and t-shirts with pockets. The monkeymind lives.

Just Another Day In Panama

Now that I've had a day to think of it, I'm fairly certain the movie was "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes."

I didn't get to watch an entire movie yesterday, but I did catch a bit of the cartoon flick "The Prince of Egypt." This is an animated remake of "The Ten Commandments" and it looked well done. The cartoon character playing Moses was a far better actor than Charlton Heston, but then, he, unlike Heston, was able to make actual facial expressions beyond stern.

My usual movie watching time slot was pre-empted by a visit to our travel agent. It was there that we learned our airfare to NY would cost $150 more than last time because of fuel costs. That's per ticket. I think the planes have got to stop pulling into those Exxon stations and start shopping the discount spots like Shamrock and Emerald. We take The Beast to a station outside of David that has no name at all, just pumps. It's often 15 cents a gallon cheaper than Shell, Texaco and the other biggies. Delta and Continental need to fill up there. How expensive can jet fuel be anyway? It's made from burritos isn't it?

In other news yesterday it rained and our power went out. These are fairly common occurences during the Rainy and Power Going Out Season which runs from May to November. The Dry and Power Going Out Season runs from November to May. Woowoo Charly and I sat on the balcony with cocktails and watched the rain come down. We would have had cocktails by candlelight but it was eleven in the morning. Just kidding, it was four...ish. The power was only out for an hour or so. Not much of a seige. The last time it was closer to six hours and it came back on in the dead of the night to awaken us from dreamland with forgotten lamps bursting on, digital clock flashing, computer beeping, printer noises and our dog leaping off the bed to bark at the ruckus. Nice.

And speaking of movies, flying and being powerless, has anyone seen "Snakes on a Plane"? and if so, why? Yikes. What a concept. Who would go to see snake movies besides someone like me who is compelled by lack of reason to watch horror movies even when they are bad. Snakes are creepy, literally and figuratively. Where are those killer tomatoes when you need them?

Good Movies

I watched the end of one of the worst movies ever yesterday. Or was it one of the best? Reviewers have to consider first the story line, followed by the quality of the acting , directing, lighting, sound, make up, wardrobe and, well, all those things that run down the screen at the end of the movie while they are filing out of the theatre listening to bad music. Fortunately, "The Creature With The Atom Brain" had none of the above as it was made on a budget consisting of whatever profit the producers could make selling Kool Aide at the side of the set, so reviewers were able to put aside trivial concerns like dialogue and focus exclusively on the special effects like the Creature breaking windows with his hands and never getting cut. The Creature, by the way, was a middle aged, balding guy in a suit who had a scar drawn horizontally across his forehead to indicate where his brain had been tampered with. This tampering - I missed the movie's beginning so I don't know what happened for sure - somehow left the Creature in a zombie state controlled by a mad scientist who was himself controlled by an agent of a corupt government. You know, like Cheney and Bush. Luckily for America and all the world, Richard Denning - you may remember him from "The Creature From The Black Lagoon." He was the blonde guy who along with Richard Carlson and Julie Adams looking stunning in a one piece white bathing suit did battle with The Gilman as he came to be known in several sequels- is able to track this Atom Brained Creature to his lair, a house in the suburbs, by flying overhead in a helicopter. Once there, he destroys the scientific equipment, a television and a cabinet with a lot of knobs, that are responsible for the Creature and a half dozen fellow zombies who were just activated before our hero's arrival and who were now out on the lawn fighting the police hand to hand and mostly winning. The equipment smashing is preceded by fisticuffs with Bush who has killed Cheney and is then killed by the Creature himself. Somehow the destruction of the tv and the cabinet with knobs causes the zombies, played by what look like insurance salesmen, to all shut off at once, fall down and I suppose, die. After that happiness ensues and the movie ends.

I gave it 4 stars out of a possible 5. The only movie I have actually given 5 stars to was "Plan Nine From Outer Space" which had no plot but had something to do with pie-pan flying saucers held aloft by a visible string, space aliens and Bela Lugosi as Dracula. Bela died while the movie was being made so his contribution was minimal, but enough to get the flick that extra star. I gave four and a half stars to a movie whose title was, I think, "The Tomato That Ate Chicago" - that may not be precisely correct, it was a long time ago and I only saw it once, but, should you ever come across it, it's a must see.

By now you are gleaning that I will pretty much watch any movie that the tv guide describes as "Horror." It is easily my favorite film genre and the reason why I must leave you now. There's a Richard Gere/ Julie Roberts flick starting on HBO in about five minutes. Whoa! Talk about scary!