The Ideasmithy

Kiss My Aphorism #12

2005-12-21T20:36:00.000-05:00

I live vicariously through myself.

Blowing In The Wind

2005-12-21T20:33:00.001-05:00

When I was but a wee lad my wisdom-loving father imparted me with this gem:

‘Tis better to fart and feel the shame,
Than t’not and feel the pain.

Timeless. That adage is as pertinent today as it was when we huddled together in caves and round fires (where it was also important to exercise cautious gaseous emissions.) Like a good tummy squeaker, that bit of fartosophy really resonates. I am affected deep down inside, like to my duodenum.

But, what more can we learn from farts? A good fart is like a zen koan. It is meant to shake us free of our preconceptions and attachments. What is a fart but a sound and a flurry of poopicles? Of course the most remarkable thing about a fart is the smell. Is not smell the most ephemeral of senses?

Sights can be recorded, and now, thanks to digital imagery, published and printed in minutes. Sounds, too, can be recorded and reproduced at will. Tastes are created by recipes or are naturally occurring in categories. While tastes share some of the transitory nature of scent, they are more or less accessible for repeated samplings. If they are not we can preserve a sample to bring and share with a loved one. Touch, too can be transitory, but it was more in common with taste than smell. What is more familiar than the touch of a spouse or the grasp of a child?

The great Greek wisdom-lover Heraclitus (not to be confused with the transgender porn star Harry Clitoris) once said:

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.

Can not the same be said of farts. It is the unique combination of diet, mood, health, and wind current that produces a really nose shriveling stink.

Sure, it can be argued that the rankest of toots has a taste. And who hasn’t felt the rotten caress of a cloud of farticles emitted by a loved one beneath the bedclothes? As for sight, seeing a fart would require doing laundry or using a match to light a blue dart.

Whatever farts are, they remind us that it is only in the present moment that we exist. The past, much like an old fart, is but a memory. The future is today’s meal or stomach cramp. It is only in the present moment that we get the full effect, the real experience.

Protection

2005-10-13T14:15:00.000-04:00

Flash back 15 or so years ago to my footloose and fancy-free days as a swinging dick. Friday evening would come along and invariably someone would call me up and ask if I wanted to go to a bar for some drinks. I would, of course, agree to be in attendance. Before leaving, I would make a trip to the medicince cabinet and grab a little, foil-reinforced, square wrapper and slip it into a pocket, in antcipation of good things to come (pun intended).

Fade out and back in to the modern day. I, a husband and a father, get a call from a friend about going out to the pub on Friday for a couple of drinks. As a fan of libations and bacchanalia in general, I most-heartily agree. Before leaving, I make a trip to the medicine cabinet and grab a little, foil-reinforced, square wrapper and slip it into a pocket, in anticipation of good things to come.

Aside from time and space, the two scenes are remarkably similar. However, now that little wrapper contains a Lactaid pill instead of condom.

The true shift in theme is from my potency as a bachelor to the lack of potency of my digestive juices. Sad really. Of course, the other thing that is different is that if I really want to "score" on a current Friday outing, a pizza is just eight bucks away. If I wanted to score fifteen years ago, well, let's just say that I have gone through far more Lactaid pills, than I have condoms.

Not all is lost, my skill at unwrapping a condom is transferable! I can use nothing but a pair of canine incisors and my left hand to unwrap a Lactaid pill while my right hand hoists a dripping slice of tomato pie to my face.

Starfucks

2005-10-11T23:42:00.000-04:00

Mmm . . . coffee.

Starbucks!

What the fuck?

For all of those keeping a lexicon of stupid names for sizes, here is a Starbucks crib sheet:

Tall = Small (Mnemonic device - they rhyme.)
Grande = Medium (Mnemonic device - it is fucking pretentious!)
Venti = Large (Mnemonic device - large rooms can feel drafty, or vent-y.)

Once, I almost got in a fist fight with a round little pizza maker named Mario. I was sort of afraid that he would pop a mushroom, grow to giant size and stomp my sorry ass into oblivion. However, that only happens with round little plumbers named Mario, and even then, only in the imagination of the Japanese.

As I was saying, Mario owned the eponymous pizza joint in which I was awaiting a slice. While sipping my icy cold Yoohoo, the mind and eye tend to wander. I noticed that there were only two size of pizza for order - medium and large. WTF?

“Mario,” I says, “Oh, Mario. You can’t have a medium without both a large and a small. Medium is a half way point of sorts, it is the in-between, and in order to have an in-between you need to have two extremes. Dark, shadow, light. Black, gray, white. Antithesis, synthesis, thesis. Small, medium, and large.”

Mario’s pizza making compatriot (who’s name I hope was Luigi) threw a handful of high gluten flour at me. Mario waved that big, scary, scorched paddle that resembles an ax at me. Another customer told me “You don’t like it. Don’t order.”

There is only so much bullshit I am willing to put up with. Mario let my slice burn and I never returned to his f-ed up establishment.

Now if Starbucks didn’t have such damn fine coffee, I would wag my finger at them, let fly with a diatribe equally as pretentious as that which it is criticizing, and never go there again. Instead, I just order using small, medium, and large. I mean, who wants to feel like they have to take an e-mail course in Esperanto in order to order some joe?

They serve me. They understand. I don’t even point to the correct cup or use any other sign language to clarify my crystal clear English.

It seems to me that what the owners of Starbucks are really sizing is their dicks! What man with a little pimple of a prick wouldn’t want to approach a lady and proudly proclaim he has a tall dick? He wouldn’t do it saying he had a small dick! Even saying your pecker is grande is better than average size. Venti, well, guys with big dicks don’t need to use any words to describe their members, they just let the evidence speak for itself.

Kiss My Aphorism # 11

2005-10-10T22:15:00.000-04:00

It is a true and noble kite that loves its string. For while the string prevents the kite from reaching the sun and attaining the stars, it is that self-same string that allows the kite to brush the clouds and supports it in combing the sky.

Kiss My Aphorism #34

2005-10-06T21:01:00.000-04:00

In an overheard conversation, I heard the ghost of an aviator claim "Gravity ultimately wins."

Kiss My Aphorism #69

2005-10-03T22:18:00.000-04:00

What goes around, cums around.

Kiss My Aphorism #82

2005-10-02T19:54:00.000-04:00

A pregnant man once told me anything is possible.

I like to believe him.

A Little Too Ironic

2005-08-31T06:30:00.000-04:00

It is one of those things that it is easier to demonstrate than to define. Alanis Morissette thought so, and got it wrong. Now I am going to give it a try.

No. I am not going to bust out into song. Thugh I made an appropriate observation the other day while doing the dishes.

I find it ironic that the best way to clean my espresso pot and my flask, is a with a baby bottle brush. That is correct, straight from Gerber with that little baby's face on it, painted by Humphrey Bogart's grandmother. It was just trial and eror that led me to this discovery, but it is ironic none-the-less.

My Ass STILL Smells like Tic Tacs.

2005-08-16T20:20:00.000-04:00

People have asked me: Your ass STILL smells like Tic Tacs?

Simply put -- Yes. So I haven’t been blogging lately. Does that mean that I haven’t been wiping lately? All I have to say in response are two things: peanut butter and shag carpeting. I wouldn’t give up using those candy scented delights for anything. My daughter will be working on her thesis and I will still be buying Kandoo toddler wipes.

In fact, my wife bought a generic alternative. How did I figure this out? The nose knows. I just put down the Eye Spy book I was perusing and reached for the Kandoo when I caught a whiff of flowery baby powder. I hadn’t used my wife’s deodorant that day so I knew something was up.

Additionally, I was disappointed to see a little zigag pattern crossing the wipe. What the hell? Where were the alphabet blocks and teddy bears of Kandoo? I take no small amount of pleasure at the bear being on the wipe. There is that old joke about a bear and a rabbit shitting in the woods. The bear asks the rabbit if he has a problem with shit sticking to his fur. When the rabbit says no, the bear wipes his ass with the rabbit. I imagine myself a 5’ 10” bunny, like in Donny Darko but without the bullet wound. Now who is wiping with who Mister Bear? Mwa ha ha ha! Flush.

That is some shitty karma. I now affectionately refer to the bear on the Kandoo wipe as Winnie-the-Poo.

Enough about feces.

It is not that I haven’t had ideas to blog. I haven’t had any real downtime in which to blog. I am a teacher. It is summer. I should have loads of down time. Right? Wrong. For some reason I am way more busy in summer than any other time of the year.

School begins next week. Hopefully I will see some downtime so that I might blog more. Until then ...

My Ass Smells Like Tic Tacs

2005-06-29T11:25:00.000-04:00

It’s not that I am using pill shaped confections as suppositories. I rarely shove things into my bung without a really good medical reason. It’s Kandoo. Procter & Gamble has started a new product line aimed at children called Kandoo. Kandoo are heiny wipes for kids. They come in a colorful, reusable, refillable plastic dispenser, with a delightful cartoon figure of an anthropomorphic frog wiping his ass.

Hold on a second.

A frog wiping his bum. I presume its a he. It could be a she. I see no gender distinguishing organs - thankfully. Couldn’t they have chosen a better animal than a frog? Frogs shit in the water don’t they? Who needs to wipe when you shit in the water - anthropomorphic or not? Then again, you wouldn’t want a mammal or a bird. Who wants to think about dragging turd fragments through fur and feathers with what is essentially a fanny friendly wet-nap? That is like trying to get peanut butter out of shag carpeting. Okay, Applause P & G, the frog makes sense.

Okay, toddler wipes that leave your ass smelling remarkably like Tic Tacs. I am not a yoga master, nor does my wife love me enough to poke her nose into my ass crack to take a whiff. I presume my ass smells like Tic Tacs because the wipes do. It is almost enough to get me to stop using them, but not quite.

Incidentally, You may remember that I’m not much of a dandy when it comes to wiping. I have discussed this before in this very forum. Check it out here. Allow me to refresh your memory. When it comes to cleaning up after taking a dump, I am not picky, I’m wipe-y. As long as I have something softer than yesterday’s newspaper I am fine. But, a big butt, using a flushable moist wipe does add a new dimension of clean and fresh after the deuce is dropped. If you don’t currently swab with squishy softness, let me recommend it. However, I think that there are actually grown-up ass-wipes on the market. If you try them, let me know what they smell like. I can’t imagine a good scent for your ass. Lemon? Spearmint? I may have to explore this thought some more.

MTV is the Illuminati

2005-06-24T07:17:00.000-04:00

MTV is the Illuminati, or at least works for them.

“What is the Illuminati?” you may ask. The Illuminati is a group that secretly seeks to control the world. They are so secret that no one is quite sure they exist, and if they do, no one knows their true goal(s). Some might say that the Illuminati is the Freemasons, or perhaps even the Catholic Church. Others may believe them to be a cabal of super scientists in service to an alien intelligence.

“How did you come by the brilliant deduction the MTV is the Illuminati?” you may ask. I watched the film, the MTV film, Napoleon Dynamite. For those uninitiated few, Napoleon Dynamite is a strange comedy about a strange teen. It is not funny when you watch it, however, it is funny to talk about it with someone later on.

Napoleon Dynamite was wildly successful with children and teens. Ironic, considering that most of the kids who are laughing at it and writing “Vote for Pedro” on their Trapper Keeper would have kicked Napoleon’ ass had he been a student in their class. Herein lies the subtle genius that is MTV, the Illuminati.

The thinker and counterculture icon Robert Anton Wilson has written prodigiously on the subject of the Illuminati. For Wilson, it all began with a trilogy of novels, co-written with Robert Shea, entitled “Illuminatus!” In the books the Roberts put forth a dizzying array of conjectures as to who or what the Illuminati is. It is in reading the first novel in the trilogy, “The Eye in the Pyramid” that I have taken my cue.

Wilson and Shea brilliantly pen a scene where a couple of characters, stuck in at red light in the middle of traffic in downtown Chicago, stop their car and walk backwards along the line of vehicles, tapping on the hoods and windows and saying with complete confidence and authority: “Bavarian fire drill. Please step out of your vehicle.” The trick is to act with complete confidence. Speak with authority and never stop. Act as if there is no doubt in your mind that people will comply, and guess what. They guys had everyone in the traffic jam standing outside of their cars at a green light.

Of course, this is a scene out of a novel but it does illustrate a truth about human psychology. I use it everyday. I call it my teacher voice. Speaking from the center of my body (not from the chest, throat, mouth, or nose) I lower my voice an octave or so, construct my sentences so that they are commands and not requests, and I talk with complete authority, not believing for one nanosecond that whoever I am speaking to will not comply. It is not bullying and it is not particularly forceful. While it my seem like a Bene Gesserit trick from one of Herbert’s Dune novels, there is a way of speaking that makes people, not just children, more likely to obey you.

I have demonstrated this to my non-teacher friends an family in various ways. Once when I was working in a a bookstore in a mall, I would have a co-worker request something of someone, adult or child, and get no compliance, then I would use my “teacher voice” and they would step to. I also do tis at the beach with unruly kids who are kicking sand near my blanket. Hardly scientific experiments but the results are convincing when you are there.

Here is a scientific experiment. Yale did studies where they had people come in off the street and had them sit with a lab coated “doctor’ in front of window. On the other side of the window was a “patient.” The doctor asked patient questions and when the patient go them wrong the off-the-street-participant was to administer an electric shock to the patient. Most people gave shocks that they knew were in the lethal range, even while listening to the patient scream in pain, just because someone in authority (a lab coated Yale doctor) told them to. The doctor and patient were actors of course, and no one got hurt, but the participant did not know that at the time.

MTV knows this. I believe that MTV created a crappy movie and marketed the shit out of it just to see if they can take something that sucked and make it a winner. They promoted that movie to death, like it was the next “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” They even went so far as to give Napoleon Dynamite, an MTV Film, the MTV movie of the Year award. Hello! That is freaking hilarious.

Rent Napoleon Dynamite. Watch the commercials that are included on the disc. You will see what I mean. MTV is brilliant.

Be careful, beware. Today it is Napoleon Dynamite and kids, tomorrow -- apolitical vision and the world. You have been warned.

The Libertines

2005-06-04T12:24:00.000-04:00

Apple's iTunes is something of a drug for me. It is way to easy to use, far to cheap, and gives such a thrill. The danger of addiction is there. There are worse addiction I suppose. I could be using like some of the artist from who I have been downloading music. For example, Peter Doherty of The Libertines.

Now I am not one for album reviews (yes kids, I call them albums -- google it). However, I so totally dig what The Libertines have done with their latest and most probably last release. This is a late review, because the Libertine have basically disintegrated, better yet, self-destructed.

As a subscriber of the Sirius satellite radio service (which I also heartily love), I have heard two or three Libertine tunes and thought that I would purchase the album some day. I hate buying music because I feel that it is generally overpriced. Well, the music industry bigwigs make scads of money and not enough goes to the artists.

An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision. -James McNeill Whistler

I couldn't agree more and if artists made their money from their labor and not t-shirt sales I would buy more CDs. Actually, with the advent of iTunes I will probably buy many more now. Ten bucks a CD and another seventy-five cents to "back it up" is worth lining some suits pocket. This is particularly the case wit The Libertines.

So. one snappy souped up iMac (which I just bought from my buddy over at http://www.imoffended.org) and a dsl connection and I am back to buying music again. My enthusiasm for music hasn't been this high since being in school as a student myself.

I digress. Buy The Libertines. Listen and love it. The energy is palpable. Your speakers will glow when you play it. It is rock. Pure and simple. Yet somehow it is sublime. As a big fan of metaphor, I will sum up my feelings for the album and the band in this manner.

The Libertines is what Syd Barrett, founder of Pink Floyd, would have sounded like if he was part of Generation X, doping and recording for the first time in this new millennium of ours. If you enjoyed Piper At the Gates of Dawn, but can still rock despite having a mortgage, get The Libertines and tell me what you think.

The Three R's

2005-05-15T22:24:00.000-04:00

IMDB has this to say about the film Paper Clips:

Whitwell Middle School in rural Tennessee is the setting for this documentary about an extraordinary experiment in Holocaust education. Struggling to grasp the concept of six-million Holocaust victims, the students decide to collect six-million paper clips to better understand the extent of this crime against humanity. The film details how the students met Holocaust survivors from around the world and how the experience transformed them and their community.

I have this to say about the film Paper Clips:

The movie Paper Clips shows the heartfelt reaction of a community to an all too recent horror: the Holocaust. The film left me touched, moved, inspired, and in awe. When the high wears off, I find myself like a kid after Christmas -- delighted with what has transpired, but forced back to a reality a little less bright.

If a kid is in the news for a good reason it is usually as an athlete. Rarely do we see kids who excel in the arts or committing acts of charity. Seeing a movie like Paper Clips makes me wonder why the deeds of the “Holocaust Kids” were not in the national news. Why is it that the world could only hear about the good deeds and kindness of a group of children, and thereby an entire community, in a low budget, independent documentary. Even the crusading film maker Michael Moore turns his cameras to tragedy rather than triumph in Bowling for Columbine.

Do we have so little esteem for the youth of our world? Is kind-heartedness and right mindedness as common as grass, so that it can be cut down, cropped, and trod on? If what any child and human development class teaches is true, won’t a behavior exist if it is reinforced? We exist in a society where violence, rage, pain, anger, and hurt are rewarded so sweetly as to entice children to taking their lives and the lives of others.

Children know there needs to be a better way. Kids recognize that life has to mean more than mere distraction and titillation of the senses. Educators and indeed all of the “grown-ups” of a community need to take responsibility for this. Nature detests a void and will fill it with whatever is near at hand. When a youth is surrounded with pointless violence and hedonism, it fills a soul left empty.

When confused, puzzled or frustrated, I ask myself WWJD? -- What would Joe do? Actually WDJS --What did Joe say? The Joe to which I refer is Joseph Campbell, the mythologist. In an hours long interview with journalist Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, Joe said:

“What we’re learning in our schools is not the wisdom of life. We’re learning technologies, we’re getting information. There has to be a training to help you open your ears so that you begin to hear metaphorically instead of concretely. It’s been said that poetry consists of letting the word be heard beyond the words and Goethe says “All things are metaphors.” Everything is but a metaphorical reference. That’s what we all are.”

The film Paper Clips was remarkably moving. It serves as a more than apt reminder that we, as educators, are responsible for more than reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic (which, ironically, are spelt wrong). The people that occupy the desks and oubliettes of our schools are more than kids, more than American kids. The pupils who we serve are human beings and citizens of the world. While seeing them as such on a daily basis may be impractical, keeping that fact in the back of the mind can be the right dose of impracticality.

Character education was a hot topic for fifteen minutes, but when there is no state mandated standardized test to report on results such things fall to the wayside rather quickly.

In many a management seminar a jar is brought forth with a tray of sand and rocks of varying sizes. The participants are asked to place the contents of the tray into the jar. It is then discussed how is the sand and pebbles are put in first, the big rocks won't fit. The inference is that spending time on minutiae robs time from the more important items.

So much character education is done in the hallways between classes, in the lunchroom, at dismissal, during genuine human interaction amongst students and staff. It is the sand, and often times it doesn't fit because the answers to the deepest questions can not be selected from A, B, C, D, or E and then bubbled in.

I say get a bigger jar. In any masonry edifice. or construction, cement goes in between the larger rocks together, connecting and gluing the structure together. Reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic are three of the more widely used tools in the real world. However, if people are irresponsible, disrespectful, and shallow those tools will be used for the demolition of societal structure. We don't need anymore Manhattan Projects. We need more Paper Clips.

I propose a new take on the R's of education. I suggest reading, 'riting, and rithmetic, be supplemented with Responsibility, Respect, and Reflection (all spelled correctly mind you). The movie Paper Clips proves that it can be done and demonstrates clearly the effects. It was not the students who learned from the experience, an entire community, and now the world community, has benefited. The product is worth the cost. Now it is time to invest in it.

Mother's Day

2005-05-07T00:32:00.000-04:00

It has been said that we are our actions. Whatever beliefs we proclaim, whatever we hold sacred, whatever manner we endorse -- we are our actions. As a recovering Roman Catholic Christian, it is with a shaky hands that I write this. I serve and worship the goddess. I’m no pagan, but the driving spiritual force which I propels me daily is goddess.

Wicca is often called the Tradition of the Moon. The cool gray plate that crosses the night sky is not just some bearded god’s toe nail clippings as I once believed. It represents the goddess.

Whether it is a thicker corpus callosum, linking the left and right hemispheres of the brain, or just the workings of Mother Nature, women are generally more emotional and empathetic than men. The alchemists represent this nature as water. The moon changes over a twenty-eight day cycle, controlling the flow of the waters of this world.
Women are tied to the natural rhythms of nature, for their flow matches that of the moon.

But it is not in an abstract, nature-y way, that I worship the goddess. It is real and concrete, though well represented in the world’s symbology. It struck me one day. Call it a revelation, an epiphany, or a moment of satori, but my mother was taking mt wife and daughter out and an image of divine origin was emblazoned upon my imagination.

While exiting the house, the ladies stopped on the stairs to wave and blow kisses. My three year-old daughter stood at the top, my wife stood in the middle, and my mother stood, toward the bottom. There were a few empty steps at the bottom, occupied by the spirit of my dead grandmother. It was all there.

My daughter was the waxing moon. My wife was the full moon. My mother was the waning moon. My grandmother was the new moon, gone but ever present, and manifest in the other three.

Who I am, how I conduct myself, what I do and how I do it, where I go and why I go there, have largely been influenced by the divine feminine, in each and every one of its forms. I am not a “mama’s boy” or “pussy whipped” or “hen-pecked.” My course through my life is not determined by their ministrations, but rather I move across the stages of my life, dancing to the music and rhythms that they manifest.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you goddesses out there.

A is for Apple

2005-04-30T20:08:00.000-04:00

Imagine a mad sorcerer or god comes along and tells us that we have to be transformed into a fruit. Don't start thinking about the Village People, I am not talking about that kind of fruit. You are going to be transformed into a fruit, there is nothing you can do about it. What fruit would you be?

Now at first you may think that this is utter nonsense. "What does it matter? How do this sort of hypothetical help me in my real, everyday, ordinary life?" you might say. That is understandable. If you have followed my philosophizing for any length of time, you have become accustomed to ideas with, as William James would say, cash-value.

Teachers are professionals, and I am no exception. When I was interviewing for my current teaching position, the panel of individuals interviewing me posed the following question -- if you were a vegetable, what sort of vegetable would you be? My answer was as follows:

As a vegetarian, this not the type of question I take lightly. I would not be a vegetable proper, but rather a tuber. I would be a potato. The potato is a thing of great utility. It can be grown in the harshest of conditions and can be served in a multitude of ways. You can bake, boil, and fry them. Potatoes can be made into chips for a between meal snack, ice cream for dessert, or a liquor for an after dinner aperitif.

On another level, potatoes are covered with eyes, and everyone knows that a teacher needs to have eyes in the back of their head.

It may be school administrators aren't mad warlocks and members of a board of education aren't power hungry deities, but the parallels are obvious enough.

While I don't have a strong preference for what sort of fruit I would be, I am quite certain about what type of fruit I am not. I am not a banana. For one thing, banana is an oddly difficult word to spell. Another thing is the obvious correlation to insanity. A crazy person is often said to be bananas.

Banana trees are a sad sort; they have one hope to reproduce. Banana trees only give fruit once. Take a good look at a banana, its phallic shape seems virile and fertile enough, but have you ever eaten a banana? (Again, don't think of the Village People.) Have you ever seen a seed when eating a banana? The poor tree has dick shaped fruit without any visible seeds. It is a miracle that the fruit made past the dawn of time. This is like blowing your load once in your life into a gym sock.

No, I don't think I'd be a banana.

An apple. I'd be an apple for a number of reasons. There are a number of corollaries serve as good mojo, not the least of which is my iMac. This very essay was written on the finest computer ever created -- an apple.

As a teacher I am almost obligated to choose apple, but I would not do so for the obvious reason. An apple for the teacher, sure, but let's look deeper. The apple is the fruit of the tree of wisdom. Our mythic parents arranged for our eternal free will by consuming an apple. At least that is how the book of Genesis puts it.

But apples aren't just biblical claptrap. Apples are American! The wisdom of our freewill was disseminated, almost literally by John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed. Could these be the roots of our rugged individualism?

The apple is also a fruit of chaos. At one point Eris, goddess of discord, rolled a golden apple in and amongst the assembled gods and goddesses of Olympus, announcing for the the most beautiful. The ensuing chaos led to the Trojan War, there greatest ruse in all of mytho-history was perpetrated -- the Trojan Horse.

Sure, apples share the same utility as potatoes. They can be cooked in any number of ways, or simply eaten raw. Apples are at home at any meal through out the day, and again, the can be made into liquor. Bonus!

In a weird bit of coincidence, potato is "pomme de terre" in French, translation: apple of the earth.

When the time comes, and a twisted occultist offers me instant death or continued life as a fruit, I know have a well-thought out answer so that I don't pass without some sort of meaning.

Carrie Bradshaw's Secret

2005-04-20T21:36:00.000-04:00

One of the most interesting things I learned from college was not in any classroom. Go to any college town on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night and you may guess what I am getting at. At bars everywhere, hotties are strutting around in tight tops. It doesn't matter what time of year, that is what they will wear out. A coat or a jacket is not a factor. This is great. It is a enough to make a dance floor look like the front window of the GAP, with animate mannequins, what with the nipples and all. Guys love it. Chilly chicks makes for perky nips. It is that or they are smuggling peas, or carrying around a couple raisins for a late night snacks, or a pair of butterballs that are done cooking.

Here is the thing. Women dress to impress other women, not to impress guys. Long ago, when women were wearing the same fur bikini for season after season, and the funk was enough to gag a dung beetle, it occurred to them that the affections of their men never waned. Guys are horny.

Women can wrap themselves like a mummy or drape a filthy burlap sack over their shoulders. Guys who are interested are interested. When a guy looks at a girl, she goes in one of two categories -- do-able and not do-able. What ever a lady wears, a guy decides, there is no swaying him.

Chicks dress to impress other chicks. Big lesson. However it wasn't until last night that it hit me why women have dozens and dozens of shoes. Guys can care less about feet. Unless a lady is wearing clown shoes or has cloven hooves, guys don't care. Cankles are a different story.

After reading the eighteenth rendition of Cinderella to my daughter, for the three hundred forty-third time, a light went on. Women are waiting to find that mythical glass slipper. Some where in their unconscious the message has been programmed that when that magical shoe is found, Prince Charming will come by and be Mister Right, elevating the glass slipper wearing waif into a princess.

I might have to stop reading Cinderella, and go back to college.

Hard as Candy

2005-04-17T20:11:00.000-04:00

In the world of oral delights there are two types of people -- suckers and crunchers. Wait. (My intention is to write something more along the lines of Willy Wonka not "Will he bonk her?") Let me rephrase that. When it comes to hard candy there are those who savor the lozenge for the life of the candy and those who grind it to bits moments after the flavor floods their palate.

Maria and I have discussed this ad nauseum on long car trips. Maria really ought to be canonized for putting up with my pontificating for as long as she has. (Again, don't think porn, that is canonized, not cannoned in the eyes.) Maria is a cruncher. I am a sucker. (Get your mind out of the gutter.)

As is my nature, I take the way we consume our favorite confections as indicative of great. sweeping character traits. Of course, there are not just two categories. This, like sexuality, is more of a sliding scale. On one end you got the folks who scarf Werthers like popcorn, so that they are gone in mere minutes and there are none left for anyone else. There are those who will keep that starlight mint from the dish in the Indian restaurant rolling around on their tongue for a full 22 minute ride home.

Is it reasonable to assume that the crunchers are more type-A folks. Start a job, finish a job, cross the job of the list. (Not that kind of a job.) There are those who are prone to blow things off. Start a job, let it linger half done, then move onto something else. Are suckers laid more? I mean, more laid back.

Whatever the case, this just strengthens the timeless wisdom of the prohpet Abdul, Paula Abdul that is, "Opposites attract." In candy as in all things, she is the yin for my yang. Now that this theory is out there on the information superhighway for the perusal of all, when you approach someone in a bar, check for a wedding ring, move in and ask them what their sign is or if you can buy them a drink, and then offer them a butterscotch, just to be sure they are the right one for you.

I've A Point To Make

2005-04-13T21:01:00.000-04:00

Maria, my wife, openly mocks me because of my love of writing implements. In so many areas of life I am sloppy and slipshod. I shoot from the hip and have a devil-may-care attitude in many of my endeavors. But, when it comes to writing, there is an audible click as my asshole snaps shut. That's right, I am down right anal retentive about my writing products.

Purple is the new red. Teachers are correcting in purple because students hated seeing papers covered in red. That is not why I correct in purple. The way I see it, if students don't want to see papers covered in red, they will give every assignment all they've got. I don't correct in red because I think red gives the subtle psychological message of "stop." Green doesn't work for correcting, ultimately it looks like grass stains. Purple, felt tipped flair pens are where it is at. The felt allows for a large array of expression-- bold dark lines or thin delicate lines.

If I must write in pen, it must be black ink. A fine pointed, black gel pen is the best, but I will make do with a medium point black ink, roller ball pen. Blue ink doesn't do it for me. Black has the neutrality of color that my thoughts require.

When working in my grade book, I only use a metal, mechanical pencil with 0.5 millimeter no. 2 lead. When writing creatively, I will only use Dixon Ticonderoga no. 2 Hard Black lead: cedar wood, non-toxic yellow paint, and an eraser that virtually never smears. You have got to love Dixon Ticonderoga, it is "a company that empowers people to take conscious and subliminal thoughts - facts, ideas and dreams - and preserve them using tools that are simply extensions of themselves."

A company that takes themselves that seriously and philosophically has me as a customer for life. I love pencils specifically because I see them as metaphor. Life, like a pencil, only has whatever point you give it; that point will change with use. What's more, mistakes are expected and even necessary. The full functionality of either, life or pencils, will never be experienced without them.

There are many way out theories about writing that are rattling around in my head. I will save my dissertation on how writing with the left hand is better for creative endeavors and typing helps access both hemispheres of the brain and soul.

Axe Me No Questions

2005-04-09T20:46:00.000-04:00

“The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.”
- J. Robert Oppenheimer

I don’t like to think of myself as a pessimist but I do tend to expect the worst of people, accept nature, and wait until science or religion proves themselves. Is it misanthropic that drives me nuts when someone says lie-berry instead of library, despite the fact that I mispronounce a number of things myself. It probably only makes me a hypocrite.

Maybe I ought to think better of people. Maybe the average joe (or josephine) has an artistic intuition that I underestimate. Maybe when people mispronounce a certain world it is because of a sort of onomatopoetic instinct. Where instead of a word reflecting a sound, it reflects a feeling.

At one time I thought it was tough to be the only one in my town who said espresso correctly. This highly caffeinated delight can give quite jolt, so naturally many would want say “expresso!”

Often times we only here about the prostate when there are problems with it. The prostate is so closely associated with the penis, the supposed center of masculinity, that when there is a problem with it we think of some one as supine. Thus many people say “prostrate.”

Alzheimer’s disease is not common amongst kindergartners, high schoolers, newlyweds, or even mid-life crisisers. It pretty much sticks to the elderly, so it is frequently referred to as “Old Timer’s Disease.”

Maybe the truth is I am probably a pretentious prick who thinks his blog is some sort of philosophical doctrine that will garner him fame, fortune, and the undying adulation of his peers and all those to come. Of course, I maybe just be a dork who likes the sound of his own words and desperately hopes a few others might as well.

Life Returns to the Earth

2005-04-06T21:05:00.000-04:00

The signs of spring’s return are many, everyone has a favorite. Everyone has a herald they await when the melting snows swell rivers. My wife waits for the daffodils, with that yellow horn of a flower trumpeting in more temperate times. My grandmother always noticed when the robins returned, red breasts running across the lawn. A childhood friend knew the warmer times were back again when the clocks were changed. For me, this year, the vernal season is announced by a big, swollen pussy.

For weeks now there has been a dead cat laying on the side of the road at the last corner I take to get to school. How long the cat is there I will never know, but it has been there for a while. I remember following a plow to work and seeing the thing get covered in a wave of sandy brown snow. The snow thawed, and fell, and thawed, and fell, and thawed again. Each time the sad corpse of this little cat sat there, on an embankment, at eye level.

As the weather has gotten warmer I have watched the various phases of putrefaction and decomposition set in. When I was in sixth grade my science teacher brought in a squirrel he found on the side of the road. He placed it under a heavy box with a wire screen, just at the edge of the woods, and we watched it decay, taking notes and drawing sketches.

Now, I am teaching fifth grade and I have watched this thing bloat, loose clumps of fur, and slowly darken. As I drive by I try like hell not to look, thinking of Orpheus and all of the brides of Bluebeard. And everyday, I see it there. I fear that one day the thing doesn’t burst in a spray of maggots as I drive by. I pray that it isn’t some sort of omen for the coming spring. Hmm ...

A Hairy Situation

2005-04-04T19:14:00.000-04:00

It had been something like four days since I had last shaved. All of my shaving is done in the shower. It was Saturday, I had no time constraint, so I figured it was time to divest my visage of its whiskers. Somehow amidst all of the watery, foamy fun that is shaving in the shower I managed to get a small fragment of hair from my chin into my eye, below the eyelid to be precise.

Who can count the number of times an eyelash ends up laying dulcetly on the surface of the eyeball itself? When it does occur it is an irritation to be sure. Gentle reader, I am here to tell you that a whisker in the eye is worse than a pube in the throat. If I hadn’t known better I would have sworn there was a live, angry hornet in my eye.

For some reason, there is a wide variety amongst hair, even amongst the hair of one body. Quick joke – what is yellow, black, yellow, black, yellow, black, yellow, black? A blond doing cartwheels naked. Length, color, texture, strength, shape, fragrance; when you think about it there are many dimensions to this little follicle.

Not even Vidal Sassoon himself can bring to light all of the mysteries of hair. If I could, I would like to know why my hairline has receded like the polar ice caps in the late twentieth century. The area above my eyebrows is now a fivehead. Yet, my back is sprouting hair like a lawn in spring.

The last time I went to the beach and removed my shirt a child walked up to me and asked if I was being taped for an episode of Jackass for MTV. When I asked why he said that it was quite a stunt wearing a sweater on the beach in August. After burying him in wet sand at low tide, I went to lie down and read for a spell. The trash trucks came, when I was lying on my stomach they rolled me in my towel and threw my in a dumpster thinking I was a discarded carpet.

If I could only convince the hair on my back to migrate to my chin, then I could grow that great big Walt Whitman beard I so desire. As it is now, when I let my facial hair grow it looks like weeks old bread left on the counter, with a fuzzy patch here and there.

I am not all complaints though. I do have perfect eyebrows. Ask anyone who has seen me. They are literally perfect. It is not a super power, but is definitely a gift. Though if any hair was going to qualify as a superpower my nose hair would. Gentlemen, let me counsel you not to buy a nose hair clipper, all it is is a pair of wire snips in stainless steel without the insulated grips. If you have a decently stocked tool chest, just used the snips. I use my clipped nose hair to fashion a small barbed wire fence I use to keep squirrels out of my bird feeder. It works!

See folks, you need to play to your strengths. So, I shave frequently, now with a pair of goggles on so that I look like a pro athlete, wear a hat, and express myself through my eyebrows a lot.

Beyond Bed, Bath, and Beyond

2005-03-31T22:20:00.000-05:00

Bed, Bath, and Beyond is an awesome store. You might expect a guy to say that about the Home Depot or the Sports Authority. I also realize that I am skating on thin ice with the whole women’s deodorant usage and man-clog wearing, but I have good reasons. Here me out before you label me a sissy.

Guys, ever find yourself out and about the town with nary a place to comfortabley take a dump? Stop in at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. So few guys ever go there, thus the bathrooms are rarely used. There are few better places to take a noisy, stinky public dump without worrying about people looking at you like you just gave birth to a mutant skunk as you walk out of the stall.

Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Notice the bath. That means that all the supplies necessary to keep bathrooms pube and piss stain free are right there. You can’t go wrong. The only way they can improve the bath rooming experience is to shine your shoes and offer you a paper while you pinch a loaf.

Once done dropping a deuce, I like to browse the coffee maker aisle. That’s why I go there. For the longest time, I was looking for a ten cup coffee maker with a built in water filter, stainless steel carafe, automatic shutoff, gold-tone filter, and no hot plate. They offer a whole array of brewing wonders. They also offer the best in coffee scoops, I prefer the double-sided stainless steel scoop, with a one tablespoon side and a two tablespoon side.

Good pooping. Fine coffee toys. If you need any other reason to stop in, just drop in to a store within a ten mile radius of a college campus. Anytime is good, but at the end of summer and early fall, there are more coed hotties strutting around than South Beach in March. Of course they aren’t participating in wet t-shirt contests but you can impress them with your knowledge of the virtues of arabica versus robusta!

A Svengali By Golly

2005-03-30T21:51:00.000-05:00

If there were a justice system in place for breakfast foods, the jails would be overcrowded with onion bagels. Onion bagels are a bunch of no good rogues. Onion bagels are the drug pushers of the baked goods community. A lone onion bagel in a bag of a dozen will turn the other eleven into onion bagels as well.

Imagine a fresh, new bagel sweetened by blueberries. When that innocent little delight comes in contact with a onion bagel, it undergoes a transformation. Leaving every bit of its inherently sweet nature behind, it becomes a stinkin’ piece of junk. You might expect the conversion from a cinnamon raisin bagel, the spice making it just a little sassy. But the blueberry?

Maybe you’re some kind of freak and actually enjoy the onion bagel. You’re one of those types who slow down to check out an accident, you like the naughtiness and the danger. That’s up to you.

Bottom line. The onion bagel is evil. Choose your metaphor -- malevolent svengali, evangelist, missionary, army recruiter, vampire. Any way you slice it, the onion bagel converts all the other bagels to its kind. Good if you like, not so good if you hate it but your wife likes it.

And the Winner Is ...

2005-03-29T20:48:00.000-05:00

The Easter Bunny and Santa Claus don’t have anything on the Tooth Fairy. When it comes to globe-trotting, nocturnal gift givers, the gold medal goes to the Tooth Fairy. Santa takes the silver, and the Bronze is awarded to the Easter Bunny.

The Easter Bunny is the herald of all things vernal; he delivers brightly colored eggs in celebration of Jesus Christ’s return to life. Here we have a classic, pagan fertility symbol surviving under the auspices of a Christian tradition. However, the Easter Bunny comes in a distant third because while he may actually lay the technicolor treats (quite a feat for a male, let alone a rabbit) he only comes around with the warm weather, once a year.

Santa Claus is another pagan throwback, who has survived under a Christian guise. As an old world shaman, making and bringing gifts to children, he continues the tradition of the three wise men. Each gaily wrapped treasure is an acknowledgment of the Christ in each of us. Every present beneath the tree recognizes that being childlike and innocent is a blessing. Still, it only deserves a silver. While he works all years, he has subjugated the elves, the earth spirits, to accomplish this. He is a step above the bronze because he does it in the dead cold of winter, reminding us at the darkest of times, that the warmth of light will still come.

The Tooth Fairy is hands down the hardest working of the gooide dealing triumvirate. She has never been subjugated by any new fangled tradition. She is a representative of the fair folk, pure and unadulterated. Her collecting of baby teeth rewards the relinquishment of childhood processing with real world mana. To top it off, this chic does it EVERY SINGLE NIGHT! While she may not visit every kid, she still has to span the entire globe, and somehow know who shed their chompers.

So the gold goes to the Tooth Fairy. Not to say that Santa and the Bunny don’t do a great job, but they get all of the accolades. Let’s give this winged powerhouse her due. Even if we don’t know what sort of creepy things she does with her collection of pearly, and not so pearly, whites.

Father Knows Best

2005-03-28T19:11:00.000-05:00

If Sherman and Mr. Peabody were to take the Wayback Machine and review my life over the past three and a half years, they would not see me baby-sitting for one moment. My daughter is three and a half and I have never baby-sat for her! That is a fact of which I am monstrously proud.

On Friday nights, I go out and game with my friends – Dungeons and Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, etc. Maria and I have an understanding. I don’t golf or fish or watch sports, but I roll dice and tell stories. I’m a geek. She loves me. I’m lucky. In any event, when people call Maria to make plans with her for a Friday evening, she politely declines and the say “Oh.”

Where I am a geek, Maria is smart and cool. She belongs to a book club. They agree on a piece of actual literature to read, and then they get together. Over coffee they discuss their children, complain about their husbands, talk about shopping, and agree which book to read next. When people call me to make plans on a book club night, I politely decline and explain that Maria will be out with her friends. They say “Oh. So you are baby-sitting.”

I am a father, a parent. Maria is a mother, a parent. Aside from nomenclature, gender, and style, we are both parents. We share goals, support each other, work co-operatively, and divide labor to run our household and raise our daughter. Why is it that when I am home with our daughter it is “baby-sitting,” but when Maria is home with our daughter it simply is?

When spending time with a child is called baby-sitting the act becomes a job. While a job can be fun, it is still just a job. Baby-sitting is a doing, however I am a father. Spending time with my daughter is part of my being.

If Sherman and Mr. Peabody were to set the controls back a few thousand years in the Wayback machine they would see humans living the existence of hunter-gatherers. Thousands of years of one lifestyle makes for a lot of neural programming. Existence has changed for human beings. It is more subtle and abstract.

Now we have vibrators and the Internet. Women work and men change diapers. We buy our food wrapped in cellophane and don’t drag it home through the mud. When we take herbs for our health they are in gel caps and not crushed on a stone, mixed with a dose of mumbo-jumbo by a face painted elder. Let’s get with it!

Be your own programmer folks! Live authentically, in each and every moment.

The role of father has evolved with the species. As I said, existence has become a more subtle and abstract thing. Women have been liberated and can leave home, now men need to be liberated and stay home.

Vegetarian Leather

2005-03-24T22:20:00.000-05:00

It can happen. All it would take is a little miraculous gene splicing or super scientific hybridization. Start with a cow, then combine it with a snake. The product would be a snow? No. A cake? No. A Scowke? All righty then.

The scowke will crawl around eating grass. Then the time comes and it will shed its skin. That skin can be harvested and used as leather. It would be perfectly vegetarian because no animal will have died to obtain it.

Go ahead all of you Dr. Frankensteins out there. Go to it.

Salt of the Earth

2005-03-23T20:31:00.000-05:00

There’s one hour’s worth of buffer zone between my family and my in-laws. As a result, we visit them once every other week, usually on Sunday. They’re Italian, so when we go down there a big-ass meal is guaranteed. The eats are, of course, second to none.

Maria is first generation american, which means that they speak Italian at her father’s and the food is real authentic. When we first started dating it took me a while to get used to the cuisine. My taste buds were used to the Olive Garden, Bertucci’s fare - meaning lots of seasoning and flavor. It turns out that our friends from the Mediterranean don’t eat such over the top vittles.

Initially, I referred to the food as bland. After an hour or so of being reprimanded by Maria, I came to my senses and realized that the truth of the matter was that what I lacked was a sense of taste subtle enough to appreciate the natural flavors of food. I still sneak in a little salt and red pepper though.

It turns out that my in-laws were much like their cooking. I was used to my over the top, family in the raw. One day, young little Gordy found himself sitting around the in-law table enjoying a fine feast. It was Columbus Day. In my ignorance, I thought that I could win their affections with my witty take on ordinary occurrences.

“Why do we celebrate Columbus’ journey? The guy got lost. He thought he was in India. Let’s think. How can we best celebrate? I’ve got an idea. How about we all put on blindfolds. Then we spin around and stumble about, lost. When we eventually stop, we should lay our hands on what ever is in front of us and claim it as our own, even if it belongs to another. In fact, if it does belong to someone, we should subjugate them !”

Poor naive Gordon. How was I, at that tender young age, supposed to know that Italians were wildly proud of Columbus?

Poor Maria’s father. He let it rip. My father-in-law speaks with an accent, but he gave me an ear full. I understood every word. This poor guy had no idea that I would be sticking around for the rest of his life, fathering his granddaughter. Thinking back on his face, red like the sauce on his plate, I cringe.

It was then that I began to develop my in-law philosophy. I am certain my father-in-law agrees.

In-laws are like salt.
In small quantities, they both add a little spice to life.
In large doses, you’re risking high blood pressure.

That's One Classy Pet!

2005-03-22T21:55:00.000-05:00

Want to inspire me to get something done? Forbid me from it.

When I returned to school from summer vacation I sat through days of meetings and drew witty cartoons. One of the points that ripped through the curtain of my boredom was that we could no longer have classroom pets.

Now, I have enough to do without worrying about whether the hamster has fresh chips, the tetras have been fed, or the parakeet has water. Never have I actually wanted a classroom pet until I was told that I couldn’t have one. When they said we couldn’t have coffee pots, I decided that what the fifth grade team really needed was regular access to fresh hot joe.

However, blind rebellion isn’t my style. Loopholes are more my fare. We were told we couldn’t have coffee pots because the hot plates offered a fire hazard. Just my luck, I prefer coffee from a thermal carafe with an automatic shut off to a glass carafe on a hot plate. Now I sip hot java every class and my teaching has improved.

Perhaps it was my caffeine addled brain which found a way around the pet block. We can’t have latex balloons, and peanut butter is contraband. Pets present all sorts of allergy problems. What’s more, pets die, and kids get heart broken. Heart breaks could be an educational distraction. So I needed to find a pet that no one is allergic to and that can’t die.

Well , my students now sign up to take the class pet for one day and night. One lucky student gets to play with it, feed it, care for it, and have it play with other pets of its kind. They can only put their name on the list if they complete a week’s worth of spelling assignments on time, and pass the test. Today, for the first time, my star speller brought home our class tamagotchi. I couldn't be happier.

Man-clogs

2005-03-21T22:05:00.000-05:00

Achilles wouldn’t be caught dead wearing clogs. Well, actually, that is precisely what would happen if the most powerful warrior of the Iliad waded into battle wearing man-clogs, he’d catch his death. What with his weak spot at the heel that resulted from being dipped into the river Styx when he was naught but a mewling tot.

He did wear sandals though. All those rugged warriors of the Trojan War sported sandals: Odysseus, Hector, Nestor, Paris. Sandals are no more manly than clogs. All those straps and buckles, the OPEN TOE, make sandals sound like chic shoes. If they had a heels you could call the Manolo’s and Carrie Bradshaw would snatch them up for $400.00.

Conan the Cimmerian moved through the Hyborian Age conquering one land after another, eventually rising to the throne of King of Aquilonia wearing sandals, but he could have just as easily have done it in a pair of nubuck mules!

What makes shoes without backs effeminate? Sure, when you call them man-clogs, the statement is “Hey, these are different than ordinary clogs. The legs that attach to the feet within these shoes share waist space with a penis and testicles as opposed to a vagina.” That is probably why Merrell calls them slides.

What makes a clog a sissy shoe? Is it the lack of steel toe? Is it the lack of laces? I don’t know. And quite frankly, I don’t care. My feet will continue to find themselves firmly placed in a pair of taupe slides. Try to make fun of them and I will kick your ass. My show my fly off in the process, but that is just a battle tactic. See now you have to watch your back and duck!

And They're Off!

2005-03-16T21:01:00.000-05:00

There is a race going on in my house. There is a race to see who will recover from their ear infection first, my three year old daughter, or me. Here is how it started.

Doctor - You have a double ear infection. Do you realize how rare that is? Ear infections usually occur in children.

Me - Obviously you have no idea how immature I am.

Yes, that is right, I have a double ear infection. So here I am - feverish, achey, and faint. I am not up for writing, but I did want to post a quick little something. There is not much for me to write about anyway, unless the general public is interested in my fever dreams.

Don’t expect any posts until I am feeling better.

I Love Box!

2005-03-15T21:17:00.000-05:00

Pandora had a box with all sorts of mojo in it. Since that time, boxes and the word box, have had all manner of funkiness associated with them. Box has remained synonymous with ladies’ genitals, giving a rather randy meaning to a box lunch.

As a verb, to box can mean to slap, punch, hit, or cuff someone. Additionally, it could mean to package something. How do these two things get confused? Sure words carry many meanings, sometimes even contradictory meanings. I love box because it’s many meanings are just plain bizarre.

Take boxers. Boxers could be sporting, hand-to-hand fighters. Boxers could be rather large ugly dogs. Boxers could be people who place things into containers. What’s more, boxers can be men’s skivvies. How does this relate to China’s Boxer Rebellion?

Clearly all those folks sitting around in factories packaging things didn’t revolt, anyone would be hard pressed to find something sold that wasn’t “Made in China.” You can also rule out boxer shorts going against their character as freeballers and becoming nuthuggers. If they did China wouldn’t be busting at the seams with citizenry. I also doubt that dogs rebelled. In a country where it is widely rumored that cats are eaten, what could a big galoot of canine be upset about? My money is on the pugilists. The boxers in China decided that they were not going to be kept down anymore. No more sissy mittens in a fight? And why shouldn’t they kick? This actually the birth of martial arts.

Canadians are our lovable, nutty neighbors to the north. They have given much to the world: Michael J. Fox, hockey, Rush, hockey, Mike Myers, hockey, and Boxing Day! Cross the border on the day after Christmas and you’ll see whole families running through the streets in thin shorts with open flies, punching randomly, and dodging large dogs. Then when they return home, they choose one of the gifts they just received, package it up, and ship it out. UPS and Fed Ex make a killing.

Free the Market

2005-03-14T19:42:00.000-05:00

This past Friday I gave a spelling test to my fifth grade class. We had just finished a week long unit on words that end in ar. It was staggering to see how many students wrote Cingular in place of singular. Some kids even wrote it with a capital “C.” At least they know what to do with proper nouns.

The impact of marketing is awesome. Not awesome in the sense of coolness, but awesome in the sense of vastness that leaves one stunned. The name of the game is hit ’em hard and hit ’em young. Get them hooked early and good. This isn’t just for cigarettes. A child customer is a customer for life.

So it is with cell phones. In fact, in the little one horse town where I teach, there are fifth graders who have cell phones. When I asked them why, they explain that it is in case of emergency. For what, a fashion emergency? Will the Trendy Police slap the cuffs on a kid if they don’t have the latest 50 Cent ring tone emanating from their over-stuffed L. L. Bean monogrammed backpack with wheels?

Another example comes from my home. Today, children love taking medicine. As a kid, taking medicine was second to taking a roller skate to the balls (which happened to me, I grew up in the ‘80s, so I can judge.) Medicine used to taste disgusting. Now cough syrup tastes so good that my little one hits that plastic dispenser cup like an Uncle at a wedding who just fell off of the A. A. wagon. Now they're all licking the corners clean of the viscous nectar.

Do Robitussin and Tylenol have a deal with Seagram’s and Absolut? Are we training sick kids to become college age binge drinkers? Tasty meds are just one marketing ploy. Buy more, more, and more.

Everyone is looking to have the kind of brand dominance of a Band-Aids and Kleenex. Companies want their name to be synonymous with an entire product category. Band-Aids is one type of adhesive bandage. Kleenex is one type of facial tissue. Yet the spell check of the program I am writing in recognizes them as words and not misspellings. That is brand dominance. Many parents buy the generic brand of children’s pain reliever and fever reducer and call it Tylenol, but their kids, like my daughter, can sense the difference in taste between the real thing and the imitation.

Perhaps I am a curmudgeon. Maybe I ought to go with the flow. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Okay. Here it goes. This one is for Yoplait or any other yogurt company. If you want to widen the market for the portable yogurt in tubes to the college campus here is the approach. Try this for a tag line “Training tomorrow's barroom blowjob queens today!” Guys will be going to BJ's to buy cases of the things to drop off on the girls' floor of the dorm.

Let's Talk About Sex Baby

2005-03-13T20:50:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine tells this tale. At a tender, early adolescent age, she overheard some talk about oral sex. As all good early adolescents do, she turned to her older sibling for an explanation of just what exactly oral sex was. The sibling panicked, and in a moment prescient of parenthood, came up with a plausible lie. “Oral sex,” she was told, “is talking about sex.”

Later, my friend went to a party, a teenager party. At this party there was soda, chips, and the like. Beneath the constant hum of pop music, there was constant conversation about sex. In hushed tones and heated breath, teens boasted, bragged, and bored my friend to tears. Being an early adolescent she was only partially fascinated by sex, and so bid a hasty retreat.

Back at the homestead, her mother was surprised to see the girl home from a party she had begged to attend. When questioned as to her untimely departure she explained to her mother “I didn’t like it. Everyone was lounging around having oral sex.”

You can only imagine her mother’s reaction. Actually, imagination probably can’t come close. Oral sex can be a touchy subject, and difficult to handle tastefully. Try this next time you are in a group of folks talking about oral sex. Tell everyone “You are what you eat.” Then sit back and watch to see who meows, who cock-a-doodle-doo’s, and who hee-haws. It can be very enlightening.

The Curtain Draws Aside

2005-03-12T22:44:00.000-05:00

Gentle Reader,

The time has come to disavow you of a notion. I, your humble narrator, am not a nice person. I am, in fact, evil. Just ask my sister. Though two years my senior, I tormented her for most of the first 15 years of my life. Allow me to illustrate, but let me warn you. Calling the exorcist will avail you naught, it is not Satan’s doing. I’m just naughty.

My father, a backhoe operator, used to drive a powder blue bobcat. In the days before children’s protective seats we used to romp around the back seat like it was a ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese. Once, my sister and I were playing back there during an outing. My father had a giant cluster of varicolored wire taking up most of the hatchback. He told us it was blasting wire from the job site. That was all my villainous mind needed. I grabbed the ends of two loose red wires and held them close together. I explained that the wire was accidentally connected to the gas tank and that if she complained or cried out I would connect the ends and explode the car.

My sister did her best to keep quiet. Holding the bare copper ends perilously close I would waver when ever we took a corner or hit a bump until . . . “BOOM!” My shout would break the tension and my sister would cry.

Then there was the time when we were home alone and I wandered out of my parents bedroom with a few leaves of official looking paper and a key dangling from my pinky. My sister asked what the papers were. That was all I needed. It was like fishing and seeing the tip of the rod bounce. I set the hook and reeled her in furiously. “Gee Stacy, I was playing in mom and dad’s room when I found this key under their mattress. When I found the little safe in the closet I found these papers telling how you were adopted.” After the tears, I told her the truth.

Aside from farting on her pillow on a regular basis, the grossest thing I did was pin her to the floor and lick each and every finger, plunge it into her ear and twist. Yes, ten wet willies, one after the other. Our parents often say that if I was the first born I would have been an only child. If that were the case I would have ended up as Lex Luthor or Doctor Doom or something.

Letters can be sent via my e-mail, to my sister and parents, thanking them for providing me the opportunity to direct my mischief toward my family and not out to the world. Saving countless innocents of wedgies and rednecks.

Well, here we are in our thirties. She pretends to like me and I pretend to be a decent human being. I have begun to come to terms with it. While I presentable the mischief is always there, just below the surface, itching to get out.

Living on the Edge

2005-03-11T23:38:00.000-05:00

My penis is safe. I will never share John Wayne Bobbit’s fate. Not that I don’t respect the born-again Christian minister and star of the porno Frankenpenis, but if my wife wanted to lop off my dick she would bring a butter knife to bed. Which is not to impugn my wife’s intelligence, for she possesses a great deal, but she has a curious disability - she’s bad with knives.

Bad as she is with knives, she is also very lucky. Maria has this peculiar technique for cutting bread where she curls her arm around cradling the loaf, then slow drags the blade back and forth, cutting through and toward her wrist! It is an inherited trait, I’ve noticed her grandmother does the same thing. Tomorrow is Nonna’s 87th birthday. Apparently Darwin wasn’t 100% accurate. One would think that evolution would be sure to drop links like these off the food chain.

The madness doesn’t stop there. If perchance Maria finds it in herself to place something down on the table for cutting, she will cut through the tablecloth below. At her grandmother’s there are dozens of these tiny cuts in the tablecloth just big enough to slide a dime through.

Just like her Nonna, Maria is a fabulous cook. Watching her cook is amazing. It is surprising anything ever gets to the stove. My lovely bride has an uncanny knack to choose the worst possible knife for the job. She’ll spread butter with a steak knife, she’ll cut a slice of cheese with a bread knife. Just today I saw Maria sit down to carve the meat off a chicken with a paring knife. I am not kidding.

Sure, Maria may be pissed off when she reads this. The other day Maria was telling our friends that she found out I was using her deodorant by reading my blog. After she reads this one she’ll probably be understandably angry. My one comfort is that if she tries to stab me in a fit of frenzy it’ll be with either a wooden spoon, a nail clipper, or salad tongs.

Meta-math

2005-03-10T22:45:00.000-05:00

There is a process in experience and idea that I have observed in all corners of the globe, in and amongst disparate realms of thought. Perhaps it has been stated somewhere, though I can’t recall reading it. This process can be stated quasi-mathematically.

Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis.

Here, as in many instances, the words themselves suggest and define the concept. Take a thing, combine it with it’s opposite and come up with something new that is a combination of the two. For example, a man and woman have a little a baby. The baby is raised by both personalities (ideally) and are a product of both. For my purposes here:

Thesis = East, Antithesis = West.

As a teenager I became fascinated with philosophy and metaphysics. It began with Plato and blossomed from there. A great deal of time and energy was spent pouring over Eastern thought, primarily Daoism. It was a Buddhist doctrine that cut me loose from many notions and eventually led me back to Plato.

Western thought numbers the senses at five - seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. It is through these sense that we perceive the world as experience. The experiences are then processed in the mind as ideas. One then conducts oneself based on their experiences and their ideas. Giving rise to new ideas.

In Buddhism there are six senses - the five acknowledged in the west and thinking/feeling. Thinking and feeling are a sense, and what they sense are ideas. It is a short statement that appears in the introductory paragraphs of many of the books on Buddhism I have read. For me, this is a doctrine that deserves its own discussion entirely.

Recognizing thinking and feeling as a sense lends more credence and reality to ideas. Here ideas have an objective reality, they are not the by products of experience but experiences themselves. It is like the difference between food and shit.

We take in food, process it, and shit. In the western view, we sense, as sight, sound, scent, taste, and touch, the material world and process it as ideas. We can get ideas from others, but there is a source that can be traced. In the eastern view, ideas are part of the food. The world is sensed as sight, sound, scent, taste, touch, and idea. Here I suppose crap is karma, thus the saying, you don’t shit where you eat/sleep.

The existence of ideas as independent, objective reality is where I return to Plato. In Plato’s Republic we find the theory of forms. Briefly, the theory of forms states that somewhere, there exists a perfect form, essence, or idea of anything and everything. For example, there is a form that is “Chair.” What we experience as chairs are filtered reflections. We may have a La-Z-Boy, a folding chair, a stool, and rocker. All are chairs, though none are the true objective of chair. They are material representations of the abstract, perfect idea or form of “Chair.”

Put simply, it is the difference between “chair,” starting with a lower case c, and “Chair,” starting with a capital C. One is a product, the other is the source. Buddhist doctrine places ideas in the objective realm, as things to be sensed. For me, it follows that objective ideas are Platonic forms.

Synthesis = my mind a la this blog.

Proud Papa

2005-03-09T23:03:00.000-05:00

If there was any question as to the paternity of my daughter, it was put to rest last night. My ideas have been called, odd, obscure, obtuse, occult, and other O words. It is not like I mean to think in any particular way. It just happens, and I record it.

My daughter and I have a nice little ritual at bedtime. She lays down and I rub her back, while we chat in low whispers. Last night, in the dim light of a 4-watt bulb, there we lay. The room was quiet. My daughter silently probed her mouth with one finger. This continued for a minute or two. I believe I may have dozed. She then turned to me, and in all seriousness, whispered:

“Daddy, this is my favorite tooth.”

Who knows where that came from? What sort of criteria does anyone, much less a three year-old have to judge such thing? She didn’t bother conveying it. I didn’t ask. It was just so out of left field that I was taken aback.

Truthfully, I was proud. Someday, my little girl may be a devoted blogger with a useless philosophy degree.

For all of those who are wondering, it was the lower left canine.

Snow Job

2005-03-08T21:59:00.000-05:00

Don’t tell my wife, but I love shoveling. If she knew that I enjoyed clearing the driveway of snow she might conspire to have it plowed. I jest, my wife is a doll. I am serious about my love of shoveling snow. During the last snow storm I went and shoveled my sister’s driveway across town. This is quite a breakthrough for me. As a boy snow was all about sledding. Now I actually clear my inclined driveway of snow, increasing friction and traction. Welcome to adulthood.

Ordinarily, my days are spent working with some ninety kids, teaching them math. It is about as direct of an effect on the future as is possible. One would imagine that this is quite rewarding, and it is. However, the joy that comes from a clean driveway surrounded by snow is a reward of a different variety. It’s Zen. When I come in from the cold I feel as if I just sat in Zazen meditation. Naturally, when a snow day is announced, there is a certain joy I share with my students, but for a different reason.

If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you are aware of my love/hate relationship with home maintenance and improvement. Complicated plans, drawings, and schematics have no place in my drive. If I screw up, there isn’t a welt in the wall or a crooked picture. With typical home projects, I get half way through and I realize I don’t have the proper toggle screw or some such thing-a-majig.

With shoveling the drive it is cut and dried. No pun intended. The simplicity of the task is remarkably elegant. All that is necessary on my part is warm clothes and a shovel. One tool, one job. There is a definite beginning and a definite end. Even if you break off part way through, it is clear where to start up again.

The results of shoveling are about as immediate as can possibly be had. The impact is great. One moment you are house bound, the next you are free to roam the world at large. Plus, if it windy you can come in looking like a yeti. Now who doesn’t like the abominable snowman?

I believe shoveling is a form of t’ai chi or wu wei. Basic movements and principals that have a profound consequence. My mind is no mind as I throw the icy dust hither and thither. I am doing without doing, simply being. The doer and the deed are one. Hence forth I will use shoveling snow as my touchstone when it comes to home projects. Knowing that I can take pleasure from completing just this one task, promises that there maybe others for me to sink myself into. I will keep you posted.

Mangina

2005-03-07T15:11:00.000-05:00

The world conspires against my masculinity. So I had to wear my wife’s deodorant. So I enjoyed it a little. I wasn’t selling my penis on eBay! Can’t a man enjoy a fragrance other than his own farts? The deodorant smelled like baby powder; it was nice. It’s not like I’m using tampons.

I say again, it seems that the universe is working overtime to make a sissy out of me. A headache set upon me as soon as I entered school today. Immediately, I went to the nurse. She wouldn’t let me draw the curtains around the Naugahide sofa and lay there for the day. My mom wouldn’t come and pick me up. So I asked for some aspirin or ibuprofen. The nurse has a locked cabinet of all sorts of pharmaceutical goodies to dole out to the ailing staff, except today. She offered me Pamperin.

My head felt like Zeus’s before he gave birth to Athena. It was splitting at the seams. I refused the Pamperin. Would I be the proud owner of D-cup man breasts? I feared for my genitals. If my estrogen level rose, my genitals would erupt in blood, leaving me with a mangina. The aborigine tribes of the outback have a tradition where when the males come of age, they ceremoniously score the underside of their penis with a piece of flint. They do this in sympathy for their women and in emulation of a deity. I just wanted to tend to my headache. Ibuprofen was found elsewhere.

At lunch, I was openly mocked because I had a sippy cup in my lunch bag. The sippy cup was the only thing that fit in my lunch bag. Was I to go dry? It didn’t help that the cover of the sippy cup was a pastel green.

I am not a sissy. Sure, I hate slivers, once had a small dog, and occasionally wear loafers. But I own four ladders, carry a knife (it’s a Swiss Army knife but it’s still sharp), and shoot action figures with a B. B. gun in my backyard. Let’s just forget the whole deodorant thing and I will go get some Glacial Rush to hold back the pit stink.

Men's Deodorants Stink

2005-03-06T19:53:00.000-05:00

Maybe it makes me a bit of a dandy, but I wore my wife’s deodorant this week and found I rather liked it. The simple powder fresh scent was a welcome change from my normal “Glacial Pulse” fragrance. Come on guys, we’ve all been there, we’ve all run out. It’s not like I put on nylons and strutted around singing “I feel pretty, oh so pretty!” (At least not this week.)

Choosing a deodorant is a daunting task. The variety out there is astounding. Pit stick manufacturers have taken the same approach as the folks who make toothbrushes. The scents that are available are ridiculous. I don’t know what Pacific Surge smells like, and I certainly don’t want to the scent of Pure Sport emanating from me. Have you ever got a strong whiff of a really good athlete after an intense game? I thought deodorant was supposed to prevent that. So why Pure Sport? Hell, I wouldn’t even use Partially Adulterated Sport.

Mountain Rush? I realize they are trying to convey some sort of extreme sport, no fear vibe, but I would much prefer a smell that I can relate to and find appealing. I would buy the “Heading Out on a Fishing Trip” scent, reminiscent of two-stroke motor oil and beer. Coffee deodorant that gave a time released rush of caffeine might sell. “Drying Latex Paint” is something to which I relate, to me it conveys the feeling of a job well done. Teachers might buy the “Chalk Dust” aroma. If the marketeers really need to sell me on a feeling or an idea they would have more luck with me with a stick of “Guaranteed to Score” or “Day Off with Pay.”

Standing in the deodorant aisle in the grocery store or pharmacy is intimidating. For one thing, I want deodorant, not antiperspirant. Antiperspirant is a dumb idea. Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t the body need to perspire to cool itself. Corks aren’t sold for the urethra or sphincter, why cork up the pores under your arms with paraffin wax? (Here’s a sick idea. Don’t dogs sweat out of their paws only, or some such shit? It would be remarkably cruel to put deodorant on a dog’s paws.)

Looking for a deodorant stick, strictly deodorant and not antiperspirant is like reading a Where’s Waldo book. Couldn’t the store put a map or key to follow, like in a box of chocolates? I won’t hold my breath for any big changes, but if you see, or more appropriately - smell me this week, don’t be surprised if I seem “Petal Soft.”

Eggs in God's Omelet

2005-03-05T23:56:00.000-05:00

It is commonly held that simple stories, fairy tales and folklore, the type of stories told to children, contain deeply profound truths. A myth common to all people is one that tells the origins of life. One particular theme tells of how a person is made from an inanimate substance, life is breathed into it so that it may serve, amuse, and glorify the creator.

In the Judeo-Christian realm, man was fashioned out of clay it the image of his creator. This is recreated daily in the delivery rooms of hospitals everywhere. There are many parallels to this particular take on the origin of life. Here I will examine the story of The Gingerbread Man as a creation myth.

An old man and woman have never had any children. One day, they decide to make a little boy. The boy is made in their image as a gingerbread cookie. When the oven is opened the gingerbread boy hops out and runs away, he doesn’t want to be eaten by his creators. He runs and runs from an array of others and gradually grows very confident, too confident. Eventually a clever fox stops him and eats him.

What is being said here? Presuming we are the gingerbread boy, we are products of duality, male and female, yin and yang, opposites, and these opposites are in love. We are created with a spicy temperament, yet we are sweet. Unable to conceive of our own existence, purpose, and origin, we run from it, believing that our only purpose is as food for the gods.

We run and run, denying our beginnings. Doing well, we tend to get a little confident. It is then that a trickster figure, a satan figure, comes about and exploits that, getting us to trust him. Just at the most dangerous point, he consumes us.

The life of the gingerbread boy is an ironic cycle. In some versions of the story the elderly couple wish to eat the boy. In others, they just wish to love him. This is has a great deal of impact on the story. Pinnochio is one other such story, but I will leave that one for you to decipher.

Shedding Light, Spreading Joy

2005-03-04T23:22:00.000-05:00

Mysteries lace the globe. Loch Ness has its monster. The Himalayas are home to the yeti. Sasquatch roams North America. The Beatles kept Ringo. There are mysterious places like the Bermuda Triangle, and Stonehenge. In the spirit of the two Charles, Berlitz and Fort, I have decided to research two new conundrums, canola and pimento.

The first time you hear the words canola and pimento, you might think that Kurt Russell and Sly Stallone’s are making a second attempt at a buddy film. In reality, these are foods.

No one’s every stumbled across a canola field. Has anyone every plucked berries off of a canola bush? How about this, ever harvest a ripe canola from the branch of a canola field? The reason -- while the world of super markets wants you to think canola is some sort of healthy oil, similar to veggie oil; my theory is that the canola is a small rodent that is indigenous to the tundra, much like the lemming, that is shepherded for its oil.

As for pimento, it is like cauliflower. Cauliflower is not a naturally occurring plant, it is was designed, and created by human science. Pimento is an algae, specifically designed to fill an olive. It is weird, but true, that when the pimento is cut it is tossed into a jar of olives. Before shipping, they olives and pimento are actually separate. Like a crab into a shell, somehow the pimento finds it’s way into the olives once packed in a box.

I have no special skills. Just a good clean nose for detective work. The only way to improve it is to sniff out bullshit where it exists. Remember, truth is out there.

Roll On and Off

2005-03-03T20:39:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine is a firm believer that toilet paper ought to be loaded on the dowel as to be dispensed on the roll over. I make it a point of habit to reverse the roll whenever I visit. This is not an activity I frequently enjoy because for some reason I am not invited over much. But “Hail Eris! Goddess of Chaos! Let the wild rumpus continue.”

Many people feel very strongly about the toilet paper roll over. The tissue flow so freely with but a tap, a little cottonelle waterfall. Anyone with a toddler knows that the cottonelle waterfall quickly gathers into a fluffy white pool on the cool tile of the floor, ripples and all.

People fond of the roll over are overwipers. Next time you find yourself in a friend or associates water closet; check the TP. If there is a roll over, peek in the medicine cabinet or below the sink. Go ahead, you know you were going to anyway. Now take notice of the creams and ointments to balm a tender tushie, clear evidence of overwiping.

Fans of the roll over are bunchers and wadders. There are two types of hieny wipers, bunchers/wadders and folders. The loose dispensation of the perforated sheets makes for easy gathering of the material. Once collected and spun into a ball or bunched into a clump, the swipe and wipe begins. In extreme cases a toilet paper mitten is created, however there is rarely a separate chamber for the thumb. If you do that, you need a hobby -- perhaps macramé.

Folders are more meticulous. They like the slow, measured release of square after square, which are neatly folded into a pile. Here the roll under is the favorite. Someone who uses the fold has impeccable technique. The rectangle of paper that invariably forms is not all that conducive to being dragged over the poop chute.

Our school used to have those archaic little metal toilet paper dispensers filled with stacks of pre-cut, folded, and interlocking tissues. When you pulled at them you got one at a time. What’s worse, you could literally read a newspaper through a sheet. Somehow the toilet paper still had the consistentcy of a brown paper bag. Not good, but still a swab up from the 60 grit aluminum oxide sandpaper that was available at my grandparents' house.

So which are you? Anyone have the intestinal fortitude to own up to it? Go ahead, leave a comment -- anonymously if you must.

Roll with It

2005-03-02T00:05:00.000-05:00

The number of nights I am left shivering in the darkness is approximately the same number of days I’ve been married. Here is a test, and while you don’t have to bubble in letters, I hope it takes you back to your school days. Don’t thank me. I’m a teacher, it’s what I do.

My wife is sweet – as sweet as:

a) A jelly roll.

b) A cannoli.

c) A crepe.

d) All of the above.

The answer is d) All of the above. Yes my wife is sweet. Talk with her. Simply making small talk with her will land you with a cavity. Diabetics beware. We married because I am hypoglycemic, and with my delightful wife I have no need to pay attention to my condition.

But, why a jelly roll, a cannoli, and a crepe? What do all of these treats have in common? They, in one way or another, are rolled up. When my wife sleeps she surreptitiously wraps herself in the bed clothes, all of the bed clothes, leaving my cheese in the wind. If I wanted to be in bed with a "Little Debbie" it wouldn't be an effigy of a snack, but a high end madame from the Bunny Ranch.

For many, there is a very specific way to put a roll of toilet paper on the dowel. Some believe that the roll ought to be placed so that it dispenses the connected squares over the roll. For me, there is a very specific way to roll over when in bed. You roll over from the edge of the bed to the center; not over from the center to the edge; nor under from the edge to the center or center to edge.

Maria consistently rolls over from the center to the edge, and while she does so holds firmly onto the comforter and sheets. The result is Maria is generally snugger than a mafia bumped corpse in a rug. Imagine one of those cute, little, white seals laying on the edge of an iceberg. That is me at night, except I am not routinely and illegally clubbed to death, but I too lay exposed to the elements on the very edge -- of the bed.

There are dozens of solutions to this predicament. Most have been discarded or only momentarily considered. Specifically, I am looking for a solution that involves no effort on my part and a complete and total change on my wife’s. Let me know if you come up with anything.

Taking a Stab at Inventing

2005-03-01T21:44:00.000-05:00

The epipen is an underdeveloped, or at the very least underused, technology. In my mind, this is a device that is just waiting to bust big time onto the college scene. If they can figure out how to make the effects last a little longer, or perhaps a little milder, this is a tool that will become as essential as a hi-lighter for those late night cram sessions.

For those uninitiated few, an epipen is a smaller magic marker-like device with a spring loaded needle that injects a dose of epinephrine to counter act anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction marked by swelling and trouble breathing.

Today was a five-cup day. Currently, I am crashing from my caffeine high. I don’t feel like brewing coffee, however a forceful puncture wound in a soft fleshy part of my body that transmits an espresso worth of java juice would do just fine. Yes, that’s right. I propose epipens filled with caffeine rather than epinephrine. They put caffeine in water, soda, mints, gum, juice. Why not an epipen?

"Light up with a HIGH-lighter" The HIGH-lighter will come in all of the dazzling colors as its predecessor, but on the other end will be an epipen that puts a pot of coffee just one hypodermic needle away.

Afraid of needles? Why not an inhaler with caffeine? I hear tell that they are developing an inhaler that can deliver alcohol straight to through the lungs. This avoids that unfortunate liver the size of a jack-o-lantern. Inventors don’t always create something new, they modify something or find new uses for other things.

Listen doctors and lab techs, anaphylaxis is scary. I agree. It sounds like the rooster headed gnostic god Abraxas’ older, weirder brother. We are blessed to live in an age where people with life threatening allergies can live relatively normal lives. But why stop there? Think about it - “Jab o’ Joe” or “Java Jolt”. Take a hit and see if you can’t come up with something.

Ka-plunk

2005-02-28T20:24:00.000-05:00

Shepherds are known to have measured how cold a night was by how many dogs they had to sleep with in order to keep warm. "It was a two-dog night," or "It was a three-dog night." It is important to keep in mind that sleeping with dogs can land you in jail. Plus, how could you scale it? "It was a four-hamster night." That doesn't convey a sense that the weather was mild, it makes you sound like Richard Gere.

We, in the fifth grade are beginning to measure a day by how many pots of coffee we brew to get through the day. Today was a three-pot day. This is really an improvement on the shepherd thing, because it can be scaled. For example on the personal level you can say "It's been a six-cup day."On the other hand, drinking too much coffee has side effects. I'm not talking about brown teeth; I'm talking about brown boxers. So I cruised home, moving as quickly as my hyundai would move in the snow.

I'm driving home. Its a long drive, not matter how fast I move. I feel like I'm going to shoot a bowling ball out of my ass. I’ve barely put the car in park and I’ve already got my key in the front door. I shuffle to the bathroom, that pinch-your-ass-shut kind of shuffle. Sitting on the throne with the bathroom door open (I couldn’t be bothered with it) I let go. A cartoon rushes through my head - BOOM! I'm lifted six inches off the bowl from the force.

Yet in reality, nothing happens. I wait, not wanting to force it. A turd the size of a small meatball, with the density of granite, escapes my body. It falls to the cold water below with the same splash of a penny in a wishing well. I wait for a little while longer. Nothing. Even as that meatball turd hit the porcelain below, I knew, nothing would follow.

That is disappointing, but not too bad. Considering it was six-cup day. I could have gotten a speeding ticket.

I Take My Ritalin Aurally

2005-02-27T23:09:00.000-05:00

Sundays are made for rituals. Though it begins the week, it also ends the weekend. Sunday is in many ways like its name sake, the center of our existence. In those few hours we make every attempt to re-enchant our lives. People do this in many, many ways: visits with family, worship, big meals, and the like. For me, Sundays are made for Baroque music.

At 7:00 A. M. I direct the radio dial to my local national public radio affiliate, WSHU. There I can hear Suzanne Bona play Baroque music until the early afternoon. Whatever I am doing, or not doing, it is the soundtrack of my Sundays. (Bonus: even though you can’t see it over the radio, Suzanne Bona is quite a babe! Like Gillian Anderson but hotter.)

With the same kind of pride I feel when I say I listened to Pearl Jam and the Smashing Pumpkins before they were cool and made videos; I remember Sunday Baroque before it became syndicated, when it was Sunday Morning Baroque. That’s how cool I am.

Baroque music is dark chocolate, 76% cocoa, for the ears. The thick, rich, textured strains are black coffee on a misty morning. It is ritalin for my active, addled mind. Ritalin is a stimulant, yet when given to a child who is hyperactive and over stimulated it has the unique, and ironic, of quieting the child. Baroque music functions much the same way for me.

In emergency rooms, when a patient's heart is racing, they are juiced with a jolt that is just a tad faster. When the heart is hit with a rhythm that is a little greater, it returns to a more regular pace. So it is with the mind and soul.

My mind is like a caged monkey: jumpy, sketchy, and playful. Read my blog and you will see that it even slings its own shit about, like its primate analog. When Sunday comes along, I tune into Baroque music. Some people dislike it because it is flashy or showy. For me, Baroque music is just the thing to soothe the savage beast.

The Mongoose Basket

2005-02-26T19:41:00.000-05:00

What does the South Beach Diet and all of its ilk offer? A social contract. A widely publicized and marketed diet plan creates a chic and an in-crowd.

When you adhere to a fad diet, like the South Beach one, and go to a dinner party you must abstain from at least 85% of the foods there. Under normal circumstances it could be considered rude. If you’ve set your sail by your own star and just excuse yourself because you are on a diet, you are more than likely to encounter encouragement to cheat just for the night. Say you’re “on South Beach” and it is immediately understood. You may even earn the admiration of fellow guests, who ooh and aah at your will power, asking if it is hard.

Here is my theory of reality. There is subjective, personal reality. That is how you process and interpret all of the sense stimuli of the world at large. On the flip side is objective, consensual reality on which a community agrees. A public idea becomes more solidified by virtue of the number of people who are considering it. This is why people worship in groups, it helps to concretize a belief when it is done with a consensus.

Our demonic tutor Frater Perdurabo, a.k.a. Aleister Crowley, presents this little parable in Magick in Theory and Practice, chapter 18:

There is the story of the American in the train who saw another American carrying a basket of unusual shape. His curiosity mastered him, and he leant across and said: "Say, stranger, what you got in that bag?" The other, lantern-jawed and taciturn, replied: "mongoose". The first man was rather baffled, as he had never heard of a mongoose. After a pause he pursued, at the risk of a rebuff: "But say, what is a Mongoose?" "Mongoose eats snakes", replied the other. This was another poser, but he pursued: "What in hell do you want a Mongoose for?" "Well, you see", said the second man (in a confidential whisper) "my brother sees snakes". The first man was more puzzled than ever; but after a long think, he continued rather pathetically: "But say, them ain't real snakes". "Sure", said the man with the basket, "but this Mongoose ain't real either".

In a form of magic common to therapy the man carrying the mongoose basket is creating a consensual reality with his “insane” brother in order to rid him of a problem.

The fad diet elicits the same effect. It takes a personal, subjectivity reality, presents it to a community for consensus and therefore ensnares and recruits all of our powers, both conscious and unconscious, to make it objective reality.

God Bless the Wisdom of the Groundhog

2005-02-25T13:51:00.000-05:00

Much can be learned from the groundhog. Having traveled much up and down the Merritt Parkway during my extended courtship with Maria; I’ve become something of an expert on road kill. I’ve seen them all, or at least many of them, but I have never seen a ground hog. Well over a thousand trips up and down ol’ route fifteen, memorizing trees and bridges, and yet not one dead groundhog.

Oh! do you see groundhogs though. Those chubby ambassadors of spring. Roadside buddhas. Sitting precariously close to precariously speeding vehicles. It’s like a prehistoric lotus posture; back straight like a might pine, head held high but humble. Nibbling.

When all the other animals run to the other side, playing a cosmic game of Frogger where they loose much more than a quarter, the groundhog sits and chews. The grass is not greener on the other side. He knows this. Right here, right now, is good.

Contentment isn’t easy. Children can appreciate contentment. They know the value of home. “Why move when I have friends who live near? Why move when Iam just able to hit the wiffle ball over the fence? Why move when I know fourteen places to stay dry in a rainstorm and not one is in our house?” The parent replies “We’re moving to a bigger house. We’ll have a bigger yard. (One you’ll have to mow) You’ll make new friends. I’m getting a new job. It’s a better job.”

The lines between “have to” and “want to” are so hazy. The squirrels and the ‘possums don’t listen to the wisdom of the groundhog. I suppose if the ground hog could address humanity we wouldn’t listen either.

I have lived in a home for almost 5 years and my wife is talking about a bigger house. Even though she complains when it needs to be vacuumed or if the phone is downstairs (down twelve stairs). I remind Maria, we have chosen our life. It didn’t happen to us.

I am fond of our home. I am content. She is too and agrees (at least until we visit her sister). I have heard the groundhog’s message, whispered in actions far more subtle than words. He is a true teacher who teaches by being.

Naughty Bread

2005-02-24T21:50:00.000-05:00

Forbidden is fun. There is no surer way to attract people to something than to forbid it. Children know it; teens embody it; adults try to hide it.

Go to South Beach and you’ll see any number of hotties strutting around in bikini’s and even thongs. Tops that look like colorful bras are the only other things that draw the eye. It’s fun to see. It is like catching a peep of women in their underwear, but it is not as good. Glimpsing down a woman’s or a up a woman’s skirt is infinitely hotter.

Why? Because the forbidden is fun. Bikini versus bra and panties, bra and panties wins - hands down. Same amount of skin, but hidden. The skivvies are sexier because they are verboten.

The same can be said for bread - white bread specifically. All this Dr. Atkins goes to South Beach to help carbohydrate addicts crap has made bread bad. Now that white bread is naughty I am crazy for it.

White bread is not a regular on my menu. Having recently lost sixty pounds without a diet, I avoid it for the obvious reasons. Notice I said “avoided” and not “abstain.” Now when I get white bread I am like a crackhead at a methadone clinic. I can’t get enough to satiate my jones.

“There’s no bread. Let them eat cake.” Hell with that. Put the chocolate chocolate chip down and give me the batard, French bread, Italian bread, or a peasant bowl. I’ll take that over a sweet any day of the week.

Bread is naughty, give me some. This whole thing is a plot by a bunch of wheat farming Illuminati, but I don’t care.

ACHOO! Tissue?

2005-02-23T22:33:00.000-05:00

Old books and dusty scrolls offer wisdom and knowledge. Today one does not need to hike mountain paths to monasteries or ferret through the back rooms of libraries. The pilgrimage is now made across coaxial cable and fiber optic networks. So much is readily available on the internet for free! Be advised, the Information Age is not just about accessibility, it is about the ability to draw more connections from disparate places than ever before.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a sacred text in Tibetan Buddhism, a blend of the ancient animistic Bon religion of the Himalayas and Mahayana Buddhism. The book details the experience of the human soul in the bardo, the period between death and the next rebirth. Sogyal Rinpoche recently translated the text as The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Rinpoche did this because the book is filled with vital wisdom about life and death for people of any culture.

For example, the Tibetans hold that there are three times in life when the human soul comes closest to the experience of the bardo, of being dead. The first state is a deep, dreamless sleep - no rapid eye movement sleep (nrem.) The second state is a sneeze. The third state is orgasm.

Ancient Tibetan Lamas certainly had their fingers on the pulse of humanity, amongst other places. Just as myths like the theft of fire or the flooding of the world are common to all cultures, in all corners of the Earth; so it is with the near-death states.

Saying “Bless you” when someone sneezes has confused origins. One theory maintains that during the Crusades Christians believed that during a sneeze the soul left the body temporarily and would not return but be snatched by Satan if the sneezer was not blessed. Another story tells that a blessing given for a sneeze warded off the black plague. Coincidence? I think not.

In Act V of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Viola says to Duke Orsino “And I, most jocund, apt and willingly, to do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.” In the Bard’s day, dying a little or small death was a euphemism for climaxing. Here again the parallel between death and orgasm is drawn.

We can now, with all logic and rationality, draw connections from sneezing to orgasm. I suggest that when someone sneezes it is sort of like a preview of their typical orgasm, a cumming attraction if you will. All you bachelors and bachelorettes out there, heed my wisdom, that of the Will Shakespeare, and the Tibetan Lamas. Observe your potential lover sneezing. Is it a loud, wet, messy sneeze? Get a towel before bedding them. Is a reserved, controlled, focused sneeze? You can leave your window open.

Armed with this knowledge you can appear intuitive and sensitive. In reality you are just widely read and have DSL.

Neo-Taoism

2005-02-22T20:23:00.000-05:00

Anyone who knows me knows that I fancy myself a Taoist at heart. Not that I have any real understanding of the Taoist religion beyond reading three or four primary Taoist texts. The reading did, in fact, occur at a very impressionable age. Perhaps it was many past lives as a Taoist, whatever the reason it is as it is.

Flash forward a couple of eons, in and amongst the thousands of years of Taoist literature there floats a manuscript by Gord-tzu. Consider what follows to be a preview of my upcoming Neo-Taoist text, The Gen X Taoist Codex.

- Strive for mediocrity, and effortlessly you will achieve greatness.

- The master baiter is always busy with his worm.

- I am never surprised, but always unprepared.

- Underachieving to help you feel better about yourself.

- Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow.

- The Tao is like a woman, impossible to comprehend but possible to live with.

Misguided? Could be. The Taoists always held simplicity as a virtue. However, the line between the simplicity and idiocy is a fine one. It is a line I am sure I have crossed on a number of occasions. But in a world where someone can sell a hot dog, coated in cornbread, and served on a stick; could the Gen X Taoist Codex be that far off?

Stuck On Me

2005-02-21T21:14:00.000-05:00

Using a garden variety brown paper bag I can cover a book so effectively that nuclear fallout will leave the pages unyellowed. Naturally it follows that wallpapering an 8’ X 8’ bathroom should be a snap for a man such as myself. Vinyl coated prepasted paper with no big patterns to match, it’ll be like wrapping christmas gifts. Right? Then why do I feel like I just want nine rounds with a giant postage stamp with an attitude? I’m licked

That’s right kids, I’m kicking of winter break with a president’s day wallpapering bash! Often, school vacations are spent with various tasks and projects that, on regular days, I hope to put off until armageddon. Somehow my time away from work actually ends up feeling like an apprenticeship at a brand new job for which I have only few of the necessary tools, fewer of the required skills, and my only boss is the orange 1-2-3 Do-It-Yourself Home Depot manual. I’ve got a philosophy degree along with my education one. I’ve read Hegel and almost understood what he was saying, yet I can’t make heads or tails out of what the Home Depot mascot Homer is saying.

One bit of advice that Homer is found of is: measure twice, cut once. Even so, home improvement psychically demolishes me. A rule of thumb I adhere to is: for every hour working on a project, you will spend two on a therapist’s couch. Substitutions are permitted. Feel free to replace each hour with a shrink with a single serving of the alcoholic beverage of your choice, some friends, and a platter of nachos.

It’s been awhile since I’ve read Bullfinch, but I believe one of the labors of Hercules was wallpapering the Aegean stables. So it should come as no surprise that I am having trouble with it. Maybe I could have gone in with a better attitude. That may have helped. I went all bluff and bluster, a little cocky. I just figured that if I could put the vinyl adhesive shade on the rear windows of my wife’s Saturn with out any tools, with no bubbles, in the parking lot of Babies ‘R’ Us, I could smooth wallpaper to a shiny finish. Now it looks like cocky.

This is not how I planned to spend my vacation. What happened to the days when a break from school meant that the only thing getting plastered was me? It’s okay. i muddle through. The work will be done and come close to looking decent. When anyone uses my downstairs bathroom and breaks my balls about the second rate job, I’ll tell them to pack up their shit and use someone else’s crapper.

Killing in the Name of ...

2005-02-20T21:30:00.000-05:00

Every religion has documented prayers that have been answered. Every sect has miracles that have been recorded along with a telephone book worth of witnesses. How anyone can choose a faith and call it the one true faith is beyond me. Saying “the one true faith for me” seems more appropriate. Despite all of this, there are people who kill, die, suffer, and torture in the name of the one true faith, whatever it maybe.

When prayers are answered it can be awfully convincing. Miracles make converts; there’s no denying it. It isn’t hard to see how a person acts for a god who is plainly evident. Anyone who commits a religiously motivated atrocity does so in the name of a god who is on their side. In truth, it is not god for whom they act, it is their faith. Vanity and egocentrism reign despite what all of the prophets have said. In the Middle East, the jewish, the christian, and the muslim have been quarreling and killing over the same god with three different names.

There is a story about a group of blind men who are examining an elephant. All of them feel the beast in their presence, but being privy to only part of it they misunderstand what it is in its entirety. A man feeling the leg claims it is a tree. Another fellow at the trunk says it is a snake. One unfortunate fellow by the bunghole thinks its a cesspool. None of them get the whole picture, but all of them get some of the picture.

With just a few steps back, with honest talk and active listening, a seeker might get the idea. If it sounds simple, it is because it is. Simple, however, should never be mistaken for easy. No one wants to be on the wrong side. Everyone wants to be right and believe that god is on their side.

Perspective and distance allow one to see the whole picture. When the white-knuckled grip of fear and faith loosens, one can see that it is their inflated sense of self to which one clings. It is scary to think that god is not on your side, but god is on your side, and my side, and his side, and her side, and their side. Bottom line, god is on our side - the side of life.

The Bathroom Door - The Gender Gap

2005-02-19T22:34:00.000-05:00

What’s my three and a half year old daughter got that I haven’t got? I envy her, and it is not because of the two years worth of breast-feeding. When my daughter calls through the bathroom door to show my wife “how many poops” she just did; Maria goes. She may even say “Oh wow!”

Correct me if I’m wrong but is not shit simply shit?

When I call to Maria to see the turd that’s coiled about itself three times without breaking, like a big brown cobra, reaching above the water, I am likely to get yelled at and cuffed upon my exit. Give me a break. I never gave birth, those six pounds of crap are as close as I get! And I’m proud.

For some reason, when I find myself showering and lathering up my asscrack she unlocks the door with the little paper-clip-key-thing for a tissue. A handsome man I am not, but I do have better moments. Not even Brad Pitt can look good with a fist full of Ivory Snow lather and dinkleberries.

Let’s say I’m dropping the kids off at the pool, it’s common for me to thumb through a novel. It is when I am sitting there in my sanctum sanctorum, that the knock comes on the door. She asks what am I doing. Isn’t it obvious? If I throw open the door to show you, you’ll hit me. Why ask?

If I’m pinching a loaf, I play gameboy. It is then the call comes from the other side. “Are we going to my father’s this Sunday?” Can’t it wait until I’m done? Is he waiting there with door open letting in a draft? Maybe she’ll ask “Do you want rigatoni or penne?” In the kitchen, if I made a pasta suggestion it would be considered audacious, yet through the bathroom door it is essential.

While Maria is in there. I want nothing to do with her. It could be Mardi Gras in there, I’ll still walk by the door without a thought. It’s the bathroom not the catwalk. There are better ways to see one’s wife, naked or otherwise.

Let me clue all the ladies in. We men are confused. As a man, I am easy. All I ask is for a little consistency and rationality. Allow me to hide in my cave. When I invite you in, proud of my accomplishments, it is not necessary to applaud but a quiet nod or an “Oh wow” would suffice. There is more here to explore, I will return to the subject.

Trickling Down

2005-02-18T21:53:00.000-05:00

Recently, a friend sent me an e-mail revering Ronald Reagan. His passing was cause for the nation to look back on his tenure as president of our country. Perhaps it was fitting that all of the media coverage displayed him as the ivory white cowboy, a paladin with an unerring hip shot guided by justice. There are not a lot of funerals or wakes where the dearly beloved gather to talk about what a prick the newly deceased was capable of being, at least not above a whisper. It is no surprise it’s not this way with a nation’s president.

Not that I think Reagan was a prick. My age is such that I am young enough to be cognizant of what was going on and old enough to have not read about him in my history texts. The part of the Gipper’s legacy that occupies my mind now is Trickle Down Economics.

There is a great deal of debate as to the success of Trickle Down Economics. My opinion is made evident in my simple, yet concise, explanation of Trickle Down Economics. Shit rolls down hill; money rolls up.

Think about the hierarchies and bureaucracies to which you have bore witness. Those at the top always come out better than those at the bottom. When the upper crust benefits, the lower echelons benefit is well out of proportion. There is an older, and I feel less elegant saying, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

The truest of truths, like the most entertaining of stories, are told and retold, taking many forms. There was a recent exposition of this principle just a few years back. Enron. An old adage received a new twist - when the shit hits the fan, it’s those down wind who suffer. With Enron, those down wind were left chin deep in rancid feces.

What happened amounts to Andrew Fastow, Ken Lay, and company squatting in front of Everglades fan boat after a taquito feast and a coffee enema, and lettin'’ fly all over the middle and lower classes and their 401K’s.

A direct link to Trickle Down Economics and Reagan? Probably not, it’s more likely that these are like a cluster pimples on a great and singular ass, disgusting manifestations of the shit that is going on just a little higher up. Forgive my mistrust, but I see a trend.

Brusha Brusha Brusha

2005-02-17T22:03:00.000-05:00

Percival was the best of Arthur’s knights. When all of the round table was charged with the quest for the holy grail, it was Percival who completed the mission. I can only hope I am man enough to see my own personal quest to fruition. I need a simple toothbrush.

Never have I worked myself into such a lathered, brushing frenzy that I lost my grip, giving myself a black eye. Only rarely have I pumped the brush so frantically in and out of my mouth that the brush slipped from my hand resulting in a fat lip. So a bumpy, rubber, contoured grip is unnecessary. A colored strip that fades with use is no help for me; I actually have two brain cells to rub together to figure out when to change my toothbrush.

The dental industry has become a mental industry. It is crazy with the marketing and merchandising. It only begins with the fancy brushes. Kids are now getting braces on as early as elementary school. There are seven year-olds with braces. When I was seven I could knock the hell out of an ear of corn through a picket fence, never got braces, and yet somehow can still face the world and chew solid foods. I heard that universities are offering a double doctorate in dentistry and ob-gyn so that braces can be affixed to a fetus in the womb.

True many people have less than perfect teeth. While whiteners may help some, others need a little more help. A lot of folks have summer teeth - summer in, and summer out. Others have teeth like the stars - they come out at night. Americans are loosing more than teeth, we are loosing the war on tooth decay. The answer is not in sleeker designs and fancy accouterments. We need good habits.

If the corvette of toothbrushes is what the people need to get in the habit; so be it. Sell the ultrabrushes. It is not as annoying as that little bit of popcorn under the gums, but I am bothered that I can’t find a basic brush. What I want is a toothbrush that is like a popsicle stick with bristles - simple, effective, and ninety-eight cents.

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut . . .

2005-02-16T16:20:00.000-05:00

Sometimes you rip one off of your boyfriend in a drunken rage because he refused to have sex with you. At least that’s what you do if you are 24 year-old Amanda Monti, of Birkenhead, Mersyeside, U. K. After a party at her boyfriend’s place, she wanted to do the naked pretzel so bad that when he spurned her affections she tore the dude’s ball right out of the bag. It is unclear whether it was acidental or intentional. Either way, the guy is a kind of cyclops, but instead of one eyeball, it is just one ball. Not since Eve plucked an apple has a woman sinned as greatly. Obviously she was feeling a bit teste.

One spring weekend while I was an undergrad at S. C. S. U. (Second Choice State University), my buddy and I had a contest to see how many women could get to turn us down in one night. In the early evening we used cheesy pick-up lines like “Is that a mirror in your pocket? I can definitely see myself in your pants.” Or “If I said you have a nice body would you hold it against me?” A few hours and a several beers later it became “Hey, want to go back to my place?” One girl looked at me, nodded, and told me to wait while she went to get her jacket. I think back and try to comprehend how desperate that lass was. She had nothing on Miss Monti.

Amanda would have settled for a little oral; after she had tugged the nut loose from the sack she popped it in her mouth. Had he requested a bit of tea bagging, and she simply misunderstood? That’s not tea bagging! That is Swedish meat balling! If she had done it with a long, thin fork with two little tines she would have created a whole new type of fondue.

Monti’s boyfriend was known to do a little free balling (no underwear); he found his knickers to restrictive. Could it be that Amanda was so given to hyperbole that she decided that the actual scrotum must be too tight for his ballines?

How nuts does you have to be in order to start a nut collection?

Well, Miss Monti’s a few meatball sandwiches short of a picnic. Her madness has inspired the sequel to The Full Monte, The Half Monti, where she single-handedly puts the town urologist out of business, sterilizing men for a beer and the cost of a manicure.

Does anyone remember when Corn Nuts had that jingle that went “Bust a nut, bust a nut, bust a nut with Corn Nuts!” if not, you’ll get to hear it in another film adaptation, as the theme song for The Amanda Monti Story: One Nut Short of a Sack on a very special Oprah Winfrey Presents.

Wine Where Is Thy Buzz

2005-02-15T13:01:00.000-05:00

The University of California at San Francisco may have figured out the secret of liquor. Soon it may be possible to give drunkenness the switch and shut if off. How on earth will ugly people get laid? Eliminating the intoxicating effects of alcohol would have such deleterious effects on world culture. For the love of Bacchus, scientists stop!

Discard the pocket protector, set the calculator down, exit the lab, and go out to happy hour. Look around you, without alcohol happy hour would be nothing more than the bitching hour. Have the frat boys of your youth so disenfranchised you to debauchery by their rejections that you must ruin the fun for everyone?

Should the magnetic poles reverse and north become south, should the polar ice caps melt entirely or even triple in size, the effects would still not match the result of blunted alcohol. “Death where is thy sting?” my ass! Wine where is thy buzz? If liquor lost its potency we would have a world of crackheads. People need to escape. They hate their miserable lives and their pitiful selves.

Oh how art would suffer! Think about all of the musicians who cleaned up and became sober. Eric Clapton was a blues man supreme, who despite his British whiteness demonstrated real soul. Then he got on the wagon, and he went from cocaine to pop tarts and cardboard. This is just one example of the many who have made the switch from bold to mold.

What’s worse, if science goes through with this and puts it into a pill, people will not get drunk but will still be hung over. That’s like having sex without orgasm and being left with a paternity suit and oozing sores. Drinking alcohol with getting a buzz is like getting a tattoo with invisible ink – it’s not fun, it’s pain!

Please doctors and lab assistants, turn your attentions to more pressing issues. Cure cancer. Make chocolate tasty and low fat. Solve the AIDS crisis in South Africa. Find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie pop. But please, leave liquor alone.

So Many Holidays, So Many Gifts

2005-02-14T16:54:00.000-05:00

On Christmas Eve Maria and I go out for Chinese food, lunch usually. It is a silly tradition that we began our very first year together. Not wanting to solely celebrate the holiday, but a favorite holiday movie, A Christmas Story, as well, we decided on less occidental cuisine. We were obligated to spend the holiday itself with family, so we stuck with the Eve. This tradition has continued to this day.

On one particular Christmas Eve outing eight years ago, I made the best decision of my life.

The meal was delightful. The ambience was excellent. The people were amazingly friendly. I had not eaten much. I was preoccupied and a bit restless. Assuming it was some form of holiday anxiety, Maria merrily chatted with me, soothing my nerves.

At the close of the meal, fortune cookies arrived on a little silver dish. Quickly grabbing both cookies I stowed them under the table, and explained to Maria that in China there is a traditional cookie game that is played in celebration of the holy anniversary of Christ’s birth.

I think Maria had had some wine. There is no way in hell I could pull that one over on her if she was completely sober. For argument’s sake, let’s say that the bulk of the Chinese world was indeed Christian. Let’s also assume that fortune cookies were actually Chinese. Why, in the name of the god who’s birthday it was, would people snatch cookies from a platter and ask other diners to choose the left or the right hand? Is this somehow celebrating how the wise men presented gifts to the newborn king?

Looking beyond Maria, the faces of the three waitresses peer around the kitchen door, one stacked on top of the other, watching us. The pressure was on. As she has done for years before that day, and years after, Maria indulged me. She chose a hand; I can’t remember which, the right or the left.

She didn’t notice that the cookie wasn’t in a wrapper or how my hand shook. I watched tensely as she held the delight, as if it were some egg that was going to produce some bizarre life form. She withdrew the fortune without cracking the cookie and read it aloud. “You will soon marry.”

She smiled and beamed, joyous with the little synchronicity of it. “Well, aren’t you going to eat the cookie?” I urged her. She opened the dessert. Tears filled her eyes. In her hand was a princess cut diamond set in platinum.

“Will you marry me?”

Laughing and crying she said yes and jumped to hug me and kiss me and get the ring on her finger. The restaurant clapped and cheered and whistled. The waitresses fell out of the kitchen door and fawned to one another.

On this holiday, I think back to the best gift I ever got - a "yes" wrapped in a smile.

A Simple Sandwich

2005-02-13T22:10:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine likes to cozy up in bed with a big fat cookbook. She sits there and reads through it like a novel. From my time working in a bookstore, I am aware of what kind of business cookbooks are. Cookbooks make a lot of money. They’re also, apparently, a lot more than collections of recipes.

An idea for a good cookbook occurred to me today. Imagine, a book full of recipes and stories about peanut butter and jelly. Hell, I would start an entire restaurant dedicated to peanut butter and jelly. I understand that in New York City there is a restaurant the has menu made up entirely of breakfast cereal.

There are at least as many ways to make a good PB&J as there are to fix a bowl of cereal. I will never write a cookbook, much less a cookbook about one type of sandwich, but if any body finds themselves up to the task, let me make a recommendation.

Make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on toasted waffles. The little squares hold the spreads nicely and a round sandwich is always a joy to behold. It is quite an ingenius idea, and I could lie by saying I consciously thought of it. The truth of it is, that like Old Mother Hubbard's, my cupboard was bare. Lacking bread, I grabbed the next best thing out of desperation.

I realize it is a simple idea, but a simple idea for a simple blog post. That’s all I got folks.

Parked On The Parkway

2005-02-12T19:33:00.000-05:00

It was a band from the sixties. It was a movie in 2000. It is the bane of many a commute. Traffic. There are people who spend their entire lives studying traffic. I am not one of them, however I am going to guess that it is in large part a study of human nature.

Is there a solution to traffic? Glimpsing ahead into the far flung future of the human race, one will see vehicles lined up end to end. Just watch the Jetsons. The Jetsons had cars that could move in three dimensions and yet still there was traffic.

In our automobiles, we are most terrapin. Despite being encased in movable shells and crawling at a snail’s pace, we lack the wisdom of our turtle brethren. In the story of The Tortoise and the Hare the tortoise wins. Why can we not glean something from this tale?

Allow me to digress for a moment. When sitting in traffic and I see someone speed down the breakdown lane to points unknown I flip my lid. The exile of the Dalai Lama from Tibet doesn’t boil my blood nearly as much. Let me just say, quite clearly. If you are reading this and you drive down the breakdown lane in traffic, you are an asshole. Maybe one time out of ten there is a good reason, and that is being generous. Here I will enlighten you O Hellion of the Highway. Imagine you have a loved one in need of aid, and the emergency vehicle can’t get by the traffic because some morons are using the breakdown lane. Don’t do it.

In truth, it’s not much of a digression; it is a more concentrated form of the traffic mentality. The greatest insight I gained into the commuter mind was garnered walking my class to gym. Some kids were cutting line and hustling ahead. One child with all the answers says what he believes the teacher wants him to say. “Guys, stop it! We are in fifth grade. We should be able to walk in a straight line. We are all going to the same place.” Then the boy smiles at me, proud to have taken a small load off my back by doing some of my job for me. I nod my thanks, then it hits me. “Thanks, but it doesn’t change,” I tell him. “Next time you find yourself in traffic think about that.”

Everybody is a special case. Everybody has a special need. It is the dark side of our ruggedly individualistic society. “Just this one time.” you say. Listen guys, take turns. You go; I go. I go; you go. One lane, then the next. Think on this next time you’re reading about someone’s honor roll student from a bumper sticker on the parkway.

John Q. Pubic

2005-02-11T23:52:00.000-05:00

Evolution courses unpredictably and at a sub-glacial pace. Which means, if you’re like me and you’re waiting for a change, don’t hold your breath. While curiosity killed the cat, I am curious what evolution has in store for the pussy. Besides, cats have nine lives, they can afford curiosity.

The naked figure is a lovely thing, but amidst all the fleshy goodness there’s a velcro-like oasis, a bird’s nest just south of the center, an anomaly that remains a mystery. What natural purpose could pubes serve? Choking hazard? Lie detector? No amount of fibbing can hide when the carpet don’t match the drapes. Also very telling is if the carpet is berber or shag.

In a book entitled “Field Guide To The Little People” Nancy Arrowsmith tells an old English fairy tale about how a pube saved a family from an evil spirit. The tale tells how a lazy woman called on the fair folk to assist with the house work. She got more than she bargained for. The imp that responded to the summons was more of a curse than a blessing. He completed every task just after being assigned it, then pestered the woman for another job. The spirit wanted jobs so badly that the woman couldn’t even sleep. The homestead looked better than ever but she had less time than ever before. Finally, one evening, the woman is trying to have sex with her husband. The fairy, returning from a deed, busts in catching the couple in full coitus, begging for a task. Flustered, the woman plucks a pubic hair and tells him to straighten it. The fairy, unable to complete his job, never returns.

So maybe I’m going a little hard on the beaver. Which, by the way, if that brillo pad is harboring a pair of buckteeth, you have more to worry about than a clump of sodden ringlets in the shower drain. Maybe pubic hair can be altered or mutated to make it more utilitarian. Wouldn’t it be grand if pubic hair could function like a mood ring, changing shades with arousal levels? Speaking of color changes, imagine a bush that can indicate the weather like those fuzzy owls that you sometimes would shake free from the bottom of a Cracker Jack box. For the cunning linguist, how about pubic hair that can double as minty dental floss or an absorbent chamois?

My focus has been mainly on the female primarily because aint no makeover going to help the male genitals. All you frat boys out there, listen well. Trim, don’t shave, those pubes and your wiener will look bigger! That’s about all that can be done though. The main point here is that you can’t rely on minute changes in genetic structure to rectify an aesthetic situation. It is probably best to think differently or take matters into your own hands.

The Truth About Cats And Dogs

2005-02-10T20:37:00.000-05:00

Our existence is one of diametrically opposed opposites. The T’ai Chi or “Supreme Ultimate” is an ancient Chinese symbol that embodies this eternal contrast. More popularly know as the Yin-Yang, it can be seen everywhere from tattoos to tailgates to theosophical texts. The black and white fish represent anything from dark and light, evil and good, order and chaos, or cats and dogs.

As in so many things, a person finds themself in one camp or another, and rarely in between. I find myself solidly in the dog camp. I don’t currently own a dog. I have no plans of owning a dog anytime in the near future. Although, if for some reason a psycho from PETA brought me to the city pound at gun point and forced me to bring a pet home it would be a dog.

My philosophical background prevents me from making such a claim on any emotional standard. Cuteness, cuddliness, and playfulness don’t factor into the equation for me. Such a choice is rooted firmly in strictly rational grounds. Allow me to explain.

Let’s say a super scientist invents a gun that shoots a beam which will increase its target’s size one hundred fold. Why the invention would take the form of a gun is beyond me, that’s just how super scientists work; or is that mad scientists? In any case, shoot a cat and dog with the size changing ray gun and watch the fun ensue.

Here is the secret conclusion, a giant cat is a tiger. A tiger is a killer, a man-eater. It doesn’t matter if you raise them from a kitten. They will eat you. Just ask Siegfried and/or Roy. The only thing that prevents cats from killing their owners and taking over the world is their small size. Otherwise, they’d be tossing each and every one of us around like a limp and twitching sparrow.

Turn that same ray gun on a dog and what you’ve got is Clifford. A big friendly dog that both barks and speaks in John Ritter’s voice. The only risk you run with Clifford is a high dry cleaning bill from all the licking. Maybe the volkswagen sized holes in the yard and turds the size of tractor wheels would be a problem; but you would’nt catch him snacking on your neighbor. Hell, dry those turds and ship ‘em off to the third world and you have a cheap source of fuel.

Having used my razor sharp wits and ironclad logic on this problem I must go; for while I have neither cat nor dog, my tamagotchi needs me to shut off the light so he can go to sleep.

Naked Karaoke

2005-02-09T07:30:00.000-05:00

My neck of the woods has had its share of rabble rousers. We are the seat of the American Revolution. However ironic, New England has become synonomous with staid. Now New England is once again the seat of a revolution, an entertainment revolution – Naked Karaoke.

Try to imagine the circumstances under which this brainstorm was generated. What stimuli could have spawned Naked Karaoke? My guess is satellite television. Some crackhead was channel surfing. From American Idol filled with tears and crooning, to the Spice Network where Throat Yogurt 2 was airing, to Nick At Night where a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup commercial was on. You got your chocolate in my peanut butter, you got your peanut butter on my chocolate. Two great tastes that taste great together.

Who are these people who line up for Naked Karaoke? Obviously people who enjoy seeing the naked form are paying their admission fee. I am one of those and might consider plunking down my hard earned dough. But my gut tells me that it is not the beauty queens back stage running through their DO-RE-MI’s in a bathrobe. Even moderately attractive naked people would be hard to look at during those high notes. If I went I would need a guarantee that there wouldn’t be anyone singing a Mariah Carey, Rush, or Yes song.

As for the performers, what kind of daredevils are they? Seinfeld once did a bit about how people fear public speaking more than death. Couple this notion with the all too common nightmare of being naked in public; the people going must be thrill seekers. There are two types of thrill seekers that come to mind – fear addicted, bungee jumping, extreme sport athletes and those fat, hairy guys wearing bathing caps who make up the various polar bear clubs around the world. I sincerely hope it is those fit few.

Under the worst circumstances people will leave Naked Karaoke looking like some sick amalgam of Van Gogh and Oedipus, ears cut off and eyes gouged out. Under the best circumstances people will leave keeping an eye out for van for a quick go, and with a grin from ear to ear ready to eat a puss.

If anyone goes, please, let me know how it is. Until then, the sick alchemy of my imagination urges me to offer a third offering for the bar owners, how about a webcast? I proffer up my blog for a link.

Quiet Contemplation Interrupted

2005-02-08T21:09:00.000-05:00

Teachers have two opportunities to use the bathroom at work - before school and after school. Kids, don’t let this dissuade you from entering teacher’s college, there are other perks to make up for it. Students who mine their noses for slimy gold then hand-in an assignment are just one class of perks.

Perception is a strong suit of mine. When I leave my New England home I notice the distinct lack of stone fences everywhere. Never have I missed it when a woman misbuttoned a blouse. As I relaxed in the teachers’s lav after the last bus left, I noticed something was different. It could be that I am not all that perceptive, the bathroom is only the size of a matchbox. None-the-less, the small white box attached to the wall in a high corner immediately leapt to my attention.

Contemplating the object eased my nerves. The meditative state I had sunk into was almost complete, I was seconds away from entering the all-encompassing bliss of nirvana when a sudden noise shot me out of my reverie straight to farvana. The sound was an airy blast, much akin to an exhalation from Shamu the Killer Whale. There was no orca in any of body of water in that bathroom, brown trout perhaps, but not one cetacean.

A soft, orchard scented mist reached me then. A citrusy, floral fragrance that was definitely not previously present. My perception served me well that day, and in a flash of insight that left me looking for my sidekick Watson, I quickly de-deuced that the little white box on the wall was responsible for the aromatic ejaculation. It certainly wasn’t my ass! The smell had to be the purpose of the object, it scared the shit out of me, literally, but that surely wasn't its only use.

Technology is no mystery to me. I’m somewhat savvy, but I have yet to figure out how the perfume box worked. It occurred to me that the device could measure the amount of poopicles in the air and then blasts a bouquet to freshen the atmosphere. Really, it’s probably on a timer. The idea that there is a gadget out there that measures poopicles is entertaining though. Whatever it is, I hereby thank the custodial staff for the little amenity.

On a side note, when I spell checked this post, it suggested pupils in place of poopicles. Ironic or insightful?

And The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth

2005-02-07T15:37:00.000-05:00

Wisdom, like water, seeks and is content with the low places. Folklore and fairy stories are rich with insight, yet when told around the cooking fire it was by common, baseborn people. Now these fables fill brightly covered books and line the shelves of nurseries and kindergartens. Are we so full of ourselves as grown-ups, so jaded, that we will not accept gold spun from straw?

Consider the sense of the song “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” While my three-year-old daughter was in the bath last night she sang this tune to herself. Caught in a moment of quiet contemplation, it occurred to me just how much sagacity flowed from this little ditty. My own philosophical tastes tend toward the more mystical, hence my love of Taoism. I will here interpret this song in a more Taoist context. (If you haven’t read the “Tao Te Ching” I highly recommend it. It is not the second most translated book for nothing.)

Row, row, row, your boat gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.

Row, row, row
Despite the laid back attitude, you are still urged to row, row, and row some more. Do not misinterpret going gently downstream for laziness or indolence.

your boat
The boat is yours, and only yours. You are responsible for your own path and no one else’s.

gently down the stream.
Here the tune implores you to “go with the flow” and not fight the current.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
If you are complying with the first half of the song – working effortlessly, taking responsibility for you, and acting in accordance with the universe and your own nature – you cannot help but be joyful.

life is but a dream.
Zhuangzi, the penultimate Taoist sage, once claimed that when he awoke, he could not tell if he was Zhuangzi dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi. To get more western, Schopenhauer once perceived that we are all the dreams of a supreme dreamer, dreaming that we, ourselves, are dreamers. Bottom line: don’t take it all so seriously.

And so it is folks. Don’t throw your pearls before swine, but imparting wisdom to children isn’t such a bad thing as long as we heed it ourselves. Take it easy.

Bowled Over On Super Sunday

2005-02-06T18:28:00.000-05:00

Let’s face it. There are three holidays that are completely and distinctly American. There's Thanksgiving, Independence Day, and Super Bowl Sunday. Many people celebrate Super Sunday, though few recognize to for what it actually is - a real American holiday. It exists as a kind of a combination of Thanksgiving and Independence Day. There is gluttony and public entertainment, but instead of fireworks we have the sometimes titillating half-time show.

If it is hard to start thinking of Super Bowl Sunday as Thanksgiving Jr. look to the marketplace for guidance. Ours stores and retail outlets have thought of it as a holiday for some time now. Just like every other holiday, they begin hyping it up well in advance of the actual day. It is quite a cash cow. Super Sunday qualifies on other grounds as well. Beer drinkers wish they had the day after Super Sunday off, the way kids wish they had the day after Halloween off.

True, football has little to do with the sacred secularity of our country, but only at first blush. Football has little to do with feet, and that hasn’t stopped it from growing into a phenomenon. There are some things that are distinctly American about the football holiday though. Rooting for the team to which you have regional ties, supporting the underdog in place of a regional favorite, and commercials are all very American.

Another thing that makes football distinctly American is that it has the same flavor as our other national past time -baseball.
By this I mean both sports have feel like they were created by someone try to play a sport they have seen played, but can't quite remember all of the details. Baseball born from Cricket and Football from a bastardization of Soccer and Rugby. It is easy to imagine someone saying the following for either sport: "I've seen this game played and it looked like great fun. I left the rules for it on the other side of the Atlantic, so I'll have to go by my memory. "

In fact, henceforth Super Sunday will be known as Consumerism day! So have I christened it. A capital idea. Spend money! Give gifts that are wrapped in artery clogging sauces and dips! Get angry! Spend time with loved ones! Gamble! So what if at the end of the day only half the audience is celebrating. We never let a little depression get in the way of a holiday celebration. Holidays are almost defined by an immediate let down. Go now and spread the word of Consumerism Day. Just beware, are you consuming the fruits of multinational conglomerates or is your essence being consumed by them?

A Popular Myth-conception

2005-02-05T10:01:00.000-05:00

Myth is a frequently misused word. It has become synonymous with a lie or an untruth. C. G. Jung maintained that dreams are personal myths, and myths were the dreams of the public. Joseph Campbell, premiere mythologist of the last or any other century, preached that a myth was a lie that told the truth. Those aren’t his words but a generalized, boiled down version.

In the spiritual form then, a myth is a tale which may not have happened as narrated, but still offers insights into life, the universe, and everything. However, like many words, myth has taken on different meanings in different contexts. A myth can also be an erroneous belief that a person invests in, despite it being wafer thin and easily seen through, perhaps at the risk of their own peril.

Fairy tales, folklore, Aesop’s fables, and the yarns of the Brothers Grimm are most certainly of the aforementioned variety. Small truths built into elaborate displays, like a verbal stained glass window. In my not-so-humble opinion, many modern day religions are myths of the second variety, though not because any inherent flaw in the stories with which they are constructed, but rather because of inherent flaws in we the humanity who listen.

Let me illustrate a common, second variety myth, and bust it. The Five Second Rule - a nearly universal belief that if you drop a tasty treat on the floor or the ground, it will not collect any contaminants if you pick it up within five seconds. The desire to eat the goody is so deep we are willing to throw caution aside for the sumptuous reward. I am a teacher, and nowhere is this myth invoked more, than at snack time. I am sure that this Super Bowl Sunday will see it’s fair share of Five Second Rulings as well.

If the Five Second Rule were true then you could step on dog crap, steamingly fresh or crumbly old, and you immediately removed your foot no particles of poop, poopicles, would adhere to the sole of your shoe. Even if you did perchance stand in canine feces you would have to stay still for more than five seconds to transfer the shit from your shoe to the carpet. Now imagine the treat falls, and if you believe for a second, that it will not pick up puppy poopicles if you snatch it from the fibers of the carpet in less than five seconds, then you are blinded by your hunger and desire for the treat. It doesn’t have to be dog poop, it could be the vomit of the homeless, the urine from the bathroom floor, or even gasoline from a puddle.

Allow me to disavow you of this notion - the Five Second Rule is a farce! It does not exist. Drop a chip at the beach, grab it in less than a second, and even if it doesn’t have the grit of sand in the crunch it is certainly saltier (unless you are at a fresh water lake). The common cold is common for a reason. Cast this untruth aside, do not assuage your craving for lies and sweets. For this time the evil may come from your sole, the next time it may penetrate to your soul.

A Grave Warning

2005-02-04T17:43:00.000-05:00

A recent archaeological dig in the Balkans turned up a curious find in an area called Wallachia. This area owes it’s notoriety from one of it’s mid-15th century inhabitants -Vlad Tepes. Sound familiar? Good ol’ Vlad went by a few other names you may find more familiar. How about Vlad III? No? Vlad the Impaler? Vlad Dracul? Vlad Dracula maybe?

Yes, Vlad Tepes had a penchant for hanging people on big, long, sharp sticks as a punishment. These were usually inserted in the bunghole and exited the mouth. This apparently was charming enough for one Bram Stoker to take copious notes on his life and times. Vlad Dracula was not only the inspiration for the name but also the character of the now infamous blood sucker.

Where did the vampirism come in though? Clearly, Vlad was sexually depraved. It doesn’t take a Freudian to draw parallels from the acts of vampirism to sexuality and erotica, let alone the impaling. This was formerly thought to be the link between the psychotic practices and the occult sucking. Not so!

Draw close and harken unto me. What was uncovered in Wallachia was none other than a Pez dispenser. Hold back that laugh. Think about it - the drawing back the head ... the sucking of the sweet stuff from the neck ... this can be no coincidence. It wasn’t the smiling visage of Scooby-Doo or a friendly little ghost. The clay contraption that was dug up had the head of the deposed angel, Lucifer.

Mothers, dispose of those clown faced dispensers of devilry. Best deliver your young ones straight to the arms of Satan, rather than invest your hopes and dreams into a child to have them turn into a little bat-winged horror. What do you think the rise in the Gothic, or “Goth” style is from? It has been years since this sleeper of a threat has been part of our society. Now the evil that is Pez has sunken deep into the roots of our very souls. This Goth movement is just the first step. You have been warned.

Chaos Is The Order Of The Day

2005-02-03T15:37:00.000-05:00

Popular wisdom tells us that opposites attract. Ancient Taoism tells that us opposites define each other. Sages, from Paula Abdul to Laozi, say that my wife and I form a match made in heaven, on earth. So why are we always bickering about how tidy our house ought to be?

Maria likes a tidier house than I. Though that is not the real source of tension. She looks at my mess as if it were an aberration, an insult to nature, and a work contrary to the will of the Most High God. It is this reaction that bothers me. The reaction is rare and not exclusively the purview of my wife. Truthfully, my messiness has bordered hazardously on unhygienic, and Maria is entitled to her frustration.

Unhealthy filth aside, why is it that neatniks assume that they are holy warriors organizing the world in God’s name? What instinct is it that makes a person believe that order is the natural structure of the universe? Why cannot chaos be the rule of the day or the Eon? I understand that disorder gives rise to anxiety in some, but order gives rise to anxiety in me.

Allow me to stick my neck out for all of the Erisians among us. All of you devotees of the Goddess of Chaos, step over your mess, and stand proud. If the heaps of books and wrinkled clothes are too high for your face to be seen, wave your hands above your head.

I get uneasy in a place that is overly tidy. Life, the universe, and everything, is chaotic. The rules of physics with which we navigate our world, are not entirely consistent. Miracles are so beyond our systems that they could indeed be chaos, blips, or malfunctions. These mutations of reality are what make life beautiful. We take photos of breathtaking scenery because it is uncommon, not because it is the rule of the day.

In daycare, it is common for small children to clean up after every activity. Some daycares are now leaving the mess and having kids clean up at the end of the day. The rationale is that when both clay and blocks and whatever else is out children can make connections that they wouldn’t ordinarily. The majority of the neurons that make up the neural information super highway of the mind are laid in early childhood. An experience rich child is one with lots of nerves and synapses in the brain.

What’s good for the gosling is good for both the goose and the gander I say. Loosen up. Chaos can help with creativity and intuition. Our world of gravity and elliptical orbits may be a brief pattern in a universe of chaos. Whatever the case is, let’s not look at disorder as flawed and broken. An artist’s studio may be kept in a state of disarray, but hidden within the mess could be the inspiration for the next masterpiece.

Missed Manners

2005-02-02T22:34:00.000-05:00

Emily Post I am not. Etiquette is not a particularly strong suit for me. Sure, I can get along in polite society. However, in a five star restaurant my manners come up short. My heart isn’t really in it. Figuring out which spoon does what and which fork is used for which entree just doesn’t strike me as essential. Does it get the food in my mouth? Done. This very weekend I found myself at a reception without a fork and I ate an entire piece of cake with a toothpick. Not one of those square jobs either, I’m talking a round toothpick that was all fancy on the blunt end.

Am I a pragmatist? A utilitarian? Call me what you will but there are some areas in which strict rules are needed and others where a fuzzy line suffices. When I am dropping a deuce, don’t talk to me through the door. Please, allow me one sanctuary. If a man can’t shit in peace, then when can he relax? If communicating with me is an actual emergency, slip a note under the door and I will formulate a response while I shit. I do my best thinking there anyway. Most people do. I hear the entire Magna Carta was written on toilet paper.

On the other hand, if you have to fart and you can’t hold it in, then float the air biscuit my friend. Hold it in if you can, that is - if chicks are around and you are in slapping distance. Ladies, don’t pretend you don’t fart. You do. Let go and let gas. As my father says “Tis better to fart and feel the shame than t’not and feel the pain.” Truer words of wisdom have never been said.

The trouble is that the world is changing faster than a 13 year-old at Michael Jackson’s compound. Whole new arenas are begging for etiquette. Clearly, some rules can be abstracted from previous experience, some need to be created from scratch. The etiquette for cell phones is pretty well established but there are smaller niches that require exploring.

For example, don’t read a computer screen over someone’s shoulder. That is obvious. But what about someone’s history folder? This can be like looking at the sun. A glimpse can enlighten but it could also blind you. Peeking into a friend’s history folder once revealed that he frequented a Blonds On Blacks web site and stopped by Golden Shower Palace.

Here is a conundrum for you. Recently I found myself in a little ATM cubicle doing my ATM business. This is private stuff. There are balances and secret codes. While there, a guy swipes his card and enters the cubicle. It was not cold, hot, or in any way inclement out. He just busted right in. To me, this is a clear breech of ATM etiquette. If no swipe was necessary for entrance I could almost see coming in. What else could I do? I farted.

This was no ordinary fart. It was a Ninja - silent and deadly. ATM cubicles usually smell like the homeless who sleep in them, but this fart was able to rise above the muck and mire and make itself known. My nose hair curled like dry spaghetti that fell into the burner. This was rank. Then I slowed down the transaction. Would I like my balance? Of course I would. In fact, the balance on all of my accounts was of the essence.

The fellow remained in the cubicle, but he was aware that he was being punished. He knew he was naughty and he knew he deserved it. To this day, if some one eats Cuban black beans and squeezes the cheese he has flashbacks, and gropes for deposit envelopes to inconspicuously fan his nose. Remember that next time you need a twenty.

The Golden Mean

2005-02-01T21:39:00.000-05:00

In Nicomachean Ethics 11.6-7, Aristotle revealed the Doctrine of the Mean, stating:

Virtue, then, is a kind of moderation inasmuch as it aims at the mean or moderate amount.

Three centuries earlier, circa sixth century B. C. E., a young prince, the Tathagata, sat in Deer Park in Benares and expounded upon the Middle Path of neutrality and balance. This remarkable speech is now known as the First Sermon of the Buddha.

Sitting in Mathematics for the Elementary Teacher, a graduate level course, on Monday, I was freezing my balls off, two of them. 1 icy ball + 1 icy ball = 1 unhappy Gordon, sitting uncomfortably. At 7:30 p. m. the auditorium was toasty warm and because the thermostat was so messed up the air conditioner started blasting cold air to compensate for the comfortable warmth.

One would think that in the intervening centuries, the wisdom of the sages would have disseminated to the custodial staff of Southern Connecticut State University, or at least to the engineers who design HVAC systems. Then again, Maria, my remarkably intelligent and well-educated wife can’t figure this out either.

On the highway, doing 65 MPH, the temp outside is a whopping 6! The heat is blasting and just barely keeping the frost off of the inside of the windows. Maria gets a bit warm, her sinuses start to swell. You know what that means - shut off the heat, open the vents and invite the Arctic in, making our little Saturn a four cylinder igloo on wheels.

We have bickered about this for the 11 of the 12 years that we have been a couple. Why can’t she just moderate the temperature? Why the swings from hot to cold, then from hot to cold? Isn't being moody enough? (I love you Maria.) Sure, eventually the temperature would probably reach that elusive golden mean, but was it necessary for it to swing like a couple in the ‘70s?

Shivering through math, as I have on the road to my in-laws this winter, it dawned on me that proverbs and adages come from all quarters of the earth in all eras. Wisdom can contradict itself. Absence makes the heart grow fonder while out of sight is out of mind. Taking wisdom in from all corners is one thing, applying it appropriately is another.

William Blake, English Gnostic, said that “The path of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” Here’s to hoping that while on that trip you don’t shiver your nuts loose or sweat your tits dry.

Funk In Donuts

2005-01-31T15:27:00.000-05:00

Warning: This is quite possibly my raunchiest post yet. Read on, and prepare to be offended. I have sunk to an all time low. You have been warned.

Dunkin' Donuts has a Bermuda Triangle feel to it. The laws of reality are not the same within one of these fine franchises. Perhaps it is the caffeine and sugar content in the air that gives it a surreal quality. Maybe the designer of the eateries is a brilliant chaos magician inspired by H. P. Lovecraft, and the hypergeometries (s)he sets up give the establishments a dream like quality. It could be that they sprinkle donuts with peyote buttons.

My first encounter with the surreality of Dunkin' Donuts was in college. I would spend the wee hours there drinking joe and working. There were several others who frequented the joint. Among them was a man who walked with a terrific limp. One early morn he wigged out and began yelling, as he normally did, around 3:00 a. m. but this time he took out a knife or a fork, I can't quite remember which, and stabbed his leg. He walked out, utensil firmly embedded in his thigh, right through his trousers. I only began breathing again when the lady behind the counter told me that he had a wooden leg. And so was I initiated into the bizarre bazaar of experience that is Dunkin' Donuts.

Since then my sanity becomes unhinged whenever I walk into one, especially when the moon is out. One time a pair of kids working behind the counter made me wait an inordinate amount of time to order while they finished discussing who was, and had, "hooked up" with who. So when they asked my how I liked my coffee my sarcasm gave away my irritation and I said "I like my coffee like I like my men - hot, black, and strong." They immediately stopped chatting. However, I am sure the next few people to stop in for their crullers had to suffer and hear them talking about that gay guy with brown teeth who was a little to open.

Now it has become a challenge for me to think up things to say to throw off the servers behind the D&D counter when they are ticking my off. I have said that I like my coffee like my philosophy - dark, bold, and bitter. That doesn't do it for them. Next I will try "I like my donuts like my women - soft, round, with a sweet hole in the center" or "I like my donuts like my women - soft, round, with cream that comes out when you poke them," or "I like my donuts like I like my women - munchkins. They don't need to kneel!" Welcome to Oz folks!

One day I expect to walk through an invisible vortex into a Dunkin' Donuts, into a complete dream realm, like I'm Carlos Castaneda or something. When they ask for an order I will say "A small black." Ducking behind the counter the attendant will bring up Gary Coleman. When I say "Oh, can you make that two." They duck down again and bring up Emmanuel Lewis.

If anyone has had similar experiences please let me know. When the day comes when the girl making my Egg and Cheese hands me small, out of work actors, you can bet I will post it here. Until then . . .

Real Vegetarians Don't Eat Marshmallows

2005-01-30T22:10:00.000-05:00

Many people dont know that we vegetarians dont eat marshmallows. This is due in part to the enigma that is the marshmallow. What do the sweet, fluffy treats have to do with an area of soft, wet, low-lying land with lots of grass? Marshmallows contain gelatin. Gelatin is an animal product. Apparently it comes from boiling down connective tissues, you know - ligaments, cartilage, tendons, hooves. Oddly enough, fluff is vegetarian.

Vegetarians dont make it any easier. There is somewhere around seven hundred varieties of vegetarianism. There are some very common types of vegetarianism. There is the ovo-lacto vegetarian who will not eat animals but will eat eggs and dairy products. There are strictly ovo vegetarians. There are simply lacto vegetarians. For a bunch of life loving granola crunches, vegetarians cant agree on much.

Then there are your vegans. Vegans cant even agree how to pronounce vegan (at least a few that Ive met). Is it vee-gun or vej-un? Come one folks. A little more spinach might help you focus. Vegans are the cult-like individuals who will not eat animals or any animal products - thats right, no ovo and no lacto. They also dont wear leather or fur. These folks are full of enough good karma to compensate for the existence of a whole cock fighting ring (real, not with those little digital boxing gloves either).

Lets take a look at some other types of vegetarians. Shall we? There are semi-vegetarians. Some eat no red meat. Some eat only birds and fish. Some eat only fish, others only birds. Now, sink your teeth into these vegetarians.

Crusto-vegetarians eat shrimp, crabs, lobsters, etc. Mollo-vegetarians eat clams, scallops, oysters, etc. Porco-vegetarians eat pig. Repto-vegetarians eat snakes and lizards. Ento-vegetarians eat bugs.

Now, onto the nitty gritty. Snacko-vegetarians wont eat animal crackers. Flake-o-vegetarians wont read books from the Chicken Soup For The Soul series. Christo-vegetarians are christians but wont eat the eucharist once it has gone through the miracle of transubstantiation. Sluto-vegetarians wont swallow. Prude-o-vegetarians wont have oral sex.

I havent even mentioned the raw food enthusiasts, natural hygienists, and Ayurvedic enthusiasts, it is hard to believe that we vegetarians can really have so man shades of gray, but as Morgan Freeman, playing Azeem, said in the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves Allah loves wondrous variety.

The Plane! The Plane!

2005-01-29T22:29:00.000-05:00

Needles and I don't get along. It's not that I am some shaky freak when it comes to needles but I don't use them in any of my recreational pursuits. (Can heroine addicts claim that one of their favorite past times is needlepoint? Just a thought.) Injecting indelible ink under a few layers of dermis is not my idea of fun for a number of reasons. Needles is only one of them. For all intents and purposes, tattoos are permanent. And it is the permanent part that creeps me out the most.

How does one decide on an image for a tattoo - a picture or design that you have to look at all of your life? As you develop liver spots, get wrinkly, and hairy in odd places, the tattoo stays. Imagine the Tasmanian Devil in a dust cloud with a wart on his forehead. Don't get me wrong. I am not downing any one who digs tattoos. I am admiring them. My candy ass won't be in a tattoo parlor anytime soon. I can't decide on an image for my desktop. How can I decide on a tattoo?

Many designs and ideas are amazing to me. Many tattoos, many popular tattoos, puzzle me. For example, Chinese ideograms. How many people who have Chinese ideogram tattoos have read the Confucian analects? know that Confucius is also Kung-Fu Tze? been to China? read Taoist poetry? know that it is called an ideogram? This takes a lot of faith in my mind. The tattoo artist could be inking in "I eat boogers" instead of "the Chinese symbol for power!"

Tribal bands. Very popular. How many are actually in tribes? How many have gone camping much less been a part of a tribe?

Of course, I am disregarding the most basic reason for the choice of a tattoo, it looks cool. Let's face it - the aesthetic of looking cool is enough. My kudos go out to all of you out there who have tattoos and are happy with them. I couldn't do it, but I don't see that as a strength or particularly noble thing.

I'm not buying the part where people call it art. If everyone who says tattoos are body art were truly patrons of the arts then museums wouldn't be suffering from underfunding, the biker meets and rallies held in their parking lots would cover the costs. Imagine, all of those tattoos of the Mona Lisa and Guernica. The last time I saw a flaming skull in a museum was when I fell down the stairs in the Wadsworth Atheneum, bumped my noggin and was hallucinating. Enough pretention for now, moving on.

For those of you contemplating a tattoo, I recommend you go get yourself a Sharpie or two and have at it! See how well you like it. This lack of commmitment and spontinaeity may remove some of the charm of the tattoo, but really, I just wanted to mention Sharpies in print. Oh, and incidentally, anyone interested in promoting this blog in ink, it is ideasmith.blogspot.com, not ideasmithy.

Blackbird Dying In The Dead Of Night

2005-01-28T20:22:00.000-05:00

Having just returned from a bar where a friend's husband was playing I am determined to pull a Pete Townsend on my own guitar. This guy got in front a crowded bar, played, sang, and sounded good. I realize that I have "Acoustic and Classical Guitar" as part of my profile but I am contemplating taking it off. When I play the guitar it sounds like I am wearing oven mitts. Last time I played Blackbird, birds actually flew into my sliding door to kill themselves so that they didn't have to hear me or a neighborhood dog howl.

Wait. A ray of light in a moment of inspiration! Many bar bands have themes. Some do only music from a particular decade. Some are just acoustic. Others specializing in sucking the fun from a room and preventing genuine conversation. My band will be inspired by my sucky guitar playing. Octopus' Garden, my band, will not play Beatles music. It will have a nautical theme and we will sing sea shanties in all of the seafood restaurants in the area.

With me on the guitar; Captain Hook playing the bongos; Captain Ahab will a cut rug, soft shoe, or tap dance; Queequeg will be the bouncer (his big harpoon and cool tattoos will make him all the rage with the chicks) we are sure to win. I tried singing along with a hymn in church once and they took the money I gave out of the basket, returned it to me, and asked me to stop. So as a replacement, Flipper will sing for Octopus's Garden. When we take a pause for the cause Flipper will make his customary plea for dolphin safe tuna (he still has family in the wild).

Back in reality, another friend of mine is dating a hipster who is in a couple bands that actually make CD's. People actually listen to them and like them. This blows my mind when I squeak away on my old six string. True, I have carpal tunnel and early bone degeneration in my left wrist from teenage injuries (which didn't occur from whacking off although I can see how one would infer that). Earning a living playing never really crossed my mind either.

Anybody who plays and knows music will say I should play if I enjoy it, if I find expression through it. I do enjoy it. I have to admit. My guitar will stay intact and I will continue to play. The other problem is that if I smashed my guitar I couldn't throw it away. Although if I asked my neighbor to dispose of it, I could count it as another chance to see her in action*. The jury is still out.

* For more on my problems having my trash picked up and my neighbors antics see the post on Wednesday, January 19, 2005 entitled "The Trash Is Out."

More Than My Mind Is Dirty

2005-01-27T21:34:00.000-05:00

While toweling off from my morning shower I farted. It was something I immediately regretted. The fart was evil. The foul, fetid cloud offended all that was sacred and beautiful in the world of scents. This blast was the categorical opposite of lotus blossoms and winter roses. This fart was gasphemous.

Gasphemy is a fart that soils the soul and tarnishes the will to live. I immediately felt covered in poopicles. Before I reentered the shower to cleanse myself as best I could, I turned on the fan. Not only did it clear the air but the mirror unfogged.

I am an introspective person. So I thought back on what I ate to inspire such horror. The night before I had some sort of beer battered french fries. I rarely indulge in fried food, this morning reminded me why. It smelled like some one had vacated their bowels after a whiskey enema into a fryolator and then set a match to it.

The fan did the trick, however the only thing that could cleanse my gasphemied soul was hours of meditation and visualization. That and I ate salad three times today. Anything as green and fresh as a mescaline and spinach salad could fight the devil in my duodenum.

Cliche is something I detest. So in lieu of mentioning the body as a temple, I will tell you that if you treat your body like a Grand Central Station public toilet, the result will smell like it.

Why I Will Never Be A Dentist

2005-01-26T19:40:00.000-05:00

There are a number of reasons why I will never be a doctor who looks into a warm, wet, bacteria-filled human hole; cost and training are only two. It takes a special breed to be a dentist, let alone a proctologist, urologist or gynecologist.

Snow fell last night, so there was no school today. We were all in our pajamas until lunch. At which point I went out and shoveled, and then went to the gym. Back at home I showered and was getting ready to go to the dentist for a cleaning, when something occurred to me. Those hygienists, and their ilk, get a pretty intense view sitting there with that light hitting you like a flying saucer searching for some schmoe to abduct.

When I finished the customary pre-cleaning brushing I decided to do my hygienist a favor. I shaved, and even put moisturizer on my face. Then I blew my nose. Folks, always blow your nose before a dentist appointment. Those lovely ladies don't need to see those glistening nose goblins hanging from your bristly nose hair like a little slimy monkey on a vine. It's a small, yet generous courtesy I am sure. Oh, and guys, trim those nose hairs.

Just think of what a hygienist has to do and see. Using that little hook to get a sheath left from your lunch of microwave popcorn is just the beginning. If you think "Hey! My oral hygiene is tops. It is a pleasure to work on my mouth." You may be right, but think, several of the best legal vices stain and/or rot the teeth - wine, cigars, sweets, COFFEE! Just got to your local mall, and take a look at all those smiling faces. Oral B ain't paying millions for you to see three of their commercials during American Idol for nothing. This country needs it. In fact, Colgate and all the other giants of oral hygiene ought to advertise their products for free as a public service.

Dental workers are not on the front lines fighting for America but I am willing to bet some of the gaseous emanations coming from some of the brown and rotten pie holes of our fine country might qualify as weapons of mass destruction.

It's Been An Amazing Journey

2005-01-25T20:11:00.000-05:00

As I was listening to All Things Considered on the drive home today, I heard an oscar nominated director say "It's been an amazing journey." I would rather go sledding on a cheese grater than hear that phrase again. "It's been an amazing journey" is a cliche in its infancy. I can't be too stern in saying this: kill it.

Television hasn't done much for me since Seinfeld went of the air. Now that I have become a father, I can't seem to stay up late enough to watch Letterman anymore. But my wife, Televina, likes t. v. Many are the nights I find myself on the computer, playing Nintendo or guitar, or reading on the sofa as my wife watches something.

The flavor of the month is reality television. As a viewer you can not escape it. As a person, the only escape is reality. Turn off the t. v. So I am sitting there and reality t. v. rattles on in one of my ears. It has recently come to my attention that the phrase "It's been an amazing journey," must appear in a reality show, of the thirty minute variety, no less than 18 times. This is true for all of the reality shows except the Swan, where it is the norm to say it 72 times.

For those uninitiated few, the Swan is a show where insecure, ugly women (who aren't terribly ugly) get plastic surgery and therapy to make them the media perfect starlet. At the conclusion of the series they compete in a beauty pageant. Somewhere high in heaven, seated atop a cloud next to Danny Kaye, Hans Christian Anderson puts aside his harp for a moment and utters such vile invectives that he is nearly kicked out of heaven, straight to hell.

If the executives were really looking for a Hans Christian Anderson inspired hit they should try "The Emperor's New Clothes." Have people strut around naked in public places and film people's reactions. The entertainment wouldn't be just the nudity. Are you listening all of you muckity-mucks?

Forgive the tangent.

Has introspective, touchy-feeling-new age-y spirituality become so hip that it now has mainstream cliche? If people really were going on all of these journeys then the airlines would have no reason to bitch and go bust. I'm all for introspection. I understand that the it's all about the going and not the goal.

Such a cliche, about so real a spiritual platitude cheapens it. It would be like having a Wal-Mart commercial where Jesus and Buddha are being interviewed for a greeter position.

If you feel like spewing that inane phrase "It's been amazing journey," in my presence don't let the door hit you in the ass as you leave for the next one.

Pasta Anyone?

2005-01-24T22:58:00.000-05:00

I love pasta. My wife is Italian. Our marriage was not a direct result of my love of pasta, but I did consider taking a piece of rigatoni to a jigsaw, giving it a crosscut, spray painting it gold, and using it for an engagement ring. Unable to decide on plain rigatoni or rigatoni rigati, I went with the old stand by of a diamond.

For those of you with little ones, when I hear the Wiggles song "Hot Potato Hot Potato" I rewind the part about cold spaghetti. You could serve old tennis balls over a bed of pasta and I would eat it. Hell, I would trade in my Sealy Posture-pedic for a bed of pasta, preferably linguini al dente.

Pasta itself is a fun word. The names of pasta are fun, especially the ones ending in -ini. Tubetini, farfallini, capellini. The available types and names of pasta work well as euphemisms. For instance, "she puts the ricotta in my cannelloni" or "he is hung like a ditalini." What's more, I harbor a secret ambition to rewrite Romeo and Juliet with a type of pasta in place of the name of each character, a type that represents the character's personality. Kramer had this right in an episode of Seinfeld when he made a past sculpture of Jerry, the comedian, out of fusili.

All the carb counters seek to depose pasta as a culinary icon. Curse you Dr. Atkins! If you were alive I would have you boiled in starchy water like the witch in old Salem.

Some say that different shapes of pasta taste differently. I don't hold with that. I am willing to admit that certain types of pasta are better for different varieties of sauce (that's gravy to you Paesans). But different tastes for different shapes? Perhaps the various thicknesses offer variations on a theme, like different hues of the same color.

My father-in-law, a pasta aficionado, says different pastas taste differently. Valued reader, what do you think? Do different pastas taste differently? Do you have a favorite? I am curious to know. Please, comment freely.

An Everyday Modern Mystery

2005-01-23T20:02:00.000-05:00

Here is one for all the lab coated, beaker wielding scientists out there. This morning I put on a crisp white cotton undershirt, a tee-shirt to be precise. Seeing the snow and the wind, I decided on a sweater, a black one. The tee-shirt, at all times, remained tightly tucked into the waist band of my Levi's. The sweater's neckline fell below that of the undershirt revealing the white crew neck below. Yet somehow, in some mysterious manner, at the close of the day, I have lint - black lint - in my belly button.

Quarks and black holes have nothing on this everyday conundrum, found right here in our galaxy. Magically, the lint leaves the sweater, permeates the tee-shirt, then makes it's way, like a pilgrim to the promised land, to my belly button.

Let's say that for some reason lint is a natural occurrence. Okay. I can buy that. A certain amount of fibers are bound to see their way free of the fabric. And let us say that the tee-shirt is a semi-permeable membrane and that lint can indeed pass through it, or at the very least around the holes in the arms. My suspicion is that the hair on my torso acts as vili or cilia or flagella. Slowly moving all particles to my center. That leaves us with the question "Why?"

I can settle for not knowing how something happens, like how my wife fell in love with me, but not knowing why something happens drives me crazy. Especially if that something is mundane. If there was a reason that could be observed I would feel better about it. Screw the whole ghost hunting and weather predicting! Scientists, I implore you! Turn your clip boards and Bunsen burners to a far more pressing question. Why is there belly button lint?

Belly button lint fulfills none of the basic needs of food, water, and shelter. Looked at over time it even undermines the shelter a garment provides. Does my navel have some sort of grand electromagnetic/gravitational pull? If I keep a shirt forever, will it one day disappear? Leaving me with erect nipples and a clump of lint just a little further south. Can I harness this power for good? If I walk through a laundromat topless, will all of the dryers throw themselves open and divest themselves of lint, leaving clean debris screens? If so, could I collect a fee for this?

In Kundalini yoga, the chakra at the navel is called Manipura - The City of the Shining Jewel. Did the ancients know something we do not? Could a hairy chest and belly be used to buff gems or pan for gold? Let us not abandon spirit for science. I suggest that holy men and wise women every where join in this pursuit. If anybody finds anything, you know where I can be reached. Thank you.

A Wedding Reading

2005-01-22T23:25:00.000-05:00

Thinking back to my wedding is a treat. I loved it. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but everyday day for a year and half before that day was a living hell. Perhaps I am being melodramatic. It does seem to me that I was made to run the gaunlet. The period between the engagement and the wedding, all the planning, seemed like a hazing ritual for marriage. It is almost as if my then fiancee was trying to test my mettle - if he can live through this then he is worthy of my hand in marriage.

For women I think it is different. We were supposed to attend Maria's cousin's wedding today. The blizzard prevented us from doing so. During the hours building up to the blizzard and our departure for the wedding, Maria went through phases of guilt and sympathy. "I really should be there. She'll be devastated. No one will go." My guess is that Maria was able to feel that level of compassion, that desire to drive through a blizzard on the wheels of a hyundai, because women view weddings differently than men.

The wedding, as near as I can tell, is for women a symbolic thing, but not in any way that is obvious. I don't think women are conscious of exactly how important it is to them. That is saying a lot. Women want to schedule the weather for their weddings. A the little details are planned too, because I have noticed that women believe that the success of a wedding is a direct indicator of the success of a marriage.

I, as a man, saw engagement as a litmus test and a test in general, for what marriage may hold. Women, the ones I know and observe, see a wedding as a self-constructed omen. It is the cracking of the turtle shell, the casting of the runes, the laying of the tarot, and the reading of the stars. A good wedding yields a good marriage.

In truth, neither one is all that accurate. Either engagements need to be far more grueling or there are a lot of crappy weddings happening. The divorce rate is climbing above half. There is no lesson to be gleaned from this, there is no solution to be proposed. There are no theories beyond what is already stated. Engagment, weddings, marriages, commiments, and relationships deserve a great deal of attention in order to come up with cogent theories precisely because they need a great deal of attention in practice.

GODISNOWHERE

2005-01-21T13:40:00.000-05:00

GOD IS NOW HERE or GOD IS NOWHERE. Which did you read? Which did you read before your conscious mind came into play? Only you know the answer, and, depending on how you read it, god.

Like the glass of water that is either half empty or half full, the jumble of letters that is "GODISNOWHERE" is a very telling little test. The meaning is dependent on where you puts spaces to delineate the words. Where you see words is dependent on your intuitive, gut instinct on god.

Joseph Campbell tells a story of a friend who, when asked if he believes in god, says "If you do, then I don't. If you don't, then I do." The point being that god is a very personal subject. What one person understands god to be is different than what another might believe, even if they share a common doctrine or dogma. Additionally, one person's notion of what god is limits that god, and if there is one thing that many people generally agree on it is that god is vast, perhaps even infinite, eternal, and/or endless. As Laozi said "The Name that can be named is not the eternal Name."

I, myself, have always tended to the heretical and heterodox in the area of theism. I would say that both of the interpretations are simultaneously correct. Spaces don't need to be placed in there to choose one over the other.

GOD IS NO WHERE because I do not believe that a being vast enough to be god would choose one people over another, or stop talking to people a thousand or two thousand years ago, and then only people of a select small group.

GOD IS NOW HERE because I believe the Taosists and Gnostics had it right when they described a god beyond god. A sublime, supreme, ineffable force that is both creator and creation.

These are just my beliefs. My beliefs are not based on any hard, scientific evidence. My beliefs come from the gut and heart level, and while they are supported by my experience, they are still beliefs. These beliefs have changed and evolved and will continue to do so. If any offense is taken by these thoughts just keep in mind, these come from the same mind that came up with the Dutch Oven Alarm Clock and the Dutch Dart, be offended by those.

The Dutch Dart

2005-01-20T22:51:00.000-05:00

Who says you can't improve on nature? Clearly I'm no Luddite or technophobe - I'm blogging. I do hold the Taoists and Thoreau close to my heart as well. Somewhere in between the two I find room for medicine and satellite radio. Nature is still malleable in some ways, for better and worse.

Take farts for example. What could be more natural than a fart? Could you really improve a fart? In what ways? Let's examine a fart. It is a sound and a scent. A friend of mine ripped one over the intercom while we were working in a book store in the mall. It was freaking hilarious. I fell down I was laughing so hard. What's more, my three year old daughter can tell you that farting under water is often funnier than the ordinary airborne toot. So much for the sound.

How about improving the scent? The scent could be altered based on the food that fuels it, but I would argue that is still nature. We are just working with it, like intertwining topiaries or small trees for an enhanced aesthetic. This is altering but not necessarily improving nature. To improve on the scent, one would need to improve the delivery system.

Any given sphincter will project poopicles only so far. For the uninitiated, poopicles are the microscopic particles of poop that comprise the actually scent of a fart. Improving the delivery system for maximum dispersion of poopicles is what I am talking here. Most fathers on car rides toy with this by sliding the vents to recirculation, powering the windows shut and letting loose with a gasser. This is only confining the area. The area must be enlarged.

While it is not technology that has contributed to this area I believe the improvements on fart delivery come from the same area of the brain as computers and cell phones. The delivery has been improved by technique; much like ancient Asian monks harnessing and utilizing their chi for a discipline that improves or maximizes nature's craft. The technique is called buttercupping or simply cupping.

It goes like this, form a bowl of the hand, like you're ladling water or something. Hoist a cheek and fart directly into the concavity. Then hurl the gas like a deadly, magical fireball. Timed correctly and with a victim near enough, it works. If you cover your victim's nose and mouth it becomes a literal gas mask. This is also a fine calisthenic activity, because you need to take to your heels and run like hell after doing it.

I am not too proud to announce that I have improved on the improvement. Please let me introduce, for the first time in public, the Dutch Dart (named so by the same friend who farted over the intercom). It came to me once after some pasta fagoli and a marathon gift wrapping session one holiday evening. Take a gift wrap tube. It could be empty or full, your choice. Fart directly into the tube, then immediately and deftly raise it to your mouth, aim, and blow through it like a pygmy. The foul dart will speed it's poison to your desired target. This works. Believe me. With this one, as with the other, be prepared to haul ass out of there. If you leave the house. Stay out for a couple hours. Come back with flowers, or perfume, or a similarly scented gift.

If anyone has any success with these techniques or others, please share. Oh, and if you try these, I am not responsible in any way for whatever beatings or grudges occur as a result. Good luck.

The Trash Is Out

2005-01-19T21:16:00.000-05:00

It is Wednesday night, in my neck of the woods that means it is time to take out the trash. No, that does not mean going to Wal-mart and dating the first woman I see wearing sweat pants, a quilted flannel shirt, and an entire can of Aquanet in her bangs. It means I have to take anything larger than a book of matches and crush it flat, bag it, and can it.

The garbage men who visit us weekly are sort of like the tooth fairy because it seems they will only take away what fits in the palm of their hand. Unless you are my neighbor two houses down.

My neighbor is a lovely blond with the breasts of a mannequin* and displays them with a stunning regularity - weekly, on Thursday mornings. Ordinarily the duo make their appearance along with a pile of trash that reaches higher than her head. Trash that is heavy, bulky, dirty, unbagged, and out of the can.

The white baby doll nightie is a sight to behold. One morning I was at my car, warming it up and scraping it, when she came strutting down the drive like it was a catwalk to meet the garbage truck. Standing there, ready to cut twin circles in glass, she apologized to the sanitation engineers for the mess and flipped her hair. On the return trip to the house the wind blew the back of her silky robe up, and despite it being morning - the moon was out. A moon you could bounce a quarter off of.

Let me list some of the things I have seen taken from their curb. I have taken note of: pizza boxes, bags of leaves, pieces of an old swing set, a tricycle, and a body rolled up and duct taped into an rug. Among the things that have been left at my curb as untrash worthy: a pizza box, an empty leaf bag, a bicycle pump, and an empty roll of duct tape.

This is not complaining mind you. This is me relating a lesson learned. Now, I just sneak that box from my new shoes down to their pile before the trash men come. That, and I make sure I am out to my car when the truck reaches my neighbors house ... with my digital camera.

* In a previous post, A Prediction For Spring, on Monday, January 17, 2005, I explain about the exquisite breasts of mannequins.

Noah Webster Rolls In His Grave

2005-01-18T22:08:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post's Style Invitational periodically asks readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. I'm never going to get my shit together to actually submit one so let me post my offering here.

Ambisextruous: possessing the ability to masturbate, to completion, with both the left and right hand exclusively.

If is, of course, a very official definition, but you get the idea. The key here is that you can't start with the right hand because it is old reliable, then finish up with the amateur left. Exclusivity is the lynchpin, it has got to be all left and then all right. The attempts don't have to one after the other, that is more of a test of stamina, rather than agility and dexterity.

The rise in ambisexterity is due directly to internet porn. People mouse with their primary hand, so ...

If any one reads the Post. Clue me into when they ask for entries again. I think I have a winner. Thanks.

A Prediction For Spring

2005-01-17T22:24:00.000-05:00

Mannequins have nipples. Not just nipples, but nipples that sit atop a breast like a cherry on a Sunday. Many of these be-nippled mannequins don't even have a face, some don't even have a head.

If Freud were to walk around today's malls he would have fodder for enough theories to fill a dozen volumes. Martians, observing us from afar, might look at this phenomenon and think that: A) all the males of the species are midgets and cannot, in fact, see a woman's face, B) all the males of the species were not breast-fed and are psychically suffering, or C) all of the males of the species are freaky dwarves who long for their mommies.

Retailers use such mannequins so that husbands and boyfriends will actually go shopping with their significant others without much complaint. Men, staring at the mannequins, will not be looking at another woman. What's better, it will look like they are seriously considering a garment for their loved one. The woman, looking at the mannequin will see the fine couture on the peerless mannequin and assume that their man sees them.

No one is dumb enough to think this really happens, at least not on a conscious level. So much of the sale is an unconscious occurrence.

I have proven myself to possess a sort of precognition when it comes to trends, that makes professional futurists green with envy. Draw close and harken unto me men. Prediction: this spring, or one soon to follow, will see the advent of a new kind of mannequin - the swimsuit mannequin, fully equipped with no face, perky breasts, heavenly nipples, fake tan-lines, and camel-toe.

Heed my words. Keep your eyes peeled.

Bowling For Raisins

2005-01-17T01:30:00.000-05:00

Here is a post that's easy like Sunday morning; an idea fit for the entire family. Gather 'round and bask in the cool glow of your computer monitor.

This morning I sat down to the breakfast table and decided to have cereal. Like many breakfast cereals, this one had raisins. My family was otherwise occupied and I quietly crunched and browsed the week's catalogues. Not half way through the bowl I realized that I had yet to crush a sweet raisin 'tween my teeth.

Shoveling around, I found all of the raisins hiding at the bottom of the bowl. What raisins rested there were few. I was outraged. Searching the box for a web address or some other place to send my angry letter, I decided to take a peek in the box. The raisins, true to form, hid at the bottom of the box.

A moment of meditation later and I discovered that this was consistent with all of my other raisin cereal memories.

Improving the world is a little goal of mine. I would like to leave this place a little better than when I entered it. And so I think I have a solution to this raisin cereal dilemma.

I am conducting an experiment. My boxes of cereal, those with raisins, are being stored upside down. My theory is that the raisins will settle to the top of the box, when I turn it upside up the raisins will settle just a bit, leaving the perfect blend between crispy flakes and chewy raisins.

No one pours a bowl of cereal with hopes of a whiz bang treat. That doesn't mean that we have to lower our standards and settle for an raisins that have settled to the lower part of our milk. If nothing else, I like to break my fast with a consistent meal.

Laugh if you will, but there was some serious thought that went into this. Some experiments were tested and discarded. The box can not simply be opened at the bottom, because then you'd have to turn it around so you could reread the box for the fiftieth time without causing a mess; thus, a clip was really necessary.

Soon, I will report on the results. If anyone else tries this, let me know how it goes.

Anyone For A Game Of Belief?

2005-01-16T00:44:00.000-05:00

A fellow teacher was married this summer. She found it in her heart to invite many students and teachers alike. Everything was as lovely as the bride herself, but there was a little drama stinking up in the pews. (You may suspect a fart joke here but there is none. Sorry.) Some students were less than appropriate when it was time for communion. They complained about the taste of the host, and winced after taking it out of their mouths. Held it in front of them as if it was going to bite them back. Technically, it was the body of Christ, but they have no reason to believe it was the mouth.

Disliking the taste is understandable. It isn't the tastiest treat. You'll never see them schilling "buckets of Jesus" at the movies, with or without butter. If Mel Gibson didn't do it, no one will. Of course, the taste is not what it is all about.

Teachers, Catholic individuals in attendance were understandably upset. I am not Catholic, but was raised Catholic. I once joked that I was a "recovering Catholic." I will not joke like that any longer. Iconoclast is a hat I occasionally don. So the lack of reverence on the kids' parts was not upsetting to me. The anger on the adults part was something else though. The story of the students and the teachers at the wedding confounded, and ultimately changed, me.

My first instinct is to say, it is just a magic cookie, why get upset. My second instinct is that to someone who believes in the miracle of transubstantiation, it is not. My third instinct is why not just overlook it. They don't believe, so leave them be. My fourth instinct is that when in Rome, do as the Romans do; or rather, when in the Roman Catholic Church, respect what Roman Catholics do. My fifth instinct is to stop using the word instinct.

It is more than the old when in Rome adage. In a church, or holy spot, people are doing more than looking around. What are they doing? It strikes me that what they are doing is very similar to playing game. This was, and is, an epiphany for me. A new philosophy all my own. I mean no disrespect. In fact, this theory bestows upon me a new respect for faith. As a result of the epiphany of the game of belief, I have been, and will be, vastly more respectful of religions and faith practices than I have ever been.

Allow me to explain. Imagine this scene: my wife and daughter are playing Candyland. Wandering in, I ask what is the goal of the game. When it is explained to me that the goal is to get to King Kandy at Candy Castle I pick up a piece and just move it from anywhere on the board and place it there.

My wife and daughter are predictably peeved. Why? The goal was to get to King Kandy at Candy Castle? Now the Gingerbread Man pawn is at the goal. Game over, however their ire is rightfully roused. Having a pawn on Candy Castle is not worth anything if you didn't get their by participating in the game. You have to accept the story and play your best. Unless you are afraid of Lord Licorice, unless you are comforted by Jolly at the Gum Drop Pass, unless you are thrilled to get to Queen Frostine and the Ice Cream Sea, unless you really want to get to King Kandy and Candy Castle, then there is no glory in reaching the goal. There is no winning.

A tasty wafer for a snack is not the goal of the act. Even if the priest was handing out Necco wafers and they melted into sugary bliss, there would be no point in simply going to satisfy your sweet tooth. The climax of the Catholic mass is the communion. Communing with your savior. At that point you consume the body of Christ because you are consumed by the body of the doctrine of his church.

By going up there and getting a snack, and then complaining about the taste, the children essentially moved their pawn to the finish, without playing the game. The worst part is the spoiling of the game for everyone else who is participating and takes it seriously.

Now, I know that have been goofy in expounding on my epiphany. It is my way, though every word of it is heartfelt. Religions are like games of belief. They have stated goals, how to get there, and a representation of the world. If you don't invest in the whole shebang there is no actual goal for you. The game can be broken up by players who come along and try to expose the game as a play that has no substance.

Games, like religions, have no inherent scientific proof to veracity. Chess doesn't, Candyland doesn't, Catholicism doesn't, Hinduism doesn't; not one system can lay claim to the one true representation of life and the point of it that does not in someway rely on the invest of belief. For any of those systems to work you have got to want to participate by the rules, and if you don't, don't spoil the experience of others who are.

It has been said that the proof is in the pudding. Lacking the otherworldly pudding to check for proof, everyone has every right to consume whatever pudding, wafer, or messiah they choose. They have the right to play it through to the end without someone coming along and busting up the play.

I'll have more to say on this.

Is Sex A Sin?

2005-01-14T06:56:00.000-05:00

That very question was asked of a compatriot while she was teaching a confirmation class. I have to be honest, I can't recall how she said she answered. I am not sure how I would. The multitude of possibilities that come to mind run the gamut. Here are just a few.

Try to imagine who might be giving these responses. Most of them come from people I know. While they might not be direct quotes, they have been extracted through a concise intuition that I have been known to possess. This sixth sense has been honed to razor sharp acuity during my time on the psychic fair circuit.

So, is sex a sin?

-It is when you enjoy it.

-Not if you are married/in a committed relationship/in love.

-Yes, if the result is a disease, with symptoms that included weeping sores and large quantities of puss.

-Only if you are caught.

-Not when you are alone.

-If your partner has more than two legs and is not a member of the same species, make a bee line for the confessional (then the psychiatric ward). If your partner has more than the requisite number of limbs and is human then it is up to you. Most men I know wouldn't throw a hottie out of bed for eating crackers, much less an extra leg. Sci-fi geeks might find it a fantasy fulfilled to be in bed with a multilimbed chick. A lot of women I know prefer men of the three-legged variety.

-Well, if it brings a mandatory jail sentence ...

-Not between consenting adults.

-Perhaps, if you are greeted by an illegitate child, concieved on spring break in Cancun, named Jorge (ironically pronounced whore-hey).

-Yes, even if all you do is think about it.

-Afterwards, if someone requires several adhesive bandages and triple antibiotic ointment, your halo might be a bit tarnished.

-It is when you don't enjoy it.

Is sex a sin? You decide. I myself might not use the word sin. When is sex not a good idea? When is sex not right? Those are more along the lines of a question I may ask. Whatever the case, I'll probably see you in hell. Hopefully there are a lot of beds down there. Often people say they want hot sex. What can be hotter than sex in hell?

Building A Better Alarm Clock

2005-01-13T08:59:00.000-05:00

This morning my house bore witness to a scene that is common enough that it has ascended beyond cliché, and become an A. M. archetype. The scene is an alarm clock that gets slapped silent and no one actually wakes up. The snooze loop is another, less severe, form of this event. Tapping the snooze for an extra bit of shuteye, eight or nine minutes at a clip.

My shower wasn't so rushed this morning that I couldn't ruminate on the subject of alarm clocks. Examining the sleep habits of my wife and myself brought about an idea unparalleled. I decided that there is a few sure fire methods for getting someone out of bed.

The first idea was an alarm clock that made unwanted sexual advances. Thinking it through made me realize it would just end up with the alarm clock itself being kicked out of bed and a morning of sour moods. Also, this alarm clock wouldn't work for men. Basically there is no such thing as an unwanted sexual advance in the male mating lexicon. Sure, this is an exaggeration, but think about it. If the guy had been drinking a little, to make sexual advances unwanted they would need to be coming from a frothing, charging bull rhino.

Then it occurred to me. What guaranteed that someone would get out of bed? a fart - real noxious gasser. So, I am formally putting up for sale the idea of the Dutch Oven Alarm Clock. Through the use of a few cleverly placed hoses and valves, the Dutch Oven Alarm Clock will emit a sound reminiscent of the flapping of ass cheeks followed by a cloud of the foulest, General Tso's chicken inspired, gas that would seep under the covers to rouse the sleeper. A snooze button push later, and the fart fills the room. This way there is no sealing of the bedclothes below the chin to prevent the aroma.

Incidentally, the fart has to smell like someone else's gas. Many men admit liking, and a few women I am sure secretly savor, the smell of their own farts. So the smell has to be someone else's.

Psychologists may say that waking repeatedly in such adverse conditions may have negative effects on the mind. Ladies and gentlemen, could it really be any worse than rushing around every morning and being late for any morning appointment

Welcome

2005-01-12T16:05:00.000-05:00

The name I have selected for blogging purposes is Ideasmith. A favorite past time of mine is playing with ideas. The ideas I work with are sometimes my own and sometimes not. I am not an artist, not by any stretch; my creations are more things of utility than beauty.

This spot is my virtual lunchroom table. It has come to my notice that many of my best ideas come to me while sitting around the lunchroom table, chatting with my co-workers. Those ideas last as long as our laughs. Hopefully this spot will preserve them longer and open them to a wider audience. Kind of vain, huh?