I'm Selling Tickets For My Next Trip To Plato's Cave

The Otherworld lies all about us, an earthly paradise ... if we would but cleanse 'the doors of perception', as Blake put it, and see the world as it really is, 'infinite'.

Plato illustrated the unreality of our perception of the world by an extended analogy. We are like people in a cave, he says, who sit facing a wall with a fire burning behind them. As people and objects pass to and fro in front of the fire, we see only their shadows, and the shadows of ourselves, as they are cast on the wall. We mistake these shadows for reality. (It is as if we mistake a film at the cinema for reality.) To achieve a truer perception of reality we have to turn around ... to revert our point of view ... and see both the fire and the objects in front of it directly. This is perhaps as close to reality as most of us ever come.

~~~Patrick Harpur~~~

I tested Plato's theory starting back a few years ago but initially it wasn't because I really wanted to see things as they actually were but because my back was getting too hot!!! Somebody had put way too much wood on the fire without telling me and I just couldn't stand the heat any longer! After I had turned around to see who was throwing all of that damn wood on the fire, I got my first look at all of those objects, ideas, and people that I had only previously seen as shadows and I really didn't like what I saw. But now it was too late. While I may have become wiser in certain matters that I believe has helped me, there are many other times when I wish that I had never turned around in the first place and just endured the heat.

I did pick up on a juicy little tidbit of information that has served me well though ... many of those people that I saw on the other side of the fire were putting on and taking off masks the whole time! I think that I even caught my own reflection in a mirror and it sure looked like I was wearing one too!

Even though I'm certain that my adventures in Plato's Cave are one of the reasons for my needing to keep my shot glasses close by and filled, I'll still be selling tickets for all of you that would like to ride along when I go back. I'm just looking forward to getting to see all of your expressions when you take off your own masks.

That alone will be priceless.

Just One Of Those Days ...

Just of one of many reasons why we should keep our mouths shut ... unless, of course, you happen to be into it.

Have you ever sketched your mood? Kind of an unsettling image, ain't it? Now you know how I feel.

Nothing that a couple of shots of whiskey won't cure ... hopefully.

To all of you.
(Here's where you guys imagine me raising my shot glass in a toasting motion and then quickly downing the contents)

On second thought, I believe I'll keep drinking those shots until the above sketch begins to show a hint of a smile.

Later.

Apparently Meteor Showers Disturb Outside Dogs ... But So Do Fire Sirens

There were high expectations for all of us sky watching enthusiasts this past Tuesday night which never really produced the results that I was hoping for. I only seen 27 meteors in 88 minutes of solid Orionids watching time. Not bad but NASA was saying that I could have possibly seen 70-80 during the same time but it just didn't happen despite crystal clear skies and very dark conditions.

There were also a whole bunch of howling, screaming dogs in the neighborhood apparently upset about the impending meteor shower and they decided to voice their concern in complete unison for the majority of time I was outside.

Just before I began watching the first series of meteors begin their crashing into our atmosphere I think that the dogs could sense that we were passing through remnants of Halley's Comet and it must have excited them tremendously.

Either that or else they were trying to irritate the daylights out of me whilst I was out watching the night skies and trying to stay warm ... which just so happens to be an activity that I immensely enjoy doing in the dark, alone, and in silence between the hours of 1 AM-5 AM despite feeling horrible the next day.

That's alright though ... I heard that the fire siren down at the community fire house may be getting stuck very soon for a lengthy period of time.

Should that siren actually get stuck, am I supposed to consider that as some form of supernatural retribution against the dogs for disturbing my peace or against me for allowing myself to get angry at them for all of that barking and howling?

Or maybe there is nothing to learn from it because shit just happens sometimes.

I think that I'll go with that last one... it's much easier to understand.

Amen.

Does It Have To Mean Anything?

A betrayal by a close friend.

We discover our spouse or intimate mate has been unfaithful.

Then the hurt begins to deepen in direct proportion to the vividness of our imagination as our illusions begin to crumble. Is the forthcoming pain generated from the betrayal itself or the images that we create after the fact? Or is it both? It's our imagination that takes away our peace. Our imagination creates all kinds of scenarios that cause us to worry about things that seldom happen or that didn't exist in the first place. It's the fear of an unknown future and an uncontrolled imagination that drives away our peace.

But back to the betrayals that do happen. Allen Wheelis wrote this about his wife:

"It does not mean anything," she said, referring to a fling while I was away. She looks at me tenderly. "Are you okay about this? It doesn't mean anything, you know." She's right. A roll in the hay, a sport and a pastime, it doesn't mean anything. "I had to tell you," she says. "I couldn't just not tell you." I examine her face, the mysterious brown eyes with curving lashes and black brows, the playful smile, the elegant sensual mouth ... that mouth! I realize with a shock, that henceforth forever I will be driven to see as one that has sucked another man's cock! And is unchanged! Yet is totally changed! I'm going mad! That exquisite mouth on which my lips linger at night, lovingly, breathing in her breath as it comes from deep inside her, that mouth! unchanged yet gone forever; and I realize also, with a deep and mournful wonderment, that should I undress her and open her legs and examine her most intimate and hidden places, I would ... however bright the illumination, however diligent the search ... find no trace of the use to which they have been put. She is unchanged, the damage is all within me. She observes my troubled expression, kisses me. "It doesn't mean anything!" she says again. But it does! The pain in my heart is the meaning. And what does that pain say? Nothing stays. Lips and legs and lingerie, and laughter in the night, all swirling into the void. And temples, palaces, and pyramids, and stone heroes on stone horses. And continents that split apart and drift, and stars that collapse and implode, and we are a flicker of desire in a torrent of fire and ice, and she's right, it doesn't mean anything, it all slides away, going, going, going.

That is most definitely one way of looking at that specific marital episode. However, for me, I think that if I ever got to this level of thinking that nothing has any meaning, I believe that will be the time for me to check out.

I understand that many things that I believe have meaning, only has meaning for me. It may or may not hold any value for you. But does that mean that I am suppose to believe that all meaning is nothing more than an illusion because my marriage failed? Or because someone that I deeply trusted betrayed me?

I would have to ask the person that believes this to be true an important question. If someone was to grab their child and threaten to shoot him/her in the head, would you simply say go ahead and kill them because this love that you feel for them is really nothing more than an illusion?

Most people would never relegate themselves to believing such nonsense. I can not accept that parental love is nothing more than an illusion though I will admit that it will be severely tested as the years go by.

I will also agree that some things are so traumatic to our psyche that we must come to the conclusion that the event must have no meaning so that we can keep our sanity intact.

All of these mind numbing scenarios that pop up throughout our lives is also another damn good reason why whiskey was invented.

Pull up a seat and share a drink with me. We could use a stiff one ... both for the betrayals that we have endured and the ones that we caused.

photo:www.funnyjunksite.com

To Get Shot Or Not

All through the 1980's I spent in the military on a world wide deployment unit. If any of you have ever been in the military where you could end up all the way around the world from one day to the next you will understand what I mean when I say that you have to learn the necessity of accepting the needles being poked and rammed into all of those areas especially made just for receiving sharp pieces of hollow steel for medicinal applications.

Every year came the flu shot. I don't remember whether we were given more than one kind of strain or not. Probably not though.

I never got sick.

But the first winter that rolled around after I was discharged and did not receive any shots, I developed a real nasty case of bronchitis.

That has now been over twenty years and in that time I have only had one flu shot administered to me since and that was about 10 years ago.

That was the winter when I got another strain of flu that I didn't get a shot for to begin with and it knocked me on my ass for about a week. I actually thought I was gonna die. Even my dog came into my bedroom to say her final goodbyes. I think she sensed the life leaving my body. I think that I even heard her saying some kind of prayer for me.

Anyway, if I take a good hard look at the numbers, I ain't so sure that I am better off getting those flu shots or not.

My own personal numbers tell me that getting a flu shot is a lot like playing Russian Roulette with 5 out of 6 chambers loaded with rubber bullets ... they won't kill you but you'll feel like you were dead.

But with this swine flu lingering around, one of those rubber bullets has actually been replaced with one real nasty hollow point calmly sitting in the chamber silently waiting.

Seems 'bout right to end this year on such a grand scale as a flu pandemic to go along with all of these financial fiascoes. The hits just keep on a-comin'.

How The Law Of Mathematics Change When Old Friends Meet

I'm always looking for a good laugh.

So far, I have found, without a doubt, that our guilty feelings are one of the best sources for our funniest and more thoughtless comments.

For example.

I met a guy the other day who used to ride around with me back in the day. We were pretty good friends back then but like so many relationships as the years went by we tended to go our own way and follow our own course of living.

So I see him at a large home improvement warehouse and we strike up a conversation. Now this guy has lived less than ten miles from me for the last 15 years and each of us knows damn good and well where the other lives. With that knowledge firmly lodged in my brain, I'm not about to inquire from him as to why HE hasn't ever come by to visit ME because I don't want him to think that I have lost my mind.

However, no more than two minutes into the conversation, my apparently insane old friend asks me that very same question. And to top off the insane question, he plants this hurt expression across his face when he asks me why I haven't stopped by to see him.

I actually started laughing and tell him that unless I have horribly miscalculated a mathematical certainty, I was pretty sure that the distance from my driveway to his was exactly the same as the distance from his to mine and that both of our phones work the same no matter who calls.

I stared at him for a moment as I allowed this basic mathematical equation time to sink into his thoughts. I could tell that my comment had found its mark as he dropped his eyes for a moment and stared at my work boots. When he looked up, I was still looking into his eyes with a slight smile. He gave me a little smile and agreed with what I had said but now he looked offended that I had brought his oversight to light. We talked for a little while longer, shook hands, and began to walk in different directions when he says, "Don't let so much time pass before you talk to me again."

I just kept walking as I shook my head in disbelief.

But that little meeting of ours wasn't a total waste. I did find one of those good laughs that I am always looking for.

A Little Personal Ass Jam Across Your Face Now And Then Ain't Ever Hurt Anyone

Awhile back I was reading something, I don't recall what it was (my memory ain't what it used to be) when I ran across an article that was talking about how some people refuse to use their bath towels two or more times to dry off before washing them. There were a few reasons listed for this behavior but the main one was because they considered using the same towel on consecutive nights to be highly unsanitary because they would more than likely end up dragging a section of the towel that dried their ass the night before across their freshly cleaned face.

My first thought to their reasoning was this ... if they didn't clean their ass good enough the last time that they washed it, they probably deserve a little ass jam across their pretty little face this go 'round! If they had cleaned their ass real good last night there really shouldn't be anything there that should bother them the next night.

With that being said though, it ain't going to hurt them too much even if they should happen to catch a little of their own ass residue but that's a whole 'nother story.

If they are cleaning up thoroughly each night (or whenever) and still can't stand the thought of their towel touching their face once it has ventured into the abyss of the hot, hairy sphincter region, they may be a borderline germaphobe in desperate need of psychological counseling.

Bless their sweet little clean hearts! I suppose that they could get a towel like the one pictured above to help them out of their dilemma.

However, as a side thought, shouldn't that towel above have the butt end on the lighter colored side instead of the darker end? You know ... just in case you missed anything.

photo: asseenontvguys.com

The Hornet, The Blue Jay, And A Few Thoughts On Heaven And Hell

Do you happen to remember the old saying about why a hornet doesn't sit on a blue jay's nest?

Because the hornet gets his ass kicked every time that he intrudes on the blue jay's turf. Now he doesn't sit on the nest any more. The pain just ain't worth it ... the hornet simply finds another place to rest.

So, every time that I have an urge to discuss my political or spiritual views, I remember that poor hornet and quickly move onto more suitable discussions involving topics such as casting sculpture, wildlife photography, drinking whiskey, or quantum physics (just kiddin') where the abstract thoughts are kept to a minimum and where we can actually show each other exactly what we are trying to say without inflicting major moral violations upon our delicate human psyches.

The only difference between the hornet/blue jay story and a discussion of political/spiritual issues is that there is never a clear cut winner because I will seldom, if ever, change your mind nor you, mine, whenever it involves abstract and intangible thinking. So why argue? There seems to be a strong force that does not allow the average person to enter into one of these kind of discussions without the anger and rage spewing forth between disagreeing parties.

But today, I am throwing caution to the wind and believe that I will sit here on that nest and wait for Mr. Blue Jay to return home. I'm a glutton for punishment.

In order to keep this brief and for the sake of argument, I'll just give you six points to consider ...

#1-----I do not buy the argument that we all deserve a place to suffer for eternity unless we accept a specific denominational belief. The only folks that have that brand of suffering to look forward to are those that have spent their entire lives committed to inflicting pain upon those that do not deserve it. All the rest of us have had to endure our share of a life full of conflict, injustice, disappointments, pain, confusion, physical and/or emotional torment, uncertainty, rejection, ad nauseum, while having to battle this looming idea of an awaiting place of eternal punishment and suffering for those that have refused to accept a particular teaching of man. This entire concept of our accepting man's doctrinal beliefs as being the passport to the next life violates every belief that I have about justice and fairness.

#2-----Despite all of the religious teachings that supposed to help lessen the fear of death, the average theist is scared out of their mind at the prospect of dying and going to heaven and will do anything to avoid it for as long as possible. That is a very difficult contradiction to explain. It seems that they would be overjoyed at the prospect of finally getting to go to this place where they will reside for eternity in bliss. Personally, if I was firmly convinced that heaven was an eternal battlefield, as did the Vikings, or a paradise where there will be no more suffering and want, damned if I wouldn't want to hasten this life up a bit or, at the very least, not be so scared of dying. How 'bout you?

#3-----I do not believe that heaven is a destination of those that believe themselves good enough to enter. I think that heaven is primarily the final destination for those that have always felt themselves to be "second rate" or "not good enough" and would never openly admit it. Man, that would have to be the ultimate form of justice for them.

#4-----I do not believe that we become worm food whenever we die. Our physical bodies do go back to the dust but I believe that our spirit or soul has another destination in another dimension.

#5-----I do not agree with the belief that we have no one to blame for the sufferings in our lives but ourselves. There are times when this is true but on many occasions, people down through the ages have suffered horribly as a result of the laws and ideologies of their leaders that they trusted in, all the while believing that they had their best interests in mind when they took power. Just think about Stalin's, Mussolini's, and Hitler's own people for example, not to mention the suffering of those that they targeted as their enemies.

#6-----I also do not agree with the belief that there are no such thing as accidents or random acts ... that everything that happens was meant to teach you a lesson in some way. I will agree once again that there are times when this is true. Until you enter into the equation a little child that gets beat to death for doing nothing other than crying. What lesson did that child learn by being killed? Or the family of six that drowned in a flood? What did they learn? Others may learn something from what happened to them but the people themselves learned nothing. And to believe otherwise that there are no such thing as random acts or accidents that happen to people is to necessarily believe that they were sacrificed so that others could learn something valuable. You can't have it both ways. But then again, you'll have to answer the tougher question, if that be true, of who actually sacrificed them and for what purpose.

Welcome to my world.

Chew on these for awhile, all of my abstract, intangible minded readers. My best wishes to all three of you.

Amen.

photo:ophrysphotography.co.uk

I'm A Little Too Easy To Amuse At Times

Last week, on the 11th and 12th, I was like a damn kid again on Christmas Eve, overflowing with anticipation of the upcoming meteor showers that were supposed to be making their yearly appearance in the northeast sky.

Prime time for viewing supposed to have been from around 11 PM to 5 AM. Fingers crossed for clear skies.

Instead, I got a hazy sky which makes it hard to spot the short bursts that aren't that bright. Hard telling how many I missed.

Anyway...

First night I spent 67 total minutes of constant viewing time and only spotted 6 meteors. My last trip outside was around 3 Am for a brief period of watching through sleep clouded eyes but seen nothing. I was really disappointed but there was always the next night.

Next night brought hazy skies again but the clouds parted in the northeast off and on and I spent 68 total minutes of vigilant sky gazing and spotted 15 meteors. Two were so bright and long as they shot over the sky that they made all the waiting worthwhile.

That's right ... I just wanted to share this with ya'll.

You could say that I am rather easily amused. My next project is to attempt to find out just how Spiderman manages to shoot those webs from his wrists and then swing from building to building.

I'm Making The Devil Cry These Days

I have never been able to carry a tune in the proverbial bucket but I enjoy music quite a bit. My wife tells me that my voice sounds ok but after all she does have to live with me so I understand why she has took to lying.

She is sweet.

But unlike Orpheus who made Hades weep with his beautiful and melodious sounds of his lyre which gave his wife a second chance at life, my voice, if my astute observations here on earth count for anything at all, tell me that Hades, in all probability, sheds a few tears every time that I sing along with a tune that I happen to be listening to at any given moment.

That's why I'm pretty sure that I ain't gonna be welcome in the underworld. All I gotta do is start singing and I would most likely be sent straight back to live another life on this planet.

Maybe that's where all of our most horrible insects come from. They are nothing but reincarnations of all of the worst singers that make Hades cry so he sends them back here to torment mankind.

And while I am talking about making Hades weep, I was sitting around talking with a couple of past acquaintances the other day, listening to their bullshit tales of how great they think they are now, when I realized how much I would rather be somewhere else, doing anything, ... like chewing my own leg off, for example. A couple of real, honest to goodness friends is about all I have left ... my loner tendencies having offended a great many that think that I don't like them when that really isn't true ... I just don't like many adult homo sapiens anyway ... nothing personal but I agree with Mark Twain when he said that if heaven was a fair and just place, your dog would get in and you wouldn't. That does say a lot, don't it?

The only friends that I care spending anytime with nowadays are the ones that have come to understand that they know very little except that most of us are selfish and self-absorbed and that we have to admit that we have many, many evil thoughts, no matter how good we think we are. It's those rare individuals that are willing to speak with me, sparing me all of their bullshit, that I am willing to use the valuable time of my day to share air with for a few moments.

So, with that said, here is the way I like to do things these days. First of all, I don't want to get to know most people too well nor do I allow them to get too close with me. If I drop my guard with this then someone is going to get very OFFENDED in the very near future and it usually ain't gonna be because of things that I say but because of things I don't say. So, it's easier for me, and others, if I stay back and work alone, so to speak. That way, everybody gets to be equally offended. I don't want to ever be accused of playing favorites.

Yes, I am a social retard. I can fake it for awhile and look like I am enjoying someone else's company (excluding my wife who is pretty much one of the few straight shooters that I know and of which I appreciate), and I do for short periods of time, which normally last for a couple of hours before I have to go somewhere else and regroup which is another reason Hades ain't gonna want me in the underworld ... I just ain't very sociable and I love being isolated which make one helluva combination to have to deal with.

It's a damn hard task to try and punish someone like me. It would probably be a whole lot more fun (and easier) for Hades when he gets to surprise all the good people when he gets to tell them that they didn't make it to heaven.

"Present Dangers Are Never As Fearful As Future Imaginings" -- Shakespeare

seeking ...
someone for protection from the perils
seeking ...
someone to hold closely while sleep visits our weariness
seeking ...
someone for assurance that the dangers will indeed pass with time
seeking ...
someone to flee with, someone to break the chains with
seeking ...
someone to talk to when the silence is roaring
seeking ...
a bright light for the darkness swiftly closing in
seeking ...
someone, something, that makes the future imaginings as worthy as the present
seeking ... seeking ... always seeking ... always hoping
that, if nothing else, I could be that someone
that somehow knows the secret of enduring the unbearable weight

Why People Do The Craziest Things

"The clearest picture of the empty life is the suburban man, who gets up at the same hour every workday morning, takes the same train to work in the city, performs the same tasks in the office, lunches at the same place, leaves the same tip for the waitress each day, comes home on the same train each night, has 2.3 children, cultivates a little garden, spends a two week vacation at the same shore every summer which he does not enjoy, goes to church every Christmas and Easter, and moves through a routine, mechanical existence year after year until he finally retires at 65 and very soon thereafter dies of heart failure, possibly brought on by repressed hostility. I have always had the secret suspicion, however, that he dies of boredom."

~~~Rollo May~~~

Whilst the thought is fresh (no pun intended) on my mind, I was wondering what it means when you find two skid marks in your drawers ... side by side.

Does that mean that I have some sort of anatomical-giftedness that I never was aware of before today?

After 40 plus years you would think that I would have noticed such a unique phenomenon had it ever shown itself before ...

Well, my mama always told me that I was one of a kind.

Bathtime In The Twilight Zone

It was 12:45 AM this morning and I was sound asleep ... in the bathtub with the warm water almost at the overflow point when my half asleep wife walks into the bathroom and asks me if I had put the windows up in our vehicles.

Being as I was sound asleep when she began talking to me, I had to ask her to repeat herself because between the running water and my visit to the Land of Nod, my comprehension of her request was not very clear.

She groggily repeats her question and informs me that it was raining very hard (that being the reason that she awoke) and I opened my eyes to find that not only am I having to contemplate a question being directed at me but that my bathroom floor is only minutes away from being totally flooded. I quickly cut the water off and I tell her I think that I had put them up but wasn't sure and that when I got out of the tub I would go check immediately since I was already as wet as I was going to get.

The wife goes back to bed and I begin the process of removing my wet carcass from my nice, warm, soaking wet bed and discover that I no longer can hear the rain.

I go outside and I had in fact left one window down but the seat had somehow remained dry. My good fortune!

Back to the tub. I drain a little water out and resume my soak.

The rain comes back again with a greater ferocity than earlier but now all the windows are up. Besides it waking the wife up again, all is well.

What does all of this mean ... the wife waking me up just moments before our bathroom floor flooded and the ceasing of the rain for a brief interlude so that I could roll the window up before the driver's seat would have been soaking wet for the next day or two? Was it coincidence, luck, or divine intervention?

I have no idea.

I'm just glad it happened the way it did.

photo: wpcontent.answers.com/wikipedia

My Previous Life As A Dog

I believe in reincarnation. Absolutely and totally believe in it.

In my previous life, I was a dog. Not sure how many years I made it as a canine or if I ever made it to adult doghood but I damn well had to have been one for awhile.

I repeat. Had to have been. Nothing else will properly explain my insane desire to please when I was younger. And the fact that I can't stand a collar around my neck during any activity whatsoever (especially whenever I'm in an excited state ... don't think 'bout that one too long, it could cause your brain to hemorrhage) only adds to the inevitably of the belief in my reincarnation. And there are those moments when I water the lawn that I have to resist cocking my leg while simultaneously thrusting my nose out and breathing deeply to see if I can smell anything "inviting" drifting thru the air. But that's a whole 'nother story for 'nother time.

Anyway, as I was saying ... I was always trying to please someone. Apparently never quite succeeding.

At least that was the thought in my own mind for far too many years. And believe you me, there is nothing quite as pathetic as a grown man that constantly seeks approval from others once they supposedly are out on their own and a fully independent entity.

There are some things that just ain't right ... and that's one of 'em.

Despite several years in the military and being on my own since I was 15, it took me until my mid-thirties before I got over that 'wanting to please other people' mentality. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy writing posts that other bloggers enjoy reading. I like doing things for my wife and son that I know that they like. I still have people that I do work for that have to be pleased with my work if I want to keep my job. All of those things seem to me to be normal desires.

Thankfully, in my mid-thirties, the time finally arrived when I was able to separate the normal from the highly abnormal desire to please others. Strangely, I think it came along about the same time that I quit chasing cats up trees and around the same time that I personally ended eight years of theological studies. Aaahhh, sweet deliverance!!

Come to think about it, that was also about the same time that I quit fetching sticks as well. I don't enjoy any of those games any longer.

Somehow I think that it was more fun while I was just a plain ol' dog humping my master's leg and not knowing anything else.

I Appreciate This Post From "Notes From Lucifer, Jesus, And Buddha"

I didn't know where my man was going with this but am glad that my cerebral mass was challenged in such a major way.

"Man, oh man, to be completely and totally free to do anything that I want to do.

And I mean absolutely anything ... all restraints lifted. No holds barred.

It has been said that a man can not choose how or where they will die but only the kind of life that they live.

I disagree with that.

If I want to, if I so chose to do it, I could choose exactly how and when I will die. I could chew the end of shotgun or take a handful of sleeping pills or crash my vehicle into a steel wall while running 150 mph or slit my wrists in a warm tub of water until I bleed out. That would be the mark of absolute freedom, would it not?

The only question presently remaining for me is this, "Why don't I do it, what am I waiting for?"

Am I waiting for the next T-bone steak to see if that one will possibly be better than the last?

Maybe it's the thought of not seeing another sunrise or sunset. Or maybe I'd miss the feeling of having my arm gently stroked by someone that loves me.

I'm not afraid of dying ... I'm just afraid of no longer having the choice to decide to live.

Maybe I had it all backwards.

Maybe choosing to live is mankind's ultimate freedom."

©2009/Lucifer-Saytan

A Few Whiskey Worthy Thoughts For Simultaneously Fighting A Bout Of Depression And Reality

A banker is a fellow who lends his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
~~~~~~~~~
Everyone is like a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
~~~~~~~~~
There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.
~~~~~~~~~
~Mark Twain~

photo: eleanorstrousers.wordpress.com/imagecache2.allposters.com

Dentistry For The Masochistically Minded

Caught my eye one day in a small town about an hour away from me.

100 Degree Insanity

It has really been hot around here lately.

Sometimes the stifling heat makes folks say the damnedest things.

A couple of weeks ago I watched a dog running down the road and without breaking stride run face first into a mailbox post. Acted like he never saw the post. Knocked the poor critter completely out for a few seconds ... then it got up and continued down the road like nothing had happened.

It was a precious sight ... wish that I had been videotaping that. Could've made a bundle.

My neighbor, who was with me at our mailboxes and witnessed the incident, starts laughing, pokes me in the chest with his index finger and tells me that the only time he ever wants to see sweat dripping into someone's eyes is when they are looking at pornography.

What did that have to do with the dog running into the mailbox? And now, because I waited a little too long to ask him, I'll never know because a few days ago he passed away. I actually thought about asking him at the hospital but I kinda hated asking him with his wife present. You know, just in case she might be somewhat touchy regarding that taboo subject.

I still believe that the heat must have fried his brain.

I told my neighbor after the porno remark that he should consider going inside and taking a nap.

He said that he would but wanted to know had I ever eaten an ostrich burger.

I told him no but would seriously consider it should the opportunity present itself.

All in all it has been pretty exciting around here recently.

Suppose to get up over 100 degrees again tomorrow. I think I'll stay inside.

photo: www.bajainsider.com

Mrs. Cardinal's Solo Brunch

If you are by chance having a bad day maybe this shot can make you feel a little better.

I know, I know, this pic seems a little too colorful and flowery for my taste but two things factor into this ... (1) I spent many sweaty hours in a blind trying to get this shot and (2) it was taken literally a few hours before my mom passed away on the same day five years ago.

So, despite popular belief, Simstone is capable of exhibiting a small degree of sentimentality.

Is Your Ear Wax Smelling Like Cheese These Days?

To you last four people that have Googled "ear wax smells like cheese" and landed here at Whiskey and Cheese, I apologize for not having a solution for your apparent problem. It sounds like you may actually need a doctor to examine your ears.

Or you could grab yourself a few crackers, spread some of your cheesy ear wax with your Q-Tip, and enjoy the snack.

Either way, I sincerely wish you guys all the luck in the world with your little problem.

Crowd Control Red Hot Chili Grenades! WTF!! Sounds Good But What About The Shrapnel?

India is making hand grenades that are packed with portions of a red hot chili that is 1,000 times hotter than normal kitchen chili. The claim is that it will be used as a crowd control weapon and it will not hurt as many people.

Great idea ... but isn't there still flesh tearing shrapnel that still is being blown outward?

Anyone know something about this before I have to drink a fifth of my best bourbon trying to figure it out?

photo:www.nationalparkstraveler.com

I'm Feeling A Little Out Of Sorts Today ... I Had Another Illusion Unmasked

"Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces."
~Sigmund Freud~

“It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts... For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.”
~Patrick Henry~

photo: Def Leppard album cover "RetroActive"

The One Word That Should Be Universally Understood

Came across a nature story where scientists are claiming that several species of sharks are now becoming endangered. I hate to hear that because I really like sharks. I think they are pretty damn cool ... a true hunting machine with fins.

But then again I have never had one decide that they would take a nibble of my flesh whilst I was out swimming in the ocean either. I may have a different view of them if that had ever happened.

Nevertheless, with all that said, I must agree with the dude that said if there was ever a word that needed to be universally pronounced so that all languages and dialects could easily understand it, S-H-A-R-K should be that word!

If I'm ever over in Japan out for a morning swim in the ocean and someone happens to notice that a shark is rapidly approaching me and begins screaming to warn me, I would really hate a little thing like language to interfere with my safety.

Who do I need to see about getting this idea put into legislation?

photo: www.lauderdalefishing.com

The Reason Whiskey Was Invented

Wouldn't it be especially valuable if our dreams helped us to better understand our past and how we got to the present instead of always seemingly pointing to mysterious future events that we constantly try to decipher and keep misinterpreting?

I seriously think if that was the case, I would probably spend more time sleeping.

Now that would make sense ...
and probably the reason why it doesn't work.

And probably why whiskey was invented.

photo: redbubble.com

When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.
~Mark Twain~

Bukowski's Monday Morning Brain Cramp About Writing For A Living

"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is."
— Charles Bukowski

Iz Been Gave An Award!!!! And This One Was Specially Re-Designed Just For Me!!!

Colette seen fit to grant me an award, one of which was originally a little too damn pink and flowery for my taste but one that I graciously accepted nonetheless. Upon realizing that I wasn't really into such colorful items as that, she laboriously went to work and redesigned the award just for me. If pictures are worth a thousand words then this is a novel. Thanks lady, you are showing signs of reading me like a book.

Now as with all awards there are a few rules to follow:

1: Grab the award and link to whoever gave you the award.

2: Pass the award to different deserving bloggers (your opinion)

3: Write a post and link to those bloggers of your choice.

4: Most importantly ... keep writing.

My Picks

(Based on whoever has been scratching me where I currently itch the most ... figuratively speaking, of course)

Whiskey Marie who may be almost as 'out there' as I am (but in a nicer way).

Coffee Messiah cuz I enjoy the commentary exchanges that we engage in.

PlowShareForge who seldom ever leaves a comment but who I simply like seeing what kind of knife he is going to make next.

Colette cuz even though I ain't supposed to give one of these to the one that gave it to me, I will anyhow because she stands out as a searcher for what makes sense in this life and I appreciate that mentality.

The Appeal Of A Bearded Man With One Good Hand

Dog Pic Of The Day

Bring On The Excessive Good Fortune!

I read a quote once that proclaimed our character was never at more of a test than whenever we were experiencing excessive good fortune.

I have also heard a lot of people say that they wouldn't like being wealthy. How do they know if they have never been wealthy before? Personally, I think they are full of crap.

Well, I have had a few occasions in my life that I consider to have been times of good fortune but I have yet to have experienced excessive good fortune.

Whenever that level of excess is ready to come and give my character a real test would be perfectly all right with me. Matter of fact, I'm giving it a personal invitation for anytime during this weekend!

So, in anticipation of that I'm preparing for a whiskey and cheese celebration just in case excessive good fortune should somehow find me and my friends this weekend. Notice my fine china paper plates. Nothing is too good for my buddies.

Hell, don't laugh ... the same mortal man of the last post who told me that he knew where I would go after I died also told me that he could see excessive good fortune in my near future.

We shall now see if he's worth his weight in salt.

Hell Is Where You Go Now When You Allow A Mortal Man To Convince You That He Knows What Happens To You When You Die

ON DEATH

"There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to mourn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives, they piss on their lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking, movies, money, family, fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. They look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it. Most people's deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die."

—Charles Bukowski, The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship, 1998

You'll Know This Beer Is Cold Enough When A Bird Can Sit On Top Of The Foam

I'm trying to control the smile on my face right now. It took me a while to get this shot but well worth the time and effort.

And yes, that is a Carolina Wren in the cup.

Weiner Dog And Friends Ponder The Afterlife

Maggie, The Weiner Dog ... & Friends

Rarely Seen, Sword-Wielding, Warrior Songbird Photographed In Bird Feeder!

Super Secret Covert Operations Underway To Nab Unsuspecting Litterbugs

At least that's the rumors that I am hearing. Consider yourself warned.

Can Searching For Purpose Become A Metaphysical Pandemic?

True seekers are different. On meeting them you feel their purpose, their energy, their integrity, their idealism, and their desire to close in on an answer. Something in life has awakened questions, has made them aware of a sense of need, has forced them to consider where they are in life. They have become seekers because something has spurred their quest for meaning, and they have to find an answer.

True seekers are looking for something. They are people for whom life, or a part of life, has suddenly become a point of wonder, a question, a problem, or a crisis. This happens so intensely that they are stirred to look for an answer beyond their present answers and to clarify their position in life. However the need arises, and whatever it calls for, the sense of need consumes the searchers and launches them on their quest.

Notice that "a sense of need" does not justify people's believing. People do not come to believe in the answers they seek because of need . That would be irrational and make the believer vulnerable to the accusation that faith is a crutch. Rather, seekers disbelieve in what they believed in before because of new questions and their previous beliefs could not answer. The question of what and why they then come to believe is answered at a later stage.

~Os Guinness~

photo:www.authorsden.com/PoetryImage/249276.jpg

"Care to Share?"

WTF Monday Nature Pic

"Who says I can't?"
~the hummingbird~

Some Things That Really Fascinate Me

I was reading WhiskeyMarie's latest post where she had listed things that she understood vs. what she did not understand and I got a real kick out of that list. So, that got me to thinking about what I understood and what I didn't and I realized that I had an entire list of things that I have strange fascinations for. No explanations, just a fascination that keeps hanging with me. A shortened list for your reading pleasure.

Some things that I am fascinated by:
~The song In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly ... I don't even like the tune but am mesmerized nonetheless.

~The song The End (from the movie Apocalypse Now) by The Doors ... a real freaky song man.

~Watching women eat bananas. Yeah, I listed this one a while back on something but it keeps creeping up in different ways it seems. Maybe I am just glad to see the lady eating something that I know is so good for her. After all, a banana is quite possibly, the world's most perfect food and whenever I see a woman eating one in public I will watch her until she is done ... unless she happens to notice me and quickly decides to move out of my line of sight. Go figure.

~Watching the sun reflect off the bottom of a plane's fuselage.

~Really stupid people.

~Really smart people.

~How a complete stranger knows the precise spot on my sunburned body to accidentally hit me.

~Watching women hand-hold microphones while speaking.

~Why I seem to be experiencing withdrawal symptoms if I go longer than two or three days without chocolate ice cream.

~How mosquitoes fit into the grand overall scheme of life ... particularly after waking up and finding that they have sucked a quart of blood from my unsuspecting body.

~Watching women eat cream horns.

I think that's enough for now. Later.

photo: newsimg.bbc.co.uk

Show Me The Love

I was reading a transcript of a conversation between Russ Kick and Judith Rich Harris, author of The Nuture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out The Way They Do, and I realized that should her theory of child/parent relationships be true, millions of people in the Western world are going to be extremely pissed because they will be in danger of losing their valuable excuses that they have safely tucked away for the inevitable mistakes that they will make later in life. And no, I'm not talking about you or me because I know that we would never do such things as blame our parents for what we do.

The portion that caught my attention was this:

RK: It's interesting to note that not all time periods and cultures have the belief that parents are crucial in determining their children's course in life. In fact, most didn't/don't believe that, including America up to the 1930's. What does this tell us about the nuture assumption?

JRH: Quite true: The nuture assumption is a creation of the twentieth century. Freud has a lot to answer for. In other cultures, and in previous generations of our own culture, parents were given condolences, not blame, if their children didn't turn out as hoped. Consider the changes in child-rearing styles that have occurred just within the last century. I was born in 1938, and when I was growing up it was considered perfectly all right for a parent to strike a child with a weapon such as a belt or a ruler --- some parents even kept a suitable object specifically for that purpose! Kisses and hugs were administered sparingly in those days, and declarations of parental love were made only the deathbed.

A generation later, when I was rearing my children, it was no longer considered all right to strike a child with a belt or a ruler, but it was still okay to give them an occasional swat on the seat of their pants. Hugs, kisses, and declarations of parental love were more common.

Now, another generation later, it's no longer considered okay to hit children at all --- my 4 year old granddaughter has never experienced any kind of physical punishment --- and the words "I love you" have become as common as "please" and "thank you".

If the experts were right, wouldn't you think that such drastic changes in child-rearing methods would produce a better product? But there are no signs that children are happier or less aggressive today than they were when I was growing up; there are no signs that they have higher self-esteem. Rates of childhood depression and suicide have gone up, not down, over this period. And yet the experts continue to claim that if parents would only follow their instructions to the letter, their children will turn into happy, well-adjusted people. Happy, well-adjusted, and smart!

I'll tell ya'll the absolute truth ... as a boy, if I had been given the option of being put in 'time-out' or have my legs and rear-end laced with a leather belt or switches, I would have chosen the whipping 90% of the time. My thinking then was, "Let's get this over with." It really depended on how mad my dad was. If he was really mad because I had done something extremely rebellious, he could go a little overboard at times. For those times, a grounding was far more appropriate for me because making me stay inside and watch tv for a week or two and not allow me the freedom to climb some trees or go down to the creek was a far more horrendous punishment to me than any whipping. Then there were those other times that those old-fashioned "ass-whoopings" really brought the error of my ways into clear focus. I think it depends on the kid and whether or not a parent can control their tempers as being the primary focus of what kind of punishment needs to be administered. A little common sense goes a long way.

Once when I was around eight years of age, I was standing beside my dad at the pasture fence where our plow horse was kept. I picked up a dirt clod and threw it at the horse, hitting it in the upper portion of the back leg. Dad told me not to ever throw things at the horse. As soon as he turned his back, I picked up another clod and chunked it at the horse and hit it in the neck. Dad immediately picked up the closest object, an almost dried corn stalk, and walloped me three times across my shirtless back before it broke. I was then made to sit at the base of a tree to think about what happened for an hour or so. I really didn't like the punishment but I never threw clods at our horse again. Would I have reacted the same way without the cornstalk thrashing? Who knows?

I still wonder what today's child rearing experts would have done with me under the same circumstances and how different I would have turned out if I hadn't experienced the physical pain of whippings. Or would it have made no difference at all?

Apparently Logic Has No Boundaries ... Round Two

I came across a disclaimer on a blog awhile back that still has me scratching my ol' noggin.

The blogger states emphatically that her posts are intended to be strictly hypothetical and nonsensical. She then states that any assertions that she makes on her blog are believed to be true, based on her good-faith efforts to research the facts.

Excuse me? Say that again? What facts? If something is written strictly nonsensical that means that it has no meaning and no truth. If it is hypothetical, then you are making an assumption in order to test its logical consequences. How can you have logical consequences when your writings are supposed to be nonsensical? How can you make a truthful assertion based on the research of facts when what you have written supposed to have no meaning? And finally, if your posts are being written nonsensically and hypothetically, how can you get so furiously offended when someone disagrees with you? I am still trying to logically decipher that conundrum.

Now normally this kind of disclaimer wouldn't garner much attention from me but seeing that this was someone that accused me of not being able to argue logically ... well ... you can see how she has placed me in a very difficult position where I have to defend myself. It simply wouldn't be fair if I didn't voice my opinion, would it?

To enable you to fully gather the entire gist of her claims of total logic requires that you read her disclaimer in its entirety. Please do me a favor (and her) and go here for a very entertaining read of a sterling example of logical thinking(?) in all of its disclaimer glory.

Afterwards, we can meet up for a drink and compare notes. Remember that this is the same sweetheart lady that has been shit-canned from numerous blogs due to her aggressive style of differing with the views of others (religious and political) and that banned me from her site by claiming that I couldn't logically maintain a civil discussion (her words), so I thought it would be nice if you could read for yourself what I was up against.

BTW ... I double dog dare you to disagree with any of her strictly nonsensical and hypothetical posts where the facts have been researched in good faith by this fine, upstanding Christian woman.

And then you will see that you really do got to luv her (good english, heh?) for she is a very special person. I think I'm getting a little misty-eyed just (logically) thinking about her and all of her nice, sweet posts that have been going up since she banned me. She seems to have curbed her ranting to a low grumbling since our little run-in. Maybe she is trying to cleanse her soul white as wool.

Anyway, I have to run. I am building an ark and according to the Weather Channel I think the Second Deluge is just now beginning.

Until we cross paths again.

Amen and Hallelujah.

WTF Monday & A Little Ironic Humor

I guess all of you know that I am suing the manufacturer of Pall Mall cigarettes, because their product didn't kill me, and I'm now eighty-four. Listen: I studied anthropology at the University of Chicago after the Second World War, the last one we ever won. And the physical anthropologists, who had studied human skulls going back thousand of years, said we were only supposed to live for thirty-five years or so, because that's how long our teeth lasted without modern dentistry.

Weren't those the good old days: thirty-five years and we were out of here. Talk about intelligent design! Now all the Baby Boomers who can afford dentistry and health insurance, poor bastards, are going to live to be a hundred!

Maybe we should outlaw dentistry. And maybe doctors should quit curing pneumonia, which used to be called "the old people's friend."

But the last thing I want to do tonight is to depress you. So I have thought of something we can all do tonight which will definitely be upbeat. I think we can come up with a statement on which all Americans, Republican or Democrat, rich or poor, straight or gay, can agree, despite our country's being so tragically and ferociously divided.

The first universal American sentiment I came up with was "Sugar is sweet."

~Kurt Vonnegut~

Please follow this link below for full story to photo above
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1035734/Meet..

Walking In The Dark

Despite popular religious teachings, I think it's o.k. to walk around in the dark. Anybody can walk around in the bright sunlight and look like they know where the hell they are going and what they are doing. But show me somebody that's getting around pretty damn good in the dark and I'll show you someone that has learned to use all of their senses to the fullest. Literally and figuratively.

Which, by the way, leads me to my next thought.

If the name 'Lucifer' is supposed to be so closely associated with darkness then why has his name always meant "Bringer of Light"?

It's usually around this time that I ask if the more traditionally minded religious would like to join me in a shot or two of whiskey. You know, to properly usher in the spirits before the conversation goes any further.

photo:traxus4420.files.wordpress.com

The Roller Coaster Ride That Some Say Is An Illusion

Every single time that I am almost convinced that humanity has a serious death wish, hell bent on committing evil acts and hiding behind its masks of virtues, somebody will commit some sort of good deed that undermines my prevailing philosophy.

Then I go back and re-examine this apparent act of goodness and 98% of the time I can find what I believe to be an ulterior motive behind the act that appears to be only for show.

But it's that other damn 2% that kinda gets my hopes up and leaves me 100% scared that I will find out what really happened.

photo: farm1.static.flickr.com/29/97545142_87df6c008

Simstone's Commentary Debacle And Confession, "It Was All My Fault ... Almost"

If there is one thing that I have learned over the years is that whenever I hear someone say that they could care less what anyone thinks or says about them, I know with absolute certainty that I have just found the very person that cares the most what people say or think about them.

I'm told that it's a psychological thing. A kind of defensive maneuvering of the emotions.

I have said the same thing about my not caring what folks think or say on many occasions and wondered why just as many times. Now I finally know the answer.

Because I am one seriously fucked up dude. A social deviant. Socially retarded. If I really wanted to continue coming up with more adjectives that best describe myself, I could easily do that but I think these will suffice for now.

Through my subtitle, I try to warn all readers who make a visit to this blog that they are entering into a fog-filled, hazy world where my sick sense of humor knows no real boundaries and to be prepared for whatever they read and more if they should decide to leave a comment that I take as confrontational or has an attitude of superiority. I don't think that most people really take my subtitle warning that seriously. But sometimes my responses to certain comments even surprises me. Just when I think that I have myself in order and in control, someone will say something out of line (my opinion) and I will shoot off into another dimension where I really have no business going. But I am drawn to the conflict like a fly to a steaming pile of cow shit, which is exactly how the commentary will inevitably end up smelling by the time all is said and done. I really hate it when that happens.

I told the Mrs. several years back that I have a certain flaw in my personality that really isn't noticeable until you are around me for prolonged periods. I am aware that its there and pretty sure where it came from but I will not bore you with the details. I'll sum it up by simply saying that if you are around me for any length of time, my loner tendencies will surface and then my finely tuned abrasive personality will take over. It can be a sad existence but one where I feel safe. Analyze that, why don't you.

A few weeks ago, I was made painfully aware of just how much of a problem I actually have when a regular reader and avid commenter and a lifelong committed Christian woman in the Catholic faith and I got into a rather lengthy back and forth discussion about guns in the home. She was against them in her home, I, in favor. No big deal, right? There was no problem in our differences at first until I felt like she crossed a blogging etiquette boundary by refusing to give me last say on my blog. If I am on someone else's site and disagree with them I always let them have final say. Isn't that just being courteous? Anyway, she just would not shut the fuck up and kept writing novel length comments and driving her opinions home repeatedly. I finally lost my patience with her and shut down the commentary to silence her (and me). I got some emails from you guys wanting to know what this woman's problem was and I'll tell you the same thing again ... her main problem was my fault for not shutting it down sooner. I should have just let her have the last word and went about my business but I didn't. I knew her reputation well of being very opinionated and combative in the blogosphere because she had admitted on her own blog that she had been shit-canned from numerous blogs for her aggressive writing style.

I knew all of that but I wanted to see how far she would go with it. So I egged it on for awhile. At first it was quite entertaining but eventually it got out of hand when I finally lost my patience with her. My fault ... I shouldn't have pushed it as far as I did because little did I know that it would get even uglier in her continued attempts to get the last word.

Not long after the meltdown, I wrote a post about a young guy that I know and his girlfriend and the girl's mean-ass pet rabbit that she had named 'Satan' and when my feuding blogger woman read that post she accused me of making veiled threats against her when I claimed that the rabbit should be eaten if it tried to bite the girl again (another case of my twisted sense of humor that obviously gets me in trouble with certain types of people). I guess that I had made the lady overly paranoid because how in the hell do you go from that story of a mean rabbit and turn it into something where I was threatening her life? But again, that's what I get for egging this thing on. Believe me, I've learned my lesson.

My blogger lady then writes this huge post on her site about what she 'thought' I meant about guns in the home and my being involved in BB gun wars growing up and proceeds to tell her version of how crazy she thinks I am in a post on her blog. Really? No shit? I know that am insane, that's nothing new to me and it shouldn't be to any of you. I thought that we all did crazy ass things, especially when we were young. Didn't you? I may be crazy and socially retarded but once again I am admitting that this whole escapade was my fault and a very bad idea to egg on due to the kind of blogger that I was dealing with. Some folks just aren't mentally stable enough to egg on in the first place. Now I know.

I also decided to shut down my commentary during all this insanity so that I could re-tool my thinking. It's just too easy to leave a passing thought in the comment block so I decided to only receive emails for awhile. Maybe I should simply do as some of you more intelligent beings do ... leave your comments open and just not answer any of them. That's probably the smartest way to handle this dilemma that I found myself in and if and when I decide to reopen the commentary, that's what I'll do. It seems to work just fine for most of you more level headed gals and gents.

I do appreciate all of you who venture over here to visit. Just wanted to let ya'll know what was going on 'round here.

Until we cross paths again.

The Balanced Search For The Good, The Bad, And The Beautiful

I seek beautiful things.

Not so much because I can or desire to touch them but just to admire their appearance.

Human beauty is not something that I am seeking for these days. I do enjoy that kind of beauty but it's not at the top of the list right now. Damn hard to find the real thing anyway with all the implants, fake nails and miraculous hair transplants that seem to be everywhere.

What I look for now has to be found within the everyday forms, shapes, colors, words, flowers, designs, ad nauseum, that are often overlooked.

This daily quest continues wherever and whenever I think that I might happen upon something of beauty because it is a habit long ago founded in fear.

I used to believe that this quest was what aided me in neutralizing all that I believed to be wrong with the world.

However, now I realize that it was only a misguided attempt to repel the attacks of suffering and to heal some really nasty wounds that I felt totally helpless in dealing with in any other way.

It was also a lame attempt to quietly put my fractured self back together and hope that no one had noticed the corrective surgery.

As I watched one beautiful thing after another fade with time, I realized that the beauty I had been seeking was nothing more than another attempt to cloak the real problems that bothered me the most ... the unnecessary violence and abuses and all the injustices that I knew were going on but couldn't stop.

I had thought that if I could keep enough beautiful things in the forefront of my vision, I would somehow be able to eliminate everything else that disturbed me.

I was wrong.

But during that process I discovered that I would rather remain a failure in my daily quest for beauty than to keep my focus centered upon what is ugly and evil.

That kind of focusing on all of the negative crap will scar you worse than failing to find the elusive lasting beauties of this world.

There must be a balance for it to work. But what could give me that kind of balance?

How does three shots of whiskey and a good nights sleep sound for striking the perfect balance between the good, the bad, and the beautiful?

And if you don't think too deeply, it'll work just fine, thank you.

Cheers!

photo:unknown

The Water Bar & A Few Quotes

A bar designed to look like flowing water ... a great design idea to be used around large groups of people who have been drinking a whole bunch of alcohol, especially if the bar's toilets need their gaskets overly exercised.

Everybody should believe in something; I believe I'll have another drink. ~Author Unknown

I drink only to make my friends seem interesting. ~Don Marquis

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading. ~Henny Youngman

Of the demonstrably wise there are but two: those who commit suicide, and those who keep their reasoning faculties atrophied by drink. ~Mark Twain, Note-Book, 1935

Never cry over spilt milk. It could've been whiskey. ~"Pappy" Maverick, in Maverick

If four or five guys tell you that you're drunk, even though you know you haven't had a thing to drink, the least you can do is to lie down a little while. ~Joseph Schenck

photo:gizmodo.com/.../resources/2007/12/water_bar1.jpg

Lessons I Learned From A Bug

I was out of town installing a mascot statue at a university recently and in the process of answering several questions being posed to me by the committee members, when some kind of a bug or insect, who the hell knows, came dive bombing from out of the blue, no description, just a brief flash, and it disappeared down my throat in mid-sentence!

I suddenly realized that I was completely unable to speak because the damn vile critter was now lodged in my throat and wriggling around, obviously in a vain attempt to escape from its sudden confinement, and creating one hell of an uncomfortable feeling down my windpipe. Ever had an itch that you couldn't scratch?

Some of the folks standing around were by now beginning to look awkwardly at me as they were probably wondering why I had stopped answering their questions and grabbing at my throat. I finally was able to mutter the words, "Bug ... down ... my ... throat ... can't ... breathe ..." when the Chief of Police jokingly remarked to my questioners that it didn't look like I was going to be around to see the installation all the way through. He then quickly buzzed off on his state of the art GyroCycle seemingly unphased by my sudden predicament!

After getting someone to show me where a water fountain was so I could assist the vile critter with his inevitable downward journey into the pit of my awaiting stomach, it became painfully aware to me that if I had been having a heart attack, I probably wouldn't be writing this blog now.

But then I began to wonder what all my Buddhist and Christian acquaintances would have to say about this. Questions like, "What did you learn from this experience?" or "Do you think that swallowing that bug was positive or negative karma?" or "Did you experience an heightened sense of joy when you realized that you wouldn't choke to death?"

The only answer that I'll have for them is, "I learned that I shouldn't be talking when sweating profusely out in the sunshine when I should have been concentrating on drilling into concrete. I learned that I should keep plenty of water nearby just in case. I learned that people generally do not know what to do when someone suddenly begins choking in front of them. And yes, I was really excited when I knew that I would live and I was really excited when I finally knew that there was nothing else for me to learn from the experience."

Anything more than that and I figure it will completely exhaust all parties involved. Me included.

photo:farm4.static.flickr.com/3087/2853052943_de713

Global Warming?

If modern man and industry is responsible for the alleged global warming of today's world then who or what was responsible for the global warm up that stopped the Ice Age?

Is the global warming that we are constantly hearing about really a man made dilemma or is it nothing more than another cycle of nature?

Both sides claim that they have the answers.

www.poligazette.com/.../comment-page-1/

Some Things Never Change

The other night that I spent out in the woods brought forth a flood of memories when I was a boy. Here are a few of the more interesting ones.

~My grandmother, every Saturday evening, would always give me a wing from one of the barnyard chickens that she was frying for our family dinner on Sunday. Upon receiving the choice morsel, I would scale the house and hide myself in the low area behind the chimney and the peak of the roof where I would have total privacy whilst I enjoyed the chicken wing.

~Whenever I had to pee, I used to go out on our front porch and while facing the road, proceeded to drain the main vein (so to speak) with one hand while waving at whatever cars happened to pass by with the other. My mom told me one time that until she found out what I was doing, she wondered why so many cars were blowing their horns when I was outside playing on the porch.

~I had a morbid fear of being the one guilty of leaving the refrigerator door slightly ajar each night before going to bed. Go figure that one out.

~I had a morbid fear of bees. A fear that may have developed sometime between the 85th and 90th stings.

~I despised the taste and smell of one specific thick pink liquid that tasted like chalk and was supposed to ease an upset stomach. Ditto for oyster stew. The mere smell sent me a-running and until momma learned her lesson, the taste of either would send me hurling like Linda Blair in "The Exorcist".

Lucky for the folks around here that out of this list of 5 memories from my past, I have completely stopped doing 3 of 'em.

Now, if you will excuse me, I must go to the bathroom before it starts raining.

photo: www.playle.com

As It Should Be

I sit between the interesting world of flickering orange light to my front and the thick forested darkness behind, gazing at the portion of the heavens that I have temporarily managed to capture in the reflections of my steaming cup of coffee. A few more sips and I will no longer hold the moon between my hands.

But that is as it should be.

A whip-poor-will is trying to share its late night song with me. That's O.K. ... I'm in the mood to share tonight. We can watch the night sky together and maybe another falling star will grace us with a brief encore.

Man, how I long for these kind of nights. The cerebral activity has been all but silenced in one way but satisfyingly increased in another. So many questions that are unanswerable.

But that is as it should be.

What if I would actually witness first hand an army of warriors on their white horses galloping across the night sky on their way to conquer in another dimension? Who would I tell?

Knowing what I know now ... not a soul.

photo: pliblog.yournextspeaker.com

Bright Fires Burn Briefly

"We pretend, gentlemen, to be aware of the ax. But I must tell you we forget, we lie, live basely with the illusion of continuing life.

Stay with the Main Show, my friends. Never be drawn into side issues, entertainments. Stay right there at the center ring in the big top. And what is the Main Show? Ah, ... you know, have only to listen to the muffled drum within, ... you know! How to live, ... the despair, ... the great cutting edge on which your life is turning ... that is the Main Show. Never leave it. A man is up there in the big top, the highest point, right under the canvas ... see him! ... there! Hanging by his teeth, arms outstretched, spinning and turning. The colored spotlights play over him, the drums begin to roll. Most people are watching the dancing bears, but you, my friends, must fix your gaze on the dangling man. He's going to fall in a minute, any moment now, and there's nothing to be done about that, there's no net; but in the meantime he may achieve something truly remarkable, some glittering stunt perhaps, even a moment of heartbreaking beauty. The man is you: Stay with him. Don't run away from yourself. It is not important that you be happy or that you be sad, that you live long or that you live short; what is important is that you live authentically. Do not run from the true condition of your life. Hold still, feel the cutting edge on your throat, watch the dangling man, study his condition. What in this precarious and fateful state can he still do? That, when you find it, is your task, your true vocation!"

But how, specifically, can you apply this insight to your life?

"Imagine you have a fatal disease and one week to live. How would you live differently? Apply then the mandate of that limited life to your life now."

~~~Allen Wheelis~~~

Enjoy the heat from the burning fires for as long as there are embers to be stoked.

photo: www.elderlycareservices.org

The Prophet Of Justice Shares His Gift Of Love With the Wayward

There hasn't been many times that I could compare myself to a prophet but there was this one occasion when I rivaled for top honors in the making of predictions department.

It seems that being left in the freezing night air, standing alone for almost an hour, has the potential of creating a judicious, albeit somewhat murderous tendency in the best of us. It wasn't a mistake or a mere oversight on the SSgt's behalf either, it was a simple example of him being an asshole (known henceforth as 'wayward asshole' or lovely SSgt).

When a patrol finally picked me up, he told me that he would sit in the barracks parking lot and give me 5 minutes alone with this lovely SSgt before he would actually respond to the inevitable "Fight In Progress" call that was sure to come.

Despite my best attempts at provoking his rage against me in a physical way, he refused to engage me in a fantasy fulfilling brawl. I insulted his mother, questioned his manhood, and inquired several times about whether or not he actually possessed a pair of cahones large enough to match his overall "I am going to be a huge asshole" mentality.

Nothing but blank stares.

It was around that time that I exercised for the first time, the divine gift of prophecy, justice, and wisdom that had been suddenly and supernaturally bestowed upon me from above (?) approximately 3 months prior.

I prophetically informed him that one night before long, he would find himself on his way to the club, high up on the mountain, for another dinner with no one but himself, when he would suddenly realize that the trees and bushes had come alive and was dragging his sorry wayward ass (you have to speak the language that is the easiest understood) into the woods for a meeting with a select group of people that was dying to make his acquaintance. I told him that unless something changed, I would be leading that little meeting whenever and wherever it might happen though I knew I didn't have long before I departed from this overseas assignment.

My problem then became the witnesses that heard my prophetic warnings. But since I had been sent on a divine mission, the powers that be sent this wayward being on a month long assignment to another place far from our duty station. By the time he returned, I was scheduled to be gone.

Fast forward three months. I get phone calls one day from two of my buddies, one in Chicago, Ill. and the other in Houston, Tx telling me of my successful elevation to the status of prophet ( in the eyes of my SSgt friend back in Korea). It seems that one night, not long after I had departed base to return stateside, he got a visit from the local welcoming committee. The meeting went well for all parties. A fractured jaw, one missing tooth, three cracked ribs, two blackened eyes, and a strong suggestion that he develop amnesia, and the once troubled, wayward SSgt, magically changed his attitude toward his fellow man for the good. Justice had truly been poetically served.

You may be wondering how I came to be such a wise prophet. Well, one night in a back alley, alone and 300 miles from my home base, I was wandering toward another drinking establishment for a couple more shots of whiskey when I happened upon a guy that made a disrespectful gesture toward me. What began as a fight between me and him quickly grew to a fight between me and six of his buddies.

All went well for everyone involved.

To this day, every time I look in the mirror at my nose, I remember the night when the supernatural gifts of wisdom, justice, and prophecy was bestowed upon me, enlightening me and enlarging my mind, and forever placing its stamp of approval on me.

It has been my duty ever since to try and graciously share my gift with mankind whenever and wherever I come across a wayward soul. I'm thinking about starting a church. The only requirements being that you be a recovering wayward that intensely desires to see other waywards enlightened. You can't have one without the other.

If you aren't a recovering wayward, there will be an initiation ceremony among your brethren that you will be required to attend.

Drop me a line if you care to join.

Ya Got To Love Them Crows (At Least For Their Intelligence)

If crows are aware of their presence, two hunters can enter into a wooded area and have one return and the crows will not go in. Send the other hunter out and they will fly in. Send three hunters into the wooded area and have two come out and the crows will fly in.

Damn if they can't count to two which is pretty impressive for a bird. They also use sticks in conjunction with their beaks to assist them in digging insects out of wood.

If they ever escape after being lured to a staged owl and crow fight just one time, they will be incredibly cautious about doing it the second time. They will fly very high and check out the area first. Anything out of the ordinary and they are gone.

Amazing birds, them crows.

I Understood It Was Primal

I learned a serious lesson one day out in the hellish backwoods of Fort Benning, Ga. It was not a particularly smart thing finding yourself close by a man that several guys had it in for. It can be very physically dangerous. You need to keep your distance from a marked man and make damn sure that you pay attention to the ground ... especially if the marked man had a favorite sitting spot. I never wanted to have sharpened hardwood stakes driven up into my innards because I simply flopped down where the marked man was supposed to have sat. That kind of living on the edge makes a man wish that he was in actual combat instead of training. I would have hated going home and having to explain that kind of wound. What the fuck could you say that wouldn't sound totally insane?

But for some reason, I understood what was driving these guys. It was intensely primal.

I had a cop that told me that he hated going to domestics. I knew that he must have grown up in a rather tame home. Man, when I would respond to a domestic, particularly the real violent ones, I knew when to speak and what needed to be said and I also knew when to shut the fuck up. The people would look at me like I could read their mind and when I was younger, I always wondered why they would single me out if they needed to explain themselves or to confess.

I think I finally figured out that they were sensing something primal in me that connected us.

Or else it was all just my imagination.

The 14:1 War To Peace Ratio Sounds About Right

I have heard and read a great deal over the last 10 years or so about the Buddhist teaching of being aware of "not knowing" as being a key to expanding your mind, imagination, and wisdom. It sounds very similar to other teachings whereby there is an acknowledgment of a higher wisdom that will come to your aid if you will only submit and stop "trying to figure it out".

I understand what they are saying and I do believe that higher wisdom is often found in quietness and meditation. No doubt about it.

But then I also acknowledge another fact about the history of humankind; for every year that humanity has enjoyed peace they have had to endure an additional 14 years of warfare. That's one helluva track record over a very long time period. Of those wars, 90% were fought because of religious reasons and/or under the banner of a deity, whatever it happened to be.

I would have thought that long periods of peace would have been the easiest to prolong back in the days before mass communication and the relative ease of world travel but it wasn't.

Anyway, back to the Buddhist philosophy of "not knowing" awareness. I still like that idea. It sounds right.

So, taking into account humanity's track record for war and peace, this is what I am going to do ... for every minute that I spend thinking peaceful thoughts and meditating about allowing that higher wisdom to flood my mind, I will devote another 14 minutes readying myself to defend against those that are hoping and praying that I will spend all my time practicing nothing but peaceful meditation.

I like that idea too ... it sounds right.

It also sounds like a much safer mentality over the long haul than being confused about why total peace has forever evaded us.

photo: thecoloringspot.com

Give Me A Nice Juicy Hamburger But Please Don't Hurt The Cow

A 21 year old dude tells me a funny story about his 26 year old girlfriend that has to be retold just so you can see how incredibly distorted our views can become about life.

He tells me that she owns a caged, indoor pet rabbit that she named Satan because of its temperament which includes ferocious growling and biting directed against her. It's behavior has gotten so bad that she says that she is at wits end in knowing what to do next.

With my normal compassionate advice at the ready, I told him to tell her that the next time it growled at her or bit her, to give me a call and I will come over, for no fee mind you, and do the necessary work so that within a couple of hours, we will all be able to sit down to a nicely grilled plate of rabbit meat and thank God for sending us Satan so that we could properly nourish our bodies.

He told me that he couldn't tell her that because she was super sensitive about cruelty to animal issues.

At that point, I reached back into my memory bank and extracted a recent dinner where I vividly remember seeing her stuffing her mouth full of chicken one time, hamburger another time, not to mention the various seafood items that she had devoured at other times.

I just had to ask him the question that was being begged, "Does she find the slaughterhouses to be treating all the adorable chickens, pigs, and cows with an acceptable level of tender loving care?"

"I already thought about that myself" he said, "who the hell knows what she's thinking from one day to the next. I don't want to say anything that might offend her because I love her so much."

"Sounds like you got yourself a real keeper young man" I said in my half-assed attempt to hide my sarcasm, "Let me know in 5 years if you still feel the same way after having to endure those kind of daily assaults on your sense of logic."

However, if I am lucky, I might get a free dinner with Satan as the main attraction out of all this.

On second thought, if I am real, real lucky and this chick is as distorted as she seems, she might even be willing to pay a kidnap ransom for Satan should it mysteriously disappear into the night.

God forbid that ever happen.

photo: www.stachelpferdchen.com

If You Don't Like Guns,Whiskey, A Survivalist Mentality, And A Touch Of Psychological Musing, Then You Are At The Wrong Place

Make no mistake about it ... I like guns, knives, bows, spears, war (when and if it is necessary), good whiskey, the outdoors, a piping cup of hot coffee made over a wood fire complete with a pinch of yesterday's leftover dirt and bits of crushed leaves, my dogs, sweating, pickin' at the callouses on my hands and a survivalist mentality.

I detest the liberal anti-gun advocates. The same kind of pubic hairs that claim to love their freedom but who would never consider allowing one of their own children (or themselves) to go out and risk life and limb in defending it. I think more highly of a pile of cow shit than I do them.

If you are one that is constantly screaming for peace and love and hoping for the day when the lambs will lie down with the lions, you are going to be terribly disappointed. It ain't goin' to happen. I love peace and I enjoy being loved too but that isn't what drives the human race.

What drives humanity is power. In some form or fashion it is what we all seek. If that drive gets out of hand, many suffer. It's like anything else, moderation is the key and that is why each person must be ready to defend themselves. Life can get out of hand quickly when moderation fails. When government takes the guns out of the hands of its people then the masses are at their mercy.

I like to talk straight up about the issues of life and I don't care much to hear what you have to say if you like to sugar coat the topics and then try to blow smoke up my ass. Or worse yet, try to play a game of semantics with me such as saying that you refuse to live in fear but that you take many precautions. I've got some news for you ... there is no need to take precautions if there is no fear driving you.

If you can easily be classified as a bleeding heart anti-gun liberal that finds talking about drinking whiskey, man's drive for power, and weapon related issues to be offensive subjects, then you are at the wrong place.

You see, I enjoy talking to people that have the guts to call a spade a spade. The type that I'm speaking of know that for them to survive here means that something else must die.

Don't go back and read that last statement like I made a typo either.

We live in a bizarre world where you and I must consume things that were either killed or that has died in order to survive. You can try your hand at semantics all that you care but that fact never changes. Don't go and get mad at me 'bout something that you damn well knew to be true but never admitted to yourself.

It'll be our little secret.

Now, before you start coming up with all kinds of excuses about how you are the exception because you are a vegetarian, please stop. That salad with all the natural toppings that you ate this evening and that you think makes you innocent of the aforementioned charges were at one time living organisms until you ended their life for your need of bodily nourishment. There may have been no blood shed but there sure was life there before you chewed it up.

Sorry to be the one to tell you.

But that's just the way it is.

photo: www.itsthenorm.org/omegalinks.html

The Best Way To Deal With Those That Refuse To Shut The Fuck Up ...

I used to believe that contained within every situation, within every person, if we would only look deep enough, we would discover a sort of an inner illumination that is attempting to guide us, helping us to see what we are lacking, what we are needing to learn so that we could grow to our fullest.

I think that I still generally believe that precept but damn if some people don't make this might near impossible to adhere to.

I think it is those damn masks that we wear that makes it the most difficult to thoroughly understand true intentions. Masks or not, there are those that make me extremely cautious about wanting to see what's behind their thin veil. I have enough problems to deal with already without trying to figure out someone's personality that I can't make heads or tails of in the first place. It ain't worth the effort. Sorry.

Or, is it possible that some people or things are just set in our path because they are, true to their nature, a huge, monumental pain in the ass?

I'll get back to ya'll when I figure it out.

Now I think I will have myself a couple shots of bourbon and enjoy life.

photo: jimmielightner.com

Psychological Sniper Evaluations And BB Gun Wars

WARNING: DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME!

"Was your mother a good woman?"

"Did you like your mother?"

"Have you ever had black tarry bowel movements?"

These were a few of the 600+ questions that my team was being individually asked to determine if we were psychologically qualified as snipers to know when to bust a cap on someone once they had been identified as a threat.

Those questions seem comical to read now but they were hilarious after being awake for almost 24 hours back then.

Anyway, long story short, we all passed but I distinctly remember being worried that I would fail that damn test.

First things first.

To whom did I give the credit for passing?

Without a doubt my parents deserved the credit but especially my mom. She was the one that gave me the go ahead time and again to put together the BB gun wars with my friends that allowed me the ample opportunities to hone my abilities as a marksman when I was a teenager. All of the other boys had to lie to their moms and tell them that they were going off to shoot tin cans or rats. Not me. Mom encouraged my testosterone growth. I used to think how sad it was for all of those other guys having to outright lie to their dear moms just so they could have a little fun.

Oh, the stories that I could tell about all of our close brushes with blindness! But no one ever mentioned wearing safety goggles (or thick jackets for that matter). Once we all teamed up and shot one guy several times for daring to walk into our combat zone wearing an army jacket. He never made that mistake again, even after the time when he was shot directly in his Adam's apple (a separate and completely accidental incident) and temporarily lost his ability to swallow properly. To this day he still hardily laughs about that incident but for some reason always simultaneously rubs his throat. Funny how some things are never forgotten.

One of my buddies got stuck in some creek mud on another occasion and while he was trying his level best to extricate himself everyone's attention mysteriously focused on his helpless figure flailing away and screaming as he was drilled repeatedly from every angle. The small drops of blood running down his arms really added to the authentic appearance that he had really been in combat.

None of us guys really believed in all that stupid gang initiation stuff but we did believe that you should bleed from a BB gun wound before you could be fully accepted in our group. Hell, a few of us still sport the scars of a simpler time when we all you had to do to show another guy how much you liked him was to just shoot him with a BB gun. He would always understand exactly what you meant as he slowly wiped off small drops of blood.

With all of that said I often wondered why I ever worried that I would fail that psychological evaluation in the first place?

Thanks mom, you really do deserve all the credit for my shooting skills AND the development of my frame of mind. I'm getting all misty eyed just thinking 'bout it.

What's The Odds Of That?!?!

A woman in Jackson, Mississippi was recently shot in the head by her husband who had been on probation for domestic violence and officers had been seeking to serve him with a court order demanding he stay away from his wife and their rural home.

The man shot his wife squarely in the forehead with a .38 caliber handgun. As the bullet passed through her skull, it smashed through the brain before completely exiting. When law enforcement officers arrived on the scene they were greeted by this amazing woman who came out of her front door holding a rag to her head and asking them what was going on.

Unbelievably, when they went inside, the lady asked the officers if they would like a cup of tea!

True Southern hospitality at its finest!

The best part of the story (or where we find the justice) is that after shooting his wife, the man thinking that he had killed her, walked out on their back deck and fatally shot himself.

Meanwhile, the doctors are saying that this woman will make a complete recovery.

~~~

On a much, much lighter note and far less grander scale (and written as a complete afterthought), six of the last eight eggs that I have cracked open for consumption have been double yoked! I know that that is not very important in the overall scheme of things but what's the odds of doing that again?!?!

Probably about as likely as someone else getting shot in the head, at point blank range and surviving to offer the police a cup of tea.

Trivia Facts "Bout Alcohol That You Really Need To Know ... Seriously

"Skull Fracture" ad by Malteser Ambulance Service

Remember, this is all in fun. Don't drink and drive. And please, if the mere sight of alcohol causes you to lose all of your sanity, please refrain from drinking. Use a little damn common sense, O.K.?
~

Adolf Hitler was one of the world's best known teetotalers or abstainers from alcohol; his adversary, Sir Winston Churchill, was one of the world's best known heavy drinkers.

~

Bourbon is the official spirit of the United States, by act of Congress.
~
The bill for a celebration party for the 55 drafters of the US Constitution was for 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, 8 bottles of whiskey, 22 bottles of port, 8 bottles of hard cider, 12 beers and seven bowls of alcohol punch large enough that "ducks could swim in them."
~
The national anthem of the US, the "Star-Spangled Banner," was written to the tune of a drinking song.
~
The shallow champagne glass originated with Marie Antoinette. It was first formed from wax molds made of her breasts.
~
In the 1600's thermometers were filled with brandy instead of mercury.
~
The region of the U.S. that consumes the least alcohol (commonly known as the "Bible belt") is also known by many doctors as Stroke Alley.
~
In ancient Babylon, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead (fermented honey beverage) he could drink for a month after the wedding. Because their calendar was lunar or moon-based, this period of free mead was called the "honey month," or what we now call the "honeymoon."
~
Before thermometers were invented, brewers would dip a thumb or finger into the liquid to determine the ideal temperature, neither too hot nor too cold, for adding yeast. From this we get the phrase "rule of thumb."

~
In old England, a whistle was baked into the rim or handle of ceramic cups used by pub patrons. When they wanted a refill, they used the whistle to get service. So when people went drinking, they would "wet their whistle."
~
In English pubs drinks are served in pints and quarts. In old England, bartenders would advise unruly customers to mind their own pints and quarts. It's the origin of "mind your P's and Q's."
~
It is estimated that the federal government takes in 14 times more in taxes on distilled spirits than producers of the products earn making them. That does not include what states and localities additionally take in taxes on the same products.
~
Vikings used the skulls of their enemies as drinking vessels.

trivia facts:www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj

Another Wonder That Boggles The Mind

There are some incredible things in this vast universe that boggles our mind ... the complexities of the human body ... the natural instincts of the animal kingdom ... the infinity of outer space ... the love and the brutality of mankind amongst ourselves ... and the incredible wonder of how in the hell a government agency can jail anyone legally who doesn't pay their personal income taxes when there exists no laws, now or ever, that has required them to!

Do you guys realize that back around the early 1900's there was talk of a income tax of around one percent and the federal government would not pass it for fear of a revolution by the people of the US?

I can't help but wonder when and why did that fear of an uprising change?!?

photo:insidestoryflashcards.com

I Might As Well Get Over It

There is an apparent law that I discovered today by accident ... kind of like Murphy's Law with an added twist.

It goes like this.

You have a leaky shower fixture that is nearing the point of driving you about as close to bat shit crazy as you can possibly get without actually indulging in a lengthy session of the Chinese Water Torture Test. Despite having a ton of other work that needs to be done, you decide to tackle the job since you have developed your plumbing skills nicely over the years as a result of living in an older home. First mistake.

You figure the job will probably take a couple of hours, three tops. Second mistake.

You begin the job in a great mood. Third mistake. You need to always allow the universe to see you mildly pissed. This is a very important step.

Twelve hours later and three trips to the hardware store (25 miles each trip) and you realize that not only should you have called a professional plumber but that you had somehow overlooked the three aforementioned mistakes. Now its time to pay.

Even though I did end up fixing the damn leak, I had managed to get into such a bad frame of mind that I even insulted myself a couple of times. I even rediscovered some old curse words that I had almost forgotten that I knew.

I must have been putting off a bad vibe as well 'cause my two puppies stayed in their box the entire day. I guess they figured that the best help that they could give me was to simply sleep. I guess they'll have their entire life to get over it, won't they?.

Oh yeah, that law that I was telling ya'll about before I got sidetracked by today's lovely moments? I think I'll call it Job's Law. Named appropriately after the biblical figure who got royally fucked one day because the universe was bored and wanted to see how he would respond during bad times. (Your opinion may differ from mine here but I am the one telling the story. Sorry, you didn't deserve that, I'm still feeling a might testy.)

Now I know that I didn't lose anything even close to what Mr. Job did. No sir. That helps a little. Just a little. And that happens to be the only reason why I am finding any humor right now to speak of.

Hell, compared to Mr. Job's problems, I suppose that I should be grateful.

I'm not.

But I reckon I'll have the rest of my life to get over it too.

Later.

I Don't Know How You Women Do It

I have never really understood why a woman's "time of the month" is called a period.

That seems so final ... and certain.

Its anything but that.

Shouldn't it be called a question mark since there are so many unanswered issues associated with the monthly event that men will never, ever understand?

God, I don't know how you women handle that monthly chore as well as you do.

I've got to run ... I have a batch of dark chocolate that I need to sample.

The Brutal Harsh Truth At Its Finest

In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods. -- Arthur Schopenhauer

-
What I have been known to tell budding psychotherapists:

-
"Forget Psychopathology or Kaplan or Sadock to determine the existence and scope of a personality disorder, its presence in a patient will be directly proportional to your overwhelming and urgent need to choke the living shit out of them. Repeatedly."

I had to share this ... thanks Psycho Therapist.

Happy Easter!

It sort of makes me feel weird when I eat the tail end out of a chocolate bunny.

But it doesn't bother me enough to make me stop.

Anyway, I hope all you guys get plenty of chocolate or Peeps or whatever your little hearts desire and have a great Easter holiday!

Torn Jeans, Skid Marks, And Worried Moms

I really love old blue jeans ... especially when they reach the point that they begin tearing along the knee and butt areas. When they reach that point, one can say that you have pretty much gotten your money's worth out of 'em. But there is a certain journey that the jeans must take before they ever get to the tearing stage and it mustn't be rushed. It's a process that takes time. Wine lovers would never suggest that you squeeze a handful of grapes into a glass and then drink it on the same day. That just ain't letting nature take its course.

So when my son, who is now in his early twenties, stopped by last night for a visit, our 5 month old miniature dachshund puppies met him at the front door with their normal overabundance of joy which included jumping up on his legs. His response to their jumping on him was that they needed to stop before they tore his pants!

Normally, that would have made a lot of sense but last night he happened to be wearing a brand new pair of jeans that already had numerous tears and cuts in the denim that were put there by the makers of the pants.

In other words, he paid a jean manufacturer to cut holes in his jeans and bypass the natural order of fabric degradation that I hold so dear to my heart. I told him the day that he bought them that he ought to just buy himself a regular pair of jeans, bring 'em to me and I would gladly take my pocketknife and slice the hell out of his pants and not charge him a dime. I'd do it just because it would be fun. It would definitely have saved him a few bucks.

He didn't appear to be too much in favor of that suggestion.

I gotta say that I am pretty disappointed right now. I thought that I raised that boy to better appreciate the natural order of things.

However, there is a little sunshine peeking through an otherwise bleak and overcast situation ... I got an idea for a new invention ... I am going to start making and selling underwear with holes in them and a dyed brown skid mark running right down the middle of the drawers, along with a slightly funky aroma built in for added realism, for all of them younger people that are hell bent on spending their money on clothes that makes them look like they don't have enough money to properly clothe themselves ... or moms that do not keep their clothes clean.

That kind of underwear would be great for all of those moms, like mine, that lived with a morbid fear that I would be involved in an terrible auto accident and found to be wearing a dirty pair of drawers. They could finally rest from their weary worrying ... now no one would know if their child was wearing soiled underwear or just being in fashion.

I guess this fad, should it catch on, would help to allay the fears of millions of mothers around the globe.

My kindness knows no bounds.

I might even start wearing a pair myself.

photo:sxc.hu/photo/1069763

Friday Semantics--- Carlin Style

Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?
~
The other night I ate at a real nice family restaurant. Every table had an argument going.
~
Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.
~
I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.
~
I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.
~
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.

George Carlin

photo:smccollegian.com

"When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day, what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whiskey?"

Ernest Hemingway

***NOTE***: I appreciate everyone's apparent sensitivity to the damaging effects of drinkin' and doin' drugs but this quote is by no means intended to be my personal endorsement for alcoholism or drug addiction. It is merely a quote that I like to share with those, who like myself, enjoy a shot or two of whiskey and then who have the discipline to leave it alone for the rest of the day. There are many times where I have went for weeks without any alcoholic consumption whatsoever and I come from parents, both of which, were the highly addictive type. So please save me the trouble if you have addiction problems and leave drugs or booze alone, or someone may trace the root of your problems back to this blog. If you have no such addictive traits that hamper you from enjoying the finest of bourbons ... CHEERS!

Another One For The "Just The Way It Is" Files

Have you ever noticed how the victor of a war will inevitably become the good guy whose every war-time decision will be justified in the history books that they will inevitably write?

Decisions

One must bend the world to fit one's needs or bend one's needs to fit the world.

If one cannot, by force or daring or skill, get what one wants, one must turn upon oneself and change what one wants.

The bending of self is renunciation. But needs die hard. We can renounce the having, but not the desiring.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wander the streets. The woman I love has told me never to call her again.

I stop before an iron gate, look into a garden of oleander, gardenias, roses. The heavy scents pour forth. Sinuous bars rise above me to a filigree arch of vines, leaves, grapes. I grasp the bars, think: I will remember this moment. However long I live. Pain is branding it into my soul; the chill of wet iron, the flaking green paint, the whisper of rain, numb feet in wet shoes, the drip, drip, drip.

Then there comes to me a thought, fully formed, coming not from the center of the pain but from a place slightly apart: It is not necessary to suffer like this. I stand still, startled, pursue the thought: I must be doing this to myself. The pain is given, but I am choosing to hallow it, to drive it toward some dark fruition, to walk for hours through a wet city, staring into forbidden gardens.

Allen Wheelis

photo:blognetnews.com

Flying Beds And Spider Webs

I often catch myself wishing that I could be someplace else where only the good memories of days gone bye would fill my mind with the same type of hope and enthusiasm that I enjoyed as a boy.

Maybe it is a rejuvenation of sorts for a weary mind that I am actually seeking. Or maybe its a level of simplicity that I used to unknowingly practice in my younger days ... back during those times when I believed pretty much everything I was told.

I thought about those nights when I would lie in bed and fall asleep trying to figure out a way to make the outer wall of my room lower itself so I would be able to launch my bed into the night air allowing for me to see the world from a whole different perspective. I thought, back in those days, that my flying bed would probably become the coolest invention that mankind had ever seen. Well, either that or the invention of the real spider-like material that I also planned to create that would enable me to fly through the city like Spiderman or the forest like Tarzan.

Every now and then I still think about those two inventions that used to occupy so much of my time and get a good chuckle. When I told my son about it, he seemed to get a good laugh as well. Matter of fact, just about everyone that has heard me talk about those boyhood dreams of mine seem to walk away smiling and shaking their heads. It's always nice being able to bring so much joy into other people's lives.

But some of 'em make these sly little remarks we they turn to leave when they don't think I can hear them, "There's something just not right with that man" or "I don't think that man is playing with a full deck". People can be so rude and thoughtless at times. I can't help it if they have no imagination.

But the day came when I realized that I had to put away childish things and begin to take my place in society as a worthwhile citizen. So after a number of years in the military and the last 20 years fabricating statues, furniture parts, and everything in between, I feel that I have finally made my mark. I have, after all these years, finally crafted a lightweight fiberglass bed frame that should be able to withstand the rigors of flying through the night air and beneath radar so it will go undetected. AND if I see that I am going to crash I can use my wrist fired spider web material to latch onto the nearest tall object so I can swing down safely.

I have come a long way baby.

photo:www.bloodysunday444.net/hollywood.html

Fetch The Stick! ... Bring it Back ... That's A Good Dog!

To briefly borrow an analogy from Allen Wheelis, I was like a dog, eager to play, spending years obsessively chasing a stick that I believed my master was throwing out for me to fetch. It was really quite pathetic the sheer amount of attention I was giving to that damn stick!

It was like I would be going along quite well, minding my own business, getting along with life, and then something or someone would do something that would reopen, a deep, ancient wound that I thought was healed.

I absolutely thought that I had to know the why of what happened to me as I was growing up, for then and only then, I assumed, life would finally make sense.

As I look back now, it's a wonder that I didn't do myself in. The weight that I put on myself back then would have done in more than a few people.

Back in those days I thought that if I could only make the world stop spinning for awhile it would give me time to catch up with the past. A chance to stop life, analyze it carefully, scrutinize every detail, connect all the pieces of the puzzle, and then place my seal of rational approval upon it and to catch my breath and take a long and much deserved rest. That was what I believed my sole mission in life consisted and where I would find inner peace.

I didn't realize then that my mission wasn't to stop the world from spinning but to join myself to this giant force of motion that stops for no one.

I realized one day that it really didn't matter to me whether I believed that an Omniscient Being had purposefully allowed those incidents because I was a bad person or purposefully caused them so that I would learn a grand lesson about compassion or if an Evil Being had done it because He had nothing better to do that day or if they had occurred in a purely random manner.

None of that really mattered to me any longer.

No longer was it about the why.

It was about whether or not I was going to allow those actions from long ago to negatively dictate and control my emotional state of mind. It happened over a long period of time and I had to understand that nothing will change that fact. What am I going to do today that is positive and how I will treat others would need to become my new focus.

Period.

But I also learned one other thing in the process.

That I no longer like playing catch.

photo: www.flickr.com/photos/telegirl/2356847730

A Man Can't Have But So Much Fun

I have often wondered how much fun I could pack into one day if I was given the chance.

Well, my curiosity is over.

After doing some plumbing Saturday, I then proceeded to dig down to the top portion of my septic tank and expose the cover so it can be pumped in a couple of days.

I then had to re-stack a pile of fieldstone that I had already moved one other time because I ain't going to be able to use those stones for the project that I originally had in mind.

I decided to prune a few branches off one of my pecan trees so my favorite wind twirler wouldn't get snagged anymore.

All in all, I'd say that a person can't have much more fun than I did on Saturday.

Just A Thought

What was that quote that Will Rogers said about learning?

He said something along the line that we need to pass a Constitutional Amendment that prohibits everyone in the US from learning anything from now on. If we did that, we would be assured of creating a super-abundant race of the smartest people in the world as a result.

I believe that he was referencing the point that we are all of a damned rebellious nature.

That sounds about right, most days. But we have our good days too.

I Will Push Mow For A Meal

Mowed the lawn today. It was the first of many to come this year with all the rain we have been having. In some places, it felt like I was walking on a damp sponge. Interesting feel.

I only push mow. Have for over 15 years because riding makes me feel lazy. I like feeling the beads of sweat running down my forehead and back. My yard is quite large to be push mowing but I like the simple task of pushing a mower and sweating. Anyway, I get a lot of thinking done.

Don't get me wrong, I love the speed and ease of riding but I like the combination of being physically tired, smelling bad, and the fresh scent of cut grass. Push mowing prepares the body (not to mention the mind) for grilling steaks and tossing back a couple shots of bourbon.

You just can't do those sort of things when you ride. That kind of behavior just ain't right.

photo courtesy:www.gardenplansireland.com

I fell asleep last night on the couch and woke up around 2 AM. Slowly I got up and staggered my way outside onto the deck. The cool air brought me back to life. As I gazed into the starry sky, I felt that I had nothing to prove, nothing to explain, only a peacefulness to enjoy. As I stood there, a falling star passed in the night sky leaving behind a short streak of light as it left its position in the heavens.

How fitting that sight made me feel as I came inside and went back to sleep.

photo courtesy: eleanorscottage.spaces.live.com

Who Are You!?!?!?!

Unfortunately, my wife has finally stopped this unusually bizarre and quite comical behavior of hers that went something like this ... I enter the bedroom after she is sound asleep ... she then suddenly sits straight up, covers her face with the sheets, except for her eyes, and screams out, "Who are you?! Who are you?! Who are you?!" until I asked her who the hell did she think I could possibly be and tell her to go back to sleep, which she usually did quickly. It was really quite the spectacle to behold for about the first 18 years of marriage.

I guess she has finally figured out who I am and what the hell is going on, though I really do miss that nice little chuckle that I always got just before going to sleep.

Photo Courtesy: byzantiumshores

This Dude Is Ready For Another Dimension

photo courtesy: www.best-horror-movies.com

"I think that I am ready to remove the tape from the mirrors in my house.

It's safe once again for my soul to see its reflection.

That means that once again I do not have to fear the water and what it can do to me."

(Overheard while eating in a restaurant. I debated whether to send the poor dude a whiskey to aid him with his dilemma with an attached note, "Your soul needs this more than me ... enjoy.")

I chose to leave well enough alone.

Believe Nothing Except ...

Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true. [paraphrased]

Buddha

The Karma Believer

I have always been able to maintain a fairly consistent belief that it is much better, over the long haul, to think positively than negatively.

Apparently, it is in the actual practice of positive thinking during rough times where I need a little work.

I suppose that the time to practice our positive thinking eventually has to come to all of us but it is a whole lot nicer when we don't have to practice what we preach but to just enjoy the smooth sailing.

Over the last two weeks, I have had to get the timing belt fixed in one car (too big a job for me to tackle, mechanically speaking), search out the cause for starter failure in another vehicle (it ain't the starter or the battery), replace tires on another vehicle, switch clothe dryers out during a three day torrential downpour that had me considering the possibility of locating two of every animal that I could rustle up, tend to one of my dogs that got very sick, and finally having to refrain myself from strangling someone that suggested that all this was my karma being realized.

In regards to the wise ass person that suggested my karmic realization, my inquiry to him was what could he himself have possibly been guilty of recently that would have led someone to seriously contemplate murdering him sometime in the near future?

I never did get a response from him on that one.

As I have slowly been making my way through all this 'stuff' that I would rather not have to deal with, I realized that this was just another storm and that I was going to have to endure it. Simple as that.

Then I read a study that was conducted from 1929 to 1949, which obviously included the Great Depression, and the study revealed how murder rates plunged drastically during those extremely trying years.

That makes a lot of sense to me. During the tough times you really ain't got the time, money, or energy to waste on planning a murderous spree, there's too much to do in just trying to survive from day to day.

And you sure as hell don't have the time trying to figure out what you may or may not have done or thought wrongly that led you down this path of difficulties.

It ain't called karma ... it's called life.

Kitchen Appliances, Ritual Praying, And Multiple Whiskey Shots

I can't rest now. My eyelids refuse to close despite the weariness in my body. I certainly was sleeping soundly up until a short while ago.

All that I did was rising briefly from bed to grab a drink of water from the frig so my parched throat would begin working properly again. And that is all that it normally takes for the battles to start.

I'm sure that I closed the refrigerator door.

But what will happen if dad gets up and finds the door not closed properly. What will he think of me then?

So I arise and once again spend the next 10 minutes making absolutely, positively certain that the door is closed. Jump back into bed, trying hard not to think about that damn door.

But what if I didn't notice that the door had opened as I was leaving the kitchen? Up again though I desperately need to sleep because I must keep my grades high enough so I will be able to rise to the fourth grade. I cannot fail. I must prove to myself that I am worthy.

Ten more minutes examining the frig door, finally concluding that it is safely closed.

Much more of this and I will go insane. People will wonder what happened to me and no one will know. They will say things like, "No one seen this coming. He seemed fairly normal. Bless his little heart."

I've got to sleep.

"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take ..." Now my mind is racing hither and yon making a vain attempt to remember anything that I may have done that day that would hinder my eternal destination should I fail to wake for school in the morning. If that happens, I sure hope that it is the Lord who is found to be the proud possessor of my soul.

Talk about jumping out of the frying pan into the fire! How am I ever going to rest with all of these burdensome thoughts raping my mind every night?

Sleep is my refuge but it passes too rapidly. If only I could fully enjoy each minute that I slept I would be much quicker under the covers every night.

No longer does the refrigerator door bother me since I have become an adult ... now it is the oven burners that I fear will magically come on despite the handle clearly stating that they are off. I cannot leave the kitchen until I am convinced that I have shut them off. My family thinks that it is comical. I would too if it wasn't so damn pathetic.

Somewhere in the deepest parts of my mind it seems that I continue trying to prove myself worthy to a group of ancient ghosts that possess intimidating voices. They are slave masters cracking their whips across my back, trying to keep me down ... wanting me afraid and shaking so they can continue to control me.

But this is all the control they have left over me. Their hand was overplayed. Their shackles are old and rusty. Hopefully I will break free from the last of their restraints as I enjoy every shot of spirit-filled whiskey to the fullest.

When that day arrives there will be rejoicing and then maybe I will finally be able to stop approaching all kitchen appliances like I began doing years ago with ritual praying ... with a great deal of caution.

By God, Since It Ain't Goin' Nowhere, I'm Embracing Evil ... I Could Use The Break!

I was sitting out back watching the clouds floating by the other day, sipping on a whiskey and nibbling on a small slice of cheese, like I am prone to do when I want to get some serious thinking done, (or whenever I get one of those incredibly strong urges to drink a whiskey and eat cheese), when I heard a emergency vehicle siren come alive off in the distance.

As I sat there, I began thinking about where the emergency was at and who was involved ... you know the kind of thoughts that pass through your mind during times like that ... and I got to thinking for a few minutes about good and evil, which I am quite often prone to do because I simply can not escape the vastness of the subject.

For the sake of discussion I wondered how many cops and ministers would remain in their professions if all evil acts (as defined by our respective cultures) would suddenly cease? How long would the average cop or minister stay at their job should evil acts suddenly become almost non-existent? I've tried to imagine a world or place like that and, frankly speaking, I find it difficult to wrap my mind completely around the possibility. At first, it sounds like it would be great. But how long would it be before we would get bored with all the goodness? It would have to be almost as bad as imagining floating around on clouds all day and listening to harps being strummed and a bunch of singing. Normally, I can't tolerate sitting still and just listening to music for much longer than an hour or so. I suppose the music plays it part in engaging my mind and I find myself eager to read or work with my hands. Would the absence of conflict necessarily equal no excitement? I think it would. Think of all the jobs that would be lost that are based solely on our fear of the unknown and the evil that lurks around every corner and behind every bush. You have to love it when we are frightened into making what should have been a freewill decision. But that's the way it goes ain't it?

I think we would be much better off simply coming to grip with the fact that we are in love with evil but totally incapable of admitting it. Our fear of being rejected by others for admitting our fascination with the dark side is an interesting side note that could use a little scrutiny on our part.

In fact, if the chance didn't exist for personal injury or death (or confinement), most of us would probably practice more evil ... and have a whole helluva lot of fun doing it. Don't get me wrong, I am not speaking 'bout doing unspeakable harm to defenseless children or torturing puppies or stealing other people's life savings. That's real evil and its going too far. I'm simply talking 'bout having a little fun with deeds that we would otherwise refrain from. I'll let your imagination play out with that one.

But that would be wrong and make us dastardly beings, wouldn't it? You know the dastardly beings of which I speak ... the same ones that we loathe in the real life monsters that we read about frequently, but will, without a moment's hesitation, spend our hard earned money while totally engrossed, to watch their life stories on film or DVDs. Those very same people that we have learned to love yet hate at the same time yet unwilling to admit of our fascination by their evil ways. Yet in some way or another, while we talk about how offended we were by actions that we define as 'evil', we surprisingly discover that their exploits normally make interesting case studies for us to contemplate while talking with friends or when discussing the "meanest and vilest monsters" that we can recall. And we savor those discussions.

Well, my slice of cheese is almost gone ( I have no idea where it got to so fast ... must have been a demon) and I need another shot to wash down the contempt that I normally stir up whenever I make an attempt to broach this subject so I will leave you with these final words ...

"We naturally look with envy upon those few who commit the tabooed deeds that we secretly dream of committing, who break the rules, boldly tossing off the burden of morality and striking out towards a sort of absolute, outlaw freedom.

Is not this guiltless, totally self-centered world one vision of paradise?" William Hart

Don't worry ... I ain't stepped over the edge. There is way too much bourbon to sip and cheese to munch to risk sacrificing them for a glimpse into that kind of paradise. Anyway, in the long run, it would probably end up being just about as boring as floating on a cloud without anything to do.

On second thought, I believe I'll just keep what I got for the time being ... I enjoy the conflict too much.

"Home is home, be it ever so humble ... however, if'n you don't like what you see, then kindly turnest thou head away and depart from my presence quietly."

Blogging About Criminal Acts Of The Personal Kind

Having access to a computer allows us to write about most anything that we can dream up because of the different levels of our anonymity.

And in a little over two years in the blogosphere, I have come across some really strange and unusual stories.

Some a bit more strange and unusual than others.

Last year I was contacted by a blogger from England who had found my blog and had written me telling me that he liked the content. Shortly thereafter he writes this rather long and very detailed story about himself and two friends who had entered a book store where they went to the bathroom and donned their disguises and then after pulling their weapons of choice, large wooden table legs, from under their coats, proceeded to beat the hell out of the unsuspecting store patrons as well as the store employees. There was even a mention of one person that had possibly died as a result from a serious blow to the head.

The blogger then ends his story with a little post script that said, "This is a little more gross than my usual fare. Sorry Simstone." What the hell was that all about? And why did he feel the need to say he was sorry directly to me?!?!

After I contacted this mysterious blogger to find out more about the story, what I eventually learned, after a great deal of his beating around the bush and playing along as if the story was true, was that the writing was supposed to have been an exercise in creativity and the writer, who claimed to be a high school teacher, was experimenting with this new style of writing and wanted to see what kind of responses he could illicit from his readers.

I told him that I was sure that the story wasn't true because only the most brain dead, stupid, and insane criminal that ever existed would ever write about their involvement in a crime of this magnitude and then leave evidence behind tying them to their felonious act. In his case however, I really DO believe that he was involved and was now backtracking and covering it up.

Then, a few months back, I came across another blog where a woman, in great detail, tells of a brutal crime that she had committed a few days prior when she decided to finalize a personal dispute with another woman by severely beating her with a "stick" until she was unconscious. She then promptly went to the authorities where she claimed that she was arrested but the police knocked the charges down to assault with a deadly weapon instead of attempted murder because she had willfully turned herself in. She then claimed that she spent the next 4 days in jail. She then writes about how she threatened three other women with the same type of beatings that were to be carried out every other Friday, in no particular order until she had gotten them all.

She received numerous comments from all over about how crazy this story sounded and how everyone hoped that she was only doing a little creative storytelling. She was warned by several that her involvement in these crimes should not have been written about, the legal issues involved, etc, etc, etc. The woman never backed off her story. She stuck by it as if it was true and never deleted it. The story left the readers truly scratching their head in wonder of why she posted such a tale.

Was this woman doing some creative writing or was she actually writing about a real event that she had been involved in? I have emailed her asking the very same questions. The only response that I ever received totally evaded answering the questions that she had so proudly claimed actually occurred.

Since this information that she so freely put out there for all the world to read is available for public scrutiny, I did some checking around to find out if the story had any validity. The lady would frequently speak of her hometown and she had friends around her that she wrote about all the time so I knew of what city and state she resided. Neither the county or city that she was speaking of recorded any dispatch responses or arrest records involving her or the criminal actions that she claimed to have happened during the time period of the alleged incidents so I am beginning to doubt if they ever did.

But the most important question from either of these incidents is this ... why would anyone write about their involvement in a crime such as these when it will definitely link them to their lawlessness if they in fact were involved? What are they attempting to gain? Do they just want to see how far their deception can carry them?

If these kind of bloggers want to write crime stories then they should just do it and label it as fiction and be done with it instead of fantasizing about running off on a criminal spree and doing in old enemies and unsuspecting innocent bystanders and passing it off as fact. Their attempts to impress all of their readers with how tough they think their stories make them appear could actually end up with it backfiring in their face and creating more problems for them than they could ever imagine.

As far as the whereabouts of the blogger from England? He totally disappeared into the thin cyber air. The female blogger who wrote the tall tale about meting out her own personal brand of justice with another woman? That's a whole different story. I discovered after visiting an old blog that I used to read and who was friends with the blogger seeking her own justice, that this woman had committed suicide a few weeks earlier. Such a sad and tragic ending to an obviously disturbed soul.

Refuge

The days come and go
the nights bring the light down
No time to appreciate the beauty
as our cars speed over our concrete paths
that slice thru the lady of nature
Driven to earn a living
Hoping to be accepted
trying to be noticed
yet praying to have privacy
Is there anywhere to hide our face
from the prying eyes of our unknown watchers
Into the depths of our mind
lies our final frontier
to enjoy the freedom that our imagination can muster
It is a new land
wild and unexplored
My permanent residence where I take myself
where no one can intrude into my peacefulness
without my permission

What a delightful view!

Don't You Just Love Being Talked Down To?

Several times over the last couple of years or so while listening to our elected officials discussing our present economic state, I picked up on some subtle signs of veiled superiority by the speakers themselves. At first, I thought that it was just my imagination and/or paranoia. But as the dust is clearing and we are finally seeing where so much of our financial woes originated from, I am beginning to understand the problem quite a bit better now.

What I had been picking up on (the veiled superiority), actually had been there all along and I was correct about what I was sensing. It's like that slight sense of superiority that wells up in most of us when we flip a few coins into the hat of a street beggar.

That really doesn't make me feel any better but I thought you might find it interesting to know nonetheless.

Now that I have wasted about two minutes out of your day and insulted your self-esteem, go find a beggar, throw them a little change, and tell me how wonderfully benevolent it made you feel. Then go have three shots of bourbon and rest your weary body.

Does It Matter Where Good Deeds Originate?

For all of you atheistic types, would it make one bit of difference, should you discover, that the kindest person that you had ever met, started their day, every day, by going to their knees and praying to their God for guidance? Would it change or alter the way that you dealt with them?

Or what about you religious folks? Reverse the latter scenario and you discovered, much to your surprise, that the nicest, most warmhearted person that you had ever met, was actually an atheist. Would it alter the way that you felt toward their kind deeds?

Apparently (and unfortunately), it does change things for some. Nietzsche once wrote: "The best way to begin each day well is: upon awakening, to think about whether we cannot bring pleasure to at least one person on this day. If this could count as a substitute for the religious habit of prayer, our fellow human beings would gain an advantage from the change."

My question to him would have been, would it make any difference should he discover that the kind deeds he was experiencing was coming from someone who started their day in prayer? I don't know in his case if it would have made a difference, although it is evident that he didn't think very highly of religion.

However, for me, a good deed is a good deed, no matter the source, as long as there are no strings attached.

Now, I need to throw back a couple of shots and rest ... this kind of reasoning makes me tired.

It's Nice To See (?) The Wheels Of Justice Still Grinding Slowly

I was sitting in my truck in a local store parking lot a couple of days ago waiting for my wife to run in and pick up a couple of items. While sitting there, I noticed another truck pull up behind me and the driver was a man who I had spent a number of years being around while our sons were teammates in baseball.

I was profoundly surprised to see this dude out in public because he had been arrested more than a year ago for the attempted murder of his brother-in-law. Apparently, it was the misfiring of a second round that saved the life of the brother-in-law, who had already been shot once in the upper leg by the inebriated shooter. The victim personally told me that he had been pleading for his life after being initially struck by the first round. He said that the shooter slowly walked over to him, pointed the gun directly at his face and pulled the trigger, only to have a misfire.

Within seconds, a county deputy was on scene, which more than likely stopped the shooter from figuring out why his gun wasn't operating correctly.

The victim was extremely fortunate but I still am wondering why this shooter is out roaming the streets when there was no self-defense involved in the shooting on his part. It was an attempted murder! I know that there has been at least two continuances granted in this case. This entire incident has left me wondering further if this incident is a case of legal wrangling or is it another example of an overbooked court system?

Either way, it just don't seem right.

How Much Privacy Do We Actually Have?

Several years ago, I was spending the day doing wildlife/nature photography at a National Park when I came upon the backwaters of the park's main lake. Situated right at the mouth of the cove was a boat with two fishermen obviously enjoying their favorite past time. The light was excellent and the background idyllic so I thought a few photos were in order. I began taking pictures being careful not to show the faces of the fishermen or their boat's registration number so I would not have to get them to sign a release/consent form should the opportunity arise for publication purposes.

Undoubtedly, they did not want to share their tranquil setting with an anonymous photographer. When they noticed that I was pointing my camera in their direction they became extremely irritated, stopped fishing, started their motor and came roaring my way. I did not move from my location as they buzzed past me, along with their evil glares, only to stop a short distance away and resume their fishing while keeping a watchful eye on my whereabouts. Not wanting to offend the guys any more than I already had, I ceased my photo taking of those fishermen at that point. I, however, continued taking shots around the local vicinity. I hung around the local area just to see if the two offended anglers would say anything to me. After about 30 minutes I left their little part of the world still scratching my head as to what had just happened. I guess I had invaded their privacy. That or either they were escape convicts hiding from the law or else they were "injured" and drawing disability when they should have been working and they suspected that I was gathering evidence against them. Who the hell knows what they were thinking?

That incident bothered me for a long time because I knew that I was not doing anything that would harm them in any way. Of course they did not know what I was up to. So, I reckon that kind of makes both of us even, doesn't it? Now I am beginning to understand their agitation a little better.

We have been scanned, cookied, and videotaped so much since then that I read that sometime in the near future, should you have the desire, you could ask Google what you should do today and they could tell you based on all the information that has been gathered about each one of us. Now they have come out with Street View for select cities. This is really causing a buzz. Even though the images are not real time yet, you can still walk down any street in these towns and look at people and storefronts and businesses whenever you want to. One lady in New York walked down her street and when she video-strolled by her residence, she seen, much to her surprise, her cat sitting in her front window! The New York Times did a recent article on this occurrence.

One can only imagine the unlimited uses that could be performed with this technology should it ever become real time. The crook could watch you leave your home and then you, in turn, could watch them try to break in. The ultimate cat and mouse game. Then it occurred to me that if this technology is available to the public now, you can only imagine what we are being watched with that we know nothing about. Does this mean that our homeland is safer than it was before 9/11?

In the meantime, I bet that those two fishermen that I ran into several years ago are really having a cow now!

A Word Of Advice For The Overly Paranoid Among Us

Whenever someone tells you to please feel free to speak your mind, there are a few things that you might want to understand before you begin mumbling ...

1--- Whatever you say from this point on will be openly revealed to anyone and everyone that has no business knowing your business ...

2--- The person that tells you that you can speak freely is more than likely looking for ammunition to use against you down the road ...

3--- Understand that you are being spoken to in a veiled, coded language that actually means that your secrets are totally and utterly NOT SAFE to be shared at the present moment and with present company ...

4--- That this moment is the perfect opportunity for you to place a large wager on the fact that your juicy confession will remain secretly juicy for about as long as it takes for your 'friend' to hit their top five comrades on the speed dial ...

5--- That the only safe secret that you should ever share with your 'friends' are the ones that in some way implicates them should it ever get out ...

6--- You can always test their capability to remain quiet by giving them some bogus info that you know will come back to you should they 'slip and tell'. However, you should be aware that you are incredibly paranoid should you choose that route.

NOTE: There are a few people that are the exception to this rule and that will actually not use your confessions against you. Those folks are golden. Should you ever find someone that can keep their mouth shut, hang onto them like your life depended on it. Then again, you could always do like me and tell your problems to inanimate objects that you created with your own hands.

The Second Real World

I seen a dear friend of mine the other night, a man whom I admired for his strong work ethic, for the first time since his death in 2001 at the age of 79.

O.K., O.K., ... I was dreaming ... but it still couldn't have been more real if he had came right up to me in person while he was alive and breathing.

I could clearly could see his hair as it gently blew in the wind. I asked him how he had been doing and his reply was his usual, "Oh, all right." Not too excited. Not too bored.

I was thrilled to see him again but that was all that I could remember about the dream. There was so many things that I wanted to ask him about since his departure.

But just as quickly as he appeared, he was gone.

I recalled a passage that Nietzsche had once written where he said that in the ages of raw, primordial culture, people believed that in dreams they came to know a second real world and that the separation of the body and soul is connected to the oldest view of dreams just like the assumption that the soul can appear in bodily form, hence the origin of all belief in ghosts.

Had I seen my friend's ghost? Had I somehow conversed with his soul?

The thought hit me of how strange this dream had affected me. For every single one of you that read this will not think me too insane as long as I remain firm in my claim that this meeting was nothing more than a dream. For all of you will be able to understand what I am saying because each of you will have experienced your own seemingly real meeting with a past acquaintance while in a dream state.

However, the moment that I begin to claim that the event had actually transpired during my awakened state, I would be declared legally insane, wouldn't I?

What the hell did I 'see' though?

The dream people say that as we sleep, our nervous systems are going through all kinds of excited states as a result of numerous inner causes while our brains are trying to understand all this excitement. Our stomachs are digesting and our intestines are twisting themselves around, blood is pumping, there are pressures that we are exerting upon our limbs by the way that we are positioned while sleeping, etc., etc., etc.

But I still have to ask, "What does all of that have to do with me seeing my old buddy?"

I happened to think about him a couple of times the other day but I do that with many people of my past whom I do not turn around and then dream of, particularly in such vivid detail.

Do I think that my buddy was trying to tell me something or that I was to read something symbolically into the dream? No, I don't.

But it still irritates me that I can't know. I just wish that our "second real world" encounter would have lasted a little while longer, for if it had, I guarantee you that we would have shared a whiskey or three and toasted it to life itself.

A Couple Thoughts About Ear Wax And Gaseous Vapors

Seriously though, now be totally honest with me, isn't it a little disappointing whenever you pull the Q-Tip out and it's totally clean? If I have to go through the motion of keeping clean, I would like to see a little dirt (or wax) for Christ's sakes.

One other thing ... I have always wished that whenever someone decides to 'cut wind' out in public, it would only be fair if the dastardly emitted gaseous vapors would take on a purplish color so you would know with absolute certainty (1) who the culprit was and (2) that you would stand some chance of being able to dodge the hellish aroma silently floating toward you. Now that would be an example of true justice.

The Meek Ain't Gonna Inherit Squat

We are often admonished in sacred texts to love our enemies ... a seemingly futile exercise to practice but of vital importance.

But why?

Because we need the conflict to keep life interesting.

That's why global peace will never work. Sooner or later a world living in peace will explode in a war that's being fought by imbalanced, bored-out-their-mind, peace lovers seeking adventure. Much like the war-mongers who keep battles raging all over the world today so the military-industrial complex can generate billions of dollars in blood money. Once again, the other side of the out of balance equation.

Our nature is to fight for awhile and then have a peace for awhile.

It's always been that way.

But let's keep talking and preaching 'bout seeking peace and never having to shed blood again ... it sounds good on the surface and makes us feel better about what we think we are. It gives preachers something to talk about on Sundays and keeps the politicians busy the other six days of the week.

And if you don't think that you are of a violent nature, what would you do if you happened upon a vicious assault in progress? Would you attempt to stop the attack or would you stand back and hope that the victims didn't get hurt too bad?

And what would you hope that others would do if you were the one getting beaten?

I sure wouldn't want to place my hope of rescue on someone who believe themselves to be mild and meek peace lovers.

Make no mistake about it, there is a time to make peace and a time to make war.

If it wasn't, there would never have been a USA for us to call home.

A Few Artificially Induced Random Thoughts

I spent over 6 years in the Air Force in the security field and have spent much time in the air. I loved almost every minute that I spent flying(with the exception of the mechanical problems that inevitably would creep up just so you could learn how fast your heart could actually beat without bursting). To this day I still go out at least 2-3 times a week during the late evening and watch the sun bouncing its reflections off the aircraft's fuselage during their westward flights. The sight mesmerizes me.

While stationed in Korea during the early 80's I used to have supper at the "Club" on the side of a mountain that overlooked the flightline and enjoyed watching the F4s and F5s in the darkness while they left for and returned from their sorties up to the Demilitarized Zone. The sight of those planes taking off and landing gave me a strange sense of peace as my meal was digesting. There was soooo much that I didn't understand back then. I didn't know squat about foreign policy. All I knew was that I had a job to do and I did it.

My favorite animals are (and has always been) raptors. Crows and Ravens are a close second. I admire the raptors ability to soar above the storms and ride them out. They just lock their wings into position and hang there for ever how long they need to.

I have a strong fascination for scars. You might say that I hold them in high regard. I have many on my body. Every scar has a unique story and normally one does not lose their memory about how they came about ... no matter how poor your memory may be with the more mundane aspects of life.

Let no one tell you that Vicodin doesn't ease physical pain ... I was hurting an hour ago but feeling quite well at the moment. Ya'll have a good weekend.

Regarding The Use Of Whiskey For Toothache Pain (Without Drinking It)

I recently discovered that whiskey is a great emergency Novocaine substitute when I chipped a tooth and exposed a nerve during a holiday when there were no dentists available!!! Since I had to drive, drinking was not a viable option so I had to take a good, healthy swig and hold for a couple of minutes on the affected side whenever needed or I think there would have been a good chance that I would have had to resort to using a ball peen hammer while smacking myself silly whenever the pain reached a level that was more than I could bear.

NOTE: Using whiskey as a pain-killing mouthwash over a period of several days will make your mouth extremely sore! However, the mouthwash pain was much more highly preferred over the pain from an exposed nerve so I can't complain too much.

(It amazes me what goes through your mind as viable alternatives when you are desperately attempting to rid yourself from pain that will not go away.)

Reality vs Fantasy

The moment when you first wake up in the morning is the most wonderful of the twenty-four hours. No matter how weary or dreary you may feel, you possess the certainty that, during the day that lies before you, absolutely anything may happen. And the fact that it practically always doesn't, matters not a jot. The possibility is always there.

Monica Baldwin

I have spent most of my life holding to the belief that something absolutely wonderful and magnificent was just around the corner silently watching me while I hoped and prayed that today might be the day that the possibility would become a reality.

A few times I have seen those great events come to pass and I was overjoyed with the results ... at other times the events that transpired challenged me and cause me to ask why had I been chosen to receive what I deemed as unfair, but more often than not, the days have just come and gone with little excitement to be found exposing me to hardcore reality at its best.

But I still believe that looking for the potential that might show itself every day is what keeps me going, keeps my nose to the grindstone, keeps me hoping that I will find some good somewhere that upon my discovery will make me smile one more time.

If you don't see things that way, that it is your prerogative ... just leave me alone and let me continue dreaming. This is my fantasy world and I think I have earned the right to think that way if I so choose.

Besides, damned if I'm not pleasantly surprised sometimes.

"Excuse Me Lady ... You Are Standing On My Root"