Monday, June 30, 2008

Are you kidding me??

Went to see WALL-E last night.  So what follows is a review of the human race.

We suck.

The entire premise of WALL-E is that man, in his rampant consumerism, has made the earth completely inhospitable.  We killed it with trash.  So, we take off for the sky in giant arks and leave behind an army of robots to clean it up so we can return.  Well, after seven hundred years, there is only one little robot left functional and he's not quite done yet.  Meanwhile, off in space, the human race just rides around in automated chairs, being waited on by robots and only interfacing with each other through heads up displays.  Everyone on the ship is about three hundred and fifty pounds and i'll be really surprised if the movie isn't declared "anti-overweightist" by easily bruised egos later today.

So, the robot falls in love, the human race wakes up, earth is resettled and the credits roll.

Now this is where it gets disgusting.  

You see, movies, especially pixar movies, have a tendency to put funny stuff at the end of the credits, so i'm more or less trained to wait until their over now.  Before they ended however, the house lights came up and an army of teens came in to do their job.  For in the theater, the very same theater where families, parents and children they are supposed to be training up, where they all just saw the same morality play about the dangers of laziness and vulgar consumption...

THERE SAT A FREAKIN' ARK LOAD OF TRASH!!!!!

Not accidentally spilled stuff, not the lost jujube on the floor, but half eaten buckets of popcorn still on the chairs, sodas in the cupholders and candyboxes everwhere!!!  Purposely left behind for the platoon of teens to clean up.

Now, i ain't an environmentalist, i happen to know there are much more important issues facing us all today.  But if we can't even figure out the message of WALL-E, then i seriously doubt the gospel has much of a chance.

Jeremiah 6:10
To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me? Their ears are closed so they cannot hear. The word of the LORD is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it.

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Sorry, more poetry


Forgotten how to live
Father forgive me
For i know not what to do
This unopened gift
That you gave me
Just gives me the blues

Can't sieze the day
paralyzed by doubt
Please tell me what to do
Gotta find a way
To figure this out
Before this day is through

One thing i know
Is no one knows
What my life is for
i know where to go
When the wind blows
But what to do with this oar?





Twas blind but now i see...


The funny thing about going blind is you have no idea how bad you've gotten until someone puts glasses on you.

Now, if i could just get corrective lenses for my point of view...

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Approaching your exit


So why is that?  

(Readers alert: The author frequently begins posts with the inborn assumption that the reader has just finished reading the chronologically previous post.  There is no cause for alarm.  You have not failed some test or missed half of this post.  There is however no need to alert the author to the outcome of assumptions, he is already an a** and the reader is whatever the reader chooses to be.  No assumptions of the author can actually have any effect on the reader's intelligence or social standing.  Unless one of the reader's friends finds the reader reading this blog, in which case they may point and laugh.)

Why do i not do the things i want to do?

When i was younger, i remember trying occasionally.  With some moderate successes.  i equate those with baby steps.  Baby steps of a wandering scrivener.  But then something happened...

i became my mother.

Now, given some recent family developments, this is a loaded statement which i will not delve too deep into here but suffice it to say that by "became my mother," i only mean in a metaphorical sense.  You see, my mother is a wonderful, miserable person who has allowed her responsibilities to dictate her life.  Her life was all about what she could not do.  She is very intelligent and that keen intellect was finely tuned to the negative scale, she could always clearly see the reasons why something would not work.  No matter what lovely idea she had or dream or hope, there was always a reason why she couldn't do it or at least could not do it now.  As i became a teenager, i used to call her on this often.  i chided her pretty hard.  i know, i can hear the echoes of my voice mocking me through the ether of years right now.

i do not regret the decisions i have made, at least, not all of them.  i feel led to this spot.  i'm just starting to feel like Tom Hanks at the end of Cast Away, standing in the middle of the crossroads.

Monday, June 23, 2008

A bag, a bike and a bedroll

i am reading "A Pirate Looks at Fifty" by Jimmy Buffett.  It is a thoroughly horrible book and i don't recommend it.  In fact, what i recommend is that if you ever see a copy, you burn it.  Right there, where ever you came upon the filthy piece of excrement.  Just whip out the handiest form of fire starting apparati you have, lighter, matches, two sticks, oil soaked rags, magnifying glass, whatever and torch the puppy.  Then burn down whatever building it was that housed it.  The curse must be eradicated.  Then, find the owner and, if you haven't already, burn their house down.  

Don't come visit me however because as soon as i return my copy to the li-barry, i'll be going out to buy my own.  Though i may blowtorch the bookstore on my way out.  i'd better get it at Borders.

This book, this evil tome, aside from keeping me up right now vilifying it and looking up 'vilify' to make sure i used it correctly, yes, yes i did.  This book, more importantly, this author, this verschlugginah meatpie, is living my life!

No, i didn't write margaritaville.  i don't actually think i could string three chords together in such a way that would make people tap their feet much less throw money at me for a recording of it.  No, i'm not likely to become a flyingboat pilot and live on islands from Martha's Vineyard to the Carribees.  No, i'm not a saloon singer, a flyfisherman or writing a musical.  i'm not even sure i would want to do those things.  

But the things i do want to do, i don't do.  And that, me friends, cohorts and unlucky acquaintances, (as if there were more than one of you reading this...) is the rub.  Mr. Buffett, i am in no ways worthy of referring to him by his given name, does and apparently always has, done more or less, exactly what came into his balding little peanut to do.  It hasn't always been successful, it hasn't always been pretty but he did it and he learned what worked and what doesn't.

AND ...he has nearly a whole chapter on the essential gear of his expeditions and being prepared and his search for the holy grail of backpacks to carry it all in and anyone who knows me knows that pretty well sums up the chewy, darkmeat core of this fricken.  

What bugs me, what really shoves the shiv in me shins, what has me calling for arson on a Detroit Devil's night scale is this: that while Mr. Buffett's boyscout backpack is transporting snickers bars, bottled water, navigation gear, swag, and a big, fat wallet around the world...

My backpack doesn't leave my closet.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Wow! Two posts in one day!

This is something i wrote for a story i'm working on but it amused me so i thought i'd share...


When Resperignis grew old, he set his sons, Deorex and Matt, up as viceroys.  But they did not follow the path he had set for them.  Their favor was for sale.

So the clan fathers came to Resperignis and said, “You’re as good as dead and your sons suck.  Give us a king like all the Barbarians have.”

But when they said, “Give us a king,” Resperignis knew this was not wise.  He took flight to speak with the Royal Family.  And the Fire said, “It’s okay, Resperignis.  It is not you they have turned their backs on, but Me.  They no longer want Me for their Father, not that they ever have.  No matter what I do for them, they would rather be orphans.  So give them what they want but warn them what earthly fathers are like.”

So Resperignis told the Royal children everything that their Father had said.  He said, “If I appoint a king for you from among you he will lord it over you.  He will forget you are brothers and treat you like slaves, not as his children.  He will use you for his own purposes.  He will not love you; he will not take care of you.  And when he takes all you have worked for, including your sons and daughters, you will beg the Royal Family to save you but He will not.”

But the Royal children said, “Ah, Baloney!  When we have a king it’ll be great!  He’ll do everything for us.”

So Resperignis sighed and went back before the true King and told Him all that the morons had said and the Fire told him, “Don’t sweat it, go and do what they ask.”

So Resperignis said to the Royal children, “fine, whatever.”

dirt

i think about hard ground.  

i'm not talking ground WITH rocks.  i'm talking ground that IS rock.  i'm talking soil so dense, so resistant to being broken that nothing, but nothing will grow in it.

i think about comfort.

Climate controlled, cable modem'd, dorito munching comfort.  Little sanctuaries, little fortresses of control that we set up to escape what we cannot control.  Little schedules we maintain to bring order, so we know what's coming next.  Landscaped, widescreened, surround sound, havens where we only have to contact those we choose, those we like, those who do not disturb the comfort.  Put up a book and a latte', plug in the ipod and observe without interacting.  Do not touch, do not be touched.  Do not disturb.

Islands without need.

But wants.  Where there is no Need, Want thrives.  Want becomes Need.  Want becomes the goal.  All ambition is thrown into the Want.  Want disturbs the comfort, it disrupts the order.  The lacking must be filled so as to restore the comfort, fulfill the Want.  Want becomes god.  Or is comfort the god and Want the sacrifice he demands?  The commandment he gives?

I am Comfort, that brought you out of land of Need.
Pursue me with all your mind, body, soul and money.
Thou shall Want.

(long pause)

i think about suffering.

Suffering dispels want.  Suffering disrupts comfort.  Suffering exposes need.  Suffering is the plow.

The desert is comfortable.  Farmer's fields need.

One is lifeless.  The other sustains all life.

 

Friday, June 20, 2008

Got Pablo?

"I..." he paused for dramatic effect, "am Pablo!"
"You are, are yah?" she said.
"Si," he said and ran off an elaborate little mexican hat dance involving an imaginary rose in his teeth and a lot of abuse to her hardwood floor from his worn out, mismatched, cowboy boots and drew to its conclusion with a great deal of flourish and latino panache.  She didn't know the spanish for panache.
"And just what does a Pablo do?"
"I jest tole you, I am ...Pablo!" he reiterated as if that said everything.
"Let's assume I just moved here from some Pabloless backwater city."
"Oh, senorita, that would be a truly sad place to be."
"Undoubtedly, but, I wouldn't know what a Pablo was, would I?"
"No, senorita, you would no.  And that is why your face would be always frowning, like it is now."
"I am not frowning," she said.
"Si, you are, your face is like dis," and he showed her.
"That's not a frown, that's my usual expression," she explained.
"That is the expression of worldly pain, I know it well, it comes from too little Pablo."

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Little Ditty Bout Jake and Dionne



Why?  She asks, not wanting an answer.
Cause, he says, cause he don't understand her.
Angry she gets, cause he don't understand her.
Why? he asks, but she will not answer.