This picture is a perfect example of how I'm feeling nowadays, as summer turns to fall.
I might tell you why someday. It's too long and complicated to get into now. Besides, I must organize my notes about it.
So -- screw it. I'm getting out of here.
I'll post later. Don't know when. Until then ... take care.
I once broke up with a woman. After a week had passed, she wanted to get back together.
I told her, "Honey, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:
"Zero ... nada ... zilch ... none ... no way ... nein ... nyet."
That was seven ways of nothing. So seven times zero equals zero.
I think she got the message, because she went on her way and I haven't seen her since.
When you think about it, stalking is a lot like hunting.
Both the stalker and the hunter are stalking something. The stalker follows a person, usually a woman. The hunter follows a game animal.
Neither want the object of their search to know they are following.
The hunter, however, carries a weapon and might be wearing camoflage clothing. If a stalker does that, he might be looking at some very serious jail time.
Some assholes say that Jews love money.
Hell, everybody loves money. Why blame the Jews for liking it more than gentiles?
When I get paid, I don't say, "Boss, give that money for my work to Goldberg. Hell, he loves it more than me. Just pay me in fireworks and beef jerky."
I had a friend who in the middle of his life left a sales job and became a minister.
He tried to get me to go to church as a way to, as he said, "reform" me. I declined because I didn't believe I needed "reforming" like that.
However, he had some interesting words to say as he tried to recruit me. He quoted the old saying that we only use 10 percent of our brains, and added the line from the movie The Wedding Crashers that we only use 10 percent of our hearts.
To that, he added that a lot of people only use 10 percent of their souls, and that church attendance would help raise those figures.
On a morning of a summer day, when Sam was between second and third grades, he woke and especially noticed the light shining outside.
Sun up, fun up, he thought.
So he jumped out of bed, ready for the new day.
Sam wore his shorts, shirt and underwear to bed so he wouldn't waste any time getting dressed. He also was at a stage that some gradeschool boys enter; they wear their underwear to bed under their pajama pants.
He ran down the stairs of his house and went through the front door and was about a third of the way to his family's garage, where he had parked his bike the evening before, when his mother called to him. "Come and eat breakfast!" she said.
Four decades later, as that memory came back to Sam, he didn't remember what happened to him or what he happened upon the rest of that day. He didn't remember if it was a good day, a bad day, or a medium day. He didn't break a limb or wasn't kidnapped then molested by a stranger. But he didn't see a wonderful wild animal or notice a spectacular cloud in the sky.
And as he thought of that day, it was as if it happened the week before.
Some fathers are very overbearing.
If their kids don't come in first place, those fathers blame them, call them failures, and say they've disgraced their families.
The best reaction to that is this: The kids ought to commit hari kari right in front of the old man.
But when they're supposed to push the swords into their stomachs, they ought to turn and stab the old man.
There are many famous athletes of either Chinese or Chinese-American descent.
There's the figure skater -- Michelle Kwan.
There's the basketball player -- Yao Ming.
Then there's the surfer -- Hang Ten.
The more I think about it, women -- in general -- are the saner gender.
It's men -- in general -- who are the ones who'll climb the highest mountain, dive as deep as they can into the sea, fuck any thing, every thing, and all things if they could, and go as fast as possible.
Women go crazy when they try to fit into the rules of men or society.
Here we have a young woman climbing the corporate ladder.
However, we tell her this. She should not rely mostly on her youthful beauty and sexuality to get ahead in work. Those things fade. Skills and a good work ethic never do.
Art was sitting in his favorite chair and reading a newspaper when he remembered the time he got his toe stuck in a bathtub faucet.
He was a teenager and taking a bath, fooling around when he put the big toe of his right foot into the tap to stop the flow of the water. He did it successfully a few times, but it only took one unsuccessful time before he got it stuck.
He didn't know how he could get it out. He didn't want to ask his dad for help, because his father would get upset -- that was part of his emotional distance from his children.
He didn't want to get his mom involved because he was going through puberty and would be mortified.
And he didn't want to get his brothers involved because they wouldn't help -- they would just stand around and laugh at him.
So he squirmed his toe around before it came loose.
Some white-collar people are just as ignorant and belligerant about it as some blue-collar people. They just have a better polish.
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You could say a lot of things about me, but not if you're mute.
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"Smothered in mushrooms."
"Smothered in onions -- and big tits!"
"Big, sweet tits!"
"You got that right!"
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I got in touch with my feminine side. She slapped me and took out a restraining order.
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A guy once said to a gal, "Hey, let's do 68. You blow me and I own you one."
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You've heard of the race card.
Then there's the race royal flush.
That's the ace, king, queen, jack and 10 ...
of spades, of course.
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Some people can take the heat, but the folks in Minnesota and the Dakotas during the winter take the cold.
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Will it be tough love but soft or easy hate?
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Seven
stunning
nude girls
sunning
on the flat roof
of an apartment
building
as they talk
about
their love lives ...
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There are vanity plates, but never narcissism plates.
And there aren't any selfdepreciation plates for people with low selfesteem.
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The Three B League -- the breasts, the buns and the bagina.
That's for vagina. I'm using poetic license, and there's no way it can ever be revoked.
The three B League is also known as the boobs, the butt and the bush.
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As you know, it often rains cats and dogs -- but never, say, badgers and wolverines, or elephants and hippos.
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Can a person be a hypocritical liar and lying hypocrite at the same time?
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A Dutchman once put his finger into a dyke.
She didn't like it.
She preferred that it be done by a Dutch woman.
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There's the line of fire.
There's also the ring of fire.
But you never hear about the rectangle of fire.
Or the isosceles triangle of fire.
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There's malice aforethought -- but not malice aneightthought -- that's twice as bad.
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If opinions are like assholes, and we all have one, then what about those folks who've had colostomies?
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Never ask an OBGYN 'twat's new.
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A woman once said, "I've been called a cunt before, but it was always by some prick."
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Is a bear catholic?
Does the pope shit in the woods?
A broken clock at least can find one truffle.
And a blind pig is right at least twice a day.
It seems like every small town has some interesting, if not strange, characters.
In the small town where I grew up, it was Evil Bub Evans.
His real name was either Gilmore or Wilmore Evans, but he wanted everyone to call him Bub.
That was short for Beezelbub -- also known as the devil.
But when I look back, he wasn't that evil. It was more like he was a jerk -- and a bad one at that.
To many members of his family, he was the relative that no one wanted to talk about unless they had to -- and that was in court and under oath.
He was so bad that he flunked out of Sunday school -- at three different churches.
.
In his high school physics class, he told the teacher that he wanted to split the atom and make a nuclear bomb. "Anything else is a waste of my time," he explained.
Even if no churches wanted him, some let him play on their softball teams, for he was, at the least, decent at baseball.
But he got kicked off a lot of the teams, and even out of some of the leagues.
He used to steal bases. That was against the leagues' commandments.
He also bet on the games and one time, he was caught screwing the wife of the first baseman.
The pin on his ATM card was 666 -- 69.
You've probably seen those change holders at convenience stores, where is you need a penny for change you can take one, and you can leave a penny.
Bub always took the pennies in them.
To suppliment his income, he also sold porn out of his car.
One time, he was parked in his car. A kid walked by. Bub said:
"Hey, kid -- you wanna buy some pornography?"
The kid replied, "No thanks, mister. We don't have a pornograph at home."
He also declared bankrupcy. He told a cousin, with who I keep in touch, that he wanted to sell his soul to the devil, but that the devil couldn't collect on it.
His cousin said, "Bub, you can declare Chapter 7 or Chapter 11, but you don't have much choice when the devil comes. You've already declared Chapter 666."
Bub said, "Shit. I'm gonna try to refi."
His cousin said, "Bub, you ought to change your life when you're on a firstname basis with the folks at the 911 call center."
He also was thoughtless. He once told his cousin that he thought reality television shows were lame.
You'll never guess who came by right at that monent.
It was Stephen Hawking.
He said to Bub, "Hey -- look at me. There's no way I'm going to be running a fourminute mile anytime soon. And if I could get out of his wheelchair, I'd kick your ass."
Instead, Hawking ran over Bub.
I once had this horrible idea.
Instead of a sports bar with the television sets turned to ESPN and other sports channels, there could be a politics bar, with MSNBC, Fox News Network, and other channels like them being broadcast.
There would be more fighting in those bar between partisans, who would look like their idols -- overweight, plain if not ugly, and with lots of bad haircuts and combover.
However, they wouldn't have any mullets -- too hillbilly.
Once when I was walking around downtown Indianapolis, I stopped to look at a building that housed one of the city's major insurance companies.
I truly looked at. Then I thought of what I saw.
The building was like an anthill and the employees inside were ants in human disguise. If I could remove the side of the building, I could have seen the antpeople scurrying around.
I damned the building and the ones around it. The people inside were in the death in life that is zombie life and wondered if any of them were happy, or at least satisfied, and if any of their efforts as they scurried in the building would be good at all.
I don't care
How you are
As much as I
Don't care
Who you are,
Alleged superior --
To me? Ha!
Prove it!
By age? You're probably senile.
By money? I'm not yours
To buy and sell.
By brains? Wise men persuade,
And don't coerce.
By prisons? Lock me up.
I'll be free --
Someday, eveNtually.
Kill me and others
Will take my place.
You wanted a reason?
I just gave you four.
And you don't like them?
Tough shit. Fuck you.
Burke was a trust officer for a bank in a small midwestern town. He handled trusts, estates, and other things like that.
Most of his work was routine and peaceful. One case, however, exasperated him greatly.
He handled the estate of a man who well call Smith. It was worth between $30 million and $35 million.
He had two heirs -- a son and a daughter.
In the middle of probate, however, Smith's daughter and his daughterinlaw started to disagree about who would get a few things in the estate. And as it sometimes happens in these things, the disagreements became a strong conflict.
It got the point where Burke was in his office with Smith's son, his daughterinlaw, and his daughter, going through the contents of a jar that held some assorted loose coins.
He got to the last coin. It was a nickle.
In exasperation, he took it in his hand and said, "Who gets this?"
Smith's daughter said, "Flip for it."
Actor, director and artist Dennis Hopper ...
And actor and butter scotch stallion Owen Wilson.
Because of the age difference, this doesn't fit into the Separate At Birth category. However, they look enough alike to resemble kinfolks: A father and son or an uncle and nephew.
I know people who say seen for saw. They often use double negatives, too.
Those people don't have the best education and they aren't encouraged to speak correctly, so I understand their mistakes.
But what I especially don't like -- and don't understand -- if people who know better but use English pretentiously.
They'll say something like, "Prior to the soiree, I engaged ... "
Damn it! Say, "Before the party, I did ... "
I wonder who they're trying to impress. It certainly isn't me.
Also, you can say that English is polluted by double entendres.
For example, you can't say Oral Roberts or Oral Hershiser without some fool giggling and saying, "How about their cousin -- Anal?"
Thank you, good sir, for bringing the level of discourse down to the level of a gradeschool playground.
Recently I read The Good Brother, a novel by Chris Offutt, a native of eastern Kentucky who often writes about Appalachia and its people. I had read Kentucky Straight, a book of his short stories, and The Same River Twice, a memoir, and had enjoyed them.
In the book, Virgil Caudell, a resident of eastern Kentucky, kills a man who had killed his brother. He flees so he won't be killed, which would continue the blood feud, and changes his name to Joe Tiller.
(By the way, that also happens to be the name of the former head football coach at Purdue Univerity. I don't know if Offutt knew that; someday I might ask him through an email.)
He ends up in the mountains of Montana and meets some hardcore antigovernment survivalists. But he doesn't share their beliefs about the feds:
Joe didn't consider the government an enemy. It was more of an entity to manipulate if you wanted fresh gravel on your road, or a family member out of jail. People at home didn't worry about the government; they ignored it. Men hunted out of season to feed their children. Families made moonshine for export, and when demand changed they grew marijuana. Laws didn't have much bearing in the hills, especially when the sheriff was an elected official.
And that's an interesting point.
This picture is a perfect example of how I'm feeling nowadays, as summer turns to fall.
