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Winter Warning

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ima

Squirrels play with their nuts all the time. Not because they can, but because they must. They need to hide their nuts in the winter to keep them warm, and who in their right mind wouldn’t prefer their nuts warm? I know I do. But its hard to keep your nuts warm in winter. When one walks through Manhattan in the winter you can smell nuts roasting out in the open, people sing about roasting nuts on a open fire, but squirrels know the best place for their nuts. Underground. They store their nuts away so they still have them when spring comes back.
On the way in to work this morning I noticed the hometown squirrels being overactive which can mean only one of two things. Either they found a supply of red bull which would explain their activity when crossing the road, running halfway out, changing their squirrel minds before heading back, only to change there minds again and continue heading across the street. Very indecisive. They scramble on the road like that all while tons of metal boxes on wheels come charging directly at them. That’s clearly a reaction from someone over-caffeinated. If they haven’t found a stash of energy drinks then they’re squirrel sense is tingling a warning that this winter is gonna be hella cold with massive snows. Squirrels are not optimists by nature, they generally see the oak tree as half full of nuts but if nothing else they are weather intuitive. So if you see them more active and busy than usual hiding their nuts underground its because they know something we don’t. They know some big snowstorms are coming our way. Squirrels can actually be heard laughing at us on ground hog day because we take the word of Punxsutawney Phil’s predictions about winter. Groundhogs have as much meteorological credibility as our local News agency’s weatherperson. But the squirrel knows and the ones in town are acting crazed so brace yourselves North East, we may be in for something long hard and cold. Protect your nuts..Peace

A Hunting I Won’t Go

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dead-jerry-rifle

Any Time The Hunter Gets Captured By The game

If I had to hunt for my food I would starve. My whole family would starve because the closest I ever came to capturing a meal was the time I dropped a can of Pringles and chased it down a hill. Perhaps it’s a morality thing, I mean its not like I’m a flatulent oozing vegetarian I love a good steak, but I don’t need to see it slaughtered. I’m still haunted by the one time I had to chose my own lobster only to have it sentenced to death and served to me with a plastic bib on. Why a lobster would wear a plastic bib is anybody’s guess, but back to the point. At the time I couldn’t help thinking what a shit I was for pointing out an innocent lobster to have it sent mercilessly to its death to satisfy my eating urges. One of those things that just kind of stays with you from childhood through older childhood.
Basically I’m saying I’m anti-hunting. I get that some people feel the need to sneak up on and slaughter animals because they have antlers but personally I don’t get it. I‘m not just being a tree hugging liberal about it, although I have hugged my share of tree‘s, but I walked the walked before talking this talk. That’s right, this peacenik hippie freak has walked the wild hills of Loch Sheldrake NY, up in the Catskill mountains, with a loaded rifle in his hand and lived to tell about it. I had mentally prepared myself to use it before leaving, but by the end of the weekend I was mentally prepared to use it on the drunken rifle toting deer killers. How does a long haired hippie freak in a bright colored ski sweater end up hunting wild animals you ask? A trade off.
I had forged a friendship with a dude my age at work named George. George was an avid hunter, going into the hills stealthily in camouflage during bow and arrow season only to return a week later with heat seeking shotgun shells for the opening of gun hunting season. He had been soliciting me for a week to come and join him as I stood my ground until one day he proposed an offer hard to refuse. “JT seriously dude, hunting is the best thing ever. There is nothing like it.” Now that I took as a challenge. Being a confirmed Deadhead I knew for a fact the actual quote is “There is nothing like a Grateful Dead Concert” and I let him know that in no uncertain terms. His response caught me off guard. “I tell you what, I’ll go to one of your Grateful Dead concerts if you come with me next week.” Hmmm, another challenge. I have brought four people already to their first Dead shows and have made for converts. If I go hunting next week it will force him to go to a show and he will also try weed for the first time. Irresistible offer. “Cool”
So it was set that next week I would travel up into the mountains with a loaded weapon in my hands and as a consolation prize turn a friend on to The Dead and get him stoned. For my part I went out and bought a few magazines, Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, and Sports Afield to get myself familiar with all the latest on hunting protocols. What I learned only made me think I was making a huge mistake. But a deals a deal so I called George to find out what to bring. “Just make sure you dress in bright clothes, warm and in layers, and don’t wear that deer musk cologne you use.” Got it! “Okay, and its not cologne, its patchouli oil. But okay, I won’t bring it. I’ll be ready.” I went through my clothes noting a black leather jacket would not be appropriate and opted for a bright red yellow and blue ski sweater and of course layers. Off we went.
The plan was to drive up Friday night and stay at a motel in town, get up early an hit out into the forest is search of some helpless animals to brutally slay. Back in the seventies drinking responsibly meant wearing a seatbelt while guzzling so we drank a few beers on the way up. By the time we got to the motel the only thing we were sporting was a slight buzz. But the bar at the motel took care of that. It was like some kind of frat party or something, a ton and a half of guys getting drunk and doing shots. Pool table, jukebox, all the comforts of a local dive bar. Guys kept coming over to buy George a drink, and when he introduced me bought one for me as well. I’m not a carpenter but I got hammered that night. 2AM and I still had 2 coasters in front of me so we did two shots of Jack Daniels and called it a night. Tomorrow is the big day, the first day of hunting season and I can only assume the only advantage the deer will have is all of us having killer hangovers.
When I finally shook off all the fog from last nights alcohol I realized that all the guys I was watching head out into the woods were the same guys that were so smashed last night. And every last one of them had a bright orange vest, bright orange skullcap, and at least three quarter of them had orange pants as well. Either this was a prison break or hunters wear a lot of orange. All except me of course, who was in the height of winter style with my fleece lined red Nordic ski hat and my bright multi color stylish ski sweater looking like Jean-Claude Killy leaving the slopes of the alps to join a group of murderous hungover Orangemen into the Catskills. That was when the paranoia began to settle in, and I had gone from fierce hunter to frightened sheep following the crowd in two seconds. George sensed my apprehension and led me to a spot halfway down a mountain, “You stay here JT and if you see a deer shoot it. I’ll be around seeing if I can spook one out” He left and I was alone wondering what I will do once I really do see a deer. I kept thinking about Bambi and I decided I better not look the animal in the eye or there I no way I’ll shoot. The opportunity never came up, although I did see a cute bear cub off in the distance, and I watched a group of beavers working in the stream. Dam they were good!
George came back and collected me for lunch. We went back to the bar at the motel to get some chili con carne and when we walked in half the crew from last night were there and drinking already. The paranoia quickly returned as I listened to them talk about a kill, a shot, or something called a “sound shot” George came over with the chili, “You okay JT?” “Yeah I’m okay, little cold and I wish I had something orange to wear. By the way George, that dude over there was talking about ‘nuthin but a sound shot‘. What’s a sound shot?” George looked a tad concerned, “When you don’t actually see the animal but you hear it making a sound.” I was floored. Holy shit, what if I was sounding like a deer? I ate my chili in silence but all I could think about was these drunken fools taking sound shots after lunch.
The rest of the trip was uneventful and I basically hid in the woods trying not to sound like a deer. Along with the other hunters we got drunk at night and they kept talking about how they will “sacrifice the animal” if they have a decent shot. Luckily the weather took a bad turn and it was snowing too hard to hunt effectively. George got off one shot but missed but I never even raised the rifle to my shoulder once. I was okay with that. I said I would try hunting, knew it was not for me but found out I was understating how wrong much it wasn‘t for me. To this day I have never killed another animal, and I never plan to kill one. I eat meat, I’ll even eat venison, although I think its bullshit they call them deer when they kill (or sacrifice) it but venison when they eat it, but I guess it eases their conscience after slaughtering an unarmed animal. I did take George to a Grateful Dead concert and got him stoned, and he had a great time but didn’t convert. He was and always will be a “Rolling Stones Guy” but as long as he digs it that’s cool. He did smoke weed with me a lot more after that so I did make a bit of progress. I lost touch with George, as is usually does life got in the way and we both moved on and I’m sure he still hunts and that’s okay, because I still indulge in my passions as well. I used to wonder what I would have done if I was face with the opportunity to shoot an animal, would I have taken the shot. But as time has passed I have come to realize there is no way I would have pulled the trigger. I’m proud of that fact but in the end if I couldn’t buy food I’d be dead and wouldn’t be here to write these twisted stories. It is what it is…..PEACE

Still Rock And Roll To Me

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DeadTopper

Rocktober is here. That’s what we call it here in the northeast, partially because we so love our rock and roll, and partially because we want a distraction to the oncoming brutality winter can dole out. Radio stations play tapes from pre-recorded live shows, or repackage their programming to appear as if it were different than usual. But real rockers won’t waste our time listening to bullshit radio stations that pose as hip intuits of rock, we know the DJ’s today are just corporate sponsors who may have once been cool, but have sold out to commercialistic radio bent on repeating songs so often it makes our inner ears drip blood. But hell who cares about that we know our rock and we have things like Pandora, Spotify, and iTunes, and even many of us hippie have given in and replaced our once bulky milk crates of music libraries onto tiny little ipods with killer earbuds. We choose our music.
So true rockers listen to FM radio only as an alternative to having no soundtrack whatsoever for life. We play what we want on ipods and/or CD players. Because rock and roll is central to our existence. The last two weeks have been extremely stressful and trying for me, and at times I had lost my Zen. And like David Banner would say, don’t make me lose my Zen, you won’t like me when I lose my Zen. But it happens and self medicating is not an option during the workday.
Luckily a friend of mine who often burns me CD’s for me stopped by two day’s ago with 4 new disks of sweet rock and roll because he understands how profound a gift of music is. He knows what music reaches me and that’s what be burned, my favorite tunes live at familiar venues from my crazy party days. Yesterday I had to o a lot of running around so I spun 2 of those discs while driving and erranding and the music was so soothing. Rock is comfort food for the ears and the soul. The car filled up with not only incredible sound, but with memories and good feeling, and most important, a shitload of Zen. Whether it was an uplifting fast tune that got me bopping, or a bluesy and easy tune that held my ego and id in check, it just soothed my soul and removed the stress. That’s what music can so for us.
So today I have a message, not like the ones coming out of area 51, or the one Moses had sent over his tablet, but one from a humble servant of rock and roll. The message here is this, if you lose your Zen remember, it can always be found in rock and roll music because rock and roll never forgets. Thank you Rick Verso, a brother, kindred spirit, and friend for life. Rock on Y’all. Listen to the music play

Fly On The Whitehouse Wall

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II.. Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

The short lifespan of a fly doesn’t have all that much in the way of excitement. Oh sure if we find some dead body its like an all you can eat buffet for the entire family but there’s nothing exciting about being a fly. We have very little needs, we like to eat, puke, and eat again, then rub our hands together and head out to look for something gourmet, like a still warm pile of dog shit. And this human has three dogs so I decided it would be cool sticking around here. Of course as long as I’m not sticking on some murderous fly paper. Bastard humans make those sticky tapes smell just like lady fly fluids and I’ve witnessed many a friend thinking he was gonna do some mid-air muff diving only to find himself trapped dangling in a gluey mess. But I don’t want to bore you with the details of the danger of life as a fly, I want you to hear some real interesting conversations I was privy to here on the wall in the Whitehouse during the days of what humans call the Watergate scandal. From my original vantage point of the wall I was able to hear quite a tale with a cast of characters that, well lets just say for them to call our larvae maggots is extremely hypocritical. They think their fecal matter isn’t odiferous but any fly worth its proboscis can smell a politician miles from the beltway. C’mon, I’ll walk you through it.
Seems after The Pentagon Papers were released to the press this Nixon guys popularity ratings were tanking and it wasn’t going to be easy to get him re-elected. That’s when Howard Hunt came in the office and if talking shit alone was a meal I would have had a smorgasbord. I’m still on the wall here in the oval office along with G. Gordon, Tricky Dicky, Howard Hunt, John Ehrlichman, HR Halderman, John Dean, and John Mitchell. There seems to be a lot of tension in the air because Hunt had just offered up a plan to break in to the same hotel I was in just last night to spy on some democrats or something. “Listen Dick,” pleads George, “Howard’s right. Larry Obrien, the chair of the DMC booked a room at the Watergate Motel. My sources tell me he has credible evidence of some bullshit connection with You Mr. President, and Howard Hughes” Nixon shuffled and tried to interrupt but Liddy held him off, “Please Mr. President don’t say a word. Not a single one of us believe you did anything wrong but my source claims he has convincing looking forgeries implicating you and Hughes. Obrien was heard saying he’s gonna use them to bring you down. Not gonna happen! My team is going to liberate those phony papers and destroy them. Then we bug his room. We all know how Obrien loves to chat with his commie pals and I’m certain we can find evidence that the democrats received funds from Cuba.” Tricky Dick isn’t fully convinced and turns to Howard, G. Gordon Liddy’s co-commander. “What the hell kind of proof do we have that those liberal shits are getting some dough from Castro?” Howard was prepared, “Mr. President, I have reliable sources that tell me LBJ and Castro have been involved in private talks dating back before the whole Kennedy thing. Maybe even has something to do with Killing John, who knows. What we do know is the dems are getting a lot of cah from somewhere and we can all guess where. My sources tell me they have confirmed communication between members of the Democratic National Committee and Cuba so maybe we can get a confession or find a paper trail between Castro and the democrats, there’s no doubt they’re in cahoots . We’ll sink those liberal chumps. Those bleeding heart socialists love Castro and don’t have a clue how dangerous he is Its not only in your best interests Mr. President but the best interest of our entire country. Of our constitution!” From my vantage point on the wall I could see a satisfied smirk on most of their faces. Dick began pacing, “Mother fuckers are gonna ruin our nation Howard, no doubt about that. Let me think about this. We have to make sure no laws are broken, I don’t want any implication to anything like that. In the meantime what about you Bob? What’ve you got on that hippie insect John Lennon? How soon can we get him and that oval eyed bitch of his kicked out of the country?” HR “Bob” Halderman stepped forward, “Dick this isn’t gonna be easy, this is a tough one. He’s got a lot of support from a lot of people and the press loves him. I’m not sure taking him on is in our best interests right now. So far we don’t have concrete proof of any illegal activity. Remember what happened with Liddy and Timothy Leary?” Georgie boy shot back obviously pissed, “Fuck you Halderman that wasn’t my fault you piece of shit, it was the fucking judge. But hey, if you can’t fucking get rid of John Lennon then maybe I should have a go at him my way! I‘ll make sure to use concrete!” Shit was heating up and there’s nothing a fly loves more than piles of heated up shit.
At that point all the men began yelling at each other about all sorts of things and I couldn’t really hear much until John Dean loudly took control, “Okay everyone that’s enough, calm the fuck down this is getting us nowhere. Lets just concentrate on this Watergate thing.” The room got silent and the leader of the free world weighed in, “John’s right fella’s, lets get back to getting me re-elected then I’ll go after that prick peacenik Lennon. I’ll put Kissinger on that, Henry loves the goddamn publicity anyway. That piece of shit hippie Lennon really pisses me off though! Who the Hell does he think he is coming here from England and telling me how to run my country. Anyone tell that hairbag that we kicked the shit out of his piss ant country and then had to save they’re asses from Hitler. Fuck him and his God save the queen bullshit. Henry will send that peacenik prick back to England. Now what’d you have in mind for the liberal dems? We can’t afford to let Mondale, Humphrey, or Teddy Kennedy get in here and destroy the country. I have enough crap on Ted if he makes a run we‘ll bury his ass at Chappaquiddick. That idiot Eagleton’s gone already and I’ll take the rest of those commie socialists down too. Liddy here assures me plausible deniability, but I’m telling all of you right now, this meeting never happened. I will deny any and all of you here. Remember if we don’t hang together each of you will surely hang separately. Any one of you sonsa bitches caught are on your own, because I never approved anything and this never happened. Now I’m gonna leave the office for a few minutes in case anyone needs to talk about plans. That way I don’t hear or know nothing. Just remember, Richard Nixon does not break any laws.” Let me tell you this fly was pretty impressed. That Nixon guy was one slick human. He left the office and none of the other balooka’s could hear but with my intense fly senses I could hear the tape machine in his drawer still recoding.
Lidddy was the first to speak. “Howard and I assembled a team, they’re broking into Ellsburgs doctors office tonight to get his files. We’ll bury that bastard, but in the meantime we gotta keep Dick in office or none of this shit will matter. The same team that robbed the docs office are gonna break into the Watergate Hotel grab the bogus papers tying the president to Howard Hughes and plant a bug in O’Brien’s room. Then we’ll know everything the democrats are up too.” Hunt stood up and took over, “Look you guys, this is how its gonna be. Anyone, and I mean anyone gets caught at anything its deny, deny, deny! None of us wants to go to jail, we’re all in this together. But at the same time we’re acting alone and any criminal activity will be on you and only you. I didn’t say don’t, I said your on your own, we have to do what’s necessary for the country, that’s our duty. Everything we do here is for America now. Can you imagine what would happen if any of those fucking idiots got control of our Whitehouse? So lets agree right now to work together and do whatever we have to do to get this shit done.” Great Bundle Fly that man was convincing, if they do lose he has a future as a motivational speaker. I think I would have flown head first into a bug zapper if he convinced me it was for the benefit of the entire fly kingdom. And it was obvious the rest agreed because they all began happily planning and asking what they could do to help. Two things at this point, first, I was wrong about the dogshit and getting tired of donut crumbs, and this was really getting interesting so I left my post on the wall and nestled into Georges suit jacket for a change of venue and a new food court to check out. When we left I could still hear the tape recorder running.

Tale Of The Tapes (Fly on the wall tells all)

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I…Sticky Lips Sink Ships

I swear sometimes its like they don’t even know I exist. Well that’s fine with me because my Dad always told me its better to keep your mandibles shut and be considered a fool than to make some buzzing noise and remove all doubt. Besides, with those new fangled fly swatters and bug zappers my species has been taking a huge hit in the census reports. I prefer to just sit on the wall and quietly listen to these humans ramble on about all their petty nonsense. Interesting surroundings here I must say, much too clean for this flies taste with not even a crumb or juice spill for me nibble on, but I am in The White House and this is The Oval Office so its only a matter of time until I come across a big pile of bullshit.
I’m not exactly sure how I ended up being a fly on the wall in the Oval Office but the last thing I do remember was sleeping at a bar in a hotel nice and warm all snug in the hidden hairs region of a women that picked me up in a bar. Destiny was her name and my destiny was to find a comfy place to sleep in her warm vulvic pubic bed. I had just flown in from Boston and boy were my wings tired! Destiny had been drinking when some dude started hitting on her. “What’s a beautiful woman like you doing alone in a bar like this?” Phhhhtt. Real original! I started dozing off because I had a feeling this clown wasn’t getting anywhere with my soft hair snuggle mattress . He said his name was George and he claimed he was a powerful man in DC. Oh yea, and a Scorpio. I fell asleep when he started asking Destiny what her sign was assuming Georgie boy wasn’t getting any honey tonight, at least not from Destiny. I got the feeling the asshole was married and Destiny would no doubt pick up on that too so I felt safe and sound curled up in her warm curlies. But great God Brundle-fly was I ever wrong. I never woke up from any of the tussling and troddling but damn if when I finally did wake up if I didn’t find myself here in the Oval Office stuck not in destiny’s coochie cot but in a thick and sticky mustache belonging to George, who it turns out is better known in Washington circles as G. Gordon Liddy.
G. Gordon was a real son of a bitch, even by fly standards. Let me just say that I had no trouble throwing up on his smelly-ass liprug to dissolve some of Destiny’s leftover love juice for my breakfast. He makes puking easy. Apparently he was some kind of bigwig in the FBI and has been screwing people over for a living for some time. He was a personal friend of the other asshole in the office, Richard Nixon. Well listen to my tale as I play the taped conversation and you’ll get what I mean.
“George, did you read what those Godless bastards at the Times wrote about me last night?” George started rubbing his lip which is what caused me to relocate to the west wall. “Dick, I’m telling you, some sonava bitch is leaking stories to those damn reporters and they want to print whatever they can to discredit The Whitehouse. What you need is an experienced, um, plumber, a plumber like me to find the leaks and eliminate them.” Nixon was clearly angry and interested, “Your right George, those pricks are out to destroy me, to take me down. Every chance they get The post, The Times, those pricks Severid and Reasoner, they’re all trying to screw Richard Nixon. Let me tell you George Richard Nixon will not be taken down by some liberal atheist commie shithead. What’d you have in mind?” George shuffled a little as Richard stared out the window. “Look, I have a source who tells me the Pentagon Papers were released by someone working for General McNamara. I have a name. The sonova bitch copied classified files and now wants to leak them for his own agenda. There’s something I want to try. This asshole goes to a psychiatrist and I’m going to liberate the files of this ratfink bastard from the shrinks office for proof. Then we’ll nail his communist ass to the fucking wall! No one will believe a word he says. Listen, I know a few guys from the organization I can still trust, and with me as their chief I’ll find him and any other scumbag commie leaker and get rid of them all. You’ll never be implicated in anything, It’ll be my operation and I’ll run it. Of course I’ll keep you informed but this will give you plausible deniability.” Nixon smiled, “Plausible deniability? I love it George, okay lets go with that. You head up my group, the Whitehouse plumbers.” George was one of those control freaks who need to assert his dominance and replied, “Operation Odessa Mr. President, in here we can be called the plumbers but officially we’re Odessa, part of the Committee To Reelect the President. I’m gonna get my guys together and I’ll report to you in two days. I already have my lead and he’ll be the first sonava bitch to go.” Nixon shook Georges hand and said, “No names George, not yet. These prick liberals are trying to ruin me, ya know? They want to bring own America, become commies and make it normal for our kids to be homos. I don’t think they even believe in God. You bring me some results and I’ll make sure you get rewarded.” George shook Dicks hand, “My reward will be serving you Mr. President, just leave things to me. I have the way to deal with the unpatriotic hippies. I’ll get rid of all your problems Dick.” George left and Dick opened a drawer of his desk picked up a microphone and softly spoke, “G. Gordon Liddy and President Richard Milhous Nixon, June 18th 1971.” and closed the drawer. Hmmm, odd these humans, they seem to secretly tape record conversations. I wonder why?
To Be Continued

How To Start A Universe

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COSMO AND THE GARDEN EARTH
(A guide to cosmic gardening)

PART 1. NOT JUST DUST IN THE WIND

Where should I begin? In the beginning God created the heaven and earth? I think that one is taken but why are we here? Some say in the beginning there was a vast empty space, a nothing vacuum in nowhere until a bunch of atoms spontaneously appeared and took to flying around everywhere (or nowhere depending on your view) when suddenly two overly aggressive atoms collided causing a huge explosion. Spontaneous combustion. The Big Bang! Yea, right! First nothing and nowhere then all of a sudden a Universe so huge it has no end. Wait, hold on, even better, first there was nothing and then the one and only god created shit to keep him from being bored. Spent six days building it then chilled for a few million years. A massive universe with one teeny weenie little speck where he created the supreme lifeforce, human beings that looked just like him, to rule over everything. First nothing then one man, one women, an apple and a snake. Now that’s even funnier! As a matter of fact both of these stories are a source of great humor and hilarity and the butt of many jokes at The Board of Co-operative Gods and Goddesses out in District seven. At any decent cosmic cocktail party you’ll hear no less than a hundred jokes about various theories of how life came to be in any of the life gardens but the Earth stories are by far the most numerous. The “monkey trials” keep gods and goddesses laughing for hours on end at inter-galactic get togethers. There’s not a god worth his sodium chloride that hasn’t heard of Darwin, Moses, Jesus, Mohamed, Elijah. Or the Talmud, Koran, The Bible or even The Upanishads. Stories of a pure evil horned devil with blood dripping from its hands and fear bolts being shot from its eyes keep them rolling in the anti-matter with tears of laughter. Satan, Lucifer, Serpent of Evil, Beelzebub, so many knee slapping names for the antichrist. Oh yes, the earthlings grown by Cosmo are a source of great amusement to all the gods. All the gods? Am I saying there really are many gods? Does a pope defecate in the woods? Is a Polar Bear catholic? Can white bears jump? Of course there are many gods, and many galaxies supporting forms of life. Did you really think you were the only living beings in the entire universe? Jeez, and I thought Wookies were dumb. Well sit back you Vader naysayer and let me tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Well maybe a fabrication or two along the way because YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
In the beginning, Once upon a time, at the outset, none of these phrases apply because life is a cycle with no beginning and no end. There has just always been many gods and goddesses with varying responsibilities. Gods an goddesses perform certain tasks or serve a particular purpose. Some create wind and motion to make global gardens spin, some enforce the law of gravity, some create laws of physics to apply differently in different area‘s, and the brightest gods ponder deeply the laws of the universe and how they should be applied. These are the most intelligent gods and goddesses and they held court to make decisions about everything. It is still known today as The Board of Co-operative Gods and Goddesses. (BOCGG) They made the decisions that effected the farmer gods who were expected to grow and experiment with the various galaxies across the universe. Each galaxy was tended to by its own god. There was great and clever Simon in the Tolkien Galaxy, Mychrighton in the Andromeda Strain Galaxy, The red haired beauty Lucille who watched over the Bobaloo Galaxy, Luke-ass who presided over The infamous Jedi Galaxy that was far far away, and so on. Here in our Milky Way galaxy, the farmer was and is the god Cosmo. Such a good farmer is Cosmo that they named the entirety of space after him. The vast space of the universe came to be known as “The Cosmos”. Travel was known as Cosmic travel, knowledge as cosmic knowledge and any left out odds and ends in space became known as Cosmic debris. Hey there brother, I’m not jiving you bout that Cosmic debris! Cosmo is indeed an accomplished cosmic gardener, in fact he is somewhat of a legend among the other gods. In Solar system 728KJ he had cultivated nine grooving spinning garden orbs he called planets. From the tiny and excruciatingly hot mercury, to the equally tiny but totally frozen Neptune he tended to all nine magnificently. Like the giant Jupiter (which for some reason had red eye in all the family photo’s) with an assortment of moons, and the ill advised named Uranus (No need to tell you the jokes at The District with this one) . He put some cool looking bangle bracelets around the lovely and mysterious Saturn, and named two of the planets after his own Mom and Dad. The entire universe was touched at the naming of Venus and Mars. Yes Cosmo had really taken pride in that particular solar system. But his pride and joy and claim to fame is most assuredly for his work done on one particular planet, known throughout cosmos as garden earth. Garden earth is a rather insignificant looking planet in solar system 728KJ. It is the third planet from Sun 728, and has the benefit of the perfect amount of sunshine. Earth also has a considerable amount of water on it which is the other essential ingredient in growing things. Sun and Water in abundance makes for a smashing garden. Cosmo wants to make planet earth, in solar system 728KJ the most prolific and successful garden in all the universe. With a vast ocean to create clouds which would in turn drop water back into the garden a system of synergetic energy is created. Cosmic irrigation! Garden earth is a thriving ever-growing populace world. A wide variety of vegetation and many roaming creatures inhabit the garden.
But what you see on garden earth today is not how it was at the beginning so put on your seat belt as we travel back in time to see how this all came to be The Planet Earth. Catastrophic is the best way to describe his first attempt. Maybe he wasn’t mature enough or maybe like a fool he just rushed in but either way it’s a story that is told and retold as far away as Gabor40904 which is about eight billion gazillion gamma light years away. To you that would be a mere two point five septillion miles give or take. At any rate here is what happened in Cosmo’s first attempt.

Out Of The Blue And Into The Black, Corporate Greed Rears Its Ugly Head

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Corporations are people, my friend. It was good for a laugh, a talking point that assisted in the self destruction of a campaign but was Romney really wrong. Maybe not. In a somewhat esoteric sense today Corporations have evolved much the same as animals and people. Maybe Romney had something, perhaps corporations do possess life. Matter of fact its my belief that corporations are the new black. Black plague that is, and it has become a growing entity. In CDC terms corporate greed would be classified as an emerging parasitic pathogen, an organism that can only thrive existing off a host, and that host is us. A pathogen is defined as a living organism that can cause disease and there is little doubt that the current financial state of America has become infected with disease caused by greed but what is in dispute is if big business is truly a living entity.
While they may not be living and breathing like humans or animals they have evolved much the same way as bacterial life forms. Business didn’t start out as a living entity, in fact to the best of my knowledge it’s the only non biological entity to undergo such a fascinating evolution, but make no mistake corporations are alive and they are dangerous. They will continue to grow and feed off of consumers while devouring smaller businesses until they rule the world, using a handful of corporate executives to carry out the genocide of humanity.
I can dig it, that sounded like the delusions of a hippie freak who did one too many tabs, or lost his way and joined a conspiracy theory cult, or maybe is still doing drugs and talking through his paranoid freaked out ass. But I’m not talking about some amoeba growing in a lab or some Steve McQueen Blob sort of entity but ya gotta admit corporations are becoming huge and eating up everything in sight. Giant Depots have all but annihilated the local hardware stores, small drug stores struggle to compete with huge corporations for their little slice of the business market pie. Even supermarkets have small pharmacies. And those food grocers better watch out before they fall victims to a bulls eye or a mart of Walls that’s attempting to make our lives a one stop shop extravaganza. Pick up whatever home improvements you need, clothes for the kids, your entertainment needs and even your weekly groceries in one living breathing pathogen. You can even grab some fresh made pizza on the way out.
Mom and Pop stores are disintegrating, even small restaurants are prey to companies that are so focused on profits they never even notice those they destroy in the process. Its not enough to have a successful business anymore, if a small company makes a unique product the big companies will have a cheaper version of it hours after they hear about it. There are over forty people who have more than one billion dollars that didn’t even make Forbes top 400 richest! So if companies profits are stretching into the billions where the hell is all the money going? You’ll never know because the way many people get rich is by finding ways to hide the rich peoples wealth and avoid paying taxes. They scream about giving handouts to the poor and want welfare recipients to take drug and alcohol tests. Maybe not such a bad idea, if the rich are also forced to take blood tests to get tax breaks. Why should they get the benefit of not paying tax dollars if they end up blowing it on designer drugs or over priced premium alcohol?
The gap between rich and poor has become way too wide because greed has gone corporate. Profits over people and if the laws prevent them from making more money then they’ll be able to spend in three lifetimes they can just buy the laws, the lawmakers, and the law enforcers. But sooner or later that system will implode leaving only rich who can afford their products and that’s when corporations will rise from Wall Street and humans will become the next dinosaurs. Destroyed by an asteroid of capitalism driven by executives that lost their way and chose power over life. IDK, maybe I did one too many joints watching the Twilight Zone but I’m afraid the new book called “How Your Business Can Best Serve Man” is really a cookbook!

Punny You Should Say That (An Owed To Joy)

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funny-pun-photos-9

I heard someone say that puns are the slowest form of humor yet it takes a remarkably quick wit. Actually I think I may have heard slowest wrong but after being stalked by corny jokes for so long my ears hear colonel when its really kernel. I get it, they really said it’s the lowest form of humor but I’m still in limbo as to how low to set that bar. At any rate, puns are a play on words that can make a kid kid another kid or make a grown man groan so I want to pay my respect. I normally write in my boxers but I’ll try to keep this in brief.
When I was all of six years old I discovered the power of a pun. We had a gas station named Citgo and one day in the car, with Dad driving, Mom in the front, my little sister between them in babyseat and me squished in between my four older brothers and I made a bold statement. I said “Hmmm, Citgo, where you can sit and go.” Meaning getting gas I raised my arms to pantomime driving. Apparently my driving imitation looked more like someone moving their bowels and the family roared with laughter. That’s when I realized I could use English language to get noticed by pretending to have irritable vowel syndrome if I really pumped up the the puns I could keep them giggling consonantly. I had discovered the lowest form of humor and it lifted me up.
If puns are low its because they are the foundation of clever of humor. They’re black and white and read all over, they’re the reason the chicken crossed the road having its intentions come into question, It’s why it takes three pole dancers to erect a light bulb, and the basis of the omnipresent schoolyard knock knock jokes. All great comedians are pun practioners and are adept at sailing double entendres at triple warped mind speed leaving us land lubbers rolling in the Isles. Whether it’s a three act play on words, a homophone, which as it turns out is not a gay cellular device, or just a simple unmarried Miss direction puns take sharp and fast tongues to verbalize a stream of consciousness quick as a lick. Many punsters, myself included become almost obsessed, trying to twist everything they hear. Someone introduces me to Isabelle and I hear is a bell and feel combelled to chime in with a ringing endorsement about jingle jangling word association. A Pavlonian response that has me salivating at the a peal of making someone smile. If there is a low form of puns it cums from the perverse endless sexual innuendo punster. Those who chuckle and plan at the mention of such easy target words like woody, erect, hole, or the mention of Master Bates. It’s a favorite of that uncle who continues to play pull my finger well past its age appropriateness. For me sexual in your endo jokes are just too easy, like your mom was last night. But it will always have a place in punditry because like splinter religions, sects sells. A truly great pun takes an extraordinary amount of cleverness and thought using one ability to instantly see verbal connections where others see mere words and plugging the pun in before it sinks in. Great puns are like hand grenades because you pull the pin and wait for it to blow up. That’s why I pay homage. That and the fact that I still owe Homage a lot of money. I’m a self proclaimed lover of all things punny. Puns are a part of everyone’s daily life these days and no news story is complete without slinging some puntastic zingers.. Here’s a somewhat exaggerated example:
This just in from Know News is Good noose:
FRUIT LOOPY
A cereal killer is believed on the loose in General Mills campgrounds and campers experiencing in tents fear. Police canvassing their tented community in search of the frosted wheat whacker who is making the campers snap, crackle, and pop. They believe the perp is Cuckoo for Cocoa puffs so The Cap’n is putting the crunch on by running background Chex on all adults using hare brained tricks because every bunny knows that Trix are for kids….

But news stations really do use puns to make their point as in headlines such as “Chickens Cry Fowl” or “Locksmith Plays Key Roll In Bakery Break In.” Another area often engaging in punnery is just about every TV show and movie ever made. The best bantering between actors are scripted with artistic puns. It takes an artist to draw laughs from sketches. Without puns the artist draws a blank but looking around in a room packed with punsters the artist can draw a crowd. So much for a low form, it takes a highly evolved mind to come up with such clever comedy. Dimwitted humor pales in comparison. Slap stick falls flat, bathroom humor smells, and I suck at self deprecation. Sarcasm can be a little bitter, but not much better.

Today puns are significantly more evolved than the early days. I grew up with lines like “Take my wife. Please!” or “I just flew in from Baltimore and boy are my arms tired.” Today it takes much deeper thought because once jokes are use they become less funny. Ten years ago we had Bob Hope, Johnny Cash, Eddie Money, and Steve Jobs, and today all we have this worn out and tired old joke format. Take my wife is now I married Miss right, but I didn’t know at the time her first name was always, and flying in from Baltimore gets morphed to I can’t leave because I was on the third floor of the airport with someone else’s stuff and came down with something. There are a lot of people in the airport so I hope its not terminal or the only thing flying out of here will be rumors. Anyway, IMHO, like rock and roll the puns colors are true so punnery will never dye.
Thanks for taking the time to read this pun praising piece. This thoroughly enjoyable (for me) excursion was inspired by a high school English teacher of mine whom I have had the fortune of reconnecting with on social media. Professor Jim Zeitler shares my profound love of the English Language and our abilities to twist, invert, dissect, misdirect, turn inside out or upside down the words that make up our language to make others smile, laugh, or most important, to think. Jim sent me a book by John Pollack called “The Pun Also Rises” which delves into the history of puns and its impressive how deep and rich the history of witty wordplay is and how long it has been an art form. I dedicate this post to him because while my high school daze are way behind me his dedication to instructing and constructing minds is still going strong and I assume he will forever teach many of us new things. He has once again taught me things dispelling the age old cliché “You can’t teach and old dog new tricks.” And trust me, this old hound dog learned things he can sink his canines in and I’m not peeling the bark off the wrong tree. Okay no more, I’ll stop, I’m bushed anyway! Thank you Jim Zeitler, your wit an wisdom continues to reach out and inspire minds both young and old. … PEACE

Arch Of knowledge

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books

I recently baked an array of cupcakes for a wedding, in which one of the husbands to be is a writer and the other an avid reader. The mother of one of the lucky couple built this arch for them for their ceremony made out of books from the family bookcase, something that if done many years from now may well be an arch made from kindles and Nooks. But it’s a marvelous statement on reading and writing and hopefully will serve as an inspiration for authors to continue their quests to reach out and express. I love this arch because like our lives, it more stories than the Empire State Building. I truly hope their stories for the future are filled with happiness and wonder. Reading is FUNdamental Write on!!!!!

Be a good Girl an Shake your Pom Poms, leave the real games to the boys

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Girls soccer team, the Lumberton Wildcats, playing soccer

No Athletic supporters for girls

A sure sign of autumn is a field of young aspiring athletes in full football gear banging helmets and shoulder pads, while being protected by shin pads and that ever present gonad guarder the jockstrap, or as its referred to in mixed company, the athletic supporter. The boys need to protect the area that houses the swimming team of aspiring sperm cells hoping to be the future generation. So on with the sumo wrestler looking undergarment with that little cup offering assurance that if they play their cards right, someday they will be watching their own little boys wearing a protective supporter. But that’s not the support the boys get that is so overwhelming to me, it’s the support of the Moms and Dads, brothers and sisters that make a social event out of football practice. Lawn chairs, camera’s on tripods, and cheering families are in full force at the sport field in my area. The young lads perform admirably for their audience who are yelling and cheering, running up to get snacks at the concessions stand, and exhibiting their support for the boys. And that was just a practice! I witnessed this as I attempted to take my daily walk with my wife around the track that circles the fields.
The time comes in life when you decide its time to take your health serious, and I am hoping its not too little too late, but eating right and exercise have become more of a priority. When weather permits we go to a track a block and a half away which until recently was used by softball teams with a modicum of supporting casts. A beautiful new track that encircles a huge field, enough for two baseball games or a football and soccer game simultaneously. The track is about one third a mile so six spins gives us a two mile trek an great workout. Every once in a while we need to pass some slower people, or get passed by runners, and occasionally a child watching the game gets in the way, but its rare and a peaceful unobscured walk for the most part. That is until football started.
The first day of football practice we arrived at the track all stretched out and ready to hoof it for a two mile power walk. The level of noise on the way down to the track betrayed the fact that a lot of people were there, but not sure in what capacity. To our dismay when we arrived it was way more than just a lot, it was an over abundance. Two football teams, pee wee and teens, and two cheerleader squad practices were on the field and scattered all around the track were family members and what seemed like every relative of every child in town. It wasn’t a football practice it was a suburban social gathering of ginourmous proportions, way bigger than a PTO or town hall meeting combined. At first it was sorta uplifting, to see such a family oriented gathering watching their youngsters ready to compete in a sporting capacity. And it would have been awesome if only the families had a smidgen of consideration for other people. Unmovable congregations of not bratty teens, but moronic grown ups acting like teens. Bad enough they wouldn’t even consider moving in the slightest to allow others easy passage, but the moronic parents were seemingly unaware of what their kids were up to. Toddlers to pre teens running wildly, on scooters and skateboards not looking at anything, bouncing off other spectators like silver pinballs in the pinball machine. The walk around the track had turned into an obstacle course. No les then three kids blindly ran right into me and when I turned to tell their parent I couldn’t find them. The kids were totally unattended. Hello people, its not babysitting its parenting, and while I appreciate your proud that your chip off the old block makes you proud pounding the shit out of other players, you have other kids too. But then I looked closer, and half (liberally) of the males weren’t watching neither the kids nor the practice. What were they watching? Guess. No I don’t mean you should guess, I mean they were watching a woman wearing a tight Guess tee shirt, anmd they weren’t looking up at her eyes. This bullshit went on for three evenings straight, until Saturday. So what happened Saturday?

The girls took the field the Saturday to begin their season of women soccer. I have no doubt they wear some type of physical supporter, perhaps to protect their mammary glands for a similar reason as the jocks, and hopefully something that also offers them some protection from collisions on the field. What was glaringly absent was the support the boys experienced from the families. No family gatherings with Grandma an Grandpa in tow, no picture taking, no cougars hunting or tongue tied wolf Dads, no screaming and shouting, not much of anything. But let me tell you the girls played with every bit as much heart and determination even without a cheering section, or even a section. The praise, anger, or assurances of their coach was all they received.
I recently saw Billie Jean King in an in interview and apparently PBS made American Masters of her life and accomplishments. In case you don’t know who she is, she played tennis back in 1973 and has quite a resume of winning awards, but what she was most notable for back in the day was her competition against Bobby Riggs, a male tennis player who whether for show or for real acted the quintessential male chauvinist pig. He trash talked her into a showdown billed as “The Battle of The Sexes” and drew incredible attention. She beat Riggs decisively and struck a major blow against misogyny and for women’s rights including equal pay for men and women’s tennis tournaments. But deeper than that, she opened up the eyes and minds of a huge amount of males and helped make many male converts for the Women’s Lib movement. Maybe it should be required viewing in school because it seems our society needs a slap upside the head as a reminder that women are as important as men in all walks of life, including the male dominated genre sports.
Every time I find a young man or woman that are exceptional thinkers I feel like humanity is headed in the right direction. But too often it seems more like a huge step back into Neanderthal mentality with way more people working out to build their muscles in gym, and way too few building the most important muscle in the library. Too much emphasis is put on how we look and not nearly enough on how we think and that’s depressing enough, but if we are going to place so much emphasis on sports lets at least keep it on a level playing field. Truth told this existentialist would be happy without any sporting events because the fans are just too out of control but that’s a rant for another day. Today’s rant is about giving the ladies the same amount of support on and off the field as we do our boys. They play their hearts out, they work hard and they don’t quit. I get it, football is somehow more impressive and brings in money so its smart to spend money protecting their futures with a strap and a cup, but when it comes to making the effort merely to cheer the girls the families fall way short of athletic supporters.