Everyday Superheroes

today's additions to the list:
Ven-Dor (You WILL buy the popcorn)
Flag Man (able to stop all traffic with a single wave)
The Obfuscator (able to endlessly prolong pointless meetings single-handedly)

Auto Biography

Betsy and I were discussing the other day the broadness of the range of human beings - from the highest to the lowest of us is a very wide gap. There is also quite a scope of our possible experiences as humans, and it's always a revelation to read about a life that covers practically the whole of it - for example, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. It makes you as proud as it makes you ashamed of our American, and human, history - proud that we can produce such a man, and how embarrassing when compared to our current crop of so-called leaders. Talk about the range of humanity! It's a story that makes The Odyssey seem like a postcard from a summer vacation.

Experiments in Self-Watching

After having made a number of these videos - telling stories, singing songs, pseudo-acting a little - and then watching them, I've become more aware of my mannerisms and characteristic expressions (ok, twitches), and also my tendencies in cadence, grammar, accenting - in short, the way i tend to act and talk. It is really weird now to feel myself doing these things as if I can actually see it happening. I've never been one for mirrors - this was my brother andy's domain :} - maybe if I had I wouldn't feel so odd about it now.

It's similar to what I experienced 15-20 years ago when I was first recording music. Eventually I got used to the sound of my voice and began writing lyrics that really fit with the way I sang. Now, today when I recorded a few songs (playing some of them for the first time in many years) I was comfortable with the sound of my voice. And even before that, I got used to the way I write fiction and the voice in my head that narrates. I suppose the same thing will happen eventually with this visual component as well. For now, though, it kind of feels like being on the inside and the outside at the same time.

Go Away

Be forewarned! If you don't want to see or hear me singing any old songs by 'Bobby and the Bedouins', please don't visit this YouTube channel, which contains solo acoustic unrehearsed versions of really old songs, to which there is a story attached - they were originally written and recorded (with other instruments and vocals) for a soundtrack to a movie i wrote and never made, about a garage band composed of psychotic clients at a halfway house in downtown San Jose. Today I just felt like doing them. Mostly so that someday my son can see them and have a good laugh :}

Experiments in Story-Telling

Lately I've done a few videos as an experiment in story-telling. Some have been posted here - all are collected on my "epikles channel on youtube". So far I have a few self-feedback ideas.

1. Story-telling is soooo out of fashion. You really don't find it anywhere. There are a lot of confessional diaries (e.g. Lonelygirl15) but not much of just sitting there telling a story about other people.

2. Acting is about overcoming yourself. There are actors in my family (I'm obviously not one of them) and I never really thought about it before, but it seems like you really have to set yourself aside, overcome your typical mannerisms and characteristics and adopt other, new ones. I have no idea how they do this, really.

3. I, like most of my generation and those who've come since, have the attention span of a flea.

4. It takes way too much time and effort to get things right. (I don't know this from experience because I haven't gotten things right yet, because I don't have the time and am not willing to make the effort)

5. It's fun to try new things.

Thankful

My son's kindergarden class has a poster of what each of the kids is thankful for this year. I was thankful that only one of them mentioned anything religious. Most of them were more practical, thankful for their families and pets and presents. Predictably, Matthew mentioned lizards. This is a boy who hardly ever talks about anything but lizards. Johnny was thankful for "the stars". I don't know where that came from. Usually he's thankful for Batman, Bionicles or anything with chocolate.

The Greeter

Sitting on the steps of the factory outlet store, this old man smokes a cigarette and studies the parking lot in front of him. It just goes on and on. He wonders how in the hell he got here. He knows he is old because his knees hurt a lot. The sun is out, the day is cold and the glare in his eyes makes him feel like going back in, but it's only the job in there. The work. He's a greeter. He stands by the door and says hello to anyone who comes in, "welcome to our store". His name tag would introduce him, but no one notices it. Even if they did, they'd have a hard time pronouncing it. Looks like there's way too many letters in that name. Where he comes from, they don't know. He says hello as they walk by ignoring him. He wonders how in the hell he got there. Of course he remembers the airplane, and the airports, and the trains and the bus from the hills past the desert and back to the lake a billion and seventy one miles from here. It was cold and sunny that day too. His grandson brought him over, and just plopped him here, right in the middle of could-be-anywhere. From there to here, the differences are too great to even talk about. The language is the least of it. The cars don't even smell the same. He won't say that he is homesick. He won't say that he is lonely. He just might as well be anywhere. Anywhere at all.

One of these days, he's going to make a friend. Someone will notice him and he will smile and say an even nicer hello than usual. That person, who will remind him of his cousin, perhaps, that person will return his smile, extend their hand, shake his hand, and offer him a greeting in a language he will understand, and on that day, and at that time, he will be happy for awhile.

The Incredible Sulk

Someday they will discover the genetic basis of pouting. I recently had the opportunity to observe the entire mechanism in action, from pre-pout to full and finally post-pout status, and it seemed to serve some physical purpose. Some people - or maybe it's all people some times - may have a need to sulk, to withdraw, to get away, shed tears, and shut out the world.

Seen from a distance, anyone's personality can seem almost mechanical, cyclical, predictable. I can compare my own typical responses to external events to the way my dog bolts out the door and starts barking whenever anyone walks by the house. Or, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, "there I go again".

Door to Door

Door to Door Atheists bother Mormons

Everyday Superstitions

Athletes are famous for their bizarre superstitions (always eating the same meal before every game, wearing the same underwear as long as the team keeps winning, never stepping on the chalk line, etc ...). Many people have their own everyday superstitions as well. Lately mine has been to not let the microwave timer get down to zero.

Deadster

www.Deadster.com - This will be a new site specially designed for afterlife social networking. Templates will be offered in the place of terrestial tombstones. Uploading of photos, videos, and written testimonials will be easy and free of charge. All features will be customizable, with tons of free accesorizing software available. Advertising revenue will be generated courtesy of google for psychic readings, aura measurings, and ash-spread technologies, as well as the more conventional remains disposal mechanisms. Click-through to paradise, inferno, or even purgatory with a single click of the Fate button. Find out who you'll be connected to. Get instant referrals from ancestral spirit guides. Imagine an internet virtually littered with roadside shrines. Don't delay. Registration is limited to the still-living-and-breathing-on-their-own.

Suddenly Erotica III - The Basement

In the latest in our series of unexpected erotica, we are again visiting grandma and grandpa. When we get there, they are chatting with their next door neighbors, another elderly couple. They are very sweet to the kids and don't seem to mind them trampling the roses. As we're playing nerfball in the driveway, my brother-in-law casually mentions to me that I might want to take a peek in their basement window when I get the chance. I do, and see a camera set up on a tripod, a slide-projector machine, and, lining the wall, at least a dozen full color oil paintings of young nude women.

The Light

The kids were chasing a random spotlight around the park at twilight. One odd little blond girl cried out, "Jesus! Jesus is the light!" All the other kids started screaming "JESUS! Where'd it go? Jesus Disappeared" (true story, San Jose @ 'Christmas in the Park', tonight)

Trouble

If I was twins you'd be in serious trouble AND silly trouble - Johnny (age 5)

Dolphins

If you had a trained dolphin it wouldn't even attack you, but if you didn't, it would - Naomi (age 6)

The Babbler

He comes at you at the speed of light, when you're already trapped in a corner or otherwise stuck. He starts in right off, jabbering at you like a blue jay at dawn. You cannot believe how fast this guy talks. Do you know the origin of the Baby Ruth candy bar? It's got nothing to do with the Babe. Did you know? It was named for a president's baby. Her name was Ruth. Did you know it came without wrappers at first? Thta's how they did it, I know, this guy told me, it's true.

And so it begins. a deluge of inane insipid chatter. He covers a lot of ground in a very short time. He tells you about the outrage of street-cleaning no-parking zones and the tickets they give, do you know how much it adds up to? Fifty dollars every other week that would be like a lot over time. He discusses the horror of the mess created by the fall of autumn leaves. If that was my tree, I'd cut it down so fast it would make your head swim. If I only had a chainsaw. You want me to cut that down? I could do it. You know how they sell those things? By weight. What do I want with a heavy one. Give me the lightest model I say. I hate those leaves. What a mess. And why Lincoln's on the left of the penny. And the ink never dries on the dollar. And nostalgia, you can never forget about Elvis.

And movies in general, you remember that guy? The one who was in that movie one time, you know the one. The guy with the face and the hair. He had that thing that he did, remember? 1941 I think, or maybe it was '52.

This bent over little old man with the eyes bugging out of his head and the stream of pure crap pouring out of his mouth, do you know what he said? Do you want to know what he told me? It's true.

Everything he knows he learned from standing in lines and pestering the other people there.

You feel you can't breathe. Is this how you wanted to spend your day off? You're not even waiting in line. It was supposed to be some kind of party. Then you think, wait a minute, I could just walk away, and this guy would not even notice. You do, and he doesn't. You look back and you see he just turned and attacked the next body around. It goes on.

For seventy years it goes on.

The Appearance Fairy

The Appearance Fairy shows up and with a whisk of her wand changes the physical appearance of everyone - skin color, hair, eye color, shapes, sizes, features. Everyone gets changes at random. Families and cultures all over the world are all mixed and confused, but she changes nothing inside you. So what's your identity now? What are you gonna do with your ethnic strife? How're you gonna judge your neighbor?

It's kind of a variation on The Sneetches - mixing it up so that no one can tell who is who and what's what, who has stars upon thars and who don't.

The Role of Reason

I recently read a discussion on the role of reason in religion, and although this conversation was among young contemporary Muslims, it read just like St. Thomas Aquinas, and reminded me that often, the role of reason, in anything, is to justify the outrageous notions the human mind accepts.

I thought of it again while reading the autobiography of Frederick Douglass. That "the founding fathers" accepted slavery in this country is another reminder of this "role of reason".

Suddenly Erotica

Some slightly related items:

1. An erotic theme park that opened in the high Andes in Peru. Not exactly where you might expect to find one.

2. Visiting the shy and quiet parents of my kid's pre-school buddy, and noticing high up on the entry way wall a small, framed painting of full frontal nudity, the greek-god-like man grasping the greek-goddess-like woman from behind.

3. Visiting the grandparents and pretending not to notice the large old painting in the master bedroom of the nude on her back, with a gash across her forehead.

Map of the World

"New Mexico" begs the question, what happened to Old Mexico? The map of the world is a whole lot of stories about who stole what from who.

The Absent City

I am reading 'The Absent City' by Ricardo Paglia. It is natural that I would like this book. I came to it from my recent involvement with the writer Macedonio Fernandez, who is not only a major influence on this novel, but also a character in it. I love unexpected and startling imagery, and Piglia has a talent for this, as in "it was like teaching a foreign language to a dead person". I also like novels where you never know from one sentence to the next where it's going. This novel is full of mystery and surprise, not to mention a series of arresting and alarming short stories.

It is natural that I would like this book, because, not surprisingly, in his afterword, Piglia mentions several of my other favorite writers as his as well - Calvino, Borges, Arlt, Cortazar, Philip K. Dick. (In fairness, I should add that he also mentions Joyce, Pynchon, Burroughs and DeLillo, writers I am not that enamored of).

I also like what he has to say about Macedonio: "He wrote his entire life, and his books are full of prologues and warnings to the reader and advertisements and opinions about his books, but in real life he refused to publish. I like this example of a writer who places himself outside circulation, who works in peace, following his own rhythm, the writer who does not conceive of his books in terms of the customer whose order must be satisfied." I like to think that my twenty-five years of writing so far have (mostly) followed this example, even with these blogs, which are really nothing more than public notebooks hiding in plain sight.

Narrowing the Joy

Toddlers can get overwhelmingly excited just when a ball rolls their way. Kindergartners get excited when they give it a good kick. Third-graders have to score a goal. Fifth-graders have to lead the league in scoring. By the time we become adults, we have narrowed our possibilities for joy so much it is almost out of reach.

Confluence

It takes a lot of influences coming together to produce - anything. whether it's a work of art, an historical event, a relationship, a family, even a dream, the sources are many and complex, and cannot be reduced to simple cause-and effect-explanations (which is why I despise "the psychological novel"). We always want an answer, a solution to every riddle, and find it hard to be satisfied with ambiguity, complexity, and mystery. If our brains were reconfigured to accomodate the vastness and variety of experience, we'd probably be better suited to the difficulties of our crowded world.

I had this dream, last night. I was in an office building which was at least six stories high. For some reason I knew the exterior was brown brick although I never saw it. I was interested in the third floor, because of a rumor that it was haunted. I went with a friend, but I don't remember who - another man - wearing a suit and tie. I think we were both wearing suits and ties, something I never do. I had the feeling that the dream occurred in the 1940's or 50's for some reason, but we were not wearing hats. There were two elevators, and we emerged on the third floor to find it was a vast platform, like a subway station, and the tracks were far below the edge. We backed away and wandered down the platform. At the far end there was a sort of museum piece. It contained the original furnishings of a doctor's office from the wild, wild west, including chairs, couches, tables, medical instruments, notebooks. For some reason it seemed the furniture was unhappy at being stored at the end of this platform on the third floor of this old office building, and that was the source of the haunting. The furniture did not want to be there. We were puzzling over this notion when suddenly the chairs and couches came to life and started chasing us like a poorly made stop-action animation - we ran back to the elevator and jumped on the one to our right, but the furniture had sabotaged the elevator and it wouldn't start. Panicked, we fled to the other elevator and luckily this one started. As the doors closed and the elevator began its descent we realized that a member of our party - an older woman - had been left behind. We saw her on the floor above us, rapidly being surrounded by the haunted furniture. I woke up, startled and afraid. It was two in the morning. I didn't get to sleep again for a very long time.

Later, I woke up again, and was certain I saw the ghost of my ex-cat Ziggy, sitting on my pillow, staring down at me. Ziggy has been dead for nearly seven years.

Zizek

Interesting video of Slavoj Zizek on this blog. I had never heard of this guy but I'm an American - all I ever hear about is Brad Pitt or Madonna! He is a Slovenian academic/crackpot (can one seriously describe onself as a Stalinist and not be a crackpot?) who has quite a few interesting and provocative things to say.

On Creation: His own creation myth begins with a universe that is a void, but a "positively charged" void. This he claims from quantum physics. Then there was some sort of 'disturbance in the force' (as it were), the void went out of balance, and 'things' emerged. This is the origin of life - conceived in error, as a mistake. But, contrary to his assumption, a mistake is not necessarily a bad thing. It is not always a negative. Suppose you made a left turn instead of a right and then you met the love of your life. Not a bad mistake to make.

On Love: He has some rants about love being 'evil' and I didn't quite follow, but it's kind of fun to hear someone saying such things. It has to do with global capitalism and the marketing of desire and how we don't own our emotions anymore but have to purchase them, and all of this is Adorno and Benjamin from mid-20th century and seems a bit out of date - especially considering the rising trends of the production artistic creation moving more and more into the hands of its same consumers. Hollywood hardly has a monopoly on video these days, and advertising? Meet TiVo.

On Stalinism: He has a poster of Stalin in his main hallway - first thing you see when you open the door. He says it's to filter out unwelcome visitors (cute!). He doesn't seem to be an apologist for Stalinist crimes or failures, but he does seem to long for the power it represented, standing against capitalism. There is nothing of that nowadays. As he says, we all seem to have accepted that global capitalism is here to stay.

On Film: He's also quite a fan of David Lynch and Alfred Hitchcock.

Imitation of Life

Dr Nazli would say there are no coincidences and so, since I recently completed a little novel ("Macedonia") which in one part contains a riot of homeless children leading to an overthrow of a military government, it should not be surprising to that I found this story in the headlines today:

KINSHASA, Congo - Scores of homeless children and others living on the streets of Congo's capital have been rounded up and accused of starting a protest that led to violence as an increasingly tense nation awaits presidential election results

No One Can Write Just One

I think that it is hard to be a writer and keep writing. It's hard to not write the way you write. You repeat yourself. You recycle yourself. It's no easy thing to get outside of yourself and do somthing new. It's also hard to stop. Do you remember the potato chip commercial with the slogan 'no one can eat just one?'. No one can write just one, it seems.

So, for the writer, I say go ahead and write, but for the reader, beware. You might just get over-exposed.

House Envy

We just dropped Johnny off at a friend's house to play, and now we have house envy. We look around at our teensy shack and realize, "we've been crate-trained". After 9 years, I finally, today, got my few rotting old books out of boxes in the basement, and put them on bookshelves; the bookcases are ugly (thanks, Ikea, I knew I could count on you), but at least they fit into a weensy corner of our matchbox dwelling.

House Envy. Sometimes we go to open houses and "cheat on" our house. We even asked an advice columnist what he thought. He said, go ahead, why not. Just don't tell the house.

Being Watched and Being Judged

Many people seem to go through life with the feeling of constantly being watched and being judged, by parents, siblings, peers, teachers and school administrators, employers, law enforcement, military superiors, government, and gods. It's probably not much of a stretch, then, to expect some kind of final verdict being rendered at the end of their life. It could be a burden; if I lived with this mentality I would feel trapped, like a circus animal, but to some perhaps it's a comfort, thinking that they'll get a piece of candy later if they just keep quiet and just keep smiling now.

Thanksgiving

reminded that last year my son, when prompted to say what he was thankful for, replied, "I'm thankful for heroes and for all the things that I like"

However, all I can say about Thanksgiving this year is ... what I was most thankful for is that every other day of the year is NOT Thanksgiving!

What To Worry About And How

What to Worry About and How (on video)

Ripeness

My best parenting advice is: "when the fruit is ripe, it falls from the tree". I've used this reminder for everything from toilet training to reading.

the other good one I got from someone else was: "whatever it is, it's only two months"

'Tis the Season

Be sure to say "Happy Holidays" to all of your Pro-Torture Republican friends (PTR's) - that's sure to get their panties in a bunch. They're like Blaspha-Me Elmo dolls!

Belief, System

This month's Wired magazine features "The New Atheism". Why does everything always have to be "New" for those people?

I don't mind people having beliefs. What bugs me is when they go around BELIEVING in those beliefs! (I mean, take it seriously. I try not to take my little mind-things too seriously. It's just the human brain, being self-important as usual ...)

What to Worry About and How

What to Worry About, and How

There are lots of books and articles about 'how to worry less', but when it comes to 'how to worry', period, there isn't much - and what there is seems to be devoted to worrying more productively. If you want to learn how to worry non-productively, you're out of luck. There may be a need for such a guide.

After all, there is so much you could worry about, if you had the time. How do you know which of the many worrible things are worth your time and effort. Should you indeed worry about whether the North Koreans apologized about detonating a nuclear bomb, or whether they did not apologize. Is this apology or lack of same worth worrying about? How to know?

Likewise, should you worry about Americans "cutting and running" or only about them being perceived as the kind of people who would "cut and run"? What is the "cutting" part, anyway? I get the "running". After all, he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.

"What to Worry About, and How" - Worrying does not have to be productive. If it is productive or useful, is it really "worrying"? isn't that what they call "thinking"? I define worrying as useless fretting about things you're actively doing nothing about. You could do something about some of those things, so it isn't necessarily fretting about things beyond your control.

It's okay to worry, but if you want to, you can go ahead and worry about whether it's okay to worry or not.

Parking Lot Cowboy Bouncer

He sits there on the tailgate of his pickup truck, daring you to park. Got official bank business? You'd better. This here parkin' lot's just fer bankin', he growls. Just fer Western bankin', that is.

He's got his cowboy hat tilted just so. Is that tobacco he's chewing? Holy shit, somebody still does that! Day in, day out, this here parkin's just fer bankin'.

There's other parkin' roun' the corner. Yeah, so why can't the friggin' bank customers park over there?

This here parkin' lot's re-served.

If you ain't bankin', they gonna tow yo' ass.

Damn straight.

Okay, so I went into the bank and snuck out the side door where the bouncer couldn't see me. Came back twenty minutes later.

Fine day for bankin', I told him.

Reckon so, he replied.

Parking Lot Cowboy Bouncer (the video)

Why Aliens Are Usually Green

I don't know why aliens are usually green, maybe it's something in the water, but just thinking about it reminds me of all the people who believe in aliens, and even more, who believe that believing in aliens is really, really important.

ok, you can forget about them again. move along. there's nothing to see.

What Goes In and What Comes Out

You do have to pay attention to what you put inside your body and what you put inside your head. Not just food, but music, books, ideas as well. In a sense these are all nourishments. In another sense they are all drugs (or medications, if you prefer). And what comes out is often directly related. Fill your mind with anger and rage and don't be surprised if you break a few dishes (or a package a napkins, eh, my brother?)

Be careful what you absorb. Filtering your intake is the most control you can ever have in this world.

This morning I finished the first draft of Macedonia. I'm not sure it flows too well. I'm not sure I did exactly what I wanted, so I will set it aside and get to work on revising it later. In the meantime, I want to thank the readers who've checked it out and those who've emailed me comments - I appreciate it.

What came out (in Macedonia) is partly a result of what's gone in, over the years. For example, the album 'Proxima Estacion - Esperanza' by Manu Chao. I haven't been able to stop listening to this album for months now, it seems, and it definitely had an influence on the novel. As well as the some of the writings of Clarice Lispector, Macedonio Fernandez, Robert Walser, Italo Calvino, Julio Cortazar, Paul Auster, Jorge Luis Borges, Elias Canetti, and Roberto Arlt. There is an obscure little literary tradition of the tragi-comic satirical meta-novel, and Macedonia belongs in a tiny little cubby in that dark little corner. It ain't one for the airport racks. There's plenty of that around.

Extreme Dadding

One thing I've noticed lately is how rare it is to see parents actively playing with their children at playgrounds, and enjoying it. Again today with my niece (6) and son (5), I was chasing them (playing monster), picking them up and swinging them around, pushing them on the swings, giving piggyback rides, doing somersault races, things like that, and if I ever pause to look around, I'm usually the only dad doing things like this. I have a couple of dad-friends who also play actively with kids (and not just with their own, but with whatever little kids are also around - kids love this stuff! even the ones who take a little while to warm up to it eventually get into it). We play toe-shark in the sandbox or build volcanoes or caves for bunnies or play hot-lava-monster, and so on. It's probably not an age thing (I'm 49 - most dads with kids the age of mine are younger, so what is their excuse?). Most moms and dads just sit there, bored, not having fun. There is so much joy to be had in running around with the little ones, it just seems a shame.

Standards

There was once a commercial for a stereo store, where the customer asks the clerk, "how do I know if this is really a low price?", and the clerk answers, "how do we really know anything?"

How do we know if what we think is what we truly think, or only what we think we think, is basically what we've been told or taught to think? For example, when we see someone and think, that person is attractive, what is the standard of attractiveness we use, and where did we get it from? And just how arbitrary it is! And how it changes from year to year, and from generation to generation. If you took the whole view, that is, if you could be all-people-in-all-periods, you would pretty much have to find everyone attractive!

How do you know if what you think is truly what you think? How do you know when you are thinking for yourself? Why do you take anyone's word for anything that is not a physical fact (e.g. this rock that hit my head is hard)?

Chuang Tsu put it something like this: "How do I know if what they call happiness is really happiness, or not?"

Long Live Us, Death to Them (tm)

Hear exactly what you want to hear, with the new Voco Transtonics System (tm). Turns obnoxious voices into dulcet tones, and rude content into acceptable praise. For example, it may seem that your screechy boss is saying "where's that report!", but with the VT System (tm), some secret spirit's saying "you're ok".

VTonics (tm) can now be yours for the amazingly low price of nothing, and if you act now, we will also send you the astounding certified BlessédPak (tm). This mind-numbing accessory puts you on the right side of every God every time, and can be accessed by merely turning off your brain. Millions have already done just that.

Long Live Us. Death To Them (tm)

Bored To Sleep

At bedtime, my son likes me to tell him about dreams I've had. I long ago exhausted my supply of actual material, so now I just make them up. The plots all tend to have one thing in common - they can go on indefinitely. For example, last night I dreamed I was shopping at the supermarket, and I was looking for the peanut butter. I looked up and down every aisle, inspected every bag, every box, every bottle, every jar, but could not find any peanut butter. Finally I asked a clerk for help. She told me "aisle 3" so I went to aisle 3 and slowly inspected every jar, every bottle, every box, every bag, but could not find any peanut butter. I returned to the clerk who said, "aisle 3? I didn't say aisle 3. I said aisle 7", so I went to aisle 7 and slowly inspected ...

Ok, so last night it didn't work. The kid was just not going to fall asleep no matter how boring the dream. Still, it occurred to me that I could start a line of night-time sleep aid tapes which consisted only of the most boring stories, related in the most tedious drone, with regional variations for acceptable accents and languages. I would call it "Bored to Sleep, Inc"

Manchurian Candidate

Having just seen this movie again, one of the subtleties I noticed was in the portrayal of various ethnic characters, including Hispanic, African-American, Chinese, Koreans, Russians ... The "Communist" Asian characters were a bit stereotyped (especially in the kung fu scene) but the others were not, and for 1962 that was probably pretty unusual.

Also (and we recently noticed this in 'Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie' as well), the movie doesn't constantly manipulate you with music. I am so sick of film music I almost want to watch them all with closed captioning only. If you're listening, Hollywood, leave me alone with the goddamn music, okay? I am actually capable of having my own thoughts and feelings, still (but who knows for how long?)

Bookstore of the Future

This prediction cited from The Grumpy Old Bookman:

My prediction is that, within ten years, and probably a lot less, many of us will be buying our books from a new kind of bookshop. This 'bookshop' will be small - very similar to a one-hour photo shop - and it will not hold stock. Instead, it will print out books from a digital file, and these books will be indistinguishable from the factory-made paperbacks of today. Instead of being printed in a run of, say, 10,000 copies, these books will be printed one at a time, as and when a customer in a particular shop wants a copy.

This makes a lot of sense - The bookstore may have some images and previews of books to some extent (perhaps some touch screens with bookseller-recommended titles) but not the books themselves. I like this for many reasons - saves trees, cuts out to some extent the "middlemen-of-taste" (agents, publishers and buyers) , potentially gives authors more control over their works, and opens the whole world to readers and writers in both directions.

In that vein, over there on the sidebar, an example of this model, and an experiment - some of my own fictional works are available (for preview as well as for sale) as print-on-demand trade paperback books from Lulu.com.

There is also a software opportunity here for an enterprising entrepeneur: Virtual Bookstore software could come in a few distinct flavors with the same backend:

1) as a plug-in for Amazon.com's current "recommendations" clunkiness - why just had a sidebar when you could have a cool user interface with a customized bookstore, with thumbnails, previews, organized into sections, and clickable print-on-demand.

2) as a touchscreen-kiosk based application that could go into coffeeshops as a Virtual Bookstore embedded into tables (like 'pong' used to be) or in other stations. People could browse and preview, and, again, print-on-demand

3) as an embedded cellphone app, similar to 1) but available on your phone. Browse your own customized Amazon-type bookstore or from a selection of custom-designed 'small, independent bookstore' models.

4) go for it, people. Find some software engineers and a VC-pitchman-CEO, raise some megabucks, implement the damn thing. I am way too lazy to do it myself.

Why go to a freaking Megastore when you can browse without walking, without driving, in the comfort of your own car while driving (no, don't do it. i can see the bumper sticker now - Stop Reading And Drive!) or from anywhere, really

As a former independent bookseller whose dream was basically exterminated by the changing economics of books, I would love to see those megastores driven out of business, and whole forests saved by a print-on-demand evolution of bookselling.

More, or Less

A exercise in translation: "Hoy hay mas pasado que ayer" = "Today there is more of the past than there was yesterday"

Do you think that's true? Or maybe we lose the most remote day of the past after each new day, so there is always the same amount of the past. That would be like a finite queue.

Or is there a little more each day, but not a whole day's worth? That would be more logarithmic.

How do we even quantify how much of the past there is? What are the units we would use? I am tempted to call them Mehmets, after my friend Mehmet, as in "my past is seventeen hundred and eighty three mehmets."

Mehmets stands for "memory units".

Is my translation even correct?

What if there were memory rationing - if there was a shortage of the past, and everyone was forced to have equal amounts. They would have to invent ways to limit memories, edit them, reduce and assign them.

Okay, that's just weird.

The quote, by the way, is from Macedonio Fernandez.

Sharing

We like Johnny's kindergarden teacher, but this was a bit much. From her October newsletter:

We begin the day with Shared Writing as the children watch as I write the morning message on the board.

This reminds me of the time I did some Shared Physics with Einstein, when I watched a show about him on TV.

Not So Super Powers

The power of invisibility - superb when hiding from enemies, not so good when seated in a restaurant.

the power of telepathy - useful at a job interview, not so good on a blind date.

the power of stopping time - handy when defusing nuclear detonators, not so good during company "all-hands" meetings.

the power of x-ray vision - not sure this one's ever that useful, really.

Help-O-Matic (tm)

All problems are the same problem - relative differences in perception. The solution to all problems is quite obvious - eliminate all differences in perception.

Everyone should be hooked up to a universal biofeedback generator. When you stray from the accepted perception, you are gently coaxed back into it. The accepted perception is decreed by a confluence arrived at by involuntary consensus. No individual or conscious group decides what the proper perception is - this is determined by massive continuous subcognizant measurement and adaptation.

Example: The speed limit in your residential district is 20 miles per hour. The speedometer in your car tells you how fast you are going, but you do not pay attention. To you, it feels like you are going 10 when you are actually going 30. To make you go exactly 20 miles per hour, your brain must accept the common perception of what it feels like to be going 20 miles per hour. Once you perceive properly, you will behave properly.

Example: You are talking too loudly. You don't realize you are talking too loudly because that's the way you always talk. To make you talk at a more reasonable volume, your brain must accept the common perception of what it sounds like to speak normally. Once you perceive properly, you will behave properly.

Example: You are working too hard. You don't notice because at your job you always work this hard. Other people are not working as hard. You don't have to, either. You will be much happier when you accept the common perception of what it is like to work just hard enough.

Example: People do not like you. You ignore them while trying to get them to listen to you and do what you want them to do. You don't notice they perceive you as a selfish, boring asshole. Perhaps if you were slightly more human, they would like you better. Once your brain has been trained to know what it is like to be a decent person, people will like you better.

Now then, I have solved several problems for you and saved the lives of some kittens who live on your street. In return I have asked only that you exchange your perceptions for those of the masses in aggregate. Technologically, this is currently out of reach. Sociologically, however, it has been known to exist for a very long time, under the guise of 'conformity'.

Megazord Index

All Power Rangers viewers know that the hero teens team up to form a giant superhero greater than the sum of their parts - this thing is called a Megazord. Yesterday my son reunited with his pre-school friends and almost instantly these Musketeers re-formed their megazord bond and played seamlessly and joyfully for hours, just as they used to do. It made me think of the mysteries of love and friendship, and why it is that some couples, friends, and families have a high Megazord Index while others have little or none at all. I have no answers, just the idea that the strength of a relationship could be measured in these units.

Little Miss Cleavage

Have you seen her? She is always wearing a low-cut top, and her breasts are always escaping, but at the same time she's engaged in an eternal struggle to cover them up, with a jacket or a sweatshirt or just her arms across her chest. She could avoid this battle by wearing something different, but apparently can't help herself. She only buys one kind of top, as if her breasts do all the shopping.

It's the activity that draws your eye; the boobs themselves are not enough. Look! See? Now you see 'em, now you don't. Check 'em out! What are you looking at? Hide and Seek. Peek-a-boo. Open, close, open, close. Tug, and release.

Hello? Could you please stop playing with them for a moment? Someone might actually want to talk to you, not to them. Thank you very much.

Micro-Psychotic

A friend of mine just finished an excruciating stint of jury duty, culminating with the rejection of an insanity plea. The killer in question broke into her boyfriend's apartment, waited for him to come home, then stabbed him repeatedly. My friend had to listen to stuff like this:

"The defense's expert and one appointed by the court said she had suffered a "micro-psychotic episode'' when she stabbed the 57-year-old McCandless. The prosecution's expert concluded that while she had a borderline personality disorder, she was not psychotic. He said she suffered from an "adjustment disorder'' related to McCandless having rejected her."

I know all about "micro-neurotic episodes" - I have one every morning when I have to shave in exactly the same pattern every day, or else god knows what might happen! I guess a "micro-psychotic" episode might resulty in slightly more damage to my face.

How do they measure those things anyway? In psychrons?

The Rudolph Corollary

From a friend: this rule states that if you dislike someone, chances are
you will also dislike their spouse

Doomed

Yes, once again the word of the week is "doomed". We here in the West are "doomed". Doomed if we do and doomed if we don't. Dooming someone (verb?) is not hard to do. Just say "you are doomed". This happened to my family not too long ago. My mother invited my cousin out to dinner, but it was for a friday night, and she was unaware that this guy's friday night dinners were a hugely critical piece of his whole world structure (religion, of course - how else can "doom" come into the picture?). Well, he decided that she did know exactly the significance and she was trying to undermine and even destroy his faith (i guess ...), so he pronounced her and her entire family "doomed". As far as I know, we are all still doomed. I'm not exactly sure when and how this dooming will occur and what form it will take - maybe it's the reason I've never won the lottery, or maybe it's the reason I missed that light on El Camino Real last week. Perhaps there's a bag of spinach with my name on it lingering on some grocery story shelf somewhere. Do not know. But then, doom seems to be my destiny, if it's just another word for death. If they're saving it up for the next world, then fine, go ahead, if it makes you feel better. Doom all you want.

Endless Flow

On Lulu.com's bestseller list, you will find "How to Become an Alpha Male", for only $47.97 per copy ... and check out this teaser:

"Dubbed "The lazy man's way to easy success with 20 or more women a month," How to Become an Alpha Male is the no-risk, never-fail blueprint on how to 'magnetically' attract an endless flow of beautiful women to you... without ever having to play their games or deal with rejection."

Not so sure how I'd feel about the "endless flow" - I guess you would need to buy the sequel to find out how to turn off the spigot.

Also, do you like the bit about "their" games? Of course "we" would never do such things. But I'm not certain if these games apply to all women or just the "beautiful" kind.

Deja Tune

When you hear a cellphone ringtone that used to be yours.

The Big Book of Resentment

All of us carry a big book of resentment around with us wherever we go. At appropriate times, we open it up, and log another entry. Someone is better-looking than we are. Someone beats us at cards. Surely they were cheating. We were going to say something, but then someone says it first. We would have said it better, but now it's too late. Someone gets a bigger slice of pie, and we like pie.

It isn't necessarily a book of big resentments, it's that the book is big because there are so many of them, and they accumulate from very early days, when we're babies and things are not exactly how we want them to be. We do not like this food they are stuffing in our mouths, but we have no words to tell them. We push away the spoon and they think we are being cute.

Someone cuts in the line ahead of us. Someone gets a better seat. Someone came into the restaurant after we did and look, they already have their food and we do not. Someone got the promotion after we worked our butts off but they were bigger ass-kissers. We deserved a gold star but only got a silver one because some other guy pushed us and we pushed back and we got caught not them.

We want to sleep, but someone wakes us up. We want to go, but someone's taking too much time getting ready. We want to use the bathroom, but someone else is in there. We want noodles, we get rice. We ordered the blue, they shipped the green.

We've got a lot of entries and one of these days we're going to sit down and organize them into nice little categories and add things up and find out who it is who ripped us off the most. Was it the weather? Was it the city? Was it the school? Was it mom and dad? Was it the obnoxious little sibling or the obnoxious older one? Was it the boss? Was it the so-called friend? Was it God almighty who after all is pulling all the strings behind the scenes if you believe that kind of thing.

Some resentments we write in blood red ink. These can never be erased. Others are merely penciled in. Some are only notes we planned to fill in details later, then forgot.

The book gets heavier all the time. We carry it around. We bring it out for show and tell at lunch with friends. Some resentments are shared with others. Some are ours alone. Some we never talk about. Others we bring up all the time. How interesting. Tea cups made of tin foil.

We love our book. In some ways it is who we are. If we lose it, let it go, than who do we become? Selfless, without memory, without pain. We might as well be clouds.

Respect

Questions:

1. Do people have to earn your respect? (or do you start out treating them with respect, and they can only lose it?)

2. Do you think people merit respect for what they have done in the past (or for what they are doing right now? in other words, how much does past merit outweigh present demerit?)

3. Do you believe in tokens of respect? (how do you express it? is respect to bow and scrape? is it respect to treat someone the same as you expect to be treated yourself?)

Want To Live Better Every Day?

Then Drink More Lipton Tea

actual slogan on the box of teabags. They neglect to mention how much more you should drink, and whether your life improvement will be in direct proportion. for instance, if i drink 25 cups more every day, will my life be 25 times better? and how much should i drink before my life is good enough?

25 Things

I've noticed on lots of blogs these questionaire games, so I thought I'd invent my own, called "Tell Me 25 Things I Don't Want To Know About You".

Suddenly Erotica II - The FlipTop

Picking up where we left off:

The ultimate in porn-modesty has to be in grandpa's tool shed, where a large poster of a playboy centerfold from the mid-seventies adorns one darkened wall. She has got lots of teased blond hair, farrah fawcett-like you understand, and is sitting on a chair spread-eagled looking right at you, with all her various aspects right up front, but apparently the exposure was just a tad too much, 'cause grandpa placed a small piece of cardboard there to cover up her nether region. The cardboard's only taped on top, though, so if you want to flip it up, you can go ahead and suit yourself.

Truth and News

They did it again. I'm driving to work and the all-news-all-the-time station mentions that gas prices bottomed out "on election day" and that the reason is "supply and demand". How can they tell the same lies over and over again as if it was always the first time? They can easily say anything without a trace of irony - such as, the war is a disaster, it cannot be won, and therefore we need to send more troops ?!?

Truth and Advertising

One of my favorite false pretenses is "the family newspaper" - this is the paper that runs a full page ad every single day for women's underwear. I'm sure that Macy's will tell you that it really helps them sell a lot of underwear (I am sooo sure) and I'm sure the San Francisco Chronicle offers them no incentives whatsoever. It's all for the good of the community.

Tom is making me do this (by Betsy)

I was working at home today, watching Charlie Rose during my noon break. Old Charlie was doing a little retrospective on the defunct Milton Friedman. Charlie showed a tape of an interview in which he was asking Friedman scintillating questions, like, "What do you want your legacy to be?"

Anyway, two little thoughts occurred to me while watching this interview. The first thought is that Milton Friedman never changed his mind. He stuck with his small-government mantra to the very end. At one point in his youth he thought that anti-trust activity by the government *might* be justified; later he changed his mind. But the overarching principles never changed. He never publicly expressed any self doubt. He was so damn SURE of himself.

The other thought is that this self surety is exactly why he was so influential. Apparently, it feels good to follow people who are sure of themselves. Even if the espouser is completely wrong, at least he is sure!

OK, Tom, is that good enough?

Migration

South for the winter sound good right about now ...

The Neifi Index

A rare sports break, to reference The Neifi Index, a statistic invented by King Kaufman at salon.com that measures how poorly a team does when it plays a certain player, versus how well it does when they keep him on the bench. The award is named after Neifi Perez, a utility infielder who has a rather amazing history of demonstrating this statistic. When he plays, his teams lose. When he doesn't play, they win, to such a remarkable degree that it's astounding he ever plays at all. And not only that, the winning percentage of his team, when he plays, is very often quite similar to his own lousy batting statistics. Say he gets 2 hits for every 10 at bats. At the same time, his team wins only 2 games out of every 10.

There is bound to be a business corollary here - the track record of a company's decisions whenever a certain executive is involved in making it, or the failure rate of public companies corresponding to the presence of a certain board member. There are certainly programmers whose addition to a project can inexorably doom it. This I have seen for myself

Nature Ain't What It Used To Be

a trilogy

1. yet another "rare" white buffalo was born today, ushering in yet another era of peace and prosperity

2. reminds me of a native american former colleague of my wife's, who once explained to her that, if she were a native american, she would "really be able to appreciate" the sight of a duck flying across the freeway.

3. also recalls an actual quote from an actual interview with Axl Rose some years ago. He interrupted a question to say , "woah, a blue jay. that means someone just died" (my neighborhood is home to flocks and flocks of blue jays, so i guess we're really laden with meaning)

Dismantled

My son spent the evening quietly and diligently dismantling all of the Bionicles we had spent the past several days constructing. When he was done, he suddenly burst into tears, and remained inconsolable for a few minutes, mourning the deaths of his little lego friends.

Fortunately we had already taken snapshots of all of those deemed "picture-worthy".

Who Are These People?

Something I've wondered about for awhile ... All of those naked people online and in print, who are they? There seem to be millions, so if you live in a city or town of any size, some of them must be people you see every day. And then there's this:

(09-08) 12:12 PDT Snyder, Okla. (AP) --

The police chief, the mayor and a councilman in this small town resigned Friday amid an uproar over nude photos of the chief's 300-pound, tattooed wife that she posted on a Web site.

Sisyphus@Home

Spending the weekend dismantling and remantling Bionicles (thanks to the boy's birthday, we now officially have way too many of the things)

The movie will star Adrien Brody and Jennifer Connolly as us. The title, "The Day The Yard Stood Still". In act one, we watch the weeds grow. In act two, we bitch about it. In act three, we agree we really don't mind - weeds are plants too, you know.

ThreeStages of Organic

1. Delight: Everything we serve is organic! (actual chef quote)
2. Excuse: There's a beetle in your salad? That's because we only use organic lettuce (actual waiter quote)
3. Apology: Is the coffee any good? It's organic, you know. (actual barista quote)

Take it Easy, White Folks

My friend Chopper always wanted to get a bumper sticker like that - Take It Easy, White Folks!

Nowadays the Green Scare's got all sorts of people in a tizzy. I even saw one right-wing blogger freak about the unfortunate Afghan man who ran over several people during a psychotic driving episode last week in San Francisco. Never mind that people can be mentally ill regardless of their nationality or religion, this blogger was screaming, see? see?

Heck, everyone with an Arabic sounding name might as well be put in an internment camp, er, sent back across the border, um, shipped back to Africa, er, put on a slow boat to China, um, goddammit, put on a reservation or something. I mean, everybody knows that America is for the white, the fat, the dumb, and the goddam judeo-christian tradition (well, maybe without so much of that judeo stuff) and we know all about how segregation, discrimination and out-and-out racism works wonders, solves all problems, and it's the American way, by gum.

Ever notice when things aren't going so well, there's always someone darker to blame?

Reminds me of a certain movie genre I liked to call "white people screwing darkies in the tropics" (WPSDT). Can you think of any? For starters, I present "The Year of Living Dangerously".

The Essential Fanatacism of the World

"Eterna" has a prologue entitled "El Fanatismo Esencial Del Mundo".

One of my favorite sayings (albeit from Nietzsche) is that "life is no argument, because the conditions of life could include error". This can serve as a pre-rebuttal (prebuttal?) to intelligent design, by simply denying the 'wonderfulness' of creation. What if it's all just a big mistake?

But the new thought, from the title of this entry - what if fanatacism really is an essential quality of being human? Some people argue that there is a genetic basis for religion (my wife and I had a big fight about this. It's funny what we fight about. Nothing important, ever, but trivial things? Oh yes).

What if being insane is fundamental to being alive?

Ahmadenijad says if you don't follow God's path, you're doomed. Silly man. What if you're doomed if you do and doomed if you don't?

But he, by being a fanatic, may be closer to the essence of humanity than I, with my beloved detachment. It takes a Darwin to notice that pigeons don't perch, or willingly roost, on trees. All he had to do was pay attention, observe. It takes something else to believe that the creator of the universe periodically pays visits to nobodies and tells them The Truth with a capital T. Ain't no way to test that.

One blade of grass says to another - the way that I'm bending is The Way. Follow me!

People Like That

There are some people you don't even want to start talking about. Just thinking of them brings bad clouds over the ridge. You want to make fun of them, but don't even dare let them cross over onto the page, because there they'll sit, looking up at you, gloating that they won. You're the loser (they say), yes you're the loser (quoting Curve), you think you're above God, and beyond reach ... you stupid narrator you.

These characters must not be sketched. Put them back in the drawer and lock it up tight. And when you hear that knocking in the middle of the night, just close your eyes and go back to sleep, if you can.

Webfog

When you go online in order to do something specific, but start looking at other stuff instead, and eventually forget what you went online to do, and shut down your computer, and then suddenlly remember, we call this a webfog, as in:

"I logged on in order to put a comment on Tim Footman's always interesting blog, but I went into a webfog and completely forgot to do it"

Shangu

Shangu, the power of fire and balsamic vinagrette

Work Ethic

Do you ever wonder, when you are bored at work, what exactly it is they are paying you for? I always feel like I should be working at top speed all the time or else I'm wasting their money. When am I ever going to get over my stupid work ethic? Do I really think that when I'm dead and gone I won't be "dead enough" for my superiors?

Waxy Buildup

Welcome to 1040-A (The Short Form), formerly Pigeon Weather Dot Blog

After building up a teensy bit of brand identity, I felt it was time to tear it down - it's sort of a "permanent revolution" kind of thing. Like periodic house-cleaning. Every now and then I get a chance to go through the basement and throw everything away, take a huge truckload to the local dump and say goodbye to all of that waxy buildup. That kind of thing.

1040-A is the short form used for simple tax returns. It's also the name of the notebooks I used to keep for years, which have been replaced by blogging. "Pigeon Weather" was bringing me a whole lot of people looking for information on why pigeons shit all over the place. Now I'll probably get people looking for tax preparation help.

The blog will be pretty much the same - observations, notes, brief stories, occasional videos, historical rants, book reviews, useless inventions, word creations, parenting bits, propaganda in favor of what I like and against what I don't. Now in beta blogger technicolor.

Content has not been formatted to fit onto your screen.

All characters are still, as ever, presumed to be innocent, until you get to know them.

Jinx

'Conjuring up evil spirits' is sometimes also known as 'getting in touch with old friends'

Birthday Party Quote

A German man said, "I will not touch your American cake!"

Days Like Those

There are a handful of days in a life that really stand out. Seems the first day of kindergarten is one of those - the first day of any new adventure (school, job, home, etc ...). Other days seem bland in comparison, but happily so. Unless you're an adrenaline boy (or girl), you'd explode from the stress if you had too many days like those.

People Against Winter

People Against Winter is forming now. Your contributions could help prevent winter from arriving, keep daylight from shrinking, and stop the menacing encroachment of darkness.

Waiting

A friend and I saw a wedding in a park the other day. At first we thought it was a quincinera because the bride looked so young. We finally asked someone and he told us that the bride and groom were both eighteen. But it's okay, he continued. They've known each other for four years, so at least they waited.

Bla Bla Bla

My wife and I are talking in the kitchen. From the other room comes the sound of a little boy saying "bla bla bla, all you ever do is talk. When are you going to do something important, like play with me?"

Snippets

Thoughts while out on the town (okay, it's only Half Moon Bay but we like it)

Why the impulse to name every little thing, nail it down, put in in a box. every little thing.

Funny how you go around without 'rubbing elbows' with the super-rich, and then when you do see them, how weird the lives they lead - with drivers, dressing up, smelling like a rose, small talk with the little people, masters of the universe or at least of their own bubble world.

in our favorite little bookstore (Moon News), how many pretty little books. seventeen dollars for twice as many words, but oh, my, how dainty they are.

and then some really fat books. how could anyone write a book so fat? more than a thousand pages is something of an obscenity. But on the whole, the size of books in America is in inverse proportion to the size of Americans. Most of the books are slender tomes, most of the people obese. It seems we have little to say but a lot to eat.

books about ordinary parents raising brilliant kids. or brilliant parents raising ordinary kids. books about people who are worrying about their little futures. are we doing everything right? are we doing anything right? how much rightdoing is enough?

if i worry enough, does that make me deep?

uh-oh, now i'm worried that i might not be worrying enough.

Q & A

A friend asked her son if he knew what raw sewage is. He replied, sure, it's uncooked sewage!

Stock on the Shelf

Working in bookstores for many years, and writing fiction during and after that time, I had a personal taboo against publishing anything. Partly this came from a Bob Marley song ('Pimper's Paradise') where he wrote "don't be just a stock on the shelf". Partly this came from my feeling that I just wanted to write, not "be a writer". I felt that if I were to publish anything, I would lose my freedom to write whatever I wanted to, to explore in any direction, and my goals in writing were to experiment, try new things, and not repeat myself. I have hardly seen any published writer who did not wind up repeating themselves ad nauseum. Well, maybe that was all just ego, but that's the way I felt. Now that I've been out of bookstores for awhile, and am pushing fifty years old, I'm no longer concerned about getting pigeonholed or limiting myself. I am still writing, and I'm still writing whatever I feel like writing, and nothing is going to change. So it was with some small satisfaction that I finally broke that taboo, with the publication of a little story in an online 'zine, which probably doesn't even count! I will never be a stock on the shelf, at least not one that anyone wants to buy, which is just the way I like it.

Theoretically It Should Work

I actually heard a software engineer say those words out loud just now. A former boss used to have a sign posted above his desk: "In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is"

Don't Know Why I Thought This Was Funny

It's really not, but:

"New Zealand's indigenous Maori population reacted angrily on Wednesday to a researcher's findings that Maori have a high representation of a gene linked to aggression ."

Modern Parent

Every single one of them belongs to "The Church of Raising Kids My Way" - talk about your sectarian strife!

Collected Works

Just as today they publish the correspondence of famous people, some day they will publish their "Collected Comments on Other People's Blogs"

Dog Bite Days

While my new neighbors big dogs were chasing me back into my yard last night, my brother's dog (the aptly named Zidane) was biting children thousands of miles away. Another new neighbor related the story of how, as a child in Turkey, he was attacked by a pack of wild dogs. Everyone I met had another dog bite story. This topic is a genuine proliferator. So, what's your dog bite story?

Headline of the Day

"Universe Might be Bigger and Older than Expected"

as my anonymous commenter noted - it sounds like a bad internet date: woah, you're bigger and older than I expected!

A Metaphysics of Nonsense

So nice to come across a parallel spirit - for me it is the late Argentine writer Macedonio Fernandez

His "Museum of the Eternal Novel" was possibly the first "open-source" novel, where the author encourages any and all future readers "to freely edit it, with or without mentioning my name".

One quotation:

"You don't need to be reminded how humanity has suffered from the ingratitude of bridges"

He had a certain "joie d'ecrive"

The Fullness

What does it mean to live your life to the fullest? If you're busy measuring in the back of your mind, does that detract from the fullness? The worrying about whether or not you were actually doing it? Or does it mean simply to jump off cliffs and out of planes or dart through traffic on a bicycle? And what if you have already lived your life to the fullest? If you stop, even for a day, does that take away from the fullness? Does it begin to drain out like a bathtub? And do you hear that sound you hear when you duck your head under the water? And when you die, does it all just spill away to nothingness? And if so, is the measure of the fullness only the time it takes to drain the tub? Does the empty life drain quicker and cleaner than the full life? How do you measure the fullness of a life?

extracted from The Fullness

Fake Snakes

Admit it. You go to the zoo. There's a glass case allegedly containing a snake. You don't see the snake. Other people claim they do. Eventually you're forced to agree that a bump on a branch is probably the snake. Give it up! There is no snake. It is just a practical cost-cutting measure.

WOW

Diligent readers may recall a recent incident in time travel where an old man lost his glasses, and then found another pair that wasn't his, but was like the pair he once wore as a youth. He ascribed this, of course, to the migration of objects between parallel universes (not just happenstance, such as their being someone else's glasses, perhaps).

Well, another subscriber to this "timeloops" Yahoo group chimed in with this response:

"WOW this is really interesting! I have had things disappear... literally. ..only to re appear later..and I KNEW "something" was going on...but this situation beats all! Wish we really knew how and why things like this occur."

Why There Is No [ ... ]

Because you can only see what you are looking at

Because you can only hear what you are listening to

Because you can only believe in what you want to

One side of the coin can never see the other side

Disbelief Suspenders

I'm no good as suspending disbelief. I want fiction to make sense, even though reality doesn't either. In the novel 'John Henry Days', when J. and Pamela get together, I didn't believe in it. The author spent a lot of time and effort creating and portraying these characters, and it seemed obvious they would get together, but when they do, it didn't seem to suit them. On the contrary, in 'The Human War', when the guy goes to a strip club to "get a boner", it seemed totally in character, although the author didn't spend nearly as much time and effort at it. It's just that the one thing seemed 'in character' and the other didn't (to me).

If you create a character, shouldn't you have them do and say the kinds of things they would do and say? Or can you just go ahead and have them do and say whatever?

Nietzshe said something like this - "if a man has character, he also has his typical experience, which continually re-occurs" (Zidane plus head-butt, for example). I always took this to mean that, in fiction, you should try to keep your characters true to themselves.

But if you're a good disbelief suspender, you just go along with it. You say, okay, J. and Pamela got together. Isn't that nice? Now they'll be happier, and we like them and we want them to be happy, so it's good. And people just happen to fall in love all the time, so these guys could just go and fall in love too.

Sympto-Matic (tm)

This amazing device (not available in stores) can generate symptoms on demand for any occasio

Too Much and Not Enough

I'm reading two novels at the same time. One has too many words (but which ones would you remove?) and the other has too few. One reads like the author had all the time in the world. The other like the author had only an hour to get it all down. One reads like it was written by an older person, the other by a teenager. One is not as interesting as it would like to be, the other could have been more interesting than it is. One has so many memorable turns-of-speech that I cannot remember a single one. The other can't put four words together at a time. One is really a novel. The other doesn't even want to be. I won't recommend either one, but I will finish both.

Old Age or Time Travel?

A man writes in that he had misplaced some items and then found them again - one item re-appeared after two years. The other re-appeared after nearly fifty years. Were these items lost in time or space or both? Can objects traverse across parallel universes? If you put down your plate of spaghetti, will a different 'you' polish if off? Is that what happened to my dinner the other night? Did i falsely accuse the dog?

Acreage

A friend (Cynthia M) told me once, that a Jehovah's Witness told her, that come the day, each of the chosen will receive some acreage from the Lord - not the bad stuff, like he gave the Jews, but quality land, with soil you can be proud of - and then there was the question of what happens when they run out of decent acreage here on Earth, and apparently the Lord will prepare some additional quality sites on other planets. Then the people will abide - bored out of their freaking skulls while squatting on their claims - for all eternity, never aging, never in need or want (I'm assuming they all get NetFlix). Now, I'm not saying they're delusional but, as my father used to say, "For crying out loud!"

Comfort Zone

When I first fenced in the yard, to keep the dogs in, they kept finding new ways out. After I'd patched all the ones they'd found, they stayed in the yard. Some years later, I got a new dog, and she immediately found new ways out. These were obvious and had been readily available to the other dogs, but they'd settled in, and were no longer looking for a way out.

Coincidence in Deutsch

Somehow my son got on the german language version of www.bionicles.com and was figuring out how to play the games anyway (one or two spieler?). later in the evening, we took two of his bionicle toys down to the playground. No one was there (it was one hundred degrees, and dusty and dry) except for a family we had never seen before (we live in a very small town, less than a thousand people, and twenty miles from anywhere), who turned out to be speaking german. The mother was carrying a paperback book and occasionally sneaking a peak at it. I was curious (thought it was a travel guide, and they were hopelessly lost tourists) and went around for a closer look - it was a bionicles adventure book. in german

Project : Memory

A project I wish I had started many years ago - write one sentence each about every person I have ever known, without repeating myself.

Because there is so much material, and my memory is insufficient

T.M. and R.G., who got caught fucking in the bookstore bathroom, and were immediately fired.

That drunken cowboy night manager, who spent most of the evening at Antonio's getting plastered, returning only to berate the staff for not doing something he hadn't asked them to.

The security guard who bulked up lifting weights, the better to carry out the large cartons of bestsellers he would steal on friday nights.

The fat-bearded know-it-all who surrounded every meeting at Sun by rolling his swivel chair in position to block the door, so that no one could leave the room until he'd had his say.

The wannabe-Raymond-Chandler's girlfriend who would play the same Pretender's song over and over again, picking up the needle and replacing it on the turntable to keep hearing the part where Chrissie Hynde sings, "maybe tomorrow, maybe someday"

The Russian girl who was hired as a cashier at the bookstore in Georgetown, who couldn't add two plus two, but who would gladly fuck the manager to make up for her shortages.

The homeless guy who cornered me one day at Dupont Circle and wouldn't let me pass until I had promised to look up a particular verse in the Bible as soon as I got to work. The verse was from Ecclesiastes - "of the making of many books there is no end". I always wondered, did he know I worked in a bookstore?

The girl who visited me once, and refused to eat or speak for twenty-four hours.

The girl whose cat once pooped in her boyfriend's shoes.

The guy who went to the movies every thursday and would repeat long passages from the dialog on fridays. We later found out he was cheating on his wife and had seen all the movies before. It was an art house.

The guy who claimed his co-worker was Satan and was fucking him up the ass every night in his dreams. When he was fired (for being insane), he refused to leave, but showed up every day, claming that God wanted him there.

The forementioned co-worker who practically WAS Satan, as far as Mid-America was concerned. The horniest bastard who ever lived. And the funniest.

One partially remembered person leads to the next, in a paper chain of summations.

The dog, Pamela, a German Shepherd who lived next door. Every night around midnight, the owner would come out on her back porch and yell, PAMELA! PAMELA! GET IN HERE YOU BITCH!

The history of my best friends: David, Philip, Giorgio, Dave, Richard, Chris, and Chris.

Marshall, who always referred to the publishing house of Holt, Reinhart, and Tuna Fish

Another David, who loved the Grateful Dead and LSD, and dreamed of opening a Bagel Shop in Passaic.

The guy who gladly fixed me up with his girlfriend, so he could get on with being gay.

Ann Taylor, the King of the Basement

My first boss, whose first question on my first interview was "what's your favorite drug?" When I said "weed", he answered, "we're mostly speed freaks around here".

Same boss, legendarily mooning Nixon's lawyer from the mezzanine, and declaring "we don't sell books to crooks in here"

My dear friend A.F. with every strike against her - she was black, gay, legally blind, alcoholic, depressed, abused, radical, feminist, folk singer

The woman I slept with just because she was so proud of being a missionary. I hate missionaries.

Frank Stack, who had a little bookstore he called Stack's - this man had what I always wanted. My brother worked there for awhile.

The foreman with the stash of moonshine, who chased my roommate with an axe around Alexandria one night - the night of the grand bookstore opening - while some of us fled in a decoy car.

His very small girlfriend with the extra large shades, to hide her various bruises.

The janitor with the deep low voice and the warmest laugh on Earth.

My friend M.V., who house-sat for me occasionally, leaving behind cases of empty beer bottles, and her nightmares on my pillows.

Her friend, murdered by her Japanese husband, who wasn't even arrested, because at the time, it was not considered a crime.

Little John, the most feminine person I ever knew.

Our Ethiopian night clerk, who, when confronted with a phone bill containing $400 worth of late night calls to Addis Ababa, claimed "it must have been someone else".

The fish-eyed owner, who demanded I fire someone because a friend of his claimed that "a black man had been rude to him". He didn't care which of the several black male employees was fired. His friend could provide no more detailed description, and none of these men looked anything like each other - one was 6'2 and bald, one was 5'10 with dreadlocks, and one was 5'3 with an Afro.

The fish-eyed owner's right-hand man, who wrote off his cocaine purchases as business expenses.

The bank clerk in Trujillo, Peru, who handed me a red Bic pen to sign a traveller's check, then tore up the check because I had originally signed it in blue.

You see, the problem is, I have known so many people. I once calculated that I had said "thank you" to more than four million distinct customers. I have had 27 jobs (at least) and worked with hundreds if not thousands. I have lived in many places, and had so many neighbors. I have travelled around a bit. I've been on lots of trains and buses. I wish I had written at least one sentence about each and every person I have ever encountered.

The variety is endless.

People can be collected, like stamps.

Each one rare, of value in some way.

Black Athena

The gist of this book is that for centuries it was common knowledge that Ancient Greek civilization was greatly influenced by the Egpytians and Phoenicians, until, during the Colonial Era (especially the 19th and early 20th centuries), when the doctrine of white supremacy became one of the pillars of imperial justification, its history was rewritten to emphasize the whiteness, the Aryan-ness, the northern-ness of Ancient Greek civilization. Ever since then we've been taught to think in terms of Greece/Rome/Europe rather than Egypt/Mesopotamia/Greece.

Attribution

The following theory is, like all my theories, based on absolutely nothing at all, and is supported by no evidence, empirical or otherwise. Ahem.

Movies which are made from stories typically fall into two camps - those which are "based on" those stories, and those which are "based upon" them. It is my heated contention that movies which are "based on" are almost always better than those which are "based upon". I would almost go so far as to say that, as the opening credits roll, and you see the words "based upon" appear, you might as well get up and leave the room immediately. I say "almost" because I have occasionally been surprised by a "based upon" movie that did not suck.

File this under Movies, Theories, Tom's, Ridiculous, along with such other gems as "run screaming from the room if you see 'written and directed by' the same name, or 'written by' followed by four or more names. Or worse, the very appearance of the word 'screenplay'. eek!

The only saving grace of these theories is that they are "based on" nothing, not "based upon" it.

Addiction to Narrative

I smoked cigarettes for 22 years. When I finally quit (10 years ago this October 14th at noon), I told myself, OK, I've smoked around 100,000 cigarettes. Isn't that enough?

Most of us are addicted to the narratives of our life. We tell ourselves the official story over and over again. Because my parents did this ... Because my brothers were like that ... Because of this accident ... Because of that illness ... Because of this situation ... Because of that crime ... and we generally don't notice the addictive nature of these stories. They become like a song perpetually stuck in our heads. We're attached to them. We don't know who we are without them.

But at some point, maybe we have lived enough, or maybe we have grown enough, or maybe we're just old enough, we get sick of it and decide that enough is enough. Maybe all those stories are true - we just don't care anymore. We accept it. We set it aside. We're done with it. Now we can live our life today and be who we are today.

I had a therapist who advised me to revise my autobiography. More and more I'm beginning to understand the wisdom of that advice.

Fun Size

I'm still thinking about the idea that "the speed of light might have been different in the past" - one of his arguments seems to be, why the hell not? there's no reason for it to be what it is, so why should there be any reason why it couldn't have been something else before, or could be something else again in the future? And the same goes for all the so-called "constants" of science. Maybe those constants are just the numbers needed to make some equations work. Some magical numbers - like pi - are the answers to more than one question. Maybe that's all they are.

Of course, what I know about physics and math could fit into a "fun size" candy bar :}

Knows the Corners

Old guy with a customized mini street-sweeping leaf-blowing chrome and blue machine, prowls the paving stones between the coffee shop and grocery store and hat store, every morning, every day. There he is, sometimes stopping for a chat with other folks with dogs with kids with cellphones doing business. Dog one day was a blue ribbon champion tail-wagger. Kid the other day was the cutest little face paint job on skates. Old guy with the torn straw hat and the always half-smoked cigar between his teeth, out driving that sweeper and blowing those leaves and then one day you stop and look and notice that the paving stones are just as dirty in the morning as they were last night, and he's just sweeping and blowing that trash from over here to over there and back again.

Close But No WEO

Possibly one of the worst advertising campaigns of all time, and yet I remember it after all these years - it was Safeway (the grocery chain), sometime in the late 1970's (when I lived in Washington D.C.) and they compared the prices of their competitor (Giant) to their own, and always, theirs was lower, and they sang out "Close, but no WEO")

W.E.O. stood for "Where Economy Originates" - great slogan, eh?

Right up there with the old Dodge song, "Me and my Arrow".

People Against P & H Together

Something has got to be done about it. P & H Together is the same thing as F, always and in every case. For this reason, there is no justification for P & H Ever Being Together. Phrom this day Phorward, it must be one way or the other. P & H together or F. Vote now to make your voice heard. Together we CAN make a difference.

Plus, there's something suspicious about the way those two are having too much fun.

People Against Explanations

There are no answers. Any explanation must include an exception. The exception does not prove the rule, it proves that there are always exceptions to any rule.

People Against Cause and Effect

If I ask you to join this group, would you then do it?

Suddenly Erotica

Some slightly related items:

1. An erotic theme park that opened in the high Andes in Peru. Not exactly where you might expect to find one.

2. Visiting the shy and quiet parents of my kid's pre-school buddy, and noticing high up on the entry way wall a small, framed painting of full frontal nudity, the greek-god-like man grasping the greek-goddess-like woman from behind.

3. Visiting the grandparents and pretending not to notice the large old painting in the master bedroom of the nude on her back, with a gash across her forehead.

The Role of Reason

I recently read a discussion on the role of reason in religion, and although this conversation was among young contemporary Muslims, it read just like St. Thomas Aquinas, and reminded me that often, the role of reason, in anything, is to justify the outrageous notions the human mind accepts.

I thought of it again while reading the autobiography of Frederick Douglass. That "the founding fathers" accepted slavery in this country is another reminder of this "role of reason".

Overheard on the Street

from the SF Chronicle: "I just got back from Iraq, and you want me to go camping?"

Another highlight from the paper today - an ad showing a young man and woman snuggling in bed and smiling (he's smiling at her, and she's smiling at you, dear reader), and naturally, as you'd expect, the text below reads : MEN! Urinate less often and sleep through the night! (prostamene 11)

i should try to become the official "urinate less often" blog found in google searches!

Clicket, Anyone?

So there I was, reading a book from my childhood to my own child, when all of a sudden appears "a chinaman" in the book, wearing a silk robe, smoking a hookah, eating chop suey, and saying things like "ah so" and "velly nice clicket". "A Cricket in Times Square" is the book, and the excuse is "well, it was written in 1960", which reminds us that in 1960 we still had segregation, we still had Jim Crow, and that we still had blatant and overt racism and discrimination all over the place. Not that things are so wonderful now! My child - most of whose friends are Asian-Americans - is not going to understand these stereotypes in any case and I'm not going to fill his head with any of ths crap, so maybe it's "political correctness", or maybe it's just common decency, but I translated every word this character said into ordinary everyday American english, and then decided to rip this book to shreds as soon as we finish reading it.

The Shape Shifter

You never know about this one. On any given day she could be anywhere from nowhere to all over the place. In the morning she slips through the cracks in the deck. By evening she's stuck in the chair. If the scale is dusty, she might not make it through the door, but if the scale is clean, you might not see her sneak out.

Take her to dinner, and it might be croutons and water or maybe it's pasta and beer. The ShapeShifter is never the same weight twice. You never can tell about her.

Better not question too closely. She could be touchy or not. She's either obsessed or couldn't care less. She veers from size to size without so much as a warning. At least she could give us a sign! Her friends would like to know what's up.

The ShapeShifter glides from program to program, from What Would Jenny Do, to Watch What You're Doing, to I Can Do This By Myself I Know I Can. It's vegetable medleys for dinner and lunch, and a crust of bread for breakfast.

She's beautiful big and beautiful small, she's beautiful in between. She never thinks so, though. She has pants for every occasion. She even has names for them. If it's summer it's time to get in shape. If it's winter, it's also the time. In the spring she has much to look forward to. In the fall she never looks back.

The ShapeShifter changes from morning to night, she fluctuates day after day. You smile and you nod and you say "why yes, dear", whenever she alludes to "the fact".

Adrenaline Girl

Breathless, of course, but never in a hurry. Adrenaline Girl doesn't need to breathe. Her heartbeat generates enough oxygen on its own to power a small village. She wills her beamer over the mountains, and you'd better hang tight. Don't be squeamish or she'll drop you off the edge. No time for small talk. The Girl is on the move.

Give her a minute, she'll do a hundred things. Give her an hour and the sky's the limit. She never looks back. Adrenaline Girl powers past obstructions, obfuscations, concrete barriers, anything at all between where she is now and where she is now. And now. She's already there.

The Girl could hold a job but the job could not hold her. She's done so many different things, why bother with a resume? If you need to know, just ask. Have a need? Consider it done. She has already solved your problem before.

There is no detail too insignificant to be overlooked rapidly and forgotten. Adrenaline Girl does not require memory. She can process on the fly. She whips around the corner, and everything is new. She holds no grudges, burns no bridges, she doesn't even remember your name.

You can catch her in your rear-view mirror, but only for a moment. Then she's gone and you don't know which way she went. Time moves ahead. People come and go. Quickly. Always quickly. Don't stop now. Just go.

The Hobbits

They liked to be crammed together in the very smallest room. The more of them there are, and the tinier the room is, the happier they are. Even better if there are no windows. They are talking all the time, and try to never leave the room. When one goes out, the others talk even louder to make up for him. They know each and every detail about each other. Nothing can be hidden. Since they also control every little thing about the company, they know everything about everybody else as well.

You don't even know they exist, down there on the ground floor, behind the receptionist. You thought that was the shipping room. Cleverly disguised. The heart of operations beats concealed from prying eyes. Peel back the door, and there they are, like termites in a stump. They look up with beady glistening eyes. Fresh meat! A new guy. They tell you all about your password (it's not secure enough), your cubicle (don't get too cozy, we'll be moving you again soon), your bicycle in the basement (did you find that thing in a dumpster or what?).

Standing there and nodding, you get a glimpse behind the scenes. A moving map along the wall shows all activity, everybody everywhere and everything they do. It shifts and moves, a tapestry of life, in this case, GPS devices. They know exactly where you are.

It's superficial data, but they can mine and sort. They see tendencies, exceptions, unusual patterns in the night. A red spot twinkles on the wall. One notices, jots it down. Another winks and tells you they're on top of it, no worries. The noise is deafening, a clatter of keys and songs and voices, always voices., chattering.

Close the lid and walk away. Better not to think too much. Tomorrow they will still be there, and even when they tear the building down someday, they'll be the last ones out, clinging to the wreckage, scampering like roaches among the ruins and the bricks.

The Early Riser

From hypothesis to theory - before the fact came the guess, before knowledge, ignorance. All science comes from pseudo-science. Ever since the earliest people began to notice things and jump to conclusions, naming and sorting and making connections and being wrong have been among the basic skills of our species.

In tribute to superstition, then, I present a hypothesis of the origin of astrology - in the remote past, before astronomy and calendars, independent of region and climate, the true source of personality typology - the time of birth.

Based on this supposition, I've concluded there are four kinds of people (completely outside of the facts of gender and sexuality, the myths of race, the superficial coatings of religion or politics).

[Note:I use "man" and "he" in the following descriptions, but one could substitute 'she' for 'he' all over this piece and it would make no difference.]

As an Early Riser I am of course biased toward my own type. The Early Riser is the worker of the world, the one who gets things done. He is "up and at 'em". He's the first line, the front line, the mainstay, the goalie and the sweeper. He keeps the home fires burning. As sure as the sun will rise in the East, you can depend on the Early Riser.

The High Nooner gets all the credit. Somebody has to be in charge. The manager, the leader, the politician, the organizer, the captain of the team, charismatic and persuasive, the Nooner is always in the limelight, presiding over ceremonies, bowing and nodding and thanking all in attendance.

All of this is fine with the Evening Charmer, who is not concerned with events of the day. He is grateful for the food on his table ("thank you, Mr Riser") and glad that everything else has been thought of and attended to ("and to you, Mr Nooner"), because after the day is done and all the dishes have been put away, it's the Charmer's turn to shine. He is the artist, performer, musician and actor, the teller of stories, the man of many faces Everybody loves the Charmer. who is always glad to oblige.

Oh, what can we say about the Night Crawler? At best he is the audience, at worst he is the cause of all problems, the source of all evil, the masses, the crowd, the group mentality, the club, the clique, the in-crowd and the devil. (Early Riser Bias Detectors will no doubt detect the bias emanating from this early riser). As different as day from night, the Crawler and the Riser will never get along. The Crawler is the waster, the user, the noise in the street in the middle of the night which keeps the Riser from his critical sleep. The life of the party, carouser and drunkard, loud-mouth and braggart, the Crawler consumes everything, and produces nothing.

The View From Above

The drudge drags himself to the office every dawn and considers himself the foundation and the root. pah. he's just a slave, with a slug's mentality combined with the self-importance of an ant. there at the rows of desks and phones he meets his counterpart, the boss, also known as the fly. this bit of flesh is known to prowl and strut and bark, while the drudge keeps his head down, his nose clean, and his lips puckered up in case the fly's ass should alight in their vicinity. useless? oh, not useless. someone has to clean the toilets after all. pathetic? oh yes. the very word.

the dragonfly buzzes and the cricket chirps, all these bugs that flit around and go about their dreary days, they offer us amusement. we enjoy them while we flick them off and swat them with our towels. we spit on all their sun burnt bodies. let them rake in the dust and splash about in puddles. let them slip in the mud and, as they say, perform their duties. we will never interfere. do your business, grimy slugs. suck away, little ticks. poisons were invented for such as you.

everybody knows that the best come out at night. what's one star compared with endless millions? one little light in a nasty dusky corner of a trivial dead-end galaxy. only we perceive the limits of the universe. only we enjoy the world. only those who dance and love are fit to reap the spoils. are we not the kings and queens? who else can afford to truly live?

yours truly,
the night crawler

Tim

Along with Sam, my other roommate at the time was a guy named Tim, a pale, silent bass player, bookstore worker, and aspiring writer.

He and Sam would often rehearse in the basement, but they only knew one song. Johnny B. Goode. They had it down.

Their other trick was to try to seduce the 14 year old girl next door by getting her high. Did I mention we were the only white guys in this DC Gold Coast neighborhood?

Tim had made so detailed a study of the writings of Raymond Chandler that he was able to produce an original novel that was so Chandler-esque as to be practically indistinguishable. I'm not sure what his intention was. Would he try to pass it off as a long lost Chandler novel? Would he try to sell it as 100% pure imitation Chandler?

Comedians who can do impressions are highly prized, but writers who mimic other writers are not. funny.

Co-Mingling

I once had a girlfriend (Ms V) who suffered from a wildly intense form of jealousy - this, along with anorexia and a unique collection of other irrational fears, made her life so difficult, it was sad. One time, when we were still together, a female friend of mine gave me a few rose plants that were languishing in her garden, and that she hoped would do better in mine. Ms V had a tremendous fit and declared that if I planted those roses, it would be all over between us, because the "co-mingling of the soil" (her term), the mixing of dirt from Ms L's garden and my own, would be the same thing as having sex.

I knew another guy who had briefly been with Ms V, and his wife (of later acquaintance) was jealous because he still thought of her. I told her, if you're trying to be jealous of Ms V, you might as well give up, because there's no way you can compete in that department.

Sam

I once had a roommate from Tennessee, and he would drive his old Rambler around Washington DC, and pull up alongside any female, literally any one at all, and shout YOU DEVIL YOU!

mortifying ...

The other item about "Sam" was this tape he had. I don't know how he did it, but if he ever "got lucky" he would pop this cassette in and it would repeat this one horrible country-western love song over and over again, and you could tell how long the sex lasted by how many times you heard the song.

I kid you not.

A similar roommate story, guy who lived upstairs in Bernal Heights, SF, and was a serial romancer. We lived through four or five of his "relationships", and they all followed the same pattern, which included a specific soundtrack. It would always start out with classic early Beatles, move on through Dylan and the Doors, eventually crescendo with Springsteen, before finally flaming out with the Rolling Stones' "Angie".

Any time you heard "Angie", you knew it was over. There'd be bags packing, doors slamming, and a car pealing out of the driveway before it even got to the end of the song.

(these memories prompted by Alison's blog entry on New York hecklers)

Same Shoes

For many years I worked in downtown San Francisco, near Union Square. Each day between the underground station and my store, I had to pass by countless panhandlers. Since I was only earning minimum wage as a cashier, I would have had nothing left over if I had given each of them a quarter, and so, alas, I rarely gave any of them anything. I could not even afford much in the way for myself, and wore pretty much the same clothes year in and year out.


One day as I was running the gauntlet, one of the panhandlers caught my eye. He looked at me, looked down at my feet, looked back up, shook his head, and said, "same shoes".