"Use All The Crayons!"
Random thoughts on a random day ...
I’m picking up copies of my new book today. How many? Just 50. Still in dispute with the publisher so I’ve had just 50 copies made. Only two people have read the thing, but that minuscule sampling is very enthused.
My plan is to get these initial copies in the hands of core readers who have an opinion and the potential to share it with many, many more.
And because I sense the topic will bore you off the screen, I’ll say no more (for today).
Here’s me talking uncomfortably for about 1:24. I don’t know how people do it. How do they without notes or a teleprompter give a 30-, 40-, or 60-minute speech. You can almost sense the relief washing over me as I approach the one minute mark.
For the record, most of my talks appear to be purely extemporaneous. I print up what I call my Set List. It usually goes well, but I’m always kicking myself for forgetting a line or two.
My favorite format is right here. Typed, spellchecked and proofed for style and coherency. God bless those of us for whom the written word still feels like something tantamount to holy …
Baggin’ it:
A Parkinson’s Update
Parkinson’s update: My left arm shakes to the point of uselessness whenever I’m under duress like, for instance, in the self-checkout aisle at the Giant Eagle. It’s stressful because shoppers treat it like they're participants in an Olympic event. So there I am struggling under the glare of hyper-efficient shoppers who appear eager to bag me. Just as I’m about to cry a woman emerges from the line and says, “You look like you can use a hand,” and begins to bag my stuff. Guess what I did…
a). I glared at her and said, “Take your stinkin’ paws off my Fruit Loops, you damned dirty ape!”
b). Jumped into her arms and said, “Mama, take me home! Me love you long time!”
c). Told her it was all part of a shoplifter sting operation and advised her it was in her best interest to consent to the pending strip search.
d). Genuinely thanked her for her gracious intervention.
Answer: “d).” The only thing she could have done to make it even better was if she’d have ponied up for the groceries and thrown in for good measure one of them Cadbury Eggs I find so irresistible.
In those few moments, she’d changed the world.
Before I made it to the car I said a prayer that someone as good-hearted as she will be there for her to make it all better next time she struggles.
She took a sad song and made it better.
Lesson: If you see some one struggling with their burdens, momentarily set yours aside. You’ll help them and yours will somehow feel lighter than they did before.
Truly, you will change the world.
Or just go ahead and deport all their sorry asses.
A whole lot of random …
• I suspect it’s universal for every region to have a neighborly punching bag to make fun of for perceived or obvious stupidity. It’s why N. Dakotans make fun of S. Dakotans, Ohioans mock West Virginians, etc. But is it truly universal? And if so how often are we the butt of the jokes? Like is some alien wise guy on Kepler-23b entertaining his friends by saying, “Three Earthlings walk into a bar …”
• Here’s one the best brains at #COP26, guaranteed, won't think of: Hook every treadmill and exercise bike up on the planet to generators to produce the cleanest & greenest alternative energy known to man.
• Fuddy-Daddy: A male parent who wishes, goldarnit, TVs would go back to just 13 channels, that phones were still phone-shaped and that his adult kids still looked up to him the way they did when he was 32 and they were 4.
• Many struggling young couples see marriage counselors because they're determined to "make it work." They have it all wrong. Marriage is already work. The goal should be to make it play!
• I wonder if linguistic confusion is one of the reasons that keep young single heteros from ever getting together. Many single men lust for women who'll "put out" when what they're really after are women who'll put in.
• I like sitting on a porch whittling a stick and leaving all the young'uns gobsmacked when I say, “You know, I remember when X was Twitter and Twitter was just 140 characters …”
• I remember as a boy my parents taking me to a candy store and being overwhelmed by row after row of nutrition-free treats. Today, every store we enter is a candy store with the only difference is these adult candy stores also sell gas, jerky, beer, cigs and lottery tickets.
• Doing pointless research on Pluto for today's blog and learned Pluto has five moons named Charon, Styx, Nix, Hydra and Kerberos. We have one lousy moon and it's named "Moon." What gives? It's like having a dog and naming it "Dog."
• In one of history's most savage ironies, it was 41 years ago today that a man who became famous singing "All you need is love," died when what he on that day really needed was a bullet-proof vest.
• Had Lennon been killed in '25, guaranteed, within two hours there'd be multiple conspiracy theories including one asserting Ringo was behind the murder so he could get to Yoko. And Tucker Carlson would say Lennon was a disgusting hippie who had it coming.
• It would take a solar powered golf cart traveling 36,400 mph about 9.5 years to reach Pluto -- 9.7 years if you stopped for pee breaks.
• At 7 hrs. 48 mins I'm finding The Beatles "Get Back" a bit of a slog. My mind wanders and I feel myself wishing for the sake of deliberate irony some enterprising documentarian would produce a film that was this earnest, this reverential and this devoted to memorializing every conversation about lunch, laundry and nasal obstructions and have the docu be about the making of "Debbie Does Dallas.”
• ”Hell to pay" is an expression that hints at eternal damnation. It is not to be confused with an absurd looking hair piece that becomes affixed to a bald scalp, also known as a "Hell Toupee."
• I wonder how long it'll be before the whole world is on fire and if there's some extra-terrestrial volunteer fire department that is right now racing across the universe to save Planet Earth. And I wonder how much they're going to charge and if they take Discover.