Whelmed

I let the Sept 11 stuff go by for the first time in 11 years. But I didn't want to say anything one way or the other because though I think it is time to move on that's not the same as saying forget about it. But the way things are in this stupid country all you have to say is "we need to move on" from 911 and a host of bozos will be on your case calling you down and saying we should never forget. So I didn't play.

Yesterday I took the day off work and pretty much just hid in my office. I've been having a lot of headaches lately and then the workmen started pounding and sawing and dumping yesterday morning. Now - as you know - I work overnight. So I go to bed say maybe 6:30-7:30 in the AM. And by 8 AM there was a crew building something and sleep was not going to happen. Got worse because I agitated myself over it. You know how that goes. If I'd have stayed calm I'd have been alright, but it was like I decided to let it bug me. So it did. I have to stop that shit.

Well I have to go in tonight because the bigger plan was to cash in my unused sick time check at the end of the year. An extra week's pay. So, yeah, that's not going to happen.

We've been trapping animals in our yard. Possums. They were living under our deck. $165 for the guy to come out and set traps, and then $55 per captured animal. They hauled away two, and the traps have been empty for two days now. So that's probably it for Mr and Mrs O'Possum. Now I have a project this weekend of animal proofing the bottom of the deck. They dug in under one part fairly well. No rest for the wicked I guess.

Our youngest daughter is getting married next year. That's cool news. So I have to come up with one more wedding toast. Not one of my favorite things. Both Jordan's father and I have been suggesting we just give them money and they elope. It's not like it would be a horrible thing, they've both been living on their own for years and are in their 30's. But, you know, it's a big deal for them. What are you gonna do.

I am stuck in a great big huge damn rut. Absolutely nothing is reaching me. Dynamite please...

Things I Should Have Learned

Isn't Gibraltar pretty? Wish my family and I lived there right now, just to get away from the States for a long long time. I'm not too in love with America right now. We must look so totally stupid to the rest of the world sometimes.

I learned a lot of things in high school. One of the things I learned, and then forgot, and then learned again, recently, is that being strident about the issues of the day gets you three things:

1. A few extra credit points with people who already believe as you do.

2. Added resolve on the part of the people who disagree with you.

3. Absolutely no gain whatsoever among the people you'd like to convince of your viewpoint.

This probably isn't axiomatic or anything, and so there's holes in this in a few places I'm guessing, but it seems intuitive don't you think?

In a few billion years the sun will turn into a red giant. And when it does that its outer atmosphere will be exactly in the perfect place to burn off our seas and turn Earth into a cinder. When that happens, I ask you, who is going to remember how you voted in 2012 AD and why? Huh? Who? ANSWER ME.

Someday you're going to turn around and you'll be dead. What does all this angst and anger have to do with anything when your dead eh? Answer me that one. What? You made a couple points and won an argument or three and looked so very clever and now you're dead. So big deal. What was that all for?

Over the past few months I've been going through somewhat of a minor spiritual crisis. I'm having big problems with an ethical construct I made for myself and how it relates to philosophy and outlook and my relationship to the whatsis and so forth. But I pulled out of it a few days ago and I'm okay. Nice of you to ask.

I have been guilty of what we call, in the Quaker faith, "outrunning my guide." Another phrase we use for it is "going off your watch." You can read in one of the old journals, one Quaker is watching another Quaker get in an argument and it gets all heated and wild and bad words are said and nothing of value is gained. Later as the two Quaker buddies walked away down the road, the observer leans over to the combatant and says "thee was off thy watch there for a minute, friend."

It's a thing where your actions get too far ahead of your spiritual discernment. You went a little goofy. Maybe you cranked on someone a little too hard. Those are all against the ethic we're supposed to be carrying around with us. "Thy neighbor as thyself" and all that.

Anyway I've been guilty of that. A lot. And hopefully I have it all back under control. It's difficult, though, in this rancid political climate, being surrounded by people who seem intent on being jerks to one another.

I've been writing a thing, and haven't said anything about it (and won't say any more than this), that is a lot different than anything I've done before. And I've found that when I have run ahead of my guide, or have been "off my watch", I haven't been able to write for it at all. Then, when I get centered again, it restarts and flows. It has everything going against it. The protagonist is a young Muslim, it takes place in a country not many people have ever heard of, and there's a talking hyena who grants wishes and steals camels. Yeah. Well. Anyway...

Like I said not my usual stuff. And I've been working on it since late winter. You know Faiqa Khan? She's seen parts of it, just as a checker. You can ask her more about it next time you see her. But the point is when I am unsettled I can't write it. When I'm fighting politics or getting all worked up about stuff I can't do it at all. I have to be centered. And to be centered means I have to be on my watch. This is mostly because the novel needs a rational person telling it. So it's been necessary to not get nasty with people. It's why I regret some of the arguments I've been in. Stifles the work.

Oh hi... I have no idea what this post is about anymore.

Never mind. Here's Charlize...

The Spider's 31st Page

I've been nudged to come out of hiding and fill you in on what's going on. Since the audience for this thing has spiraled down to a dwindling handful I kind of didn't see the point of it, but it was nice that somebody wanted to know so here I am.

Someone a few years back asked me what my tattoo meant. I got it in Corpus Christi, Texas a zillion years ago and I like to make it a mystery so the answer to the question is that you'll have to read page 31 in the Spider. Good luck working that out.

Basically I've been trying to practice what I'm preaching, and cutting back on the accumulation of shit I own. The other week I cleared out my closet and gave most of my clothes away to Amvets (American War Veterans, it's like Goodwill). Two big garbage bags and two suitcases. I'm down to a human-sized usable closet now. But my God the junk I had that I hadn't even worn in so many years! I have also been slowly clearing out the black-hole aspect of my office here at home. Why, exactly, do I need bank statements from twelve years ago again?

I go to the checkout counter that has a person in it whenever I go to the store - which isn't all that often. I took a look at my bookmarks online and poofed a dozen or so. I went back to my cell phone and returned to the factory settings so I could generally declutter it from the accumulated garbage it had on it. I am now the proud owner of absolutely ZERO "apps." I don't even like the word "apps" (never did), so why did I bother with them in the first place?

I've also killed the GPS tracking function, and basically what I have now is a phone, dammit. Just like it's supposed to be. Nobody calls me on the damn thing anyway so I don't even know why I have it, exactly. I used to like driving in my car and knowing that for a half hour or so the nobody that never calls can't call even if they wanted to anymore. What?

And I've been shying away from the internet more and more.

There isn't a big point about it or anything, outside of the fact that I'm avoiding the election season like the plague because I hate everybody now, in case you hadn't noticed; and I really don't want to even hear any of that bullshit anymore. I can't see an actual use for it, so I'm tossing it out like a bag of old clothes. What's the difference who wins? They don't care about you. Wake the hell up.

I did recently spend a glorious day with my wife and oldest granddaughter Emma at the zoo this past Monday. Emma is about to turn 9 and she is really turning out to be a darling young lady. She was so well behaved and polite to us and people in general I wanted to just hug her up. I hope the sad old world doesn't turn her bright disposition into the same degenerated muck you don't have to go too far down the street to see. I hope she can stay as natural and unaffected as she is, God willing.

And the youngest granddaughter (Sophie) is just about to turn 9 months and has become a champion crawler baby who laughs when you say ah-choo and when she's over at our house likes to be fed while watching my wife's parakeet fuss around in its cage. She gets transfixed by that goofy bird.

The tomatoes in the garden are tasty but not very plentiful. I have watered them every day but this oppressive weather has stunted them, I think. What's there (from what I've tasted) is going to exactly be that "full" homegrown taste that only homegrown tomatoes can be like, but there just isn't going to be a whole lot of them.

No I'm not turning into nature boy. Though I've spent the summer weeding out food from my diet that contains bad stuff like too much salt, high fructose corn syrup, fat and additives. I'm not a full-on 100% with that and I don't think I ever will be able to do that, but I can sense a change just within my self by watching that kind of thing.

So that's what I've been doing. I'm going to go to 4 (count 'em) FOUR White Sox games this August. Angels, A's, Yankees and Mariners. That should be fun.

Outside of that we're seeing about planning a big trip to California next year. In 2013 we will celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary and then later that year I will hit the big 6-0. And in no way do I feel like I'm pushing 60. No way at all.

And hey Thrice is coming due in the next week or so. If you've missed a few issues you've missed a lot.

That's pretty much it.

So here's a musical interlude with Muriel Anderson. I think I've posted her work before. She's the renowned guitarist who grew up in our Quaker Meeting. Her Mom and Dad still attend and I did see her attend also once or twice in the past seven years or so but I never spoke with her. Celebrities don't come to silent worship to be fawned over or bothered, they come to experience the quiet and peace that happens when a room full of Quakers get going, doing... well... nothing, basically. Anyway here's Muriel...

Splain These Lyrics Willya?

I've written before about what Motown meant to me in high school. Saved my life, at one critical point really. And helped get me get my act back together after a rough patch. And I love it still. But that doesn't stop the occasional enigmas. Like for example on a couple tunes it's like I'm hearing the lyrics for the first time. And it's the same with this group, the Stylistics. It's a catchy hook and kind of urban so if you just go with it it has a definite groove going on.

But the other day I downloaded it to my iPod and listened... I mean really listened to it. And, like a couple others I'm hearing for the "first time," I'm not getting it at all.

It starts out with this safe kind of Bert Bacharat (or however you spell him) / Dionne Warwick vibe. Sort of people in their older twenties, 1960-ish, sophisticated whatever the hell. It like steals a whole riff from one or the other of their songs. Then the words get... odd.

Here's what I mean, plus my notes...

Trashmen didn't get my trash today
Oh, why? Because they want more pay <---ok not so bad, urban stuff
Buses on strike want a raise in fare
So they can help pollute the air <---um, mass transit reduces smog

But that's what makes the world go 'round <--- Just the bad stuff?
The up and down's a carousel
Changing people's heads around
Go underground, young man <--- wait... WHAT??
People make the world go 'round <--- is that good or bad??

Wall Street losin' dough on ev'ry share
They're blaming it on longer hair <--- it's true. you had to be there
Big men smokin' in their easy chairs
On a fat cigar without a care <--- not if shares are going down. Um...

But that's what makes the world go 'round
The up and down's a carousel<-- but where's the UP?
Changing people's heads around
Go underground, young man <--- Yeah but... wtf??
People make the world go 'round

See what I mean. Something isn't jiving. You have this cool, pleasant, slick thing going on but the words are basically, you know, "go underground and fight the powers that be because, you know, the people that make the world go 'round are bad and smoke cigars. Or something."

I'm lost. I mean I like this a lot (and Spike Lee used it beautifully as the opening for the movie "Crooklyn" too!), but I'm scratching my head.

Listen for yourself...

Hypocrites Always Wanna Play Inno-cent

Just added Lauryn to the iPod. That holy, magical iPod that is cooler than me. No, not asking for your vote here. I did that before but it's not like the votes changed anything.

Hey, here's a cool book I just got...

So it's 3:30 in the morning & what the hell am I doing up? Well, I live here. That's what. No actually I worked overtime today and we got off at Midnight. And here I am.

What do you think of this bit?

In the winter buildings crack and creak with the temperatures and people think this ominous symphony is not the wood in the cold but the midnight killer specific, finally come to work his long awaited killing they always knew was going to happen. Closing in. This is the moment they are about to die. The mad murderer picking just this building among hundreds of buildings, opening just this door among dozens of doors, and choosing just this victim from out of the blue and it’s all over now that death has finally arrived. Any second the always expected black form will crowd the doorway and evil B music will be heard from out the vents. And it turns out to be the heat or lack of heat or a hundred years of wood standing in the same place forever. Everybody wakes up the next morning not dead.

I know you guys aren't up right now. All snoozing away as I write this.

So what are you doing lately anyhow?

All 4 nao.

Good News Week!

Winning $30 on a football pool square game and having the Packers lose at the same time is kind of like waking up with Charlize Theron waiting to serve you breakfast... something that normally wouldn't happen even in a million years but there it is anyway somehow.

I hate to say it but I've been unfaithful. For years and years I idolized Sophie Marceau as my default female starlet icon, but just as sure as I've noticed a seismic shift in my general political outlook I have also noticed that I have become just as equally a female starlet icon slut as well. I guess some people get on one political ideal and one female starlet icon and just ride that bus all the way to the barricade at the edge of the cliff but me... I'm different. I've gone practically full circle now both in my politics and in my selection for female starlet icon.

I started out as an anarchist, wended my way through libertarianism, fell in line with the Old Cause (mostly based on the ideas and outlook of the Republican from Ohio known as Robert Taft), and had my share of run-ins with the school of conservatism known as neocons (who to this day remain nothing more than foreign interventionists with the social politics of Ebenezer Scrooge) who viewed Taft as a monster, somehow. This opened my eyes to conservatives in general and I came to believe that there is no more nobler an ideal than to line every one of them up against a wall and shoot them through the head as soon as possible, yesterday, if only to keep that kind of selfish, whining, pushy, self-righteous, double-talking, hypocrisy out of the gene pool. Nowadays, as a Quaker, I'm not for the shooting them part as much. And lo and behold... I'm a damn anarchist again.

So maybe one day I'll come back to Sophie Marceau as well, but for now I am content in the idea that I am a shape changing, disloyal gadabout who can't be trusted with anything.

Except I still don't like the Packers, or for that matter anybody who does like the Packers. And winning $30 on a football square this past Sunday while watching them flounder around in futility against the big bad New York team from that big bad liberal media center is something that probably would have been fun even when I was an old school conservative. So I guess there are some constants in my life.

Sophie darling, you're a doll. But it's 2012. We need to move on, I'm afraid. The more things change, the more things change.

Hiya Charlize. I think I'd like my orange juice nice and cold.

So What Else Is New?

Well first of all I got myself interviewed by a website called Fictionaut for Thrice Fiction. Those of you who are readers are going to notice a distinct change in the temperature at Thrice next March. I feel as if I've tapped a new resource for voices you have to read to believe. I'm thrilled at the stuff I'm seeing already coming in for it, and guarantee you will be jolted a bit next time out. I can't wait to show you the Irish writer who will be joining our ranks in issue 4. If you liked the addition of Ann Bogle to our mix, wait until you get a load of James Claffey. I don't know why the Brits always seemed to power down on the Irish, seeing as how their contribution to the English language is both legendary and indispensable. Maybe jealousy? Anyway - you're going to truly dig the guy. Or else.

The cartoon over there isn't new, it's old. In fact it's something I made in an old blog post wherein I explain how sick and tired I was of reading people say, in their comments, "that was so funny I spit Coca Cola through my nose all over the keyboard." For a while there that seemed to be the thing to say in blog comments, and I got sick of it early on. So I took a public-domain drawing and changed the dialog bubble to reflect my disdain. Pleh. I found it again going through my old Photobucket album and decided to run it again. Whatever.

Yesterday after Meeting I stopped by a table that had been set up by these women from Guatamala who were selling Fair Trade handcrafts and bought my newest granddaughter a little doll. I don't know what possessed me to do it, but I know the Fair Trade thing will meet with her Mommy's approval, the darn thing is as cute as anything, and it is 100% cotton so it smells and feels like something a very little girl would want to sleep with. Of course it is almost as big as she is so there's going to be a little time lag and all but I'm a grandpa and I'm also besotted with the kid. So lay off. But you know how it goes, Quakers are all about handcrafted stuff and giving third world entrepreneurs a chance. I know the common belief is that the liberal bent of our "denomination" would just give everything away, but that's totally not true. We believe in teaching people to fish, and if somebody wants to get their hands in there and do work we're usually the first ones to help. If you are interested go to Mayaworks and check it out for yourself. There's some truly beautiful stuff there.

I'm not having any trouble getting into the Christmas thing this year. A few years back it was as if entire vast sections of my extended family had decided to make it their mission to ruin Christmas for me, but I outlasted them all. I'm even sending out Christmas cards - cheesy ones from Hallmark - to local friends. You want one? Just email me your address and you'll see just how cheesy I can get. We can't be avant-garde cutting edge all the time. Sometimes I'm all sappy. Like with new granddaughters and stuff.

I'm even in the process of writing some long form fiction that is more "usual" than you might expect from me. I don't know if I'm getting old or just wtf. But it certainly seems unstoppable at this point.

Not only that, but I submitted some things to the literary journal world over the past month. The legit kind, the kind affiliated with universities or government grants and stuff. I don't think anything will be accepted because I still can't shake out all the alternate dimensions long enough to make it look like straight fiction and poetry, but who knows. I'll let you know. But it feels good to stretch that muscle again after so long a drought. About time I got back in the mix, and so we'll see what happens.

You know what else feels good? I dumped around 40 people from my Facebook friends list and haven't lost one minute of sleep. They were either posting too much hateful political shit or I've decided they are assholes. Or both. And I feel good about it. So there.

All 4 nao.

What I Have To Say For Myself

Issue #2 of THRICE is now available for free download to your iPad, your Kindle, or just as a PDF. You can also get hard copies if you're willing to pay for it.

Of all the people we've gathered together for this issue I am most personally proud of adding Ann Bogle to the mix. In the first place we are badly under-represented by women voices and in the second place she's really good. So I hope we see more of her as time goes on.

The next issue comes in November and will be themed "TIME." We already have a couple things for it. I think you'll like.

But no, I haven't been to your blogs much and for that I'm truly sorry. I miss it, but I simply have little time. If I scan you in my Reader it's lately the best I can do. I'm ashamed I've missed your radio shows, your troubles, your happies, things you've found, things you're letting go of. In the blogging world it has always been true - if you want visitors you have to visit. And I don't have enough Earth-shattering ground-breaking stuff to attract a wide audience, nor did I ever really seek one out. I will get back to your stories and incidents as soon as I can. For one thing my new schedule - pushing 40 work hours into three days from Tuesday through Thursday - changes everything. My own personal writing is stalled, and I've taken on a few more responsibilities with groups and organizations that somehow keep asking for me to volunteer. I am amazed at those requests, seeing as how if I were given three weeks of totally free time I would probably spend 95% of it alone. But I WILL get out and about to see all your great stuff soon, I promise.

In case I hadn't said anything to you I am going to be a grandfather again this December, God willing. We all know it is a girl and we all know her name is going to be Sophie. I may have made some mistakes with granddaughter #1 here and there or something... I guess?... because I am somewhere 22nd or 35th on her list for some reason, but Sophie will be my redemption for whatever crimes I committed... whatever the hell they were.

My eyes are going weird. I had cataract surgery on both a month and a half ago and I can't stand bright light and sometimes I can see for miles. In fact the farther away something is the better I can see it - which is the total opposite of what I've had the whole rest of my life before now. I need the darkest possible sunglasses but the stuff at the local drug store only goes so dark. Anybody have a lead on really REALLY dark sunglasses? I need them bad. Apparently I am not producing enough tears so they have me on these tear=producing drops. I mean wtf, I can't sit there watching Schindler's List (which is a movie it is officially "OK" for guys to cry at) everyday just to get my eyes wet y'know.

I am continuing to struggle between this spiritual ideal I have had in my head since forever and the complete nihilism that seems like so much truth anymore.

I am very much looking forward to Ken Burns' latest effort at PBS to be shown this Fall called "Prohibition" despite the fact that he basically gave my White Sox the Finger in his last episode of "Baseball" called the 10th Inning (he gave more time to the asshole Cubs' continued failure as an idea than the 3 FARCO seconds he gave the White Sox for winning it all in '05) and his nagging, bothersome apologetics for the South's destructive and heinous passion for State's Rights (which has caused more death, misery and anger in this country than any other single failed concept) in his Civil War. I find his overblown pandering nonsense comforting somehow.

I'm going to watch the Sox play the Tigers on TV in a second. have a nice night.

A Month Of Sundays

Hi. My name is RW. I used to run a blog here, long ago. My posts were up quite regularly and I was happy to participate in a handful of my favorite blogs other people made. I work in a print shop and have interests. I eat food and sleep in a bed when I'm not sleeping on the floor of my office when my back is sore because that somehow helps it don't ask me why. I was born in Chicago and the year I was born Eisenhower was President and the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn. And the A's were still in Philadelphia - which I could never figure out because the Phillies sucked for a generation and the A's were run by Connie Mack and not only had championships but entire dynasties and yet they ended up being the team that left Philadelphia. And though there is a soft spot in my heart for the Phillies what about a bunch of studly guys being named after girl horses? What's that all about anyway? Also I have lost 22 pounds since Christmas but can't seem to bust below 190 which is still my goal. I do a little writing on the side and am co-creator of Thrice Magazine. I have an agent who is busy trying to sell my current novel and I'm about a fourth way finished with another. I bought GT Solar (SOLR) when it was $5.51 a share and still have it. I'm married to MrsRW since 1978 and we have two daughters and one granddaughter and... oh I probably didn't say... but we have another grandchild on the way but we don't know who it is yet. This one will appear as if by magic in December.

I have to leave for work in half an hour and I haven't made my lunch yet but I somehow feel strangely compelled to write down all this useless, trivial shit as if there are people still reading here and I can't actually explain why. I haven't been here in a while because every time I wondered if I should write something here I ended up saying who gives a shit - but not in a forlorn, nobody-likes-me way but rather in a what's=the-big-deal-anyhow kind of way. There's a big difference and I also feel compelled to make that clear because I'm not feeling sorry for myself I just don't feel like talking much, and if you knew me you'd know that's true because if I ever got backed into a corner my answer would be homicide - not suicide - and all my best friends would vouch for that. So it's more like I'd open to the New Post screen, write a few words, and then just flip the screen the finger and go do something else.

My eyes are real good now since the cataract surgery though I don't know about these bifocal lenses, I still can't read very well and need cheaters so far. They tell me it'll be okay within 6 months but I don't know. Whatever. Now all I have to do is figure out how to pay for this all beyond the insurance. I have to go for an EKG this weekend because they didn't like what my heart was doing when I went for the surgery and almost didn't do it but I've had a balky ticker since I was born. Just beats when it wants ever since I can remember and my regular doctor says what's the big fuss, we don't treat these kinds of things but the hospital where I had my eye surgery didn't know me that well so there I go.

Anyway I just thought I'd come along and say hi again because I miss some of you and I'm not dead yet. So... you know... hi and all...

Phisophonby

The professor stood before the class in the lecture hall and put forth an important question about the symbols and metaphors used by Kafka in "The Metamorphosis." What was the significance of blurb and what was the importance of whack and how do these blurbs and whacks relate to the hurr durr urp etc. etc. And one of the more insignificant students who will never amount to much, sitting in the back by the window through which the dirty city was visible over his shoulder raised his hand and was called on. "I don't think there were any symbols used in that story. I think it's a story about a guy who turns into a bug. And it doesn't mean he works too hard and it doesn't mean his Dad is a meanie. He just wakes up and he's a bug and that's it."

"Well if you say that you take out all the magic involved in the writer's craft," the stodgy professor with the broomstick up his ass said. "We may as well say nothing means anything beyond what you see and the deeper meaning that teaches us things has lost all relevance."

But not so. Actually we have no way of knowing what Kafka was symbolizing. He was just writing and the writer decides on what means what in the context of his own viewpoint and personal universe and until we were to get a clearer understanding of his own personal frame of mind it's impossible to say what meant what. Father's slapping you as a bug equating to the Godhead slapping Adam upside the head for the infidelity of the apple and blah blah blah.

The point is that since we've been able to more or less define up to as many as eleven dimensions I'd put all philosophy on hold. Kierkegaard has to have a sock in it for a while and Kant's cant can take a hike for a bit. We've got to see that there's a difference between the claim that "I think, therefore I am" which is the old world and the new claim that "I am, therefore I think," which if you ponder it has other ramifications.

When I was a little boy they told me the universe had no start and will have no end. It just always was and always will be and that's it. Along with this "God" was an old man in the clouds with a white beard who tossed thunderbolts at people who pissed him off and thought nothing of wiping out half his creation or more in one angry fit of artistic temper gone mad.

As I grew up I learned that the universe started from one singularity and from this point there was a huge explosion and everything happened after that. Coincidentally "God" became a thing in need of no gender (what use WOULD a God have for a... gender... cough cough) who was a lot more magnanimous to some people but still an unstable painter more inclined to cut off your ear than his own. But there was change. Now heaven was open to everybody and God damns nothing anymore. He/She/It can be talked to. Like a peer. Like an old buddy who can give you a break. And yet there's this idea that somehow by praying you can change God's mind. Yeah I'd say that's not bloody likely. But anyway. It was a nicer God up there. Or down there. Or around the corner.

But ever since somebody noticed that the universe's expansion is speeding up instead of doing the slowing down that all the models in physics would have always predicted it should do, people are scratching their heads. There's no real reason why contradictory principles now bouncing off each other in the realm of physics should be able to both be true, and yet the postulates explained by relativity seem to exist over in this section while the postulates explained in the quantum view are true over here. And yet they both can't be true because of their contradictions unless there is another explanation about the universe. And so the Big Bang has been losing ground to the concept of that event not being a singular explosion, but instead a collision of two separate universes, or membranes, that created a third space (where we are now) into which truths from the two sponsoring universes deposited their shit. And I'll get back to you about the "God" part.

Somebody said reality is merely what's been agreed upon by the observers. But that can't be right because the next thing that guy did was create Scientology and he was an idiot. So we can do away with that. he also said we got here from another planet in DC-10s and were dumped down volcanoes that geologists will tell you didn't exist at the time he said all that happened. So screw that noise.

No I think probably this colliding membrane scenario will simply be the next step to whatever the big minds work on after that, hopefully while I'm still alive. Because if we have at some point someone saying "this membrane concept leads me to believe that the universe always was and always will be and God is an old man in the clouds and here are my calculations to prove it" I will be right back where i started and so will everybody else.

And then there's Milnor, the guy whose work proved the existence of at least 7 dimensions (not including their differential structures) and has since been working on hyperspheres. So he's probably the guy to blame for all this.

Then Dave gave me this video past summer, after which I found this one...

In short, to make it a bit simpler, I have WAY too much time on my hands...

Going Forward

Man... "Going Forward" ranks right up there with "Go From There," and "It Is What It Is," and "At The End Of The Day" isn't it? Yet another popular phrase that people don't even hear themselves say after a while.

But, you know, going forward I'd just like to say that I'm sitting here thinking 2011 is going to be an interesting year. I'm not saying it's going to be a good year, just interesting. There's a couple things I have going on right now that I haven't mentioned at all that I have some hopes for. One of them a collaboration on a project that came up out of the blue this past fall. Another that is kind of related and kind of not.

I have the next piece of writing already in mind and will be getting this last ridiculously boring thing out into the hands of someone who is going to try and find a home for it in the next week or so.

What are the chances of me finding myself in some other employment by this time next year? Well that's hard to say. I've been looking in earnest for a couple weeks now with little luck. And just in the last few days here all of a sudden we've had an uptick in activity in signed contracts and actual deposits. So who knows? It can't be that the economy is slowly moving again, can it? My work is usually like the proverbial canary in a coal mine. For better or worse. Time will tell.

I just have a general sense that something good is around the corner and I can't really put my finger on it. I'm not so sure it has anything to do with me so much as to the people I'm close to. One person in particular is overdue for great news. But this is nebulous and I don't know what it is at all. Just a sense.

It's just I'm through with years clicking over before I have been paying attention. Jesus, my granddaughter is going to be 8 this coming year. EIGHT? When the hell did that happen and where was i for that all this time?

There is an interesting phenomenon that happens when you grow old. We all know about it and laugh about it and pretty much agree with it. It's sort of like the Betty White Syndrome (which I just now made up) wherein when you get old enough you can pretty much say anything you want and get away with it. I'm sensing a general drift towards that kind of power in my life. We'll see if I just chicken out.

In 2011 we are having our 40th high school reunion and the thing that has struck me the most are the number of people from our class of '71 who have croaked. I still don't know how someone who was generally outside the lines in school manages to get on his SECOND reunion committee in ten years, but I'm beginning to suspect it's because I ended up being one of the people with the least amount of baggage from those years. It still astonishes me the number of people who want nothing to do with this. Not that I don't feel that view is valid, just that I don't understand it. Seems to me a person would have to have baggage to feel that way, no matter how much they say it's just a matter of interest. I look with suspicion upon it.

In 2011 I will be telling you about a slew of things that will be making their way back into the small press world. The time has come to quit sleeping through it all.

In 2011 I am going to get below 200 and stay there.

In 2011 my oldest daughter gets her Masters. She will be a master accountant. But since both of my daughters are already currently making more money than me a year I'm already pretty proud of them.

None of these are resolutions. Resolutions have the character of things that may or may not be. I'm simply telling you "what it is."

Yet another stupid saying like "going forward" and shit like that.

ReOrient

Just a bit of housekeeper btw. Notice, please, some alterations in the all-important sidebar. I have saved two of my favorite comments from over the years and added them in. I have to say that after starting right along with the internet (beginning with the newsgroups and carrying all the way to streaming video) I've grown a pretty thick internet skin. If any of you have read my shit on other boards or blogs where it looks like I'm pissed off, you got it wrong I'm afraid. From the start, you should know, if you ever want to escape some of the ill-will and mean people on the inter-tubes... all you have to do is turn off your computer. No? Bad guys gone like poof.

So if you have anybody out there who will seriously yell at me - not for-show yelling, I can tell - I'd be more than happy to add them as well.

Brian? Gino? I wish I would have kept the comments from that one-eyed Catholic fascist troll when we were doing the Boileryard. Wut wuz i thinkin...

But ALSO I have added a little thing called "Exceptional People and Things." So far I got two links in it. I'm looking for what blows my mind. It's not a link list or a "give me a link I give you one back" crap. These are going to be things that, if we were in a bar having a couple of drinks and you said "so recommend some things I haven't seen online" I'd lead you here.

The first one, Hyperbole and a Half, is the flat-out funniest blog on the net. Sorry. No contest. End of story. Forget about it. Allie's artwork can be found everywhere from amongst the denizens of Anonymous to kids who have dog stories to tell and swipe an image to print on their report. Hyperbole and a Half) is flat out genius. I'm sure Allie is a long lost daughter of mine from some illicit liason I didn't remember.

Below that is the direct channel to the Wikileaks mirror sites. If you haven't read one cable, then what are you talking about?

And... for the finale... another tune from before 1968 that has been covered by the Punks and deserves to be seen as a true feeder for everything that broke out in the late 70's. Click the link below that says "Enjoy" in red.

Enjoy.