Bloggeronicus Rex

New Home

2009-03-27T09:21:00.000-07:00

In an attempt to both maximize my postings and make my life easier, I have moved the infamous Bloggeronicus Rex to a new home - See the New Home HERE.

I hope you find the postings titillatingly fantastic and worthy of including in your feeds.

Read on blog addicts. Read on.

The Tyranny of the Remote Control

2006-11-30T11:40:00.000-08:00

I can hardly remember television without a remote control. The only recollections I have are of a big circular metal knob. In between each channel as you turned it was a white noise blast mixed with a distinct clink.

I remember getting cable for the first time and HBO being the gateway for all things not allowed. MTV had real v-jays and not much else – song after song after song followed by a multi-colored astronaut dancing around with a flag. I think somewhere around that viewing option shift I lost sight of the stationary knob. Since then the remote control has lived in my home. I say lived because they seem to have a life of their own.

If I set the remote on the coffee table, it ends up in the kitchen. I place it on the end table and it wakes up under the sofa cushion. Almost without fail wherever he is put he resigns his position and relocates. I’ve checked the remote for any sign of locomotive ability and have come up empty and the family all suffer from amnesia when asked about his GPS.

He also refuses to keep his back. Not only will he move, dance, hide and slide but the cover plate for his batteries disappears too. I think it’s a remote control oath: Within the first week of your new home, ditch the back cover. With it gone we can have fun placing tape over the now loose batteries and giggle and wiggle the metal contacts. The maddening hassle ups the entertainment value.

I thought that the Houdini remote syndrome would be settled when someone bought me a remote control holder caddy. It’s quite nice and can hold six to eight remotes at once. I’m not sure how we acquired all the remotes we have. They seem to multiply at will for their number far exceeds the EDR (electronic device ratio).

I’ve also discovered that the caddy only works if the remotes are put in it. They seem to do well when put to rest there rather than in a foreign location. Somehow the company of other controllers quenches their desire to move.

So, like it or not, the remote control has integrated my viewing regimen. As I’m writing this I’ve noticed that one of my televisions doesn’t even have a way to advance through the fancy electronics and settings without the remote! So if that remote erroneously migrates to a new valley or is kidnapped by another television company’s replacement, I’m fried. Of course there are the generic adoptive friends you can pick up at Wal-Mart to replace the defectors and damaged victims but I’ve never liked the un-coolness of having a nonspecific remote. The tyranny continues.

Linguistic Rashes and the Art of Therapeutic Jargon

2006-09-24T18:15:00.000-07:00

And so it seems as though I’m surrounded. No matter what cavern I descend or mountain peak I climb, enduring abusive therapeutic jargon is my lot. Not only do I find myself on the verge of a syllogistic coma, I must also carry around a tube of vernacular Benadryl to avoid being overrun by a semantic rash.

The word ‘issue’ and its plural variant have infiltrated every conversational crevice from chats and dialogues to blogs and confabulations. There are now issues for everything. They come in all shapes and sizes. There are computer issues and car issues and hair issues and facial issues and behavioral issues and travel issues and political issues and pet issues and issues with issues and social issues and serendipitous issues and client issues and food issues and employment issues and catalytic issues and … [insert ad nauseam here]

The dictionary defines ‘issues’ as “a personal problem or emotional disorder”. I suppose that definition is apropos since I have a personal problem with its descriptive usage. I was first introduced to the term about fifteen years ago through a liberal-minded California dwelling relative who used it in reference to the I’m-working-on-myself therapy bastion of phrases and lingo. Rather than using the word ‘problem’ or ‘sin’ or ‘grief’ or ‘difficulty’ the all-saving generic ‘issue/s’ has taken his throne.

Perhaps one day my spine won’t crinkle when I hear it. Perhaps one day the hives will stop and I can live in peace and harmony with this invasively euphemistic terminology. Perhaps one day I won't end up spinning on the floor like Curly gnawing on a Jungian lexicon while foaming at the mouth. But until then, I will continue on. I will engage in conversation and chat and joyful banter and do my best to not pass out as issue upon issue upon issue is dealt my way. God help me.

It Isn't Just For Breakfast Anymore

2006-06-12T13:40:00.000-07:00

Kiddie Valium

To Do or Not to Do

2006-05-04T19:07:00.000-07:00

Something occured to me.

Lists are a good thing. The challenge is in remembering to write them.

Then to remember to use them.

I think I'll make a list of reminders about the list.

In Honor of the Frie

2006-04-22T14:23:00.000-07:00

Deep-fried lolly pop.
International potatoe rod.
A most wonderful accessory to a plate.
Starchy ketchup stirring stick.
Slender salt pole.

Three cheers for the elongated spud baton!

Introspective Inspection

2006-04-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

"The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9

The broken-hearted prophet of Anathoth wrote about our hopeless condition of tainted introspection. Our hearts are deceitful.

We cannot see ourselves clearly. Our hearts are desperately sick, twisted and clothed with a robe of self-preservation and protection. Our hearts are corrupted and vile, we cannot understand the many channels where our wickedness hides nor can we perfectly ferret out the insidiousness that permeates the intentions we so carefully craft.

Recently I came face to face with this truth. Ultimately, God is the only one who can know our hearts. We have three sources for true inspection. The first is the Scriptures for since they are the breath of God they contain information, like the Jeremiah quote above, that give us some insight into who we are. If God made us then He knows us best.

Secondly, we have other people. Our behavior is best inspected by outsiders. They can observe how we interact and comment on how we come across to others. This gives us a good barometer reading although we usually claim immediate misunderstanding. Even though the specifics may be in dispute, more than likely the root contains enough weakness as to merit more fertilizer. We do well to hear them.

And lastly, there is us. While deceptive and skewed at times we can register introspective reports. We can as much as possible examine ourselves. Some like to flee to the corruption excuse while others like to flee to the third option as their only tool, but both of these are extremes that we should avoid.

We must use a thrice spun introspective inspection that is woven in prayer. That and that alone, is what will save us from becoming the most hated of men.

The Katrina Zone

2005-10-11T08:18:00.000-07:00

In our media-saturated culture it seems that our interests and concerns tend to congregate around an ADD existence where we float from one pop-intensity to another. Usually it’s a murder trial that captivates our attention or a serial killer on the loose or a particular political event but now the aftermath of Katrina and Rita has grabbed the spotlight. What is worthy of observing is that there are needy people somewhere in the world always. There are victims of various disasters around every day of every year. One thing that living near ground zero of Katrina has shown me is that we need a broader world focus; we need to pay attention more to those who need us.

"For you have the poor with you always, and whenever you wish you may do them good; but Me you do not have always.” Mark 14:7

Ringy Dingy Ding Ding

2005-08-25T20:35:00.000-07:00

“This is Katie…[pause to listen] Oh, hi Cindy, I’m in the middle of a pedicure at Ira’s, I’ll call you back after my latte, buh-bye.” Katie, do Cindy a favor and don’t answer the phone. Have you ever heard of voice mail?

Being a gregarious denizen of the Big Easy I can understand the addictive nature of digital chit-chat. I accept that cell phones are an integral thread in our urban adventure; however, there is one simple thing that I do not understand. Why is it that some cell phone users will answer their phones when they can’t talk to you?

“Listen… I’m in a meeting right now, can I back to you?” If you are in a meeting then why on earth are you answering the phone to begin with?! Is it that you can’t figure out how to turn the volume down? Or that when the phone rings you don’t have enough understanding to know that the big button with the word ‘END’ on it is the way to shut off a ringing phone?

Here’s a tip: If you are too busy or involved to speak to the person who is calling you, DON’T ANSWER THE PHONE. In fact, in some cases just leave the phone in your car. Now there’s a novel idea!

Masters of the Obvious Part I - Children need time with Mom

2005-08-22T19:58:00.000-07:00

These blog posts will feature news from the Masters of the Obvious - those lovely folks who present findings and studies and comments to the public at large as if they've discovered something that we didn't already know.

Here is our first gem.

Childcare choices impact kids’ achievement:
Study finds being at home with mom or at pre-school are best options

We can see the genius of our family-hating culture expressed so vividly in these contrasting comments. Take exhibit A.

“Loosely speaking, it would be better if mothers could spend more time with children in the first few years after birth, because the relatively small amount of money they can earn in those years (compared to their lifetime income), isn’t going to make nearly as much difference for the child’s outcomes as the mother’s time input would make,” Keane told Reuters Health.

Now observe Exhibit B.

Bernal added, “We do not advocate for women to stay at home, but rather for policies to be designed in such a way that we can provide women with the types of daycare that can benefit children, with subsidies or with on-site daycare centers.”

You ever get the feeling that a bird knows more about truth in parenting than we do?

Water, Water, Everywhere ...

2005-08-15T12:10:00.000-07:00

They’re everywhere; at the mall, in the car, at the store, on the kitchen counter, in the pews at church, at the park, by the pond, at the seminar, anywhere a human is, there, they shall be. No, I’m not speaking about the glorious cellular phone that at times seems to be biologically fused to everyone’s hand and ear. I am speaking about the water bottle.

Like an oat bran tornado the ‘drink water’ crowd has taken up residence and they are certainly showing no signs that they are slowing for the markets keep on growing. Unlike a delicious Wonka bar expansion our obsession with drinking water has brought a new level of annoyance to the social gathering.

Health reasons notwithstanding, the ‘feed my thirst’ brigade has infiltrated our social fabric and the mildew is spreading. Barely can one have a conversation without them pausing ever so trendily to sip on the spout of their favorite water bottle. This aqua-feeding is almost as annoying as the backpack craze where people of all ages carry around half of their earthly possessions in frameless packs looking like vagabond despots heading into exile.

Hyponatremians beware. Trends come and go, but living on the edge as a bloated amphibian may be fatal. If the Lord wanted us to consume that much water through constant sipping he would have given us trunks for noses. If you feel the need to join the water craze please have enough courtesy to sip in private and the next time you order a water, no ice, with lemon at lunch, I’m going to call your cell phone from across the table.

Hypothetical Entomological Dominion

2005-08-09T23:49:00.000-07:00

If cockroaches could scream we would not crush them under foot.

From the Mouths of Babes - "My baby soup!"

2005-08-03T13:19:00.000-07:00

All the girls were getting dressed for a summer time romp in the inflatable kids’ pool when all of a sudden from down the hallway emerged the rapidly approaching giggle. Turning my head I saw Ruby bouncing and bobbing about like a feline on a catnip overdose as she ran straight past my chair and into the kitchen. Asking her where she was going she spun around in response saying, “I got my baby soup on!”

I’m sure glad those ‘baby soups’ come in such small sizes.

Strange Consumables

2005-08-02T23:07:00.000-07:00

Some years ago I read about Phil Johnson's love of odd edibles and was both elated and intrigued as I, too, love to eat 'different' foods.

Phil's culinary adventures include eating a slab O' hog in Italy, the stinky big daddy of all fruits - the spiny durian, a Marmite snack called 'swine mixture', and an amber-encased scorpion lolly pop. This is my kind of man.
[See Phil's blog 'Pyromaniac' here.]

Some of my odd eatings have included traditional Louisiana delights such as boiled crawfish, cracklins, boudin, pigs feet, and roasted nutria.

While in Mexico City on a business trip my dinner hosts decided to test my daring. Like Phil, that is usually a mistake as I will rarely if ever pass up my chance to eat a rarity. In this challenge it was a rainy season treat called 'escamoles'. Escamoles are ant larvae wrapped up like fajitas served with onions, sauce, and tortillas. They had the taste of earthy protein as each one was like a droplet of dirt encapsulated by a fleshy outside layer. My Mexican friends were delighted to see my hearty enthusiasm as we shared a cold cerveza in celebration of my newly found treat.

So to my friends from around the globe who are reading this I say to you, EXPAND your palates! Dive into other cultures by consuming the wonderful dishes that the world has to offer you and when you eat, eat well, and eat strangely!

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut

2005-07-19T02:20:00.000-07:00

“Legend has it that lovers met beneath the trees to hear the pistachios crack open on moonlit nights for the promise of good fortune. A rare delicacy, pistachios were a favorite of the Queen of Sheba, who demanded all her land's production for herself and her court. The royal nut was imported by American traders in the 1880s, primarily for U.S. citizens of Middle Eastern origin.”
California Pistachio Commission

I love to eat pistachios. The lightly salted shells with their distinctive clam-like openings protect the tasty crunch waiting inside. I can eat a bowl full of them as fast as a squirrel monkey that’s run out of insects and berries. For Father’s Day I even received a big ten pound bag of pistachios from Sam’s Club to fill my craving.

While digging around on the web for information about the pistachio I found this interesting tidbit –

The pistachio is a broad, bushy, deciduous tree which grows slowly to a height and spread of 25 to 30 feet, with one or several trunks.

I love that word ‘deh-sid-jew-us’; it has that PBS/NOVA sound to it, doesn’t it? It makes me feel as though I actually did pay attention in those biology lectures when I pronounce that word. In fact, saying it is almost as fun as ‘in-doo-buh-tuh-blee’, but, I digress.

Now I bring this tale of the tasty nut to you not to just wax on about fun-to-say words and romantic legends, but, instead, I wanted to share with you an interesting life lesson that occurs every time I bust through one of those pistachio bags.

Not all of those shells are half-opened; some of them are sealed shut and hard to get into. And in my eating frenzy I don’t always take the time to break into the difficult shells, so I just toss them back into the bag as I eat. However, this sidestepping technique causes a problem.

Sooner or later the bag ratio shifts from ‘mostly open’ to ‘none are open’ and I am left with nothing but a bag of very hard, closed, and difficult-to-deal-with nuts. It is at that moment that I have a choice – I can either take the time to break through the stubborn shells and enjoy the reward that awaits my labor, or, I can simply take the bag of rejects and toss them out. And then it happens. I realize that had I simply dealt with each difficult nut on a case by case basis rather than avoiding them, I would not be staring at a multitude of challenges right now.

Oh, that we would learn from the pistachio.

Moderate Epicureanism

2005-07-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

There is a level of devotion to the ‘finer things in life’ that mixes with a moderate sense of style and enjoyment. I am not referring to that slavish devotion to Epicureanism that would find one bowing a knee to strict addictions and sensual puppetry, but rather I am speaking of a modest and temperate appreciation of fine foods, satisfying beverages, and the extracurricular delving into simple pleasures.

One can participate in a connoisseur travel by either sampling the fine fruits of creative or traditional labors or one can become a duplicator and originator of the samplings themselves. I have enjoyed being both and recently have taken steps to increase my knowledge and practice.

I decided to up my culinary acumen through focusing on one aspect of cooking and as a result of the season, have endeavored to fine tune my grilling skills. Steven Raichlen’s book, “How to Grill: The Complete Illustrated Book of Barbeque Techniques” has been a masterful guide to learning this delicious art. The book is well-written in easy to understand text and has enough preparation and technique pictures to make one feel as though they were working hand in hand with Raichlen as he shows you how to grill everything from whole cabbages and garlic kabobs to a mustard encrusted salmon. One of my personal favorites is a raft of fresh asparagus spears grilled with in a simple soy, garlic, and toasted sesame oil sauce – simply divine.

After working in the custom beverage industry now for more than fifteen years, my appreciation for unique and well-made beverages has been solidified into a palate love fest - delectable mangos and cream smoothies, the raspberry hinted Purple Haze microbrew from Abita, vanilla noted Maker’s Mark raised in Kentucky’s bourbon heritage, Jones’ refreshingly crisp watermelon soda, or a freshly made chai incorporating Darjeeling bases with clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Nothing quite satisfies like a smooth Merlot that invites delicate berries and rounded woody notes to find a home as you slowly sip its subtle perfection. Merely living on the mundane and average drink intake dims the mosaic palette as well, turning it into a grey scaled test pattern.

Lastly, as I reflect on the Divinely given cornucopia I turn my reflections to the now vilified nicotiana tabacum. It has been said that America was built on tobacco given the colonial economy’s reliance upon that trade and it is a shame that smoking has become a political whipping post. Now let me take a moment to clarify.

When I’m speaking about the enjoyment of smoking I am not speaking about the dreg habit of cigarette smoking whereby an individual inhales pack after pack daily. Equating that practice to the pleasure of sharing a Cavendish bowl with a friend over deep and intent theological conversations or a smooth Macanudo’s draw while swaying peacefully on a cypress swing on a cool evening in May as you contemplate the blessings you’ve been given is simply an equivocation fallacy no serious aficionado should have to endure. The litany of men who throughout history have partaken in this noble pass time includes Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, U.S. President John Adams, Mark Twain, George Burns, Theodor “Dr.Seuss” Geisel, General Douglas MacArthur, and Sir Winston Churchill.

This weekend I shall grill and share a glass of Pinot Grigio before enjoying some down time with a bowl of McClelland Red Cake. Simple, multifarious pleasures crafted and handled with modest and temperate appreciation - blessings indeed.

The Melodious Infusion Principle

2005-07-11T12:43:00.000-07:00

"Saul sent to Jesse, saying, "Let David now stand before me, for he has found favor in my sight." So it came about whenever the evil spirit from God came to Saul, David would take the harp and play it with his hand; and Saul would be refreshed and be well, and the evil spirit would depart from him."
1 Samuel 16:22-23

Music soothes our weary souls. There is no denying the emotional, spiritual, physical, and mental intermingling that exists between staff and heart, beat and rhythm, note and piece. An aesthetic switch clicks in my head when I hear a certain kind of musical package. It seems as though there is an instant endorphin masking that coats the melodious membrane residing inside of me as I can feel a warm rush overflowing. The overflow comes in three main types.

The first type is the adrenalin-fused burst - a membrane infusion that causes you to want to get up and dance or find the keys to the Masseratti spider convertible for a high speed jaunt. The genre of the stimulating notes doesn’t seem to matter for I can feel the same burst from Metallica’s “Invisible Kid” to Dianne Reeves’ “Smile”.

A second overflow is purely ethereal for it rests on the substratum, living in the crack of a perfectly snapped snare head or in the strangely bent third harmony note that just about fits on scale. It’s not necessarily related to a difficulty level in performance, but rather, it is usually related to the genius of design – a well-placed and crafted arrangement or technique that soothes the symphonic sensei.

Thirdly, there is the unconventional aesthetic impulse that refreshes a newness in faith found in those who remain true to form while stretching the frame such as Polytown with David Torn, Terry Bozzio, and Mick Karn. Moving beyond mere tradition and course this overflow capriciously carries you to the edge at times without dropping you on your head- curved sense without nonsense.

May you find beauty, solace, refreshment, and energized motivation permeating your musical explorations.

When Prayers Collide

2005-07-09T15:36:00.000-07:00

It’s that time of year again – hurricane season - the time of year when we get track whirl pooled wrath and make decisions about evacuations and protective procedures. Scientific wonders and meteorological magic come together with high speed technology as we monitor our laptops viewing the latest predictions, coordinates, and radar mappings. Today we’ve been watching Mr. Dennis as he leaves behind a beaten Cuba and heads for the Gulf coast.

I was thinking about the conundrum that happens each year when I begin to come face to face with a potentially devastating hurricane – prayer. As the massive storms approach and the weather persons on television begin to increase their alerts and warnings I find myself praying for protection. “Dear Lord, please protect my home from destruction and keep my family safe.”

The tension comes when I realize that there is another person in Florida praying the same thing. And then I realize that there is another person in Alabama praying the same thing as well as in Mississippi; too late for the person in Cuba. All of us are praying for protection, safety, and good favor but the storm must hit someone! I don’t like the feeling that I’m dueling with my prayers and certainly I know that I’m not worthy of more protection than anyone else, so there I sit with a confused puppy dog look on my face as my head tilts in mid-sentence. Am I praying, “Smash HIS house not mine!”? “You can destroy HER car, leave mine intact!”?

So I decided this year that I’m going to adopt two new prayer principles during hurricane season. One is to pray as Christ said to pray – Thy will be done – leaving the results up to Him and His divine decision and, two, is to pray for annihilation. “Dear Lord, please annihilate this storm. Destroy it as it spins over the water.”

Amen.

More Reflections on Time Dilations and Helmets

2005-07-07T10:18:00.000-07:00

Right now someone is already in tomorrow while I sit in today. Yesterday’s where we sit while today’s people think about where they’ve been.
Sitting in tomorrow ahead of time is like looking back to today before it was yesterday. Concurrent time stretching is only possible within a one day move either forward or back. Tomorrow can only be today and not the day after tomorrow.

Today’s time is my helmet.

Time Dancing

2005-07-06T11:24:00.000-07:00

From H.G. Wells in teleporting time machines to the biblical contemplation of ‘always was’ and ‘always will be’ time boggles our minds. To sincerely grasp the continual invisible marcher is a task that confounds even the brightest observer. We have a beginning and an end to our daily references and most of us are meticulously disciplined by our schedules which are symbiotically fused to clocks. This chronological system limits our reflection.

Our own experience as we live, think, and record it is encapsulated in a referential helmet from which we absorb, sense and process. As I eat dinner at my grandmother’s house at 9 p.m. on Sunday evening I have no sense that at the very same moment someone is just waking up to the sun’s introduction of the next day while it is now just closing on me. At midnight when I gaze at the moon’s fuzzy halo someone else has bright sunshine as we are both ahead, behind, and concurrent all in the same instance. To realize that at every moment of each day we are already in the ‘not yet’, while simultaneously also in the ‘waiting to be’, puts our ‘now’ into a mind numbing place.

Contemplating too intently on these time oddities will cause us to go from navel gazing to stellar pondering and will only bring us to a blank stage where we find ourselves tap dancing in Einstein costumes at the speed of light. Transcending time limitations is a basic characteristic of God for He is a spirit, omnipresent, infinite, and eternal. Being material, temporal, and finite makes it impossible to even dip our understanding into certain concepts, but meditating on referential relativities in our small earthly realm somehow gives us a glimpse of the Divine.

Just remember that if you do decide to learn the steps to “Tea for Two” and find yourself humming almost inaudibly while eating baby food with a straw that you were warned yesterday.

Optimistic Realism and Irreversible Boots

2005-07-01T23:11:00.000-07:00

So, frolickers and fisherman are being eaten by bull sharks in Florida, Sandra Day O’Connor is going to retire, Luther Vandross is dead and the U.S. Supreme Court decided that filling the economical coffers by expanding the eminent domain powers of government is a good thing.

I wish that the oceanic predators in government would find themselves retiring more often than attempting to dance with my father because we certainly don’t feel any love in their tango. When sense isn’t so common and original intent morphs into a living interpretation that resembles Rousseau over Bastian distinctions then utopia has decided to take practicality on a river cruise without her floaties.

At some point we will crumble. Like an overweight disco dancer attempting to hustle on patent white spikes our pants will rip wide open as we slide face first across the super glossed floor. Without proper diet and tailored clothing, an obese floundering and eruption is inevitable.

Despite the sporadic moves towards Americanism there seems to be a metachlorian count deficiency in the populace that causes amnestic sheep likeness and apathy. However, the admittance of a downward trek doesn’t mean that we should retreat. No matter how much we think that things won’t improve we must always cling to a two-fold chain. One component is the sovereign hand of God as He sees all things come to pass according to His desire and decree and the other is our responsibility before our families and our friends and our nation and our God to press on.

Retreating, whining, and neutrality are not options. If you’re gonna die, die with your boots on.

Reality Check

2005-07-01T19:45:00.000-07:00

Integrated Relaxation

2005-06-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege to be invited to a friend's home in Mississippi this weekend for a lunch with some folks from his church family. I've known Alan now for a few years but had never been to his house. What a tremendous experience it was.

After living there for over twenty-five years he was able to purchase the adjacent property to add to his lot and decided to design and build an integrated relaxation and fellowship pavilion.

You can see from the pictures that it is truly a remarkable and highly unique structure and what makes it most incredible is that Alan and his wife Kathy have committed it to their friends.

We live in a country of class envy fueled by the battling political warriors who attempt to convince the less fortunate that their plight has been sealed by the ones who could care less about their position. The foolishness of this caricature is of course not only anti-American, but comical since the ones trying to persuade them of such things are themselves socialistic Peter Pans who create sucklings in the name of 'looking out for your best interest'. I mention this because when I saw this great place that Alan has made, I saw the right use of affluence.

Don't get me wrong, he lives modestly but he has, through hard work and dedication created a good life for himself and the ability to stoke a brain child into a live reality. With a landscape architect education and a vivid imagination this piece of calm contains many great features including a full kitchen, a private creek/stream, and a stone fireplace.

There are several hammocks available as well as a nice wicker porch swing and a comfortable den setting by the fireplace and plenty of chair space with a mezzanine deck overlooking the running water and plush greenery. Many stone paths meander and weave through the trees in an ergonomic fashion that blends into the environment. This relaxation nook is accessible from the street with carefully designed walkways and a private double parking space which is fronted with an Asian-influenced border wall and the general scheme of the property is a handpicked blend of reminiscent Southwest, Mission style, and screened Japanese, vacationing on a Lloyd-Wright beachfront.

He has an open invitation for visitors and friends so that they may use the facility for warm fellowship, private meetings, sensitive discussions, and meditation as well as the occasional get together. What a fine example of using what God has blessed one with for not just self, but for the benefit of others.

You Stink

2005-06-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

I had a cigarette smoker tell me today that my cigar stunk. Somehow my odoriferousness had managed to repel he who is most mephitic and that got me thinking.

What have cigarette smokers done to deserve being put on the Most Wanted list? I’m a bit tired of seeing them swarming around buildings like ill-behaved locusts in time out.

I don’t like cigarette smoke either but is this really necessary? I’m typing this entry on a laptop. This marvel of modernity certainly contains enough technological evidence proving that we should be able to figure out a way to properly ventilate a room so as to not have to send away our nicotine laden neighbors scurrying off to grab another fix. I can’t accept the fact that something other than forced retreats is not a viable and more humane solution.

I saw a man riding down the street on a motorcycle with no helmet on his head. Some seem to be willing to fight for the right to watch his cranium bounce down Hwy 49 after being hit by an impatient pickup truck, yet they are adamant about shoving Ms. Martha onto the porch to inhale and wheeze.

And then I began to think about flatulence and obnoxious perfumes and the incredible amount of longsuffering that must be exercised towards those who consume methane producing meals and who have little to no sense of what a dab is suppose to mean.

And what about supercalifragilisticexpiahalitosis where otherwise endearing and visually stimulating denizens become noxious dragons, shaking even the most firm follicles from one’s olfactories. Are these malodorous folk to be banished into their own stench corral?

Oh, I hear what you are saying now. There’s no such thing as cancer causing secondhand halitosis. And if that easy rider wipes out having his brains instantly becoming couscous my lungs will still be preserved.

I suppose it simply boils down to “I know you are but what am I?” yet once again.

Discriminating Blogging

2005-06-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

Well it’s been quite some time now since I’ve blogged. While my observations have continued to be many and fathomed, my overflow hasn’t been peaked and hence, I have not felt compelled to write. And it is with that in mind that I began to doubt my bloggability until I realized that I have many hats to wear and only one head and that bloggeronially speaking, one must blog with a deference of discrimination.

Yet the thought of scarce blogging led me to feel guilty about not writing for the sake of those who do read my blog. And that contemplation ushered in a sense of pride for having thought that there were actually some folks waiting on a post – checking in regularly to see what was posted before they head out to work or retire for the evening or while they are eating a noon time snack. Prideful thoughts mangled with guilt and the fear of being ostracized by the blogging community then met the Reality Committee (RC).

The fear of ‘they’ and the effort to make sure that I was in line with ‘those who shall judge’ is of no concern to the RC. If I will blog, then I shall blog! If I am infrequently blogging in the blogosphere of blogdom, then I am an infrequent blogger! And if I am frequently blogging, then I am blogging frequently!

Should one be concerned with the rapidity and mass of his blog tome or should he be in fear of posting vacuous syntax and diary regurgitations that would stretch the benevolence of even one’s own mother in having to read them? Quality over quantity should be the decree! Yes quality over quantity! Yes! Yes!

I sure hope this post qualifies.

Metropolitan

2005-05-13T18:43:00.000-07:00

Chilled olive
Suspended
On a
Parallel pike
Intrusion.

Funneled fan
Over
Quick glances that
Meld into
Rapid banter.

Sippings that sip
And
Slip around
Slender and
Delicate pedestals.

Random pairings
Sit
Juxtaposed
To
Standing Standards.

Eye the Jury

2005-05-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

How many times do you hear it?
It goes on all day long
Everyone knows everything
And no one's ever wrong
Until later...

Who can you believe?
It's hard to play it safe
But apart from a few good friends
We don't take anything on faith
Until later...

Show...don't tell...

From Show Don’t Tell - Presto – Rush – 1989 – words by Neil Peart
------------------------------------------------------------------

We live in an age of insta-bake reality. Fastness and now-ness rule the day as we are annoyed that our microwaves take far too long to heat up our awaiting feast. Speed is a god in retail and he who serves the masses the fastest with the least grief usually wins the pie. Our courts seem to face a similar digression.

An interesting phenomenon in our legal system is trial by TV. (TbyTV) The public has had its epistemology taken to lunch by the circumstantial lobby group and have been filled with partially-heard hors d’oeuvres to the point that they themselves constitute the end all and have little room left for the real meal.

It is amazing that so many people attempt to ask for an opinion on a trial that is in the news when they have only just received their attorney’s licenses from the fifty-cent bubblegum machines at the mall. Their data consists of leaked out transcripts, notes, and reports that make a sieve look like a concrete mesh.

If one has ever had the unfortunate opportunity to have their story printed in the media or a controversial event laid out in the news they can relate to knowing that it is rare that they get things straight. Next time someone asks your opinion about a trial of which you are not a member of the jury, kindly say, “I’m sorry, I have no comment.”

Save us all the grief.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

You can twist perceptions
Reality won't budge
You can raise objections
I will be the judge
And the jury

I'll give it due reflection
Watching from the fence
Give the jury direction
Based on the evidence
I, the jury

Denying the Obvious

2005-05-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

What is more infuriating than a rabid chipmunk gnawing on your freshly baked banana bread? Denial.

Disappointment comes from one's failure to live up to an expected end, but madness comes from watching someone consistently ignoring their behavior.

Perhaps we can answer the above question by replying - "Watching a rabid Chihuahua chase his hyper-spun tail while telling us he's skipping along calmly".

Even on honest ground it is difficult to stay sane at times, but on denial's river banks it is impossible.

May we all have clear and fresh mirrors and the eyes by which to see.

Go Tell It On the Mountain

2005-05-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

I spent some time in the Colorado Rockies last week.

Being from swamp lands I felt as though I were walking in a postcard. After three feet of fresh powdered snow had fallen in the morning my wandering hikes took me into every Christmas winter wonderland I had ever seen except this time the snow was not stretched cotton on artificial turf.

The incredible glory of our grand Creator was manifested in the things that were seen as my entire vista was overwhelmed by each perfectly placed figurine and background.

It is true what the Psalmist has said. Only a fool would say that there is no God.

Mouth of Babes Entry - Italianism

2005-04-25T00:06:00.000-07:00

On the way to Wallyworld ...

Carlyn: "Who is he? what does he look like?"

In reference to a new Italian friend...

Elizabeth-Kay: "He looks just like an American, but he's from Italy"

Political correctness meets the mouth of babes :)

The Transparent Pretension

2005-04-18T21:35:00.000-07:00

Ever feel like a swirling pinwheel that catches every wind, breath, and downhill draft? You spin but you are stationary- lodged in between the cool and comfortable blades of a freshly cut lawn.

Ever feel like an ADD gorilla storming across the den with thick knuckles dragging debris and damage through out your palace by your perfectly executed banana dance? You grunt and snort and win the best in show at ZooFest, yet no one buys your tantrum any longer, they merely patronize the tirade.

Ever feel like a dedicated drum major with a three hundred pound whistle attached to your blowing lips while leading a parade? You turn to gaze back at the marching revelers and fancy footers only to find a fully filled street adorned in apathetic turbans going beep, beep, beep.

Ever feel like George Jetson’s carpool driver sandwiched between the son of Gregarious II and his heir to the throne Loquacious I? You want to concentrate on not missing the tricky left lane merge but your head is domed in mumbles, half-sentences, and fog.

From the Mouths of Babes - "I don't have a brain!"

2005-04-18T09:29:00.000-07:00

Still learning, fabricating, developing, and coming to understand the use of truth, metaphor, sarcasm, imagery, deception, and social tact, children say the 'darndest' things.

This little series will focus on those youthful utterances in an attempt to remind us of just how beautiful they are.
----------------------------------------------------

Trying to encourage her sister to lower her voice while 'reading' (Jeanne-Marie cannot read as she is only just four) aloud Carlyn asks -

"Jeanne-Marie? Can you not talk so loud with that book?"

Jeanne-Marie responds softly, "I like to read it."

"Can't you just read it in your brain?" Carlyn asks.

Jeanne-Marie retorts, "I don't have a brain!"

On the Hospice Care of Clear Communication

2005-04-18T09:18:00.000-07:00

Words have meaning and sometimes those meanings fluctuate and move along the semantic conveyor belt like silly putty soldiers in Wittgenstein’s verbal factory clinging on to an image of what they used to be. And yet, precision does exist- there is such a thing as being clear and precise, although I fear that the syllogisms are burning.

It seems that many find clear communication to be a completely unrealistic adventure as they favor painting presumptuously laden emotional thumbnails and impressionistic murals in an attempt to communicate. Feelings and deep-seated emoticons rule the day. Logic is smoldering.

Felt needs have become the catalytic adverbs that force feed hearers a Modus Ponens IV tube while not having a proper theorem at all. It’s like trying to listen to a prattling child and being accused of insensitivity and pickiness because you find nonsensical babbling to be incomprehensible when you should be understanding and caring and sensitive. Yes, sensitive… yes, oh so sensitive. The Avon rep is calling.

Whatever happened to truth tables? Whatever happened to right and wrong and black and white? Has gray now become the color of those who claim to be enlightened? Certainly gray exists but using it to cloak a slothful mind is shameful.

Like all cultural problems there isn’t just one reason or answer for this love of nonsense. Many shaping influences have contributed to the postmodern pyrite city’s fortification. The most dominant one goes back far, far into the past. It goes all the way back to Eden where the embodiment of evil succeeded in convincing man that he was autonomous.

Believing that one has no accountability outside of themselves to an Absolute rule giver will drive not only their soul into destruction, but as I’ve come to see, it will also herd their thinking into a maddening cesspool as well.

Po Mo Pope No Mo

2005-04-03T23:32:00.000-07:00

Many have called the now deceased leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II, one of, if not the greatest, Christian leader of the 20th century.

Can a chimpanzee be the greatest duck of the 20th century?

Only if we redefine what it means to be a duck.

Death Be Not Proud

2005-04-01T12:20:00.000-08:00

According to one source approximately 95 million people die each year. That means that every second, 3 people are gone. Every minute 180 individuals pass away. Within the next hour 10,800 men, women and children will have disappeared. Today, as you finish up your daily activities about 165,000 people have died. I’m not sure if these stats take into account daily womb invasions or not as each hour women are deceived into exercising evil in the name of choice. The number of murdered womb babies is estimated to be in the millions.

It is interesting that this massive amount of death goes by virtually unnoticed. We seem to stand up and observe death when it is either revealed to us in one massive event or when it is particularly wrapped around a controversial social topic or celebrity / leader. The Jihad-infected aero bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City as well as the Asian-pacific tsunami disaster are examples of the former while the recent death of Teri Schiavo and Pope John Paul II the latter.

When we are riding in our convertibles soaking in the pleasure rays as our favorite melody and groove propel us down winding roads we don’t think about our grave. Sobering moments only come on the tip of death’s dagger. The book of Ecclesiastes puts it this way, “…the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth. It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, because that is the end of every man, and the living takes it to heart… The mind of the wise is in the house of mourning, while the mind of fools is in the house of pleasure.” (Ecclesiastes 7:1b-2;4) Truly God’s advice is not congruent with our wisdom.

We have watched the educational system instruct us that we come from highly advanced amebas leaping as a Galapagos frog from bug to fish to man and we have sat by our warm television sets seeing if any of those who claim to have some sense of right and wrong will actually understand that a helpless woman needs to eat and drink. Starving a Chihuahua in your garage will get you arrested and branded as inhumane yet denying basic feeding and nutrition to the disabled is now respecting surrogate ‘rights’. At least the wicked are consistent. Well, sometimes.

America has become an oligarchy as Ann Coulter states rather well, “Our infallible, divine ruler is a county judge in Florida named George Greer, who has more authority in America than the U.S. Congress, the president and the governor. No wonder the Southern Baptist Church threw Greer out: Only one god per church!”

In Pope John Paul II’s case the words of John Gunther ring true, “All the doctors!--helpless flies now, climbing across the granite face of death." We all die. We just don’t know when. James White puts this event into a proper perspective by writing, “I wonder...how many evangelical leaders will honor God rather than men and say what needs to be said? "Unless the Pope believed the gospel, he, like any other person on the planet, died under the wrath of God, outside of the only way of salvation God has provided in Jesus Christ!" And how many will cave in to the fear of the face of men and do what society demands by compromising the gospel, showing a greater love of the acclaim of men rather than the approval of God? Remember, friends: Romans 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Eternal perspectives come to us through death events and remind us that vapors only last for a short tick on the grand tock.

The Croce Proverb Series III

2005-03-24T09:26:00.000-08:00

Like the pine trees lining the winding road
I've got a name, I've got a name.

Like a singing bird and a croaking toad
I've got a name, I've got a name.

And I carry it with me like my daddy did
But I'm living with the dream that he kept hid.

Movin' me down the highway
Rollin' me down the highway
Movin' ahead so life won't mash me into small unidentifiable pieces of insignificance as rubbernecking scoffers mock and ridicule my vivid dismemberment.

The Croce Proverb Series II

2005-03-21T09:52:00.000-08:00

You don't tug on Superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask of the old Lone Ranger
And you don't mess around with seraphim

The Croce Proverb Series I

2005-03-20T06:57:00.000-08:00

If I could save time in a bottle ...
I'd market it on HSN with one of those cute hostesses and make millions.

Layered Understanding

2005-03-16T07:12:00.000-08:00

I’m back in action now after my lengthy physical ailment (November to February) and I feel great. It is amazing what having chronic pain will do to your sensibilities and overall constitution. I was in a state of ‘being’ depression. My entirety was warding off the constant prickling and dullness pulses that brought about a flat lined snap to my zip.

My compassion level for those who live with constant pain has increased ten fold and it brings to mind the reality that for as much as we think we know what is going on in someone’s life, we actually don’t. There are undercurrents and multiple layers wrapped around us as we interact one to another and not all of them are self-made.

We are all aware of the common practice of putting on masks that are neither Mardi Gras nor west African. Playing the true hypocrite is an art that many seek to master. However, there is a kind of layering that doesn’t have a purposed intent. It just exists.

Each one of us is an archive with a long list of saved and deleted files that are constantly defragging. You can never be sure of what stage you are conversing with or at what speed the processing is functioning, yet we know that the underneath is there working between obvious and suppressed and above the heart and soul.

I am not advocating some dualistic realism or quasi-MacLaine navelhood here, rather what I am promoting is an awareness that there are a plethora of shaping influences lurking below your visual awareness that the conversant you are interacting with is having to wrestle. And being aware of this lack of awareness on your end makes you aware that you don’t have the full story and their list of files and this knowing should generate patience in your understanding and slowness in your discontent.

The Inescapable Me

2005-03-08T07:35:00.000-08:00

I ran from me and found I.
I jumped straight down and had to eat choked up.
I escaped a Houdini dream only to be shackled again
With the key tightly tucked in my mouth.

I took off with complete fuel yet landed instantly.
I fled myself and discovered a stowaway clone.
I isolated the first person pronoun on a village-less peak
But the grand and mighty eye could still see.

I pushed the planet away and it looped back around.
I walked off a concrete cliff that turned out to be just a step.

© 2005 Munkeyfu Madness

The Procedure of Which We Should Not Speak

2005-02-25T09:26:00.000-08:00

8:15 a.m. – As is the customary morning ritual, I head to the bathroom to relieve myself with snarling teeth exposed. A few grunts later I make it to my bar and begin to formulate my anxiety tonic. Three ounces of smooth calm later I’m ready to go.

8:35 a.m. – I am dropped off at the clinic and make my way up the elevator while conversing with a man who has half an ankle, the result of a motorcycle injury. After discussing the pros and cons of negotiating eight hundred pound motor-beasts I walk from the vertical transport, down the hall and to the office.

8:50 a.m. – I’m in exam room number one. Before me sits a mechanical chair that looks like a hybrid stepchild from the union of an auto mechanic’s duty bay and an OBGYN’s rummage sale. There she is the extraction seat: piston levers, leg stirrup holders, swivel base, and padded cushions covered with that butcher paper that they lay on the equipment so you don’t either give the next guy something or receive it from the last patron.

8:55 a.m. – What an interesting position to be in, laid up in the hydraulic lift seat, legs in the stirrups fully exposed. I can’t help but have flashbacks of the many un-relatable conversations I’ve had with women as they’ve discussed and remarked about pap smears, yearly examines, and the strangeness of porn-like medical posturings. I turn my head east and see a television monitor and various elongated tubes and wires and thing-a-ma-jigs connected to an outlet that all say to me “Hi, we are here to invade your body cavity.” In my mind I hear the frightened voice of Daffy Duck saying, “Mother!?”.

9:00 a.m. – Doctor comes in and mumbles a few cordial words while busily reading my chart and asking where I’ve been for so long. I decided to confess that I’ve been both busy and chicken. Busy with a new job and chicken to submit to the fact that the psychological pain of the extraction-of-which-we-do-not-speak is far worse than the reality. After a comforting chuckle and some reassuring formalities he informs me that he is about to administer a numbing gel into the end of my extremity-of-which-we-should-not-speak. Daffy!!!!??? Help!!!!

9:10 a.m. – Nurse enters and gracefully avoids staring directly at me while making distracting chit chat but I know that those thing-a-ma-jigs are about to be used and I’m not letting anyone out of my sight.

9:15 a.m. – Doctor lets me know that they will be putting in one of those elongated tubes and filling me with some water to get the endoscope in. I feel my insides pressurizing. Just as he’s passing the prostate he says, “Okay, now this is the worse part and …” That’s all I heard before it felt like my entire region-of-which-we-should-not-probe was going to explode in aquatic agony. But, in about three seconds it subsided.

9:18 a.m. – Nurse informs me that I can view the monitor at my leisure to watch them grab the stent. I oblige and watch as this hemostatic-alligator jaw clamps down on the end of the stent’s loop resting just inside my bladder. There’s a certain surreal moment in all of this where you begin to think that you are really watching someone else on TLC and not your own inner workings in full color.

9:20 a.m. – “Alright now, here we go I’m going to pull it out and….” Zip. Pluck. In one swift yank the entire stent is out. The nurse holds it up for examination as if it were a freshly uncorked wine bottle. I cannot describe the feeling. Strange day.

9:25 a.m. – Everyone leaves the room and I’m told I can wipe up and get dressed. I look around the exam room as the buzz turns silent and I realize that I’m all alone with a certain peculiar sense of having been violated by the stent horde. Co-pay collected. Procedure done. NEXT!

9:35 a.m. – I find out that I have calcium stones and that I’ve got to participate in a Litholink Kidney Stone Prevention Program whereby I collect my urine for a twenty-four hour period and FedEx it to a lab. The fun never ends does it?

I just keep reminding myself that I could have a leech on my flank and head back home.

Pondering the Stent Removal

2005-02-24T22:49:00.000-08:00

Well, in the morning I get my uretic stent taken out. This wire was inserted into my urinary system while having my lithotripsy procedure. It extends from my kidney down to my bladder. Here's an x-ray of what it looks like. [No, this is not me :) ]

www.path.utah.edu/casepath/GU%20Cases/GUCase5/
ABD%20film%20post%20stent.jpg

Nice, huh? This little medical gadget is there to aid the exiting of kidney stones and fragments through the urinary tract and since the urologist gave me the green light they are now going to remove it. Now comes the tricky part. There is only one way that stent is coming out and no,I don't have a secret hatch or fistibulation hole readily available. So that means that Mr. Manhood and myself had a meeting and have concluded that neither of us are very happy about this event, yet we concede to its inevitability.

I called the doctor and asked if I could have a double martini prior to the extraction-of-which-we-do-not-speak and he approved. Therefore, at 8:10 a.m., in the morning light,I shall be shaking up my pre-office elixir. Over the scent of fresh eggs and toast will be the crackling of ice cubes and the wonderful taste of anchovie-stuffed olives. Perhaps in memory of the great journalist Hunter Thompson's tragic demise I can put on some aviators and a gonzo hat.

To be continued...

The New American Prayer

2005-02-22T23:44:00.000-08:00

Oh, All-powerful and All-knowing higher entity-person for which we have no agreed upon name!

We bow our heads before your unknown essence and pray to you/he/she/it in a moment of silence because we know that we have been given nothing of certainty by which we can know you or your purpose, ability, and character.

We adore and praise all of your wondrous and indefinite attributes as we assume their existence because they make us feel better about our world and ourselves as we act spiritually in prayer.

We thank you, and perhaps even ourselves, for creating this world and all that is in it, which stands as an incredibly vague and mysterious monument to the glory of none.

Please forgive us All-powerful and All-knowing higher entity-person for calling you by so many various names and essences as we respect your right to be as undistinguished as possible.

Help us each day to live our lives in an honoring way according to the corruptively ambiguous and contradictory collective writings that we advanced primates uphold as divine.

Amen.

© 2005 Munkeyfu Madness

Waiting on Science and the Theory of Inversion

2005-02-17T22:31:00.000-08:00

I've successfully attached this rubber plunger to my belly button and have tied fifteen feet of steel cable to the handle which is firmly secured to my friend Elrod's Ford F-150 trailer hitch so that in the wee hours of the morning when he gets up to go nutria hunting and speeds off into the rigorous and unassuming dew, I will find my skin inverted up and over my lip as I attempt to prove once again that the theory of external epidermal inversion is exactly correct as it relates to being turned inside out by sudden and sharply directed vector forces uniquely and precisely applied.

These Words, Phrases, and Sayings Burn Us! -Part. III

2005-02-16T09:50:00.000-08:00

The MHASWSCA list concludes:

7. Right to Your Own Opinion
This particular expression hails from the political arena and attempts to denote an unalienable right to possess an opinion. Here we have another curious saying that falls short of conveying anything of substance. We have a right to have a thought? We possess the right to think whatever we want? Who's attempting to police your mind anyway? How would they even access it since it cannot be known by anyone else but you and God? Only when thoughts are converted into words and are expressed either verbally or by pen can they be ascertained and at that moment they are immediately subject to Law. Hence, the practical reality of 'the right to one's opinion' is merely philosophical posturing that still may result in a sock to the jaw or jail time. We don't have the right to publicly spew whatever opinion we have on any subject.

What would we tell forty-five year old Freddy Freek when he says to us, "Ya know, I believe the true essence of all love and worthy affection are found in my choice of sexual relations with three year old girls. My highest happiness is found in those fantastic love bonds."? Would we honestly say to him, "Freddy, you have a right to your opinion." ? Some opinions are simply evil and as such deserve no light of day much less given the crowning of a 'right'.

8. My Bad
This is said when one makes a mistake or blunder or error of judgment. I really have no idea why adults would choose to sound like non-indigenous vistors to a new planet or infants in a Toys-R-Us commercial. My bad. Your good. Me like. You should.
Surely we can stretch our sentences from kindergarten to complex usage and resist the urge to speak like robotons.

9. Offensiveness
I was going to write about this topic but I suddenly became aware that I might offend someone who has a right to their opinion so I've decided in the name of tolerance to refrain. My bad.

10. Tolerance
It used to be that we used the term 'tolerate' in reference to things that were rudely wrong such as the noxious odor of a flatulent friend or Uncle Pete's drunken hi-jinx at the annual family picnic. However, the post-modern PC police have hi-jacked this word. The interesting part about this kidnapping is that they only seem to be able to tolerate those who agree with them and have a very low threshold of tolerance for those who are intolerant of them. Does this make them offensive?

These Words, Phrases, and Sayings Burn Us! -Part. II

2005-02-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

The MHASWSCA list continues:

4. Don’t Go There
No, this isn’t a geographical proclamation it is a conversation directive. DGT comes to us from the open-minded free speech crowd as they attempt to control the direction of closed conversations. When one receives a DGT it is a clear indication that you are being shut down like an out-of-code diner whose meter is minus a few quarters.

5. Issues
I use to think that issues were reoccurring magazine subscriptions; however, now they are everywhere. Issues are pesky little thought patterns and deep-seated abnormalities that manifest themselves as behaviors that those who interact with you have to deal with. Gone are the notions of ‘sin’ and ‘wrong’ and ‘you are a freak’. Our post-modern love fest has brought us the psychobabble-infused notion of ‘issues’ fresh from the therapy session. I’ve been told that even my dog has issues since I had her spayed. Poor Rose.

6. Agree to Disagree
This lovely conclusion remark gives me a rash. I say X, you say –X and we agree that that has taken place. Let’s run past that again shall we? You say one thing and I don’t agree with it, so our conclusion? We concur that we disagree. Exactly what on earth have we said in saying that?! Blue is blue. This one is straight out of the politically correct oh-please-can’t-Rodney-King-be-right suitcase.

I disagree with this gem, but then again, I have issues.

Whatever.

More to come...

These Words, Phrases, and Sayings Burn Us! -Part. I

2005-02-14T12:33:00.000-08:00

In the name of the Most Hated and Annoyingly Silly Words and Sayings Committee of America(MHASWSCA),I submit to you this list of gems:

1. Whatever
This classic quip speaks volumes about the apathetic and you-are-irrelevant-please-shuddup jolly rangers. When you refuse to communicate in a mature and interested fashion keep this Hall of Fame classic in your pocket for solid blathering rotation; a true favorite among the ME generation.

2. Talk to the Hand
This beauty is the kissing cousin of ‘Whatever’ but seems to find its roots in the ghetto byways of Urbana. Outstretching one’s arm and extending your palm (fingers up) into the opposing side’s face as yet another gesture of irrelevancy. “Hi, Uncle Fred, you don’t exist. My ears are blocked. Nana-nana boo-boo.”

3. ADD/ADHD
This tag finds its birth in the psycho-scam known as Attention Deficit Disorder. Hoodwinking hundreds of thousands of parents and educators into believing that their children possess some sort of genetic problem by medicating them with shaky meds and unproven danger drugs, this tagline is deeply disturbing. While some children do indeed have true organic brain deficiencies they represent an extremely small minute percentage of the population.

Discipline has been replaced by medication no matter what the screaming willy-wogs would like us to believe as they parade around in their Self-Esteem Uniforms peddling the latest positive integrationist nonsense.

He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly. Proverbs 13:24

Where’s the loving woodshed when we need it?

More to come ...

The Resident Suffering

2005-02-08T22:21:00.000-08:00

We commonly recoil at extreme physical forms of suffering -sharp shards of glass scraped on the skin shredding it like raw meat in a meticulous butcher’s hands or poker hot cigar stubs pressing against one’s cheek all bring shrills to our spines and a very real sense of horror to our minds. Even chronic back ailments or well-placed paper cuts find our toes curling and the hair rising up like newly erected phone pole lines on the backs of our necks.

But today I was thinking about a more prevalent suffering, one that is more hidden in form and residence. Our trails are laden with lateral hazards, snares and traps and ditches and silent coves, good for hiding out or resting just before the bitter heat and utter coldness tests our hearts as we put our packs back on and set afoot yet again.

It’s much harder to judge the intensity of these sufferings because each one is tailored in the heart and no two contexts reveal the same reaction. Corrupted nature meets insufficient nurture causing Samsonite to produce more luggage and few carts.

Each of us has his own evaluation and internal exam filtering his input and interactions and sending in custom reports of the day’s travels. Bearing our own burdens is enough to crush the strongest backs and yet we are called to carry other’s burdens as well.

Unshared thoughts and procrastinated promises that call in sick regularly.
Affection vacuums that clean out a longing heart.
Continual shredding.
Intense loneliness amidst a crowded home.
Little boy blue robbed of his cat and cradle.
Thoughtless greetings.

Some sufferings are steady and slow in their erosion. May God help us endure the weathering hike.

Divine Duty

2005-02-04T08:06:00.000-08:00

There is an obligation in duty and only those duties that are divinely dispensed deserve allegiance. If that is true then the pursuit of such duties requires that one have this depository readily available to them lest they be found floundering. By logical necessity an absolute criteria must exist whose borders are carved outside of our thoughts and whose content is clearly attainable and self-evident or we must adopt, by the same logical necessity, a subjective chameleon that is in essence nothing more than a nihilistic slab.

What is even more interesting is to observe that once one has these duties identified, the impossibility of proper execution without Divine aid and transformation becomes immediately obvious. The ever-present cliché "No one is perfect" resonates loudly in duty's hall. This only intensifies the truth of our need of a Savior, one who can accomplish what duty demands and rescue us from ourselves. And what of those who deny duty’s existence?

When the objectiveness and absolutism of a Divinely ordered duty is placed as a doorpost to our human activity it, by its very nature, has no bias. It stands tall, lurking high above our heads, stamped eternally from generation to generation becoming the ‘I AM’ by which all things are examined.

All granite columns that anchor the gates stop all galloping steeds.

On Weather's Constant Parade

2005-02-03T07:02:00.000-08:00

Endless vapor falling from clouds turned cold and gray.

Liquid lament.

Piercing winds diving eastward on serpent backed rails.

These are the days that only fueled hearths can sooth.

Creative Hands

2005-02-01T22:29:00.000-08:00

Steady and well-trained hands moving - the motions are rhythmic and mechanical yet personal and adjusting. From cold aluminum shafts and spun skeins emerges a tapestry finely knitted together. Out of the almost robotic redundancy patterned to perfection comes a new snuggle piece. It reminds me of the amazement I have when I watch someone play a musical instrument.

There are times when the mechanics of bowing or the technique of fingering simply seem to be completely unrelated to what your heart hears as the melodic course streams through you. To be taken to North American valleys and the forever stratosphere and to love lost depths or triumph gained by exercising string vibrations or the concurrence of certain octaves creatively fashioned, sets me to mind as I see a new hand-made blanket arrive fresh from its needled incubation. There seems to be a certain disconnect between process and piece and yet they are one.

Staring at the new hatchling it’s funny how I feel as though I would be violating a certain pact, unmade yet understood, if I were to take that blanket and allow myself to be covered by the beauty of her first warmth. When the craftsman makes a piece specifically for a definite person it seems adulterous to sneak in a comfy wrap or snuggle prior to the inauguration meeting when the recipient meets product.

So as the rain continues to fall and the night air is chilled, I’ll just admire from afar and gently brush my palm over the fine fibers. We do have a way of trade marking our creature comforts particularly when they have been woven especially for us by steady and well-trained hands, and who am I to intrude?

On Choosing a Japanese Jackass

2005-01-28T15:50:00.000-08:00

I finally came to the end of a long process that in some ways isn’t much more enjoyable than eating sand in a smoked meat competition – buying a used car.

I had a five thousand dollar budget and sought to acquire a reliable and solid automobile capable of jettisoning my high-geared rump from place to place mainly in the pursuit of sales. Being effective in the field means that beyond the necessary sales techniques and splendid people skills, one must have dependable ‘wheels’.

Being sold on both Honda and Toyota’s stupendous track records, I’ve always put my chips in the Japanese auto ring. Supernatural stories abound of these auto-gems mounting up hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of miles and even when the dash looks like a Floridian retiree’s face and the body shows signs that it may have been used in an Israeli combat facility as target practice, they still zip along the pavement showing no signs that they are slowing. And so, I found a 1999 Honda Civic DX and stayed within my budget.

I truly dread this entire process. It feels like I’m in a strange version of ‘To Tell the Truth’ meets ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ where Monty Hall and Mark Goodson are trying to convince me to buy what’s behind door number three and I just know that I’m going to end up with a year’s supply of Rice-A-Roni. Inevitably, I become racked with the fear of having paid far too much for a jackass from Toledo that won’t carry me an inch.

Well, I didn’t get the San Francisco treat, but part of my fear became reality when last night at 12:03 am the Honda’s headlights began to dim and then the dash and then the dome and then the panel went out completely as I found myself coasting to a halt on I-12 in my beast of burden. She’s at the shop now getting fixed up since she’s under a warranty watch for the next thirty days; however, I could have sworn that I saw Goodson lurking in the bushes just east of Lacombe.

I sure hope this is only a bridle problem.

The Doctor With No Eyeball

2005-01-24T20:23:00.000-08:00

It seems as though an Emersonian rally cry continues to be heard in the valleys and precipices of dialogue and debate as one listens to the American echo singing, “ Oh where, oh where has my transcendental eyeball gone? Oh where, oh where can it be?”

Truth has lost its capital ‘T’ and has been replaced by a morphing dessert that only Bill Cosby could hawk. This jello-esque reality is so tightly woven around the spool of nothing that its flavor seems to escape even the most delicate palate. What’s right for you and what’s right for me do not necessarily have to be married to the Law of Non-Contradiction, they only need be passing lovers who once held a vested interest in each other but who have now found nothing more than redundancy and repulsion – it’s that looking in the mirror and seeing what is and what isn’t that causes the butterflies to subside.

I find it all too curious to simply turn my head in dismay, and yet I find it all too nauseous to meditate too fully on the death of Dr. Absolute. He was always a loner and a rightfully autonomous proposition that never needed approval. His existence was always self-evident as even the Great Founding Fathers eloquently Declared in our rooted Independence. Divinely true was He and necessarily moving in His prime. Absolute is immortally residing in uber-space for even though the plebeians have executed Him and the Nietzcheronians have continued to celebrate with hypocritical dirge, the doctor will always be in.

One cannot kill or destroy or mutilate what is intrinsically true and right and beyond the bounds of a mortal blade. Certain realities are merely ignored at a high cost. My refusal to admit the explosive rigging of my front door by hostile enemies does not negate the fact that my faulty cognition will lead to seeing myself in Technicolor as tiny self-fragments spatter my splintered walls in high-speed definition. Certain things are, indeed, independent of one’s opinion.

Egghead

2005-01-22T20:19:00.000-08:00

I have nothing to do and everybody to do it with.

My list of to-do's is long and my want-to is short.

Ever get so overwhelmed thinking about your Sisyphus days that your head melds into an apathetic pancake, poured out entirely too thin with too many bubbles?

I have noticed recently that in order for me to take advantage of my organizational tools I have to be more disciplined, which, of course, means that I have to be more organized. I don't like attempting to progress by chasing my who's-on-first tail.

Discombobulated scrambled egghead meets Ungerland.

I think I'll take a nap.

Carpenters, Congestion, and Carrying On

2005-01-13T09:28:00.000-08:00

Rainy days and mondays always get me down... Remember that one? The cathartic and semi-catatonic super-thin mellow babe crooning in retro-memories. That's what today is.

My head feels like a yellow blob and when I speak, I can hear myself resonate. My cranium is a cave. It's raining outside and the coolness is starting to creep back in. It's that icky chill that even makes healthy stallions feel like gazelles on vacation in Rio de Ja-tundra. It's not a stark cold, just one that brittles your constitution.

I'm still hunting for a car to purchase and a laptop to buy and as the reality of seeing multiple money signs stream before me settles in, I find out just how waterproof my wallet can be. Maleness is running amuk. That's not a bad thing. Just how my wires have been harnessed.

So it's Suda-fed land and careful planning and rest that shall win the day, even when talking to myself and feeling old, sometimes I’d like to quit and nothing ever seems to fit and even when I'm hangin’ around and there's nothing to do but frown, I'll not submit to the retro-babe's call. Whining is not a virtue.

Yankee Winter Excursion

2005-01-10T16:17:00.000-08:00

I was invited to attend a two-day business conference and training in Minnesota. The only catch was that it would be in January. When I read that tidbit the Northeastern quadrant of my frontal lobe twitched. Minnesota? January?!

Suddenly, my southerninity knew I was in for a deep chill.

I’ve seen snow maybe four times in my life and I don’t even own a coat. I have a jacket that can protect me from a five mph wind in a rainstorm but below zero wind chills and ice and a real winter? Not even close. As a result of my pathetic winter wear condition a gracious friend volunteered to lend me his sub-zero parka. Besides the fact that it fit me, him being from Minnesota certainly synched the deal.

You have to realize that I’ve been made to fear the cold by my Yankee friends who love to tease me about living in a tropical world. While they drool over my sixty-five degree-ness as they skip to work in five degrees I have been taunted by visions of frozen mucus membranes, nasal hairs cracking like peppermint canes and lungs filled with brittle bronchi as I gasp for my final breath. The thought of becoming a chubby Cajun frozen speed bump in an industrial parkway haunts my solstice dreams.

Well, I made it home alive. It was ten degrees when I arrived with single digit and below zero wind chills but my nightmares never came to fruition partly because we mostly shuffled between buildings, rarely heading into the winter evening unguarded. I did, however, manage to discover hidden ice as I slid across and down grass and walkways in fine penguin style. Next time I shall bring my cane. Though I enjoyed the newness of winter, the true northern winter, it was good to be home.

Warm. Foggy. Humid. Yes, home.

Rainy Day Man

2004-12-30T19:50:00.000-08:00

It has been just a little bit of time since my last posting, but at least I have good reason. While most of you were out decking someone’s hall with loads of folly and swinging wildly from vines Divine, yours truly was in agony. It was discovered that lurking deep inside my wonderful urinary system far beyond bladder and release, lay a small quarry of stones.

That’s right –stones. Kidney stones. Oh what fun it is to ride to the ER room tonight! Well, actually I didn’t ride to the ER - I rode this one out. I rounded up my Vicodins, glasses of water and juice, and prepared for the exit. This is the third kidney stone episode in twelve years.

I know the scene all too well. You begin to think that you have a sore back or that you have to prepare for some throne reading and soon you realize that it isn’t your colon sending email to your brain, it’s your urethra Morse coding the nervous system that there is trouble in the right flank. After wandering around your living room, den,and kitchen gripping your lower back like Fred Sanford heading to meet Elizabeth, you grunt out a few syllables to whomever you can find with a driver’s license begging to be taken to relief. The problem is that by the time you get to the hospital and entertain a barrage of questions from insurance to suicide as you twirl, roll and bend, the pain is almost about to subside and you find yourself past the vomiting, cold sweats, and knotted stomach exhausted – sitting in a frigid laminate chair clawing at the sides and wishing you could have your co-pay back.

After my last stone I pledged to just stay home. Yet, after about three stone battles over a week and a half I finally called the urologist to make an appointment. I was pumped full of dye, prodded, poked, and x-rayed and found out that I was the lucky contestant behind blocked kidney number two for I was to receive an early morning meeting with Mr. Lithotripsy the following week. Lithotripsy is a wonderful technology whereby they sonically mule kick your kidney in an attempt to pulverize the stones. Ah, the grandness of modernity. Had I been born in 1823 I’m sure leeches, scalpels, and an ether rag would not have made me happy either.

So after the farm animal bugle horn technique they gave me a plastic filter and some pain meds and sent me home to a wonderful two weeks of urine straining in an attempt to catch those little fragmented stones. I shall spare the reader all tales of burning, mini-blood clots, and pain so intense that you will repeatedly slam your fist into your skull just because it feels better than what you are currently going through. Instead, I’ll just say that misery does indeed love company and echo the words of Mr. Dylan in saying that I would not feel so all alone, everybody must get stoned!

Deer Forest

2004-12-13T22:25:00.000-08:00

I was finally able to experience deer hunting over these past few weeks. I’ve taken courses on hunter’s safety, read articles, learned about weapons, and have even taken NRA certification courses, but I’ve never had the chance to go on a real hunt.
A friend of mine was able to secure access to a restricted wooded area not too far from our homes that is near a small airport. It has few visitors and is perfect for stalking the elusive four-legged varmint of the woods.

As a former Boy Scout it was great to get back to the outdoors and woods and the feeling you can only get from being connected to the land – God’s land, the densely uncut fertile forest grounds and marsh and fields and tightly woven trails. Suddenly your eyes see seas of green and radiant colors that only show their fancies in this domain.

There will be a few hippie chicks that will toss handfuls of Sierra Club mist in my face and use my chubby cheeks as fodder for their Earth Day cannons for making such a blasphemous comment, but I do believe that earth bonding is uniquely male. We are to subdue the earth and all that is in it; not as mongers and natural rapists but rather as dominant stewards and concerned caretakers. It is in this context that a man comes alive in the forest as he seeks to observe, scout, plan, and conquer.

Rifle in hand. Boots strapped tight. Compass abreast. Eyes wide and ears up, every step is planted and loud and every leaf turn is a chorus. Thick-thicket walls. Chilled ankle deep water. Towering pines. And smoothly orchestrated breezes that bring cool refreshment to the sensory dance.

Two full days, six varmints and no powder residue, but like fishing, the beauty is in the pursuit and we look forward to the steaks. Soon we will dance again.

Tis the Season

2004-11-21T19:48:00.000-08:00

Here we go again. The accelerated and complete chronology crunch is upon us as the close of the year sprints towards our event planner. As I get older, it seems to me that the years grow shorter and I feel like all the old men I used to mock as I pontificate about how quickly days go by.

What is it about life that leads one to become their elders far too soon? What is it about the calendar that seems to be fleeting as your sunsets increase? Is this inevitability or am I just trapped in a cultural acid trip, wrapped in a sale ad from Macy’s?

Well, I don’t think I’ll solve that mystery tonight, but I do know that it is the season to be jolly so I suppose that means it is now time for me to ‘fa’ my ‘la-la-la-la’ and spend some cash. Soon the halls of malls will be filled with madness and credit card warriors bustling down the merchandise highway looking for the right exit.

I take a simple approach to Christmas shopping. I actually stay in my budget and refuse to go into debt. If all I can afford is a cupcake with two candy corns pushed into it with red and green icing, then that’s what you will receive. If I can afford a leather cowboy hat and you like to ride horses and aren’t allergic to dead cow skin, then you might receive a Stetson.

Tis’ the season to be jolly and there are two holidays coexisting at the same time. One is the savior of retail marketing and the other is focused on the Savior of the world. I hope you direct your bifocals towards the latter and see the former for what it is.

72 Signs

2004-11-08T16:48:00.000-08:00

Is it just me or am I the only sane person when I shop?

It's an amazing phenomenon. It seems as though when people leave their homes they forget all that their moms taught them – primarily, how to read. Ever see that overly stressed woman with two and half kids hanging on her stretched out sleeve who’s fallen for the positive parenting workbook and video myth just standing there at the counter asking questions that are answered in seventy-two size font right in front of her?

“Do you take checks?” WE DO NOT ACCEPT CHECKS
“Where are the bathrooms?” BATHROOMS -->
“Can I return this sale item if it doesn’t work out?” NO RETURNS ON SALE ITEMS

Perhaps there is a certain retinal dilation that happens in some stores. Maybe the lights are just enough off kilter to create a diffusion that causes blurring. Or maybe some people are just goofy. Sometimes it seems as though you are the only sane one in the place doesn’t it? You see the signs and read them and refrain from asking seventy-two font questions.

Then again there are days when I don’t see the signs at all and I hardly even see the people. All that I can see is task. Enter. Find. Buy. Retreat. Maybe men are born with DRS (Diffused Retina Syndrome) and a homing pigeon cranium woven into their feet.

Patience is a virtue, yes. But only when I can read the signs.

Popular Votes and the Destruction of Political Myths

2004-11-07T19:56:00.000-08:00

Well, President Georg W. Bush won the election and managed to obtain the largest popular vote margin in history, 3.5 million.

The Democrats think that by having more folks come to the polls they win. Wrong O.
The Democrats think that by running on a non-existent stand based on contrarianism they will motivate and enlighten the masses to cast a ballot their way. Wrong O.
The Democrats think that Americans are basically bafoons and puppets who eat TV dinners infront of Dan Rather while digesting last night's feast of pollster news. Wrong O again.

We now have a unique thing in our society - alternative media. Thanks to the likes of The Drudge Report and easily-purchased and maintained web sites like www.swiftvets.com people are able to bypass the traditional information networks. I can foresee a day when we no longer see the television being a funnel tube for fancy fictiously fanatic socialism masquerading as Americanism. I can see the day fast approaching where we will have a complete media cafeteria at our fingertips.

We are almost there now with highspeed internet and certain forces such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, but we need more and we will see more, and we will use more. The old myths have been destroyed. The new paradigm has been planted.

Bush won and he won heartily. The nation has spoken.

Oz and the Maggot B

2004-10-22T17:54:00.000-07:00

Here we sit in a critical historic position.

Merely three short years ago we were catapulted into a horrific awareness of our own vulnerabilities as a terrorism policy was implemented in a post-911 attempt to deal with America’s jolted conscience. And so it is that the Presidential election is resting on the horizon calling us to decide. A decision that is making us choose a leader to courageously navigate our country through this treacherous and uncertain time. Choice A is a relatively conservative middle Republican, who with the wind to his back and an elephant tattoo on his buttocks, might be able to win the imitation Reagan leap frog contest and choice B is a socialistic, leftist-liberal who has enough treasonous blood to date Jane and enough pansies in his pockets to court Hillary. And so we sit.

Through the window we see never ending ripple rats lapping up every data dribble that oozes from the cold-busted media moguls script as they pontificate as though they knew all; yet, the rats are really just victims of Oz – the grand deceiver. They live in a fantasy camp rigged with boogie men and shock waves and skewed figures and statistics all designed to paint an impressionistic landscape that masquerades as a NASA model. All pixels, no meat- all flash, no ground- all Oz, no power. And so it is.

Those of us who know that B is a dolt, liar, infidel, maggot, traitor, chameleon, and indulgence peddler are taking anti-nausea medication every time we hear his name and the non-A crowds of blinded guidance are casting cement embankments on the edges of the ditch since the blind do lead the blind. And so we watch.

Logically consistent and rational thought that upholsters true thinking has become as useful in modern minds as rabbit ears for mp3 downloads. The culture is overloaded, undernourished, and under-thought. God save the syllogism Queen! And so we think.

I only hope that the A levers actually move as tenacity and discipline seem to find a back seat to polls and predictions. One must cast their vote and not fall victim to the pressuring pessimisms that seem to so easily beset those who want A. And so we pray. And so we pray.

Delicious

2004-10-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

Oh, how delicious is the fallacious when you eat a logical stew,
To render the tender of thoughtful persuasion and drink the harmonious brew.

Ditto.
Dot.
If then, not.
Turbo.
Up.
Big gun shot.

Indeed, it is jolly to hurdle the folly of the next assaulting crew,
Who render the tender of disconnected offenders and lap up the ‘therefores’ one, two.

Baseball's Been Berry Berry Good to Me

2004-10-18T20:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, I lied. Truth is… I could care less about baseball.

But, do you remember that bit? It's from the old Saturday Night Live skit with Garret Morris. That's about all I can hear in my head when I see a baseball game on television and a player of an unknown ethnic origin comes hobbling along from the dugout like a half-dazed liquor store regular to the field chewing his cud. I watch as he putts out to his grazing place on the diamond and Morris' insanity echoes throughout my thoughts saying, "Baseball’s been berry, berry, good to me..."

Well, I should say so. Where else can you be out of shape, wear nerd-o-rama, two-sizes-too-small uniforms, not shave, consume large quantities of yet-to-be-illegalized Hungarian pharmaceuticals, keep pine tar in your garage, spit so much that you make a llama envious, and grab every conceivable body part known to man and get paid millions of dollars? I just don’t think I get it.

Baseball’s pace is too slow- overpaid, overweight, polyester-clad chewing knights and bishops and pawns chug around the chess game in front of overly patient fans who act as mindless as Mardi Gras spectators chasing after a Taiwanese trinket when a ball whizzes past their head. I got a sacrilege sense of blasphemy just now as I wrote that being that I’m a) a New Orleanian, and b) an American; mocking those two things can’t be good.

Now I’m craving Cracker Jack for some strange reason and I just saw a huge six foot hotdog run across my lawn and a barker is barking concessionary barkings and the smell of popcorn is whiffing past my nostrils and … I think I need a break.

Maybe I’ll go watch a round of golf.

Childhood Memories

2004-10-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

I remember being a young boy and going to Mr. Rueben's house across the street. He played music in the cheese factory bars where lounge lizards are groomed and fabricated. Motown even made an album[*] with him which included his song "Rings" - "...ring, ring, the doorbell rings,nobody's home ... I got Jim Croce on the stereo.." I can hear it now as I type.

[* Album -that's an old piece of circular vinyl that makes music with a needle spins on it; also known as a 'record' for you youngsters out there.]

He would play these funny little dittys on the piano for us neighborhood kids. I recall two of them in particular - "It's as easy as one, two, three... sharing things that makes us free, who knows that maybe us two or three, can start the world on the way to love - Love, love, just what the world needs plenty of, we can start the world on the way to love." Hmmmm, typing that out made me feel like an acoustic hippie.

Here's the other tune: "I wish I were a squirrel with a big long tail, I wish I were a squirrel with a big long tail, cause if I were a squirrel with a big long tail, I'd put it up and away I'd sail..." Fun stuff. Catchy tunes that at thirty-six have lasted me decades;decades of grin material. They put a smile on your face and bring you back to a time of simpler things - days when your biggest worry was whether or not you were going to be force fed brussel sprouts at the chime of six.

And what of Mr. Rueben? Well, he didn't make the big time. In fact, I know he was divorced and moved around a bit from here to there and every now and then I see him at the strangest places like eating out on an all-exciting evening at Piccadily with my parents. That's the last time I saw him. We exchanged emails but I don't have it any longer.

I think I'll stake out a strange place this week and see if he's there. :)

It's only Natural

2004-10-14T16:24:00.000-07:00

Here’s a question: Do we really need to ask whether or not a homosexual relationship is ‘natural’? Let’s put religious affections aside for a moment and examine biology.

A penis is an anatomical device that fits ‘naturally’ in the female vagina. We know from our reproductive research that the sperm swims his little Mark Spitz-ness up the loving life canal and finds the ovum of choice and zim-bang-ramma-lang-a-ding; we have intercourse.

Now…
Two men attempting to have intercourse? How can something that is designed to be P+V=I suddenly and ‘naturally’ accommodate P+P=I? The propositional calculus doesn’t add up nor does the biology. And what about two females?

V+V=I? Not quite. The Vs end up manufacturing fake Ps so that they can accomplish the sameness of P+V=I, but all they accomplish is not I.

Do we need a scientist and a religionist to define the ‘natural’ I? I don’t think we do. We know what it is and we know what it looks like when we see it.

Funny how propaganda mixed with progressive-culturalism breeds fantasyland.

Blah Da Blah La Da Blah Day

2004-10-11T20:26:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those blah da blah days. You know the kind where you feel sort of blah and your response to it is a blah da blah la da mode; the kind of mode that precipitates a furthering of apathetic motor oil greasing down and lubricating your tongue. It's a gee-I-don't-quite-think-that-I-care-about-today mode married in congenial union with a gee-I-know-I-should-care-about-it mode that gives birth to the blah.

Ah yes, the ever present blah. Sometimes we love him and other times we would like to see the Mexican motivational firing squad shoot its highly efficient bandito rounds straight into his pathetic sounding lungs. And at the end of the day or sometimes in the middle of the blah da blah la da blah day, I come to realize an important truth.

I don't whine very well.

The Right Stuff

2004-10-10T22:58:00.000-07:00

So he made it back. My first cousin, John, made it back from Iraq and I got to visit with him today. This was his second tour of duty as a reserve Marine MP spending most of this tour patrolling the Syrian border.

Here is a young man acutely aware of God's divine hand, in his early twenties, with no wife or children and yet, truly loves his country and is willing to lay down his life for our privilege to eat grilled chicken on a Sunday afternoon without worrying about picking RPG fragments from our potato salad.

He's got the right stuff - Semper Fi !

Fly

2004-10-08T20:51:00.000-07:00

I saw a fly go by my eye
and when I caught it
he no die.

He dance and jangle,
He spin and fangle.

He mix and mangle,
He limps the tangle.

I saw a fly go by my eye
and when I grip him
he no die.

Ipse Dixit

2004-10-07T20:51:00.000-07:00

I discovered a new phrase today - ipse dixit. This Latin expression is quite fun to say, "ip-see-dix-it". Say it out loud. Go ahead. Try it.

(Insert pause here for a brief time so that said word may be recited)

Cool, huh? :) It means literally "He himself has said it". It is used when someone makes a mere assertion without necessarily backing it up with facts- just putting the claim out there in thin air to dangle on the thin thread while mimicking a rope. This brings me to my post on Kerry.

Oh, how I loathe the unsubstantiated ranting of political chameleons that spend most of their time memorizing their next fabrication!

I can almost hear the KKK [Koncerned Koreans against Kerry] chanting, “ipse dixit he no fix it! … ipse dixit he no fix it!” I think I’ll go eat some Kim chi.

Life under the Rock

2004-10-05T20:29:00.000-07:00

I go to a guy's house today and he tells me that the Virgin Records guy has a competition going on and that the Microsoft guy has teamed up with the genius guy with long sideburns and that they went into outer space with this really strange and crazy looking pseudo-airplane with a rocket thing on top of it making them we-just-won-the-contest-and-made-world-history guys. Not knowing made me feel like the under-the-rock guy. Where on earth have I been?

Man. We are information hounds and Lord help you if you miss the news or don't have cable television because you are liable to find your poor pathetic non-info hound nose being covered by moss as it sticks out from the granite.

I Googled up this outer space newsflash story and became a now-I-know-what-you-were-saying guy. And then I see that tonight is the Cheney/Edwards 'debate' [cute talk with media guy (gal) about political bickering and benign brouhahas] All I could see was that Cheney looked crooked and Edwards is crooked. Crooked in the sense of leaning in high inclines and descents in the former and crooked in the sense of regurgitated Pinocchio noses in the latter.

Maybe being the under-the-rock guy isn't so bad after all.

Hail to the Chief

2004-10-03T18:20:00.000-07:00

The Presidential election is fast approaching. Our wonderfully unbiased media outlets have reigned supreme as Dan Rather has shown himself to be a nimrod, Brokaw is finally going to graze grass at the glue fields in December and Kerry continues to dodge, parry, spin, and twist like a marionette inhaling ether.

This election truly transcends party lines for anyone who is actually able to reason and see clearly can observe that there is a chasm the size of the elastic band on Oprah Winfrey's Speedo swimsuit between Bush and Kerry. Certainly they are both politicians and as such will disappoint when meander gives way to purpose. However, the caliber of both men cannot be weighed within a hundred thousand kilograms of comparison.

Those who vote for the socialistic infested Chihuahua mouthed Democrats should be ashamed of themselves and make one wish that public flogging were instituted as law for incorrigible stupidity.

I pray that those who even bother to vote do so with a bird in the Bush rather than the schnitzel in hand.

Never a Dull Moment

2004-10-01T21:28:00.000-07:00

Just when you think that the road you are on has laid out a huge pit for you, to consume and maul and grapple you into an unwanted position of complete submission, another one is laid down before you. A foreign path and one not chosen, but all arrows point forward.

We don't like to be unenlightened and yet that is our lot. We are not omniscient. We are not fortunetellers. We live hour-by-hour and tic-by-toc. Our supposed independence is dependent upon God for His decretive will remains secret.

New opportunities are quite frequently paved on the back of despair, pain, and blindness.

May we all come to know that truth and live as if we believe it.

Ruminating on Planet Me

2004-09-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

Self. The wannabe-master of all domains. He lives with you. He gives orders. He expects complete obedience. He leads you to Marah.

Clinging to what will always get you what you don't need but feel that you want is a sudden form of insanity that orbits around Planet Me.

Some days I love that galaxy and other days I loathe it.

Lost in Translation

2004-09-29T22:37:00.000-07:00

This is the eve of the inauguration of my own blog. Wow, never thought I'd get one going. But here it is - Bloggeronicus Rex. I have had a crazy week ending in my getting semi-laid off from a new job.

Just when you think you are on your way to a new stability reality's shifting sifts and you slide to a new place. Not sure what will happen but I trust that God in His sovereignty will show me the next path.

I've been thinking alot lately about working so hard to get to places where there is nothing to grasp.

Why spin countless webs when the bugs are made of rubber?

Stay tuned for the cranial rantings, babblings, queries, and ramblings as they come to me.

Hopefully you'll find them enjoyable, thoughtful, and entertaining even if they are sewn from remnants unknown.