On timekeeping
Just an update of the things we are keeping track of, timewise, with the five clocks on the living room wall…..
Amish Country.
fred.
Rex Mantooth, Kung-Fu Gorilla!
My balls. (left over from the big party)
Graceland.
….because it’s important to be punctual.
On Cruelty
It’s rampant. Everywhere. I watched a homeless man nearly knock over a blind guy, who may also have been homeless, while walking to the bank today. I had to fight down the urge to beat the living shit out of the bum.
Only after I got inside the bank did I realize it. I didn’t stop to make sure the blind guy was ok.
I know the disabled don’t like people feeling sorry for them most of the time, but at least that should have been my reaction. “Wow, I should help that guy. No, it would be condescending and rude, besides, he seems to be ok. I could just ask politely then go about the business of pummeling the inconsiderate jerk who nearly took him out. No, then I would be falling victim to the horrific behavior that I decry in others, settling problems with your fist instead of your head. Crap, now I’ve been standing here thinking about it for so long that both guys are long gone. I guess I should just go about my business.” Either way, same result. Indifference achieved the same result as fighting down my temper, and either way, nothing got done. Very confusing.
On Things I don’t normally do
I don’t normally list the phrases that people have searched to find my little digital home. They can be funny from time to time, but mostly they involve celebrities naked. The Movie review section lends itself to lots of that kind of thing. But I found one today that made me laugh so hard I spit Dr Pepper out of my nose.
Fried Clowns
They’re really better on the grill.
On saying nothing
I didn’t comment on 9-11, or Patriots Day or whatever it’s being called. It makes me so uncomfortable I can barely stand to think about it. Not the events of that day, mind you. I recall them as vividly as if they had just happened, and the disbelief and anger and sadness sometimes make me sit down hard, like getting punched in the stomach. I am certain that it will be to my generation what the Kennedy Assasination was to my parents. All of us will remember exactly where we were until the day we die. I didn’t say anything about the anniversary for a couple of reasons.
One is simple. I don’t think we’ve gotten anywhere.
Nationally, we’re as selfish as ever. I spent the evening of 9-11 getting a lot of people who had just been at a parade drunk, and watched them behave rudely to me and to each other. People still give me the finger on the highway, and I don’t drive THAT badly. I overheard someone use the word nigger about 2 days afterwords. I have ample reason to hate that kind of thinking, now more than ever. What happened to pulling together? Ever since that day, sadly, all I think about is how many people said to themselves afterwords, Wow,I bet I can make a killing selling flags on the roadside. I think most of the patriotic behavior I have seen in posturing, and it hurts me. One can never know the true intentions of strangers, and I hope I am wrong.
Globally, we have done nothing but jab a stick into a hornet’s nest. “The War on Terrorism” hasn’t eased tension or made anyone safer. Afghanistan is now in the hands of someone else thanks to us, but terror still has its roots there, and in Pakistan, and in Isreal and Palestine. We’ve suddenly shifted to Iraq, which seems like simply an excuse to settle an old grudge. I don’t understand why the world is convinceed that to solve the problem of terror we have to kill people, that to settle our religious, political, or ideological differences, the best thing to do is kill each other. We’ve been killing each other in the name of God for at least four centuries. This seems to be a paradox of such gargantuan proprotions as to be unmissable, but clearly its not.
The second reason I didn’t comment is even simpler. Zuzia was in India, right next door to all of this and due to arrive home only three days before the big anniversary. I was worried, no matter how much she told me not to be. The last thing I wanted to think about then was her not coming back because of all of this, like 3000 other families had to learn to live with last year.
And now, thank God, she’s home.
On road trips with the dog
On our way to Dallas to see the game, visit friends, one of whom had a birthday, and generally try not to think about Zuzia being somewhere other than here, Kevin and I passed something south of Waxahachie.
A Dog Museum.
We brought Indie with us, and she’s a good traveling companion. She was wondering if it was a museum about dogs (which wouldn’t interest her, since she is one already) or a museum FOR dogs. A special museum where the signs on everything didn’t have words, just specific smells. The Famous Dogs Wing, where dogs could sniff the ass end of Lassie, Rin Tin Tin or Benji and really get to know them. Informative displays on things all dogs want to learn about, like how to dig under a fence or sit for a painting and play poker. A memorial to the victims of the Great Flea Outbreak of ’68. Fire Hydrants of the World. The musuem gift shop where you could by the same kind of milkbones the President’s dog likes, and “My owners took me to the Dog Museum, and all I did was fetch this lousy stick.”
I bet Indie would have dug that.
On giving titles to blog posts
Apparently, I’m doing it now. Whatever. Zuzia’s in India and I’m lonely. So, everyone gets titles. Deal with it.
On dusky Italian starlets and their films
Being a film geek is difficult. I am searching for an italian made film on DVD called “Scarlet Diva”, written by and starring Asia Argento, who appeared opposite Vin Diesel in XXX and is the daughter of famous Italian horror director D’arrio Argento (I may have spelled his name wrong). The only copy online I can find is through an Italian online DVD website, offering it for sale for what appears to be thousands of lira. The problem is, the entire website is written in Italian. I don’t understand a word of it. I am also a little leary about giving my credit card information to a company in Italy that I may have no recourse in the event of some sort of difficualty since I don’t speak the language. Thirdly, I am only assuming that they will deliver it to me in America, but I can’t tell for sure. Finally, does onyone know if Visa will automativcally transfer my money from dollars to lira, charge me a fee, or reject me outright? I might very well get some sort of order confirmation from the company and not know what the hell it says.
Thankfully, the film will be subtitled in English. I think.
On Incarceration
Do you believe in Fate?
I haven’t told very many people this before. I’ve been having a recurring nightmare since I was about fifteen about being in prison. Most often it’s a situational dream. What I mean is, it’s not a shot for shot recreation every time. In these dreams, I am always in jail, and almost always for something I didn’t do. A few times I’ve been on death row. Once or twice I have actually been through some form of execution. Many times I am doing things that I would never normally do in an effort to stay alive. Prison has been my overriding fear for years. I have spent the night in jail before, several years after I had the first dreams of prison, and it made them worse. I’ve been watching Season One of “OZ” this week, and Shawshank Redemption had the same effect on me. In one dark nagging corner of my mind, I have always felt that I might one day end up in prison.
Sometimes I wonder if that’s why I find such pleasure in everyday things. I love to do things because, “That’s they way things are done”. I won’t go to a ball game without my glove (though the one time I accidentally did, it worked out well). I never miss fireworks on the 4th, I never miss midnight on New Year’s (though it is my birthday as well.) I don’t just carry a Zippo, I can do all the flipping tricks. I don’t even smoke. I can tell a 55 Chevy from a 56 and a 57. I know how to teach a dog to catch frizbees. I subscribe to the theory that real men only drink beer and brown liqour (unless you’re an international spy). It should snow on Christmas, it should rain in April, and you should watch football, eat turkey, and then nap on the couch on Thanksgiving. Why? Because that’s the way things are.
“The only way to live as I see it, is to learn to love the little every day things” – Larry McMurtry
So maybe I am just preparing myself for an inevitable, incarcerated fate? Learning to love little things, so I can get by being deprived of the big ones. Losing my freedom frightnes me, but not as much as the fear that I might be preparing for it all ready. Doesn’t that mean I already lost it?
On good music and thrift store clothes…
While people watching at the American Analog Set/Her Space Holiday show recently (which was fabulous and sadly their last show ever), I saw at least one very cool thrift store shirt that I am certain I tried on at a local trendy vintage shop, but decided to pass on. It got me thinking about all the clothes in the club that night that had been in various resale and thrift and vintage shops all over Austin just waiting for the right little indie hipster to discover them, like a fat guy at the beach wearing socks with sandals and carrying a metal detector. I regularly do this myself (cruise the vintage shops, not dig pocket change out of the sand) and I have had a lot of good luck lately. Some of my favorites are pearlsnap western shirts (obviously) good seventies wide collar polyester shirts (long sleeve only, I hate short sleeve dress shirts) and jackets. I am a sucker for a cool jacket. Just about everyone at that show was wearing what looked like some kind of vintage something or other. The greatest hits included a very old t-shirt of Princess Leia looking pissed off, and old school t-shirt proclaiming “Coke is it!” and the western shirt that the short fat kid was wearing, brown plaid with fake mother of pearl snaps that I tried on at The Denim Edge, and said, “nah, too big.” I was just wondering how the clothes felt about all of this.
They’ve already been retired at least once, by someone, somewhere. The thought that someone else might have fallen in love while wearing my shirt, or gone to jail in my jacket, or robbed a bank or seen a great movie or worked hard all day long is a cool thought. Even cooler though, is the thought that the old clothes were just sitting around, thinking to themselves, “I’ve done a lot, been around the block a few times, but Jeff is on his way, and I am gonna be BACK, BABY!!!!!!” I bet they look forward to that.
For those who didn’t get it, I actually DID hit my thumb with a hammer.
Plus, Kevin got a dog, pretty cute for a puppy. I may get to use my favorite word more often now. Cool, huh?