Out of the Fire and into the Pot

With all the talk going around lately about legalizing pot in California, it makes the head spin (get it? “head” spin?). After hearing this news, here are a few things that flew out of mine.

First of all, speculating about the legalization of marijuana is like thinking that the Apocalypse is near. I mean, doesn't every generation think that the End of the World is going to happen really soon? Yet, it never does. It’s always been that way.

For example, everyone thought the world was going to end way back in 1564. The Pope at that time, Leo the Seventh, was an avid pothead. He used to sneak into the Sistine Chapel to spark one up ... from some documented accounts at the time, witnesses stated that they heard someone saying, over and over, from behind the bolted doors of the chapel, “Mama mia, de colors, de colors!” Well, I’m not sure about the historical accuracy of the story above, but as for the theory of the end of the world, start packing your suitcase and head for the hills brother, for they are definitely on the way this time. …I think.

Anywho, if they actually do legalize pot this time around, (excuse me while I laugh up my sleeve) I suppose big business will get involved. Well why not? Selling pot already is the biggest business in this country. Maybe instead of legalizing pot they should just legalize the businesses that sell it.

Perhaps the president could get involved and take it all over. What the heck, he already has taken over just about everything else, and we already know he enjoys smoking tobacco. I could see how it might become an integral part of the new Healthcare plan.

For example, when someone goes to see the doctor, and after they have waited in the hall outside the doctor’s office for three days before finally getting to see the him, they'll probably won’t have more time with the doc than a state-allotted 30 seconds. So, one option the doctor will have is to sympathetically pat the patient patient on the back and send them home with a doobie. That way the patient will have a good chance of forgetting why they went to the doctor in the first place.

But I digress. So…If weed ever really does becomes legit, (don’t hold your breath) Big Biz all over California will certainly get involved and I suppose that their marketing departments will be kicked into overdrive to concoct slogans and catchy product names to attract customers.

Hmmm, let's see ... what would be some good names for a prepackaged legitimate product? How about “Jamaican Me High?” Or perhaps something more down to earth like “Uncle Buzz?” Or “Mr. Sleepy?” How about “The Hungry Hound?” Or maybe they will use my personal favorite “Old Red Eye.” And don’t forget that grocery stores and convenience shops are bound to be really happy with the sharp increase of sales they will expect of potato chips and cheesy puffs.

Will it happen? Or will it not? Only time will tell if it will or if the potheads’ fondest dreams of legalization will go up in smoke. One other thing to keep in mind is that way too many people are making way too much more money the way things are, then they would if pot were legalized. Cheer up; don’t get too vexed by these quandaries, because I’m sure the End of the World will probably happen first!

But hopefully it will not for a really, really long time to come.

May The Best Team Win

Ever gone to a super bowl? A Super Bowl party I mean. Where a bunch of friends get together and eat food and drink beer or liquor while watching the "big game" on the biggest screen available. I can remember my dad being excited because we were going over to his friend’s house who had a color TV, let alone one in HD. My mother didn’t get it.

“Why do I care what color the mud is?” she would say. I think games were messier back then because Astroturf had not been put into wide use yet, and most games were played on grass and dirt fields. It always seemed to rain more often back then for some reason. In any event, most stadiums were not covered like they are now, either.

Anyway, for years, I think the players had a different view of the mud, and getting all dirty. I suppose it was like a badge of honor all that dirt. Maybe it made them identify with warriors of older times.

Looking back now, I realize that my father’s friend had the color on the TV turned way up. Folks did not know any better back then. They probably figured that now that they had color, how could more of it be a bad thing? So people would turn up their color levels as high as they would go. This caused the reds to shimmer and the greens, especially of the grass to sparkle. This phenomenon went on for decades. I can recall how the TV in the local watering hole had the same display characteristics. Color all the way up, and the tint skewed the wrong way so the picture was mostly red or green. It used to drive me crazy because I used to work in the Broadcast Television business and we would take great effort and spend a lot of time making the picture look as good as possible, only to find that most people didn’t care, or know any better.

Well, the advent of flat screen LCD and Plasma TVs put an end to all that. Now most folk’s sets have a decent picture, especially if they have high definition with little or no effort on their part. The epitome of the American Dream, plug it in and play.

So I’m off now to the Super Bowl party, more for social reasons than because I am a eye-bugging, screaming and jumping-up-and-down football fan. I’m going to visit and mingle with friends during one of America’s favorite pastimes. And you know what? I don’t even know which teams are playing. I suppose I'll find out when I get there. Here’s wishing you a happy Super Bowl day, and may your favorite team (whoever they are) win.

I like you . . .

I like you. You look great in that outfit. Lets do what you think is best. You’re absolutely right. Ha Ha, you are sooo ooo ooo funny how’d you come up with that idea? Can’t wait to hear what you’ll come up with next. God they all love ya, cause you’re so good looking.

What did I say something wrong? How’d did that happen? Well it must have if you say so. Gawd, you’re so sharp.

One thing I have always wondered is how the target of a sycophant can stand it. I mean they have to know that all that stuff that is being fed to them is mostly untrue or exaggerated if nothing else.

Who the hell really likes a sycophant? I mean really?
There are tons of them in the political world, and the arts and performance world is filled with them. Perhaps those that cannot do like to hang around with the talented or almost talented in the hope that some of that talent will rub off on them. Or maybe they hope that if others see them in the company of societies “Great Ones” they will be thought of as being great too,

Who the heck knows? Is there any other group that we are forced to be less politically correct about them? I don’t think so. The hell with them all.

All I can say is that as a writer, especially one that hopes to achieve any level of success in today’s very competitive market I myself have to be aware of you my audience and your happiness. I know this. But you’ll never catch me sucking up just to be liked. No Siree. By the way, while you read this can I get you anything? Are you thirsty? Hungry? Is it too cold where you are? Too hot? Believe me I’ll see what I can do. Did you know that people who read my posts look thinner? It’s a scientific certainty. Gosh this Blog looks so good on you.

Cheers.

i, i, i ...

I was thinking the other night, what had ever become of David Bowie? You know, of “We could be Heroes, just for one day…” fame? I hadn’t seen him around for a while so I figured that he was off on some Pacific island enjoying his golden years with his wife, Iman. Later I learned he is still quite active, doing concerts and winning awards and such. Here he is pictured receiving a recent award, which looks like the suspension out of somebody’s truck. I hope they don’t get mad when they find it missing….

Anyway, it really wasn’t David Bowie I was thinking of at all, rather of Iman. She was way ahead of the curve with all this Internet stuff and nomenclature. Years before there was an iPod, iMac, or iPad she was just her not-so-little-bit-of-a-self Iman. She is a true original in a world full of so many knockoffs. I wonder if she gets a royalty every time they name something new that’s prefixed with an “i”.

Something from Nothing

This is not what it appears to be. No, no my fine readers, it is not. That which appears before you, although it looks like a blog posting, I assure you, is not. Perhaps you came here expecting to find a blog post and, perhaps, you were looking forward to that blog posting. But alas! Know this now. I would never deliberately deceive or disappoint you because I always want to be honest with you. So please read on.

This is, my fine readers, is nothing more than a blank piece of paper. Actually it is not even a piece of paper but a virtual page (one that doesn't really exist) and it is covered with symbols. It began as, according to my Word program, a "New Blank Document." Old or new, how can a document be a document if it is blank? Doesn't a document have to contain something in order to be called a document?

Anyway, so, in an effort to convey an idea or ideas to those that read them, I covered it with symbols in an order of deliberate intent, and it took its present form. Then I posted it, the post that is, and this is when the magic began. It began because I pushed a button, that wasn’t really a button at all, but one of those virtual buttons on my computer screen. And when I pushed that button my posting whooshed away, from my Blogland, into the Blogosphere. But how?

Does the posting turn into a gas of some kind? A gas that is pumped into the Blogosphere through a clever network of galvanized pipes? Does it remain in a gaseous nebulous form until it is displayed upon your computer monitor and you read it? Or does the post, as some may say, turn into a digital soup of bits and bytes that are shot all over the world until it slams against the backside of your computer screen? Hmmmm. Which explanation seems more believable to you?

So what happens then? Once you do read it, the message becomes lodged in your brain for a while held fast to a place in your head by the wonders of memory. It stays there for a while until the memory force starts to weaken and the message erodes, dropping letter after letter until none remain. Or maybe…. Maybe the memory does not really erode and crack apart, but slowly fade until it is completely gone.

What’s the moral of the story? What is today’s lesson? Well. I will tell you.

I started out with a blank page, a “New Blank Document”, if you will, and then, Ta-Da! I ended up with a posting to put on my blog to day. Hence, “Something from Nothing.”

Pretty cool, huh?

Mushrooms are people too?

I was prepping mushrooms today because my wife was making a killer mushroom soup and asked for me to help. Which I gladly did. As I worked my mind drifted. It drifted, oh about knee high along the plains of my imagination. I let my toes drag as I drifted along. Love doing that. I daydreamed. I thought about a woodland family of mushroom people who lived deep in the deep dark woods. People had always tried to throw crap on them, and they didn’t like it so that’s why they moved way out into the deep dark forest. It’s a wild place. Almost anything can happen there.

Anyway, they were happy. They would be very skinny folk except for their heads that were shaped like, well, a mushroom. I guess the doorways to their homes would have to be extra wide, so that they don’t hit their heads together if two should walk inside at the same time. I also figure that their pillows in their beds would have to be extra wide too, for their big ‘ol heads to lay on. They had long skinny legs and they all wore pajamas with tiny white pinstripes that only served to make them look taller and skinnier than they already were.

Then – suddenly - their peaceful existence was threatened by a rogue band of maniacal squash. Why? Because as I thought on, I felt it best that some conflict had to be sprinkled into the mix. The idea was to wrangle the audience (that’s you!) into cheering for the mushroom people. That is until both sides fashion a tenuous cease-fire. Then anything can happen. But one thing's for certain, that’s a story for another time.

Mushrooms are an odd produce…

So then I started to think while I was cleaning the mushrooms (unusual as that may be, it does occur regularly, the thinking I mean). What I was thinking was, once my mind left the woods and the happy mushroom people and the war they had with the squash, that what was I really doing? During the cleaning I mean. What exactly was I cleaning? Oh yes, I know, the mushrooms you might say. But what was I cleaning OFF the mushrooms? Manure. Good ol’ American Grade A horse manure.

Why, when they could send a man to the moon, haven't they thought of a way to package mushrooms that were free of poop? I mean how many other products would you willingly buy from the store that had poop on them? Well I can’t think of any. A steak with poop on it? Uh-Uh. Apples? No thank you. Poopy popcorn? No way! So why is it ok for mushrooms to be packaged with it? Oh, I know, "It grows in it," you’d say. But that just ain’t no excuse, no siree. I wish they would get their you- know -what together and find out a way to bring mushrooms to the market poopy free! Hell, they claim to wash bagged salad three times, Why don’t they save some of that washing for mushrooms!? So if they really want to impress someone, they should sell the mushrooms with the claim that they were washed multiple times. Why stop at three? Wouldn't that make people happy.

Meanwhile, I’ll go back to thinking about my story of the happy ‘shroom folk that live deep in the deep dark woods, fighting maniacal squash while wearing their pajamas.

Neatness vs Randomness

I wonder if I will ever achieve what I shall call for lack of a better term “Maximum Neatness”. Where everything is in its place and a place for... well, you know. Don’t get me wrong. I am not a neat freak by any means, believe me, I can be as just as messy as the best of them. But if I’m in the mood for tidy, well then, I WANT RESULTS!

I spent the day straightening up my Writer’s Cave, (once again for lack of a better term, but I really like this one…). I wanted to be able to move my mouse without hitting the red Sharpie that was lying there, or not to have the printer jam because I forgot to remove the stack of books that I had left on top of it. The sad thing is, if you looked about, you would not see very much of a difference.

Oh well, all one can do is to keep trying, right? After all, the entire universe does strive to achieve absolute randomness doesn’t it? I mean, looking at it strictly from a scientific point of view, the fact that we human beings and all the plants and animals are able to exist at all even for a nanosecond is pretty amazing isn’t it? Makes a good argument for the existence of God because, let's face it, who else has the wherewithal to pull off all that exists if not Him? Or Her, for that matter! I tend to believe history's slant on the masculine nature of God, otherwise, if He were a She, at the very least the rivers would flow straighter and they would certainly not be allowed to wander all over the place like they do. When I say straighter I do not mean that they would flow on a strict grid formulation, I just mean neater. Perhaps a flourish here or there would be nice.

Regardless of all of these ponderings, no matter how much one tries, a mess is still just a mess. An orderly desktop may still hide a disarray of items within, and usually does, for no matter how tidy you cause something to be it invariably becomes a mess again sooner rather than later.