what the world needs now is love sweet love

I've heard people ask why we need a holiday as an excuse to show our love, but my question is why don't we have more holidays that are excuses to love. Maybe we DO need reminders about how important it is to love (and be loved). I mean, look at the other holidays we have; Easter to remember to worship bunnies, July 4th to remember to love fireworks and freedoms, Labor day to remember to love work (who thought of that one I wonder?), Memorial day to remember to remember, birthdays to remember you're older and what about Christmas? Something about presents I think.

Anyway, there should be a Valentine's Day once a month. How could it hurt to have another love-based holiday (or eleven more)? Who would complain? People who don't like love I guess. Go figure.

And the love you take is equal to the love you make.

No, I'm Sparticus!

Imagine finding a hero so charismatic and so perfect that you would gladly step forward and take a sword for him/her. Your life sacrifice might garner a few extra moments of perfection to weave the magical dragon's breath and actuate something so epic it's never been seen in a movie. Not even a Spielberg.

Personally, since we're just getting hearsay and propaganda with no media access, my money is on Sarah Palin. They probably know we'd all jump in front of a bus for her if they let her out too soon, and then the only people left to vote would be those damn liberals. Why can't they intuit super-human immaculate character from a photo-op like us conservies? It must be because they have no soul, but they try to make up for it with an empty life devoted to compassion.

Sarah surely learned from her dad (Michael) how to chop down trees and torture people (not the comfy chair!) from his role in the Spanish Inquisition and Brazil. Looks like buttered scones for tea again. Oh bugger!

Anal Nathrak, Uthvas Bethud, Do'que-el Di'enve'

Shiva: The Destroyer

His name was Remo and for about three years he was all I read. At the time there were only 109 novels in the series, but I think they're up to 148 now. The idea of killing someone with two fingers was the shizz. The ultimate killing machine. No weapons required, he was like James Bond times a thousand and then squared.

Now I found out Shiva is not only the Destroyer, but is also the Lord of the Dance which is why He's always partying in that wheel as Nataraja. So does this make Michael Flatley a Hindu, or maybe he's really the master of Sinanju. Perhaps that awesome Irish Riverdance is a fancy hypnosis technique which is why it's so eerily insouciant... I'll bet I can find it on YouTube right now.

Perfection is a path, not a destination.

Hazy Affirmation

Since I've broken my format I might as well just start writing about "anything" and "everything". Lately it's been difficult to think of anything humorous. Usually I try to write about cynical or ironical funny stuff so it can be angry funnies, but I don't even feel motivated to write angry funny stuff. Strange... Purple Haze just came on the radio. I've never really listened to the lyrics before. Maybe that's me... but no, that's just stinkin' thinkin.

Well, this hasn't been one of my better posts, but then I learned what love is from my parents, which is you find that one special person who was placed on the planet just for you, and you put them through forty years of living hell. But, I don't have to dribble the ball fast, or throw the ball into the basket... Because all I have to do is be the best Michael I can be. Because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone-it, people like me!

People (somewhere) like me.

fanTAGstic

This isn't really the format of this blog and this is really difficult for me to mess up my structure with a post like this, but I guess these are the rules, so here's my tag, but I'll try to keep it light-hearted unlike my political blog where it would be a rant:

20 years ago:
1. After flunking out of my first college attempt, I came back to live with my parents and with two and a half years of self-imposed celibacy I was able to graduate from an even better school Magna Cum Laude.
2. Sticking to my guns about making school a "first" priority, when my girlfriend called me from jail telling me she was pulled over with expired tag, insurance and safety sticker on the 2.5 hour drive to see me, I told her she should call someone else because I had a test next morning. I haven't talked to her since.
3. Three semesters into my new improved school experience, I was sitting in Dr. Green-Luks office crying (literally) that a C would ruin my perfect 4.0 and there must be some way to fix it. Nope, she wouldn't help me, but a year later she died of an aneurysm, so maybe her hate got the better of her.

10 years ago:
1. Married for two years, it's strange how you can know you're the luckiest person in the whole world (those of you who know Jennifer will understand), but still not realize how lucky you are. I had no idea.
2. Moving into a new house, the world was our oyster. (what does that mean?) We were traveling (internationally!) and spending all our time (when I wasn't worrying about my new job) doing fun stuff.
3. We started down the path to parenthood and I was so scared because I thought it was going to be really really hard to be a good parent. I had no idea.

5 years ago:
1. Fat, dumb and happy I thought I would be working at Motorola forever even though there were layoffs every 6 months and my group went from 175 heads to 68.
2. Even though my marriage had hit a few bumps (understatement?), we were closer than ever and decided to have more children. Another decision that seemed difficult at the time, but in hindsight how could we have considered doing anything else?
3. I started paying too much attention to all the stupid things happening in the world. I never thought we'd elect a retarded president (my apologies to retarded people), and I never thought an incompetent and corrupt boob could do so much damage (the president doesn't really do anything does he?). I suppose I should be happy I just lost my job from this son of a bitch. Many many thousands of people lost their lives so I feel lucky to still have my family with a good place to live and a decent job.

3 years ago:
1. Still in denial, I thought I would be at Motorola forever even though my group was now down to 17 people. I was irreplaceable, so how could they even consider laying off me?
2. We were so lucky to have Kate, because now with a perfect set of children it's hard to imagine our family any other way.
3. Holy crap the retarded guy stole another election. Surely nobody voted for this jerk. Four more years of hell. He's probably going to ruin the only American industry still functioning (the housing market).

1 year ago:
1. Wow! Motorola doesn't really need me because they're not really interested in their own future. Duh! I already knew they were suicidal, so why did I think they would really keep people they needed?
2. Losing my job actually made me see I was placing way too much importance on it. I still get distracted every now and then, but I see that my marriage and my family are much more important. I guess I should thank the retarded guy for helping me focus more on my family. Wasn't that was part of his platform?
3. We have a new backyard with a swimming pool, a basketball court, a nice barbecue with a grill, refrigerator and a sink and a big patio with a fire pit. Oh god we'll be paying for this forever.

Yesterday, I:
1. I found out my old group at Motorola wants me to come back and do some work for them effectively paying over twice what they were when I was there before.
2. I played basketball and at 40 I can still play as good or better than I ever could (ok, that's not saying much). Shooting 60% from the three-point line with a really tall guy guarding me! (maybe some luck there, I'll admit)
3. Took Emma, Aidan and Kate to Tempe Beach Park to play in the water area. Kids are so cool.

Today I:
1. Today is 24 minutes old, so only this blog entry so far.
2. I plan to go to the gym for a body flow (yoga) class with my wife. I hope I don't wimp out.
3. Continue on our South Beach Diet where I've lost 16 pounds so far in 20 days. Jennifer says 13 pounds but I'm going from my peak weight two days before the start, not my first weigh in. If it gives me some more incentive, then give me a break.

In 5 years:
1. I hope I'm as healthy as I am today so I can be an active part of my family.
2. I'll come up with a new idea that makes lots of money. Maybe like this one; What if we privatized the mortgage industry and made Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac publicly traded companies?
3. Hoping we don't live in that movie Road Warrior since there won't be any jobs or gasoline or air to breathe or clean water or jobs or food or jobs...

Well, I guess I'm supposed to tag someone else now, but I don't know anyone else with a blog and I really only know two people that ever read this blog (sometimes), so this is the end of the trail which happens to be the meaning of the name of the town where I grew up in Oklahoma (Owasso = End of the Trail [of Tears]). Funny that I started at the end of the trail. I'm always doing things backwards.

The time of chimpanzees

Did Count Paris attack Romeo (and die) for killing Tybalt (for killing Mercutio) because Tybalt was his friend, or was it because he really loved Juliet and wanted to marry her? Is this the same Prince Paris (suckled by a she-bear) that eloped with the previously married (thousand ships) Helen causing 1) a (trojan) war, 2) the death of "voice of reason" brother Hector, and 3) after his own death, the gruesome dismemberment of his other brother who also married Helen? (I guess the prettiest girl in the world gets around.) Paris shoots Achilles in the back (of the foot) for killing Hector which might be considered cowardly if Achilles hadn't set the tone by coating himself in the invincible aegis of the gods (getting crazy with the cheez whiz).

Men kill each other for the love of a woman, but of course this is just the revisionist version. What other version exists? But isn't that always the animus modus operandi? Blame everything on a woman. So maybe in a thousand years, an Indochine princess named Marilyn Monroe (MyLaiLyn NgongRoe) will be the reason Emperor Kennedy sent his thousand bomb army into the French Cochin. After millions die for their love, through some contrived misunderstanding the princess marries Edgar Linton and the spurned Emperor (after marrying the princess's sister-in-law) languishes in self-pity making everyone miserable until he destroys the princess and inherits Thrushcross Grange only to be assassinated by his own (marksman) ego. Then a Polish Jew ends up killing his ego in a bar fight. You've probably all heard this version from Scheherazade, but I think she added the evil Jewish guy to appeal to her demo. Soy un perdedor.

I was a monkey.

Who can it be now?

Sometimes I feel like a hamster running in a wheel with someone watching me in what must be the most boring experiment ever conceived. If anyone out there believes in Intelligent Design, then sit back and let me show you my whole life in a home movie and not only will you be cured, but you may even question the use of the term "evolution" as an alternative model. Something like Kaleidoscopic Metamorphosis might be a more accurately descriptive slogan for the progression of mankind.

You ask why? No? ...well I'm going to tell you anyway. I feel like a raccoon in a room full of shiny objects. Maybe it would be better to be Bullwinkle, but I am tempted by every difficult hurdle I see. I want to learn guitar, I want to paint watercolors, I want to be a yoga guru, I want to be a philosopher, writer and a poet, I want to make everyone laugh and cry at the same time, and most of all I want to be a good father and husband, but there seems to be a lot of contradictory mutually exclusive objectives even when I pick only one or two tasks as my focus. Consequently, jack of some trades would be a generous account of my path to this point.

I must hide in my apartment and tiptoe across the floor not because I'm paranoid the man is coming to take me away. It's more the dread some distraction could replace my current obsession with a more attractive one. Stack each of my (overkill) compulsions as the sum of my existence and...

Ghosts appear and fade away.

More human than human

Accelerated decrepitude is an issue we all have to deal with. If only we could confront our creator(s) and force them to let us live longer, stronger, harder, faster, better, cooler, etc. We assume our average lifespan is just an arbitrary number that made sense when god answered the question; "How long do they need to lead a productive life?" Sixty to eighty years should be plenty. If we don't manage it by then we probably wouldn't in a thousand.

What are humans supposed to do with this short (productive) period of time? That's another reason to interrogate the divine architect. Why do these cells get old and stop working properly? It's not like paper dolls where one more fold and cut leaves too little material. Each new cell divides away from an old cell like a baby separating from a womb. If the real baby can live eighty years spawned from twenty to forty year-old material, why can't we gestate all new flesh and blood throughout our bodies every couple of years and molt off all the dysfunctional layers like Homer when he figures out the moral of a Simpsons episode. So many questions. No wonder god ignores us.

It's not an easy thing to meet your maker.

Paragon of wisdom

Why didn't Socrates write anything down? Maybe he didn't have any hands (until later episodes) but he disputedly said, "All I know is I know nothing," and since this doesn't predicate an impotence of conjecture, it has become my mantra. Mekka Lekka Hi Mekka Hiney Ho! Now if you believe the gossip (I love that story), he did say he "posesses no knowledge worth speaking of," and ignoring the dangling preposition, this was his canon. Of course the Socrates we know is the archetype of modesty who always questions his position (faith?) not from meek insecurity, but through rational skepticism about his sensory tools and emotional certainty.

If you made it this far through the forest of scary words, the denouement here is we all communicate through a series of inane context-specific shared experiences that never mean the same thing to any two people. Shhh! I'm listening to reason. We're using pop culture sign language as we nod knowingly to each other lost in our own matrix where the connection may or may not be intended. Should we white-water through this framework intuiting some designed import (blue pill), or dissect (wiki) every meaning consciously selecting the most significant path (red pill)? Calling Doctor Bombay, come right away! Medicate this mental melee. --- Did somebody say wish? --- Everybody knows we can choose how we feel.

That's a lie Pee Wee!

A large wooden badger

Do things get stuck in your head? Stuff you could never have any use for is just hanging around in there. It's not even funny or interesting. They're like cobwebs but if you take a broom and brush them away, it somehow reinforces them. If you ignore them, maybe you will forget but then again maybe they are an integral part of your character and when they fade away, you fade with them like Captain Kirk in the Tholian Web. That part of you disappears into an alternate universe. I know this much is true.

It could be a stupid song or a phrase from a movie, or an image from the internet, but just that it attached itself to your mind like a covalent spirit drifting within your event horizon means you have assimilated it into your consciousness. If you purge it now, it may pull away things you cherish along with the expelled mundane like a lobotomy. To live is to accumulate but we still search for the Holy Grail.

I told them we already got one.

Why so serious?

I already did a post about the Joker with the coolest picture of him you'll find anywhere on the (world-wide) web, so I'm not going to talk about Heath Ledger but they really should sign him up for the next two Batman movies regardless of his condition. I was telling a friend that was how Weekend at Bernie's one and two got made. I don't think very many people realized Andrew McCarthy was dead (including the crew) until they were almost through with the third one.

Speaking of dead actors, I hear Robert Downey Jr. has started making movies again. And we all thought canceling Ally McBeal was a good thing. You see, I could skip The Shaggy Dog and The Singing Detective, but now he's branched out into Ben Stiller movies with Steve Coogan so if he pulls a Richard three or a Chaplin performance on this movie I may have to hunt him down myself. Since the previews show him trying to look and act like a black man and failing miserably, I may enjoy this role. I didn't mind the washed up playboy jerk with a substance abuse problem either. It's too bad he had to stop that to make the Ironman movie.

The Summer (movies) of our Discontent

Bangkok Chickboys

Geez, I don't understand why no one is clicking on my Google advertisements. Doesn't anyone want to enter a Cheese Recipe Contest, or go on an 8000m mountain climbing expedition? That's what I get for having posts about Cheese Nips and Sherpas. I should try Lesbians, MILFs and Spice Girls or maybe Lesbian MILF Spice Girl Water Sports and not only would I get more clickable ads, I would also get more traffic from google searchs. I could just be a click conduit for confused teenage boys, or pitiful unimaginative older gentlemen. Or maybe I would catch my wife trying to hit the number one spot for this particular google search.

Take a pinch of white man, wrap him up in black skin ... er, and funny enough, it lands on its wheels and it starts first time and they just drive away. $5000 for the best macaroni and cheese recipe? How about a freeze dried version we could use for mountain climbing food?

Swallow Your Soul

Do you ever feel like you've painted yourself into a corner and it's turned to red hot magma that will melt your feet if you take three steps over to where your bed is looking so cozy and inviting? Why didn't I wear my asbestos shoes? It seemed like such a good plan when I started, but the flaws become conspicuous now. At first I thought I was surrounded by frickin' idiots too lost in their own trivia to appreciate mine, but maybe nothingness is NOT an acquired taste.

Maybe none of these words really go together. Perhaps it's like Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie period - if Volvo made houses... Or maybe I'm just Stephen Dedalus without an alter-alter ego to rage against. A man of genius makes no mistakes - they're portals of discovery which either makes me Magellan or plainly simple. Simply complex? Conflict! I need more conflict. Maybe some Fleurs du Mal? What is this glory in not being understood? Great men are stupid or maybe just not so great. True greatness comes from de profundis or witty repartee or both simultaneously.

Groovy! (baby?)

A walking contradiction

Isn't it cool that about 4 times a year (today July 12th is one) the sun lines up with the east west streets in Manhattan so you can actually watch the sun set in the middle of 42nd street if you don't mind being run over by Travis Bickle. "I'm just waiting for the sun to shine."

Why won't some guys hold a door open for another guy? Is it the same reason they have to sit with an empty seat between them in a theater? This isn't the same reason you put an empty urinal between you and the next guy. The last time I picked an adjacent one I felt some neighborly spittle rain through the gaps of my sandal and it all suddenly made sense. So if you pick first, how do you keep either side clear? Maybe I should try a mohawk and an army jacket.

You talkin' to me?

One Way Trip to Wonderland

Sometimes it just clicks and you understand exactly why the cheesy 80's love songs were created. It's almost embarrassing, but I guess as long as no one really sees how I feel I can keep my machismo intact. I've had a pocketful of love, but best of all's you.

Our love is invincible, baby!

Appendix: (Lyrics with commentary)

Giant Steps: Another Lover

I've had a pocketful of love in my time (WOW! A whole pocketful of love?)
But the best of all's you (you're the best in my pocket - or maybe since I've come out of the pocket)
I guess we perfected the emotional thing (you guess? the emotional thing? how romantic!)
Just we two (why not 'do do do'?)

I searched all over for the permanent one (the permanent one? Some day I'll find the permanent one!)
And then I found you (but I gave up and settled for you)
Cos' no one's better when the lights go down (which is the most important thing when looking for the permanent one)
And there's just we two (still think 'do do do' works better here)

Chorus:
The world don't need another lover
Now it's got you now it's got me (there's a lover quota and we just filled it)
The world don't need another lover
Cos' our love's more than the whole world needs (this is actually good and makes up for all that other stuff - say this over and over)
Baby

You can't buy passion like it every day (wait a minute, buy? but some days you can?)
From a second hand heart (is my heart second hand or am I buying passion from your second hand heart?)
You just can't separate the meant to be (like peanut butter and jelly)
They can't tear us apart (why do they always want to tear us apart? who are they?)

Girl our love's invincible
I'm so proud with your hand in my hand (proud? - I made a good choice!)
Catch a wind and fly away (why? can't we stay here?)
We're on a one way trip to wonderland (is this like the Michael Jackson wonderland? Maybe I should go...)

Girl our love's invincible
chorus fade

I brake for Jebus

I accidentally went to a blog with a bunch of funny bumper stickers today. My eyes are still burning. What's worse than putting a bumper sticker on your car? Taking a picture of it and putting it on your blog. The only amusing thing about bumper stickers is analyzing the driver's personality through the joke he worships so much he wants to keep telling it over and over until the sun cures the sticky allowing it to flake off like dead skin. My favorite is "Save the Ta-Ta's" which makes people laugh because we are allowed to be crude and derisive as long as we're also being compassionate and charitable. So this guy (maybe that's an unfair gender assumption?) wants you to get exams early and often (he's willing to make free house calls) to improve his statistical opportunity of ogling pleasure. It always feels good to give, right? When his son asks, "Daddy, what's a ta-ta?", he can say, "Son, let me show you the internet..."

In case of rapture my dog will eat your honor student.

The Unkindest Cut

I'm sure we've all imagined being on both sides of that sword Brutus used to extinguish the most glorious luminary. The betrayed path to martyrdom must be appealing since it doesn't require any special skills or an extraordinary body of effort. On the other hand, seeing the surprise as you pierce a vital organ must extort some adrenalin too. I can't even imagine saying something rude to a third string friend so the idea of stabbing them in the back (or front) is foreign to me, but if I were saving the empire from a ruthless maniacal dictator (and Dick Cheney wasn't the vice president), I might consider my friendship a lower priority. Still, how do you repress the love for your friend as his entrails pile up on your shoes?

Et tu friendo?

These are the people in your neighborhood

The Skeezer McWhorington clone living near you may seem like an oddity, but a recent study has shown the Skeez may infest as much as 85% of existing suburban white communities. In the early '80s, this phenomenon was confined to the culturally bankrupt periphery (travel trailer parks or manufactured home communities) where mullets and tube tops were the Dolce and Gabbana of Shady Elms Mobile/RV Rest Area and the likes.

Today, you may not spot the fugly by the freeze spray glazed and teased high volume curl perms, but the skanky stank is still the same. Hoochie is one of the universal constants so keep a sharp eye out. As they pollute the general population, they are adapting and concealing their gross and overt harlotitudes. The only defense is a quick and dirty offense.

Sweep the leg, Johnny!

Hot Muffins!

My wife has a blog! Am I intimidated? God yes! But on the other hand, now it's like I get to read her journal and her email all in one daily blurb. Is it a competition? Well, everything is a competition for me so God yes! It's a competition. I suppose it's not really a competition since I have no readers and she already has about 20.

I would put a link on my blog to her blog, but the only readers I'm going to get are the ones from her blog anyway unless you search for "Frozen Carrot Teething Rings" in quotes like that. I'm assuming that she'll be nice and add a link to my blog from hers. She'll feel obligated if I add one to hers on mine. Especially if I say, "but I added a link to your blog on mine."

Oh man, now I have to think of something to say. What do you guys want to talk about?

I'm back!

Now I can blog from my phone even when I'm sitting in front of my computer, but I have to get a wireless keyboard and mouse for this thing.

I'm gonna need a bigger monitor (boat).

Don't ever get a Samsung Blackjack II. Crap Phone!