Distractions

I'm distracted lately. I knew I would be, when I treated myself to Christmas with an Xbox360. Like for instance, right now. I'm making myself write this entry. I'm thinking very much about some virtual violence right about now. But, instead I'm trying to regain some sort of discipline to sit down and continue writing, instead of falling into a non-stop distraction. I guess it really is about self-discipline. Which, at times I tend to have a bit of, others not so much.  But, I suppose that's everyone since all of us face similar temptations in this mad media-saturated century.  Distractions are prevalanet.

This is an age of distraction, a golden age of man. An age set to implode upon, or be exploded by from unknown forces at any moment. However, it is apparent that we have had to recover from global catastrophes in the past. When mankind likely was at a comparable level of civilization, with a different set of distractions, but all of the same problems of human nature.

I  began this blog a few years back to get myself writing on a regular basis. But, it's been greatly hit and miss, often at fulfilling that initial function since I've updated it so sporadic. Not sure whyy that is, just that I've been on a writing hiatus for a couple of years now. Not creating much of anything more than a random scribbling in a notebook  I keep, or a scrap of a dream I might have woke up and wanted to remember.

I knew when I finally bought the Xbox360 that it would be another distraction for me on many levels from getting this piece of fiction I've been trying to finish.  But, here I am today writing random rants in here. Trying to get warmed up so I can continue the story of Ken Phalanx.

Samuel Adams Salt n' Vinegar Garlic Ginger Chicken

One of my hobbies, pet projects, or past times making up dishes from whatever is in the kitchen. This has been becoming something I've come to enjoy more and more lately. Dammit, another creative outlet.
Anyway, here's.......Tonight's chicken experiment.

6 oz. chicken breast coated with salt and vinegar potato chips, with  Samuel Adams Boston Lager, garlic, ginger marinade.

Yes, it's yet another kitchen exploration this evening. Here's the proposed recipe.
1 6oz. Chicken breast
1/4  cup of Samuel Adams Boston Lager
3 cloves garlic diced up
1/4 teaspoon each
salt, ginger, black pepper


Dice up that garlic and thaw out the chicken breast.
(I usually buy a big tray of them and put them into the freezer in single portions for whenever I want them,  usually the last me about three weeks, maybe more if there are other meats in the freezer. I just wrap them up in foil, they usually keep pretty well and the foil can be used to cover the marinade dish, hint)
Sprinkle all of that ginger, salt, and black pepper onto the chicken breast and throw it in a bowl.
Take all your diced up garlic, then sprinkle it onto the chicken breast.
Next, pour that beer over the chicken and let it set for a while in the fridge until you're ready to cook it, maybe two hours or so from when you've put it in the fridge, just so all of that spice gets absorbed into the chicken.

When it's finally stinking like a vampire's worst nightmare, pull out those Salt n' Vinegar potato chips, crunch them up and coat the chicken.


Pop it into a hot skillet, fry it up, and I'll have to wait to tell whether or not you should enjoy it or not. Since I haven't tried the finished product yet.
It might be another in my long list of failures, but it can't possibly be as bad as the bananna burger.
I tend to think it will taste pretty good. I can imagine what the flavor might be.


I'll be adding in some veggies, maybe brussels sprouts, some white northern beans, or a sweet potato, haven't decided that yet.

Two Centuries and Thirty-Five Years, and needing a change today.

   As an independent voter who has been following the circus that is the Republican nominee process, I've found that I really only like one member of that field, and it's Ron Paul. He's the most consistent of them who makes the most sense, and actually will answer a question that is posed to him directly. Unlike all of the other candidates for the Republican nomination, he doesn't stay with the party's talking points, and hasn't had some jaded past where he has groped someone in a car, hired a dubious groundskeeper, or become the definition for a mixture of lubricant and fecal matter. He doesn't have a spouse that runs a farcical treatment for homosexuals, nor has he brought a significant amount of baggage into this campaign from his previous political career. Granted, his ideals of an isolationist America that  is concentrated on the rights of the States is rather 1776, but do we really need to maintain this corporate status quo that we've been living under for the last 20 years? I don't know if Ron Paul is really the answer that this country needs right now, but I know that none of the other field of candidates who have a snowballs chance in hell of unseating President Barak Obama are worthy of assuming that title from him.

 We have been in the midst of a vile political climate for a while now, that would rather we just grant carte blance to Big Business no matter the cost to each of us who are struggling every day to maintain our own status quo of existence. The costs of our daily lives have increased as a result of our complacency, its harder to put a loaf of bread on our counters, or a carton of eggs in our fridges, and that's not to mention how much more difficult it is simply to get to whatever job we're lucky enough to have in this day and age. We simply can't carry on the way we've been going where we pander to a select group of companies and individuals who seem all to happy to deprive us of the very luxuries that they enjoy on a daily basis.

I've not written this as any encouragement to vote for Ron Paul, but he really is the only logical choice for a significant change in the ideology that has dragged this country down into the sewer that it is in today.

Further, Barak Obama has had a difficult mantle to assume. I will publicly grant that to him. He has faced hostile Republican Congress that has publicly proclaimed that they want him to be a one-term President. So, it has been difficult for his Presidency to really embrace the "Hope for Change" that his campaign sought in it's infancy. But, from my observation I've had to ask myself often, has he really done enough to face that conflict head-on like he should have as the head of the Executive branch of our government? He had ample opportunity to make those changes, and promulgate the HOPE that he gained the office of President, and each time in his presidency, he fell short. Perhaps he was captured between a rock and a hard place, perhaps he was limited by position, politic, or some lobbyist pledge. I don't know. Who the fuck am I to know this? But, through my own observations of his Presidency, it isn't until recently where he has taken advantage of his office to make the wave of hope that got him elected a reality have I seen any worth in my part in getting him elected to that post. If only he would have been working for typical Americans like myself over the four years he has enjoyed as President, I might not now be considering a replacement for his job as a voter in this democracy.

Honestly, I feel that it is well past time for change. We need a drastic renovation of this political system. That needs to begin with the removal from all corporate influence of any kind upon our government. I seriously doubt that any of the framers of the great document which we base our democracy upon had in mind that one day the government they envisioned would someday be tasked with regulating the fish in the seas, the life in a woman's womb, or the plants which grow upon the Earth. Provide for the common good, I don't see the US government providing for the common good for all of the equally created men(and women) upon this great continent any more in this system. Instead, it has become a business that makes cuts where the common good is concerned and allows  businesses to put that common good at risk with water that is flammable.

We are well past 'Hoping for Change'. America is in a predicament now. It has reached a fever pitch that is set to explode, be shaken apart through fracking related earthquakes, or to be pepper-sprayed in the face of it's freedoms. It's well past time that we awake from our complacency and make some drastic alterations in our systematic disregard for the freedoms that we embraced as a nation 235 years ago.

The sad casualty of captalism

I was at Wal-Mart early this morning. And, like most times when I go there, I found myself stricken with the realization that there are 40 checkout lines, and only 3 that are operational with a long line in each of those three lines.
For a logic problem, this has two solutions.

A. Either staff more cashiers
B. Decrease the number of checkout stations.

Yet, there is apparently no logic at work in the reality of the situation. There may be only one time of the year when it is feasible for Wal-Mart to actually have all 40 of those checkout stations staffed, and even during that time period, they don't have all of them staffed. There's no reason for them to. since they have a Wal-Mart on the other side of town with the same 37 empty checkout lanes.
None of this makes sense in the grand scheme of things. But, this is the world we are living in today.  Wal-mart has likely consumed untold millions of tons of steel to create those same 37 empty checkout lanes at all of their 8500 stores(wikipedia) across the world.  That is a tremendous waste of resources when you really start to consider it. You could likely build an entire town from the materials which they've sank into those unused checkout lanes.

It's a sickening waste of materials.

These are the things that I think about while I'm waiting to give them my hard-earned money in a line of my fellow humans. Granted, I could go to another grocer, but much like everyone else I do like to save a few dollars  here and there, and Wal-Mart happens to have these enormous packages of chicken breast that will feed me for nearly two weeks for 12 bucks. So, yes...I am biting the hand that is feeding me, literally, it's my right.

This doesn't change the issue at hand, why squander resources on unused checkout lanes, or produce products that only last two months, or put every single item in it's own fucking bag when there are countries on this Earth that can't even feed, house, or clothe themselves. This is a huge problem, and it makes absolutely no sense.

If Wal-Mart isn't going to pay someone to stand at each one of those checkout lanes when they are open for business, then they need to get rid of them and use those materials for something that will benefit mankind, instead of consuming those materials for the most useless artifact of our capitalist society, the empty checkout lane.

Yet, this isn't even the dagger that pierces me square in the gut. They've taken the extra step to provide a self-checkout option. I've actually used those in the past, and I always leave with some twinge of guilt that I'm stealing from the store. But, aside from that, THOSE ARE ALWAYS CLOSED and there are typically at least 10 of the damned things, again with using up vital resources that could build someone a house, a car, a desk, or a brace  for the back that capitalism has shattered through it's grinding gears.

Honestly though, this is just a prime example of the extensive waste of resources that is at work in this modern world. Packaging is an enormous consumption of materials, especially when the packages are packaged, repackaged, and then packaged again in some other way such as a box full of your bagged groceries, or a vase of flowers inside of a bag that has been put inside of a box. This isn't even touching  on the multitudinous oceans of useless plastic objects that are generated for one-time use then cast away into the ocean to be diffused by the Earth for a thousand years, yes straws, ketchup packs, and all of those stupid little things we all use every day that we just throw away.

Case in point, Taco Bell sauce packs. Yeah, I like the sauce. I use a lot of sauce on my food from there. The sauce is one of the prime ingredients to me that makes their food at the remotest palatable. Suddenly, on a visit to Taco Bell over the summer, I noticed that their sauce pack contained significantly less sauce in it. So, my train of thought gets on the subject of resource consumption.
Does it cost more for them to put more sauce in the package?
Does it cost less for them to use more of the plastic packages, and put less sauce in the packages?
Why the fuck won't they just fill the goddamned packages up all the way, and use fewer of these fucking sauce packs??

Well, it has to be an issue of cost at the end of the day for THEM. But, in the grander scheme of things, IF they have determined that it's a lowered cost for them to add LESS sauce to their packages and instead consume more petroleum to produce more plastic packages for less sauce, THEN these practices are driving up the cost of all of our petroleum based products.

The worst part of the thing is that it's probably a smarter idea for them to just have a huge tank of the stuff delivered to their 5800 locations in the United States, and just ask customers if they want sauce on their tacos when they make the damned things, instead of wrestling with this conundrum that they've obviously been presented related to their sauce packages.

Sauce packs and checkout lanes, think about it. Think about all of the other tremendously useless items that this planet is generating on a daily basis that are just cast away, consumed, and left to decay over thousands of years.

The iFrack coming soon.

I've either become more cynical as I've aged, or stupid people have multiplied across the globe, into positions of power, and have promulgated their numbers onto the highways of America. They are apparently allowed to drive now! God help us all.

Case in point. Here in this town of Cleveland, there is an intersection that contains a monument in the center, two one way streets going each direction, and a road bisecting the one-way streets behind the monument. Well, I'm approaching that intersection to cross the one-way streets and on my way to the apartment when I find someone who has chosen to pause for a length of time directly in my way of ingress. I don't know what they were doing, there were no cars coming, but yet they persisted in their immobility, until after a minute they simply drive out of the way and cease their blockage of all of the traffic at the intersection. I don't know what the heck they were doing, whey they paused in the middle of the road to block up all of the traffic, but thankfully some glimmer of reason entered their mind to trigger their self-removal from the intersection in question.

I don't know if it's that ignorance has propagated itself, or has been bred into the bulk of humanity, but it seems to be on the rise. Common sense, has become uncommon. Politeness has attempted to replace common sense on the highways with great frustration to people who happen to retain some modicum of common sense and knowledge of traffic regulations. As a polite person myself, I won't just up and stop for someone to get out of an intersection if there's no traffic behind me because I know that would confuse the shit out of me if someone did that to me. And this sort of thing happens often to me on the road.

It's not just drivers either, pedestrians, at least the college age variety that I'm coming into contact with lately as a driver are apparently cluelessly hanging out on sidewalks near intersections where drivers find themselves often. They're checking emails, or carrying on inane conversations that are probably better suited to some commissary, public park, or ladies' room in a dormitory. Don't stand on the side of the road chit-chatting, get the fuck out of the road so the rest of society can get on with their business and don't have to pause to determine if they may accidentally squish your eyeballs out of your head as their SUV runs you down at the four-way.

If I have to assign blame for the rise of ignorance in society, I'll have to set that blame squarely on our technology and marketing machine. Lately, I'm finding my intelligence assailed on a regular basis anytime that I'm exposed to advertising. I think I've brought this up before, well I'm on it again. Back off Mr. Faceinyouriphonebooktuber standing at the crosswalk not communicating whether or not you're about to step off into traffic, you're part of the problem, you media consumer! But, I can't totally lay the blame on you. You've been subjugated to something larger, this consumer culture that we seem to have been completely subjugated. For any sort of proof, turn on a television for an hour, and you'll find the most pointless information being broadcast in large quantities by news organizations, advertisers, infomercial producers, and even some television programmers.  All of which want you to give them money for some dumb product that you don't need, really.  You could probably do without that smartphone, heck it might even make you smarter to not have it. You might have to actually use your brain to remember where you parked your car.

All that I'm really saying is that we've apparently reached our level of incompetence as denizens of this planet. The 'Peter Principle' we haz it.

Think about the lack of common sense behind 'hydraulic fracturing' or 'fracking' if you want to call it that. What a terrible concept! Who's the lamebrain who conceived that it was a smart idea to open up fractures deep in the planet with water, when the whole planet is made up of floating plates of crust surrounded by mostly water. It's a recipe for disaster, and I hope that the human race comes out of it's mental cloud and realizes that soon. Especially, since the consequences involve earthquakes, polluted waters, and humongous sinkholes forming.

I think when you really get down to what has caused this collapse in the general gregariousness of humanity is money. There is some wisdom in that old saying, "Money is the root of all evil."
Everything has become at its' core related to generating a profit at any cost, regardless to whomever the stakeholders in whatever project it happens to be, and how much profit that project can generate for the shareholders.

Faceless corporations have been happy for so long to supply mankind's wants, needs, desires, and fetishes, it's long overdue that humanity recaptures some smidgen of self-reliance and starts to think for itself again before time runs out and we're all killed in the crosswalks.

The warm up.

The warm up.

I've been working on some writing projects lately, and yes I've been using this format to get my fingers to cooperate and my mind to quiet down a bit so I can concentrate on this annoying habit that I've developed over these years. This drive to create things! What! Why are you naysaying, just sit in your tower already.
So, yeah...there it is I've admitted to you that I have some literary aspirations beyond just giving you the mundane rundown of my bowel movements, or the fluffy bunny slippers that I saw at Target, or whatever dish I might have eaten at some random restaurant. I want to sell something that I've written so maybe I can afford to upgrade the rattletrap aging automobile that I'm using to  lug my girth to work.
Maybe I'll succeed, maybe I won't. If I don't, I've only myself to blame. The main obstacles to that success are all around me and they are prevalent for us all today, this very vehicle that you're observing my madness through, it is one of the chief distractions in this modern era since it contains multitudious distractions, video, audio, chatter, shopping, gossip, sloth, sins, sex, and all of the numerosity that goes along with the human condition today.

Yeah, I made up that word, 'numerosity'. So what...I can do that, so can you try it sometime.\



Addendum:

 I didn't actually make up the word 'numerosity'. I can't speak for everyone, but for years I used to write in a journal every night before bed. I fell out of that habit. Geez, I need to get back to that. But, what I was about to say before I so rudely interrupted myself was that I tend to dredge up some words that have languished in the depths of my vocabulary vault unexpectedly at times and have to stop to consider if they're actual words or not. That might sound weird, maybe.

Sure, I could just edit the above post to obfuscate my gregarious use of an existing word and then claim it as an original creation of my own, but instead I will elucidate at length for the sheer audacity of annoying you, the gentle reader.

Anyhoo....just wanted to clear that up before you're off telling people that you know the guy who came up with the word 'numerosity'. I'm not going to define it for you. Get a dictionary, or try this go to Google search and paste this in there "define:numerosity" and you'll get yourself defined there for your wordporn pleasure.

Any way you want it, that's the way you need it.

We've been trapped in the mid-1980's for the last 20 years, have you noticed?


When's the last time you turned on a "Classic" rock station and haven't heard some ridiculous ballad from that time-period? Yes, Steve Perry you insidious little twat, I'm looking at you and Journey right about now. Why have you endured, and why do you continue to assault the airwaves with your caterwauling and petulant balladry?

Well, I guess you're not going to tell me so I'm going to have to just go my own separate way and take these chains that bind me.  I think that you're still around because you're serving a purpose. You're keeping the rest of our Budweiser swilling, wrestling digesting,  infomercial culture enslaved to an idyllic little time in this odd little American History where stereotypes have thrived, the drug culture was pariah, and the aristocracy wiped it's ass with gold leaf toilet paper.


Yes, Sherry, It's true, you're motoring to a new age of  observation. You are stuck in an Orwellian time-slip of monumental proportions. Those sweet dreams where someone is watching you are all true from the pill you've dissolved on your tongue.


I think that we're entering a period in the history of this American experiment where we are being confronted with the problems of this system of religious freedoms. America has finally reached the hodgepodge of what the rest of the world really is, and those same Pilgrims which initially hit Plymouth Rock don't like what it's turned into. There's a ruling class that seems to be embracing that Puritanical mindset from the pre-cannibal colonies of early America. Instead, today we are eating ourselves slowly, digesting parts that we want but can't have with bitter pills, delusions of our self-grandiosity, and our utter return to feudalism more surreptitiously damaging than that of the Dark Ages.


We've allowed ourselves to be enslaved to ideals, concepts, brands, and chemicals, instead of what works for humankind, our own artifice is consuming us. It is a new age of cannibalism.

It's no wonder that films depicting zombies , the end of days, and anti-heroes are so topically popular. All of those escapes are what we fear and secretly hope for. We're exposed to rampant corruption daily by our media outlets who point to the failures of our long extant political and economic ideals, our entertainments leave us empty and devoid of true contact, our foods are poisoned, and our chosen leaders collude to cloud their motives for our control.


This is the system we deserve for our complacency.

All of our perceived, or prescribed history has lead us to this moment in time. Each of us has been fed a story through our shared timelines and we arrive at this moment today on our little blue orb. Governments across this planet are in shambles, economies are faltering, and there is a general dissatisfaction with the status quo regardless of race, social strata, religion, or creed.

If the current situation with the Occupy movement has accomplished anything, it has been to expose those in power who have motives for maintaining the stereotypical system of control which has been in motion for the last 30 years at least. 

This Earth has endured assaults from space, dinosaur defecation, and the pollution of plastics from pole to pole. It's doubtful that this current epoch of human history will be the last, or is even the first, but unless we chose our next steps wisely we are likely doomed to diminish as the prevalent life-form on this piece of rock until we rise through the centuries to a new era in our simian history.



Daily you're fed a storyline of want and need. You need this product to do that. You want that product to do this. There's some void in your existence that will be filled if you just would invest in this little box that lets you escape into a fantasy. You've allowed yourself to be deluded with space, time, paint that will cover your bald spot or make you look younger, or perhaps it was a knife that will cut through the fabric of reality itself because the edge is Japanese steel and never dulls when you are cutting through the nails in your 87% recycled fiber sheet rock. Everything has a cost, and you'll wind up paying for those things at least twice over what their actual value is all for the satisfaction of someone far removed from your daily existence.

You're too complicated. Get over yourself. Simplify your life and pay some attention to what you're doing to this tiny little piece of dirt in this transient part of the galaxy.


Who knows how much longer you can hang on before you're bitch-slapped by the Creator back into the Pre-Cambrian?




Now, how the hell did I get from JOURNEY to this?


I'm not exactly certain. But, it goes something like this.


Take those chains that bind you, Sherry and stop fighting that feeling because it is the year 2525 and man does love a woman. but sweet dreams are made of this and that is a reflex when all you want is your kiss.


I've often wondered why the music of the 80s has endured on radio for so long. It wasn't until I began to study advertising and marketing that I really started to form a concrete answer. The music of that era was purely human and fit into a stereotypical mold that could be used to shape our collective reality.


If you don't want to accept that, think of JC Penny and their corruption of Mr. Blue Sky by ELO, or Ritz Crackers and how they've chosen to bastardize the classic Modern English song "Melt with You" to sell you  buttery bleached-flour crackers.


This is not a new phenomenon.


Since the dawn of advertising, and capitalism, a clandestine group of mankind has been shaping your perceptions, shaving away your inhibitions, encasing your vulnerabilities in a thin sheen of desire so that you will conform to their worldview.
So, step in line there. Whip out that credit card at 19.99% interest with a 331/3% annual percentage rate and pay up. It's time to cover that tab and leave the bar, because there's an intoxicated world out there for you to get out in and sober up.

Pantomiming a bazooka

I'm starting this off lately with nothing in mind but a bunch of concepts that are happening all at once in my old noggin pan. I have some weird thought processes, a lot of multi-tasking going on up there with the breathing, the peristalsis, and this maddening array of conflicting concepts that are being juggled by a mime on a unicycle.

Someday I'm going to pantomime a bazooka and knock that guy off that unicycle.

Anyway, I like to watch shows on television. Big show watcher over here, right here, I'm talking about me, pay attention.

But, what I am coming to be loathe of is the rampancy of the personal appeal in advertising, especially in late night television. I wind up in front of a television on a somewhat inconsisent basis around 3 Am EDT, and I have to tell you there's some crazy stuff on cable that time of the morning in this day and age. Luckily, you've still got the options of terrific networks like AMC, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, and others that repeat some of their best programming in the dead of night. But, and I mean it's a big one, the downfall of all of that glorious distraction is the torturous and intelligence assaulting advertisements that you have to suffer through an hour of television.

Sometimes, in that hour I'm asking myself who the target of some of this drivel really is, because it's not me. And, I can truly say that because the bulk of the advertising that is confronting me is the direct appeal.

By 'direct appeal', I mean advertising that tries to befriend you and start asking all sorts of personal questions right up in your bleary eyed starving little face. "Do you want to make more money?" "Are you suffering from psoriasis?" "Does your urine sometimes fail to come out when you've spent an hour on the toilet?" "Have you been injured by poultry evisceration equipment?"

All of the idiot statments that are being made in advertising today are what has killed a formerly magnectic segment of American culture. It's no wonder that more people would rather DV-R, streeam, download, share, or steal their programming.

The direct appeal is easy, it's traditional, and it immediately engages you in the message. But, the chief problem with all of advertising is whether or not it's going to connect with someone who will give them a return on the expenses invested in trying to get you to hire them because you got boils from your face cream.

Having been a very avid television watcher for decades now, as well as being cursed with highly acute observational skills, I can usually tell whether or not a commercial is directed at me.  And lately, I don't find that any of it is directed towards me at all, and that's frustrating, because if I don't want to buy your crap, hire you, or vote for you, then shut up and let me watch my show.

I'm not eating that. You eat it.

Do you know what  we need on this planet? More of yesterday. Geologically speaking, and by that I mean that a stalagtitite had barely formed an inch of limestone we  had this remarkable system where people grew food, someone took the product of that growth and made something delicious from it, and then some other jackass came along and gave them a buck-fifty for something locally grown that was tasty, and everyone had a great time.  But, today Heartburn, Inc is manufacturing your food from a cow that was grown in a lab in Bumfuck, Egypt Antarctica and shipped in fetal form to a lab in Idaho and then later formed into a patty so it could be put into a pretty pink package and then you bought it and zapped it in your electron vibrator and threw it on a plate.

You tell me what sounds better?

I don't know about the rest of you, but I tend to do better when I consume something that isn't in a box with some doofus's logo on it. I like my food in a bag, or in as little packaging as possible. And, my stomach will corroborate this if you want to interview it yourself to confirm that.

Case in point, I've paid pretty close attention to when and where I've eaten and how my body has reacted to  what I've put into it and anything from Krystal's is not allowed anymore. Which is sad, because I actually enjoy consuming those slimy-tenth of a centimeter thick beef patties on thick slabs of steamy bread. But, that ecstasy lasts only for a moment, because afterward I'm cursing this manufactured food industry that we apparently embrace in this spur of the moment world we've launched ourselves into when we sat foot on the moon and planted our Ronald McDonald flag. 


Anytime that I eat those burgers, I get some violent heartburn and I doubt that I'm the only person on this misshapen ball of rocks and water that responds this way. I don't know if it's age, or  a change in their manufacturing practice, or it's something that is symptomatic of this whole industry of fast food that has laid waste to my digestive system, but I simply suffer more than I enjoy consuming fast food from that particular establishment nowadays.

I write this only as a response in recently learning that they are expanding their reach into the fast food market, as well as a sort of plea to their organization that they try to focus on making foods that I(along with all of my brothers and sisters in heartburn) can consume and enjoy free of whatever additives that they've stretched out their materials with to make it possible for them to increase their market share of the American consumer's digestive malaise. Seriously, I eat a lot of different foods. I'm pretty freaking omniviorous, and not a picky eater. So I have to ask you, Krystal, what are you doing now to your food that you weren't doing in the past couple of years that have caused me to regret ever hearing of your little tasty square grease laden burgers that are so perfect after a night of alcoholic debauchery? You must have added something, or neglected including something that has lead to this sort of reaction from one of your previously ravenous consumers. 

I don't think that it's just Krystals that is guilty of stretching out materials with fillers and chemically treated substances which likely shouldn't be consumed by human beings, but Krystals happens to be what is on my mind at this moment. Actually, it's most anything that is in a package that I have had a problem with lately, boxes specifically. Pre-prepared foods that contain a laundry-list of  hard to pronounce chemicals that have no place in a human digestive tract, yes you Budget Gourmet, Stouffers, Digorno, and you too Marie Callendar, all of you do nothing but cause me to have heartburn. After I've eaten your food, I have to go and have an antacid. So, over time I've learned that it's just not worth it to subscribe to your version of fast food in a pretty box that I can prepare in minutes in my microwave, screw you and your antacid producing parent companies too. I'll just eat this potato right here, and maybe that broccoli over there, those Brussels sprouts in the bag are okay, oh and give me that frozen chicken despite that you've eviscerated it while it still lives...I don't care it's tasty.

The long and short of it is. I'm not subscribing to this fast food bullshit anymore because I simply don't enjoy this system of propping up the chemicals that you've added to my foods that cause me to regret consuming it. I've learned through careful observations of my reactions that some of what you're putting in front of me are detrimental, you can keep that crap. You eat it, you buy the antacids. I'm not playing your game anymore when my own body has made it clear that there is something  that you're doing that isn't good for me.

So, Krystals, Marie Callendar, Mr. DiGorno, and all of you other food manufacturing bitches, I'm publicly making it known that there won't be any more of your chemically treated pre-packed non-foods consumed by this apple-pie gobbler any more.

And dammit, I don't care what kind of package you put it in, I'm not gonna eat it.

Planned obsolescence and the aging automobile

I got nothin right now. Okay, maybe as soon as I start to think about it, maybe there is something. It's my jeep and it's mystery malaise that mechanics can't seem to diagnose. I bought this car a few years back for $700 bucks. A 1987 Jeep Wagoneer Limited. Yeah, it's almost an antique if you consider an antique is anything that is 25 years old, it's coming up on it's quarter century mark with nearly 225,000 original miles on it. Someone took some decent care of it, and apparently didn't take it on any cross country excursions. I found it on Craigslist about three years ago and it has been an adventure learning about all of the idiosyncracies that go along with having an elderly car that just happens to be a Jeep. I've wrestled with getting rid of it numerous times, swearing that I'm not pumping anymore money into keeping it on the road, but for some reason, be it economy, the wont of not having a car payment, or just plain stubbornness I keep fixing little idiotic things that will prolong it's already long lifespan. So far, I've put a new starter on it, new driver's side seat belt, replaced the sway bar (that's a length of metal that keeps the body going the same direction as the wheels), new battery, new radio, new tires, as well as a lot of basic things that old-timey cars just need to get along on the road today.
  
    I guess I've always believed in keeping things, as opposed to throwing things away that aren't worth keeping. I think that comes from having parents that were born in post-Great Depression America. My folks have always been packrats, and I guess I've inherited some of that mindset to a point. While, I'm not loading up my home with a lot of things that I don't need, I still will try to fix what I've got when it breaks as opposed to going out and buying something that has a pre-programmed failure date, which most things these days have. A great many things can actually be repaired beyond their usefulness, and cars happen to be one of those things if you're willing to take the time to investigate what can be done to them to keep them running, that old Jeep is a prime example.

The truth is, I secretly love the thing, and I've like to see it restored to mint condition. Perhaps someday, it will be. But at the moment, the objective is to get it roadworthy to the point where I have enough faith in it that it's not going to kill me. And, that brings me to my current crossroads with this particular 1987 Cherokee XJ with a trim package. Back in March, I had to have the 'lateral sway bar' replaced. Remember, I just told you that keeps the body and the frame(where the wheels are attached) going in the same direction? Well, about that. You see, before I had it fixed I was confronting death most every time I was driving it and going about 35 miles an hour. If I happened to strike a bump in the road, as there are many because as a nation, we don't seem to give a crap about the roads, the thing would start shaking violently and force me to begin a braking maneuver that usually lead me toward the curbside of the road much to chagrin of fellow drivers who happened to have the misfortune of being behind me at the moment. Then, after the car slowed to a speed that was acceptable to the elderly vehicle, it would finally stop all that foolish shaking, and then obligingly decide to carry me forth to whatever destination I had chosen. Typically, nothing too far away, because I valued my continued existence and had the foreknowledge that there was something terrifically wrong with the Jeep. Well, I got that repaired, and for 7 months I was free to explore other little projects that could ultimately force my ancient chariot continued servitude. Until, finally the violent jostling and life threatening  liquefaction of wheel against road made a reappearance about three weeks previous to today, and again Friday morning of last week with a vicious vengefulness. Maybe this thing has just had enough, I don't know.

But, while I still continue to value my life and still am trapped within a limited economy where a car payment is extremely undesirable, I've pursued the possibility of prolonging it's life once again. With a return to the shop which performed the previous work related to the current problem, past invoice in hand, the mechanics are exploring the  problem, and are yet stumped to find a solution. They must be stumped since they are open to expanding their knowledge of the problem at hand based upon information I've provided. Through my own research into this issue, I've come upon a specific term, "Death Wobble". Yes, it sounds rather horrifying doesn't it? It is.

I've been in a death wobble, and it will scare the feces out of your sphincter. Not that I actually soiled myself mind you, but if I had been a lesser man, or happened to have consumed large quantities of watermelon, Mexican food,  chili, or other such repast I may not be relating this so objectively at the moment.

And all of this rambling brings me to this moment right here. It's after a night of pouring over financial transactions, listening to an audiobook of "Pagan Babies" by Elmore Leonard, and dropping by the mechanics with my Dad that I tell you this.

I'm glad that I didn't die on Friday morning behind the wheel of my old Jeep.

Because, from here on, this can play out a variety of ways. I get completely fed up with that POS and have it compressed into a coffee table-sized piece of scrap metal, the mechanics say "oh, it was this bolt here that we forgot to tighten", or they find a family of gremlins that had moved into the wheel-well, or they tell me that they haven't been able to discover what the problem is and I have to hire a Catholic priest to exorcise that demon from the film The Exorcist from the axle, or I just pick the car back up from the mechanics pay for whatever labor was expended, and go on to die at a later unknown date behind the wheel from this undiagnosed problem on my way to do something completely random.

I guess any of those things are possible. Okay, not the gremlins because that's just silly.

But, if I do die. Please, don't let some marketing executive cite my death as a reason for planned obsolescence because that will anger me greatly and I will probably go all Paranormal Activity on your ass in the afterlife.

Does brain taste like chicken?

Well, I've finally determined that chicken in the crockpot just isn't for me. However, through my catastrophic realization, I have discovered an amazing thing that I am finding rather tasty at the moment. The twice cooked crockpot bake method for chicken.  Yes, I just made that up.


During last weeks excursion to the meat section, I happened upon a package of chicken thighs that were on sale for $2.89. I thought to myself, I can eat on that for days. I will toss it into the crock pot along with some vegetables and whatever else is laying around in the kitchen that will fit into this puzzle. Then, I'll just freeze whatever is left, and eat it when I want. And, that is what I did.

Although, I found that the soggy crock pot chicken wasn't desirable at all. In fact, the chickenfat imbued chicken that was just about to slide off it's luscious little bones, wasn't at all tasty. Instead, it made me feel a bit nauseous after I had a piece of it. Go figure, it's chicken with baked in chickenfat that has no place to go except into the chicken over and over and over again until it is the the most moist disaster you've ever tried to stab with a fork.

I have been re-cooking the crock pot chicken,  until the skin is crispy again. Now, it has the texture and taste of fried chicken. Which is likely going to kill me after the next bite since it is wallowing off of the bone. Yes, I make myself laugh sometimes with dumb things that I say. Why not?

So, I've managed to turn 10 chicken thighs for $2.89 into 5 meals through just random resourcefulness and trial and error. But, trust me there have been some enormous failures. For instance, don't ever so long as you are drawing breath ever think for a moment that banana will mix well with hamburger. It doesn't. Okay, maybe the dehydrated chips could, no that's just silly. I won't try that ever again, it was terrible.

Anyway. Real things I suppose that are going on beyond these kitchen explorations in thrift cooking..

I'm about 18,000 words into a story. The strange thing is that I'm keeping with it. The whole writing process is about one part mystical and 99 parts routine. I know I'm not alone when I say that things just pop into my head. That's everyone. We've all got a spark of inspiration within us. But not all of us are going to take the time to sit down every day and put that spark into a series of coherent  paragraphs. Especially, since some of us don't have enough fingers, or have spikes through our foreheads, the language center is damaged, or you simply don't care to bother because you think it will be too dull, or your paragraphs won't be complete, or you can't spell. But, the truth is, that with a little practice and routine, you can get that inspiration down onto paper.

Maybe it's not a story. Maybe it's a sonnet, a song, or some free verse. Whatever it is, it resides in all of us. Maybe some more than others, but it's there in everyone.

That was a tangent and a half, now back to this chicken. I accidentally went a minute over the time that I arbitrarily decided to cook it for. I don't a kitchen timer, and I get distracted. Screw you, it's my kitchen. But, had I not   cooked it that extra minute, it would have been the single most amazing piece or fried chicken ever to have been fried on this Earth or any Earth in all of the realities.

That single piece of chicken thigh would have been a fixed point in time for all of you other Doctor Who fans out there. As I am devouring it, I'm destryong to time-space contiuum. Sorry, but it has to be done.


In closing, Value is key in this point in history. But, creativity is King. If at this time you are not resourceful, can't think on your feet, are failing to make some kind of plan, or are failing to load up the shotguns, then you are doomed to become a brain-eating zombie.

Long time no C.

Y'know it occurs to me lately that political debates by one-sided media organizations with agendas are not worthwile ways of metering who will be a good leader. In fact, it is a terrible concept. Last night, I watched a large segment of the Republican debate for the nomination for the party candidate on Fox News, co-sponsored by Google. All of that in itself is a mouthful and I'm still sorting out the intracracies of the conflagration of associations there, but regardless. The primary purpose of discussion is the format of a political debate where these unknowns are asked a series of questions that journalists, pundits, Mr. Joe America, or the candidates themselves have somehow triggered by their revelations in our interconnected world. It's a terrible format, foremost for the undecided masses and then for the candidates themselves.

The undecided masses, and they are huge. That's the whole purpose of the debate, to elucidate, clarify, and all together draw all of those who don't have a clue who is the best choice to lead the free world into the next four year period via a system of arbitrary questions that attack talking points designed by media gatekeepers.

It's a terrible system because there is no constraint for the potential President to actually 'answer' a question posed to them. Instead, through a subset of doublespeak that routes any definitive answer off on a patriotic tangent answers to questions all assume an amorphous grey cast, and none of the clarity of who is a worthwile candidate is actually given.

Perhaps it is a good idea that there are a series of debates in this format. However, why  are high-schoolers held to a standard of rules, time limits, and scoring when they are forced to debate. Shouldn't our potential leaders be held to those same microscopic standards of efficacy? Instead we give these unknowns the liberties of money, ease of explanation, and luxury of obfuscation to curry the favor of our mass of indecision.

We stand on a precipice where the inactions of the individual have lead us to a crux of consciousness. The rights of man over his own body are at issue in this United States of America. It is under attack from the corporations which we turn to for convenience, healing, transportation, nutrition, and many of our other body needs. Our medicines come with the price of side effect, our food with the cost of chemistry, and our choices governed by constraints consigned by detached bureaucrats.  We have fallen far from our once great ideals of equality, of brotherhood, and righteousness. As a nation, we have allowed this fall and welcomed it in a haze of gadgetry, ease, and dilution of perception by our chosen masters of programming and propaganda. We have turned to a complacent mass of bibulous gelatin, instead of the fire-hardened sword that our forbears paid for with all of their sweat and blood.

If we are not conscious of the trials of the past, and the diminishing boundaries of our liberties in the present, we are doomed to a dour and diminished future where our bodies are not our own, our minds are the properties of corporations, and our spirits are the dictates of dogma designed to direct our daily lives to a digital subjugation of will.

Put down your iPod, your iPad, Kindle, Android, and PC; Turn off the television, tear out the cable, the phone, and the Yahoo. The world of our fathers is floundering amidst this haze of convenience with costs unseen, the lives of  our children  being mortgaged for percents and derivative goals of detached bankers. Where has the wisdom of our age gone?

Coincidence barking

Well, it's happened again. An odd random brush with the infinite. So, I'm working third shift lately, okay? My days and nights are all screwed up. So, who's business is it if I'm having a beer at 8:45 in the morning after work but my own right? And, who really cares if I have another beer after that one, and maybe one more around 11 am? But all of that is purely incidental.

In my little corner of the world, I'm fortunate enough to have a neighbor across the street that has 8, or maybe 9 little barking dogs. I don't know if she has a puppy mill, or is raising them for food, but they definitely make some noise.

So now you know where I'm at and what I'm up against every day. It's not glamorous, but it's what I fight with when I'm trying to get a little sleep in the morning in this neighborhood. It's a cacophony out there when all 9 of those little dogs get the other neighbors larger dogs going over some nonsense passerby, or someone coming outside of their apartment. Never mind the guy who is trying to sleep.

Anyway, I'm there in my apartment around 11 am on my third and final beer, finally wound down from a long night of tedious work, and having alread suffered through one 15 minute barkfest. So, I'm being loudly proclaiming in my apartment, "Oh yes! More barking!" and such nonsense.

When suddenly, I get this loud rapping on my door from someone unknown. I know that none of my immediate neighbors are here, so my "joyous exclamations of barking dogs"  hasn't directly offended anyone who really matters.
It turns out to be three unknown people filling up my entire peephole, ragged, pestilent ridden, and unkempt, I still open my door to them to find out exactly what it is that they happen to be knocking so loudly upon my door about.

"We're from the New Life Bible College and we were wondering if you needed any prayer?" They said to me nervously and inexperienced.

  I was taken aback at first with their very presence after I'd already been so sarcastic in praising more of the barking from my neighbors dogs that now I have these people asking if I needed prayer at my door.

I said, "No, I think I'm okay today." Mostly wanting to get rid of them so I could return to painting a drawing that I had done earlier. They said okay, and wondered away somewhat beaten. But, almost with an afterthought,  still jarred from their audacity to knock so forcefully on my door coupled with the barking dogs across the street I opened up my door to them again and told them, "If you want to say a prayer to shut up these barking dogs, that would be awesome."

One of them said to me, "It's probably because so many of us are walking around in the neighborhood today."

But, after a couple of minutes the dogs stopped barking.


You can interpret this a number of ways of course. You can say, "Oh wow, an answered prayer!"  Or, you could just chalk it up to a pure series of coincidence. Further still is the fact that all of the New Lifers got out of the sensor range of the offending yapping dogs at long last.

Marvelling at My Media Mailin' of the Mighty Mjolnir

Special Edition #2, I hardly knew ye.

  So, I sold some of my comics,  about 40 issues of The Mighty Thor on eBay. I learned several lessons from this particular transaction. First and foremost, I will never sell a group of comics at once again. I really lost my perceptual ass on these comics, and only netted about 22 bucks for all of them. Secondly, and this is the most frustrating, the post office doesn't consider comic books for the media mail rate because they are 'not educational' and 'contain advertising'. After a rather involved conversation with the postal supervisor who admitted that without comics he wouldn't have developed an interest in reading, and whether to refer to them instead of 'comic books', but rather 'kids magazines' that this particular parcel could be shipped media mail instead of regular or priority mail.
  How incredibly ridiculous I felt defending a piece of 'media' in the face of a bureaucratic policy change to save a few dollars where the USPS can. I know that they're up against the wall, in the face of all of the competition for delivery dollars, but seriously! Comic books are printed matter, and educational in some respects, and well, it's just silly. If you're going to split hairs and say that 'media' has to be 'educational' before you can ship it at this lesser rate, then for the sake of all that is natural and good in this world, call it something else instead of 'media mail'.

  It did feel good when they finally saw my point however. But, in the future, 'comic books' are 'kids magazines', remember this if you ever find yourself in a similar situation.

In the crevasse

Write through this. That's what they say. But, what do you do when you're so unfocused on anything else other than what is staring you right in the face 24 hours a day. You wake up, it's there. You go to sleep, it's there. You dream, it's there in your nightmare. Does it require a revolver to set the times right. A sleek cool barrel of a gun to quieten the maelstrom of mind. Doubtful it's worth all of that. But, time is a killer. Time will eventually kill all of this, this madness, this hurt, this doubt, and this confusion of soul.
   I should know better. I know to walk along the straight and narrow path, but at times, the venues off to the side are so enticing and desirable. It's worth it to explore them occasionally, but typically I find that they lead only to heartache. I'm having a hard time climbing back up on that ridge that runs along the hillside, it's a steep slope I've toppled from and I'll be damned if I can climb back up there. There's too much stuff down in this ravine, too many sharp rocks and too many little flowers that I just want to pick and hold onto forever.
 It all happens when you're least expecting it. Whether you're inebriated, not paying attention, or on track for something else, suddenly you've fallen into a ravine and you're struggling to climb back up to the path you were on before you got yourself down in a mess. Sooner or later, you find a way out of it, usually with a great amount of difficulty. Usually, you're scarred up from climbing back up that hillside, all gashes and bleeding, scars that won't be healing up for a long time. I guess it's better than you fall off the path sometimes, better that you are knocked outside your comfort zone just to see what things could be like if you find a nice ravine that you can just live inside of forever. Maybe there's a little cabin down there with a nice warm fire that you don't ever want to leave. Or maybe, just maybe you topple down into a ravine and you're able to climb out of it unscathed and stand beside another who has fallen themselves and knows a bit about picking yourself up and dusting off and moving on down that path further until the next time some rock in the path dislodges and you fall into the unknown. 

All good and bad things.

This too shall pass. It's sometimes the only thing that can bring us any comfort, knowing that the rough patches in this existence are transient and will be over after the passage of time. All of those patches however are what wear us down, smooth out the rough edges of our humanity, giving way to some perfect creature which lurks just below the surface waiting to walk forward into the sunlight.

Graveyard shift in the cube farm

There's a strange noise in here. I think it's ghosts shaking pencil cups in someone's cubicle on the other side of the office. This place, it's strange at night. A host of odd noises, click-clack of the HVAC, a stray 3 am fax, and the occasional uncategoriazible disturbance from some former worker likely murdered in their cubicle from a remote voodoo ritual.

The cup-shaking seems to get closer, then retreats.

I come in at night, and say 'Hello' just to make sure that no one's in the office. I never know if someone's working late, it's seldom. However, one night when the parking lot was totally empty and I arrived, I swear someone said 'Good Morning', back to me.

"We don't go into Cubicle 3 anymore. Not since June 2003. That was when Mary Jo got the collections call from the hoodoo guru. Yep, suddenly she was havin' fits in there, all foamin' up at the mouth, and her eyes wild. Then, she just dropped dead in her cube and cockroaches came out of her ears. It's been roped off for years, don't go near it, don't borrow a pencil, or touch the stapler.."

It's a good thing that Cubicle 3 has been disassembled now and moved up into the attic. God only knows what else is in that attic. Likely, a repository for uncollectable debtors, at least their bones all dry like chalk in little urns marked with their account numbers.

 It is creepy here some nights in this ancient department store converted to a cubicle farm. I still remember coming here when I was young. Just over there was the shoe department, there was glasswares, linens, and menswear on this side, over to the right was the womenswear. Lots of history locked up in this place, thousands of people passed through here and they've left a lot of impressions on the place.

5:22 AM

Out of touch, adrift in the middle of the night.
The silent parking lot, darkened storefronts, and quiet stone of trodden sidewalk.
Noontime will be all aflutter, like bees in a hive.

The distances between me and you
Separate by degrees, minute-hands, calendar years, a decade plus.
The distances between my heart and yours
Nanometers of spirt, space between the electrons snug in a nucleus.

Lost in this web of non-connectedness
pondering the next steps toward a future
plodding through rocky trails, landmines, and obstacle courses.
Looking for the light, the sunny grove, avoiding the shadow and pitfalls.

A pair of birds sitting on the nightlines
singing out before the moon is bisected by wires
one bird flies, one birdsong continues

A rock in the path

Benton Mackaye Trail

It begins as a lark. You just meet. You find out about this person. Then it winds up as something more. You've not figured out yet, just what it is. That comes later, afterward, when it transforms to it's next state.

The amorphous feeling of infatuation is intoxicating. It's strike can be deadly and leave you in recovery for years to come. Be warned of it, it can lead you down a road from which you may never return.

At least without the help of professionals.

I have fallen, and gotten up. I dust myself off, and move along down this path when I stumble upon a rock unseen. The trail is lovely and filled with wonders. Flowers scent the air and butterflies tumble to alight softly, pause, then vanish in a flutter of wings. The stream, background noise gurgling Doppler effect, changing slightly in the depths of your hearing as you travel past.

What miracles lie ahead beyond the ridge,  terrors of overturned rock trapped in geological process, or other slithering hidden magic. Traveling the path ahead is rigorous climbing, the loose gravel shuffling underfoot.

Step lightly, and tread softly with patience for the summit is in reach.

The Wolf is always at the Door

Nothing makes sense at times, but there's always the simplicity of bliss.

We move through this life, doing our best to find some ultimate happiness. If we are lucky, we find some transient bliss that will carry us through the long spans of time when there is none. We have it within us to live within memories for our entire lives, sometimes this can be a benefit, but others it is a handicap.

The bliss, when we find it can be transformative and comforting, bringing us back to life from the long slumber we fall into in response to the pitfalls of daily living. Schedules, responsibilities, and the mundane business of making in this world today all have worn us thin to bare threads, financially and spiritually. Today, we are even more in ill-repose to our blissful lives, we are desensitized by media, our attentions impacted by technology, and our hearts hardened by the constant stream of bad news blaring from every open port.

But, there is a richness in the undercurrent of living which bliss can bring to us. Whether it is the comfort of friendship, the caress of a lover, or the sanctity of a marriage, all of us are craving completion whether we will admit to it or not. Some try to fill the voids with work and personal accomplishments, eventually, they find themselves alone with a wealth and richness of the self, but lacking the simple bliss that another person can bring to their lives. This world is better when it is shared with another, I can vouch for that.

If you find somebody to love in this world, you better hang on tooth and nail. The wolf is always at the door. -- from "New York Minute" by Don Henley.