BEACH DESTINATIONS
Every year I like to go to the Jersey Shore by myself, to recharge my batteries. I suppose I could get a battery charger here at home, but I wanted to see if I could find the dangerous and highly ubiquitous cast of “Jersey Shore,” and maybe get into their crowd. I wasn’t sure what Snookie looks like; when I think of a Snookie, I picture something a plumber might use, for what I don’t know. I didn’t know how to find “The Situation” either. I have run into many different situations in my time, some with my car. It could look like anything. So I figured I would rummage around, look for a little trouble, and let them find me.
The beach seemed like a great place to start. I love the Jersey shore. We have been to some beautiful places in the world: Ibiza is gorgeous but the beaches there are rocky. The Caribbean has lovely warm, water but usually no waves. In Cape Cod and Maine the frigging water is so cold your nipples freeze and break off. We went to the visually stunning volcanic black beach in Santorini, but no one there factored in the reality that the color black does not reflect heat, it absorbs it- it is like running over the coals in a motivational seminar only without the increase in confidence. The New Jersey parks have nice, clean sandy beaches with good waves, boardwalks and let’s not forget the girls with big hair and nails, and a lot of bad ink.
My wife hates going to the beach with me because I insist that we pack EVERYTHING. I take two knapsacks, since I take two naps. We take two coolers, because we are 2 cool. A Milwaukee Sawzall seems extraneous at first glance, but you’d be surprised how often it comes in handy. Cooking supplies are a must- people are stranded at deserted beaches all the time with no food. Speaking of which I think I sprayed myself with Pam instead of sunscreen.
I actually saw fewer bad tattoos than usual. One girl had pictures of two bluebirds on her lower back, flying south. Maybe they had a nest down there. The lower back is a very popular tattoo destination- a girl had one that said “dance,” her way of furthering the arts (she furthered the arts farther down than usual). I guess the idea is to put your message right near your ass, where people are looking anyway, in order to get the most saturation. How long before girls start selling corporate sponsorships?
At one section of the sand people were surfcasting, and I have to tell you the difference between surfcasting and doing nothing at all is not much. I resisted the urge to tell them that if they want to liven things up try broadcasting.
I overheard one guy say, “Dude those waves are SICK!” I thought the surf seemed well-behaved, and I can’t imagine what that wave must have done to that guy other than pull his shorts down.
There was a sign that said, “SWIM BETWEEN GREEN FLAGS ONLY.” Between the green flags was nothing but sand, so unless I’m a complete idiot that sign was totally unnecessary.
I heard a lot of parents yelling at their kids- don’t stick your finger in there, don’t put such-and-such up your nose, don’t get sand all over this or that. The kids were generally allowed to play whist or read the Times, and not much else.
Many girls had gone out of their way to find suits that showed the maximum amount of skin legally allowed at the beach, and then spent most of their time stretching the material to cover the exposed skin.
It got late and I was getting cold- thank god I brought a turtleneck sweater and my slippers. I hadn’t seen Snookie or The Situation, so I figured I might try the local drinking establishments. At Bar Anticipation the band was good, although they played the exact same 28 songs that every other band plays, and someday I will write a separate blog on that sore subject. Luckily I was entertained by a great tennis match on ESPN2. And by great, I mean the two hottest tennis chicks in the world, both over 5’10”, and since they are both Russian neither one speaks a word of English- there is nothing sexier than a girl you have no way to communicate with.
There was one gal there more or less my age, and I considered talking to her, but as I ran the dialogue ahead in my mind I realized how difficult it is to have a normal conversation with me without years of experience. Then I noticed that her looks were striking, and for safety’s sake I got the hell out of there.
Sunday it was time to go home. Usually, using reverse psychology, I plan my exit to hit the most amount of traffic possible. Normally I would theorize that most idiots will leave in the afternoon to squeeze every ounce of vacation possible. The dullwits that leave at night don’t worry me. The morning schmucks will have already left, so I usually leave late morning to avoid the rush. But since it was raining, I had to switch things up 180 degrees. I figured that the evening dickheads will think that everyone has left, and leave early. The afternoon morons will jump the gun and leave in the morning. Knowing that the morning knuckleheads will wait until the afternoon to let the evening asswipes cycle through, I left in the late morning. I still got slammed with traffic, but at least I avoided the morning ass-faces and the numbskulls that leave at night.
The one place I didn’t look for Snookie is the one place I should have looked first: she was detained in the Seaside Heights municipal jail in a town right next door.
Incidentally, while I was relaxing at the beach, the legislature of Bridgewater Township in New Jersey was hard at work. They passed a new ordinance that made relieving oneself in public a misdemeanor crime. It seems to me there are several different ways that one could be considered to relieve oneself. I guess you could try all of them in front of the police station, see which one you get arrested for and rule the others out; that’s probably what Snookie did. I’m not sure if you’re actually relieving yourself if someone else holds it for you, but it’s something to think about while you’re waiting for arraignment.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
LOCAL FAUNA
LOCAL FAUNA
So I got a call from the neighbor’s son’s girlfriend the other day- she was minding the dogs (I know those dogs and it wouldn’t work the other way around). She said she just them out back for a walk and came face-to-face with a mountain lion, which hissed at her and scared the crap out of her. We live in a residential neighborhood which abuts a tract of land about seven acres in breadth- not really a wild jungle situation. Which made me think that if the hiss could be interpreted it probably meant, “Do you have any idea where there’s a mountain around here?”
She said she called 911 and they told her to go back into the woods and take a picture of it (and what- post it on Facebook?). Animal Control wanted no part of it either since technically it had broken no law.
The idea of a wild animal in our backyard that you woudn’t normally run over in a car was at once fascinating and frightening to me. My wife walks our dog back there all the time, and although I don’t think a mountain lion would attack a human for no good reason, I wondered if their system for rating reasons might be different than ours.
I thought I had better get out there and… well I didn’t really have a fully constructed plan in place. I put on a jacket and long pants even though it was about 90 degrees, thinking that if it bit me, neither of those garments had been recently laundered, and I would have the last laugh as I sat in the hospital. I put on a hat in case it bit my hair, and I took along a weapon- the deadliest thing I could find in the garage was a pickax.
Once I was in the woods, I looked down at my hand and said what the fuck am I going to do with a pickax? I may as well plan to conk it over the head with a ball-peen hammer, or jab it with a shish kebab skewer. I went running back to the house and found my father’s Winchester 94 (“The Gun That Won The West,” he never tired of telling me). I started keeping the gun in the bedroom ever since I saw that home alarm system commercial where this girl is alone and her old boyfriend with a snarly face breaks in and terrorizes her and her kid. I always thought that the same thing could happen to me: that that girl's snarly-faced boyfriend could break into my house. I have a dog, but the dog always looks like it’s smiling, and the only way it could ever harm a stranger is if it licks his skin off, causing all his organs to flop around the room.
I dug up the shells to go with it, and even though the box said, “best if used before 1974” (I should have asked my Dad- wasn’t the friggin’ West won by 1974???), I figured what’s the worst that could happen? Well I could shoot and kill myself, or be mauled by a mountain lion, but I only thought of those things later.
I thought I better test fire the weapon to see if it still worked after all these years- what if this friggin’ wildcat pounces on me, and I pull the trigger, and the thing makes a “doink” sound and nothing comes out? Or worse yet, the mountain lion puts its finger in the barrel and the gun backfires into my face? I know my father went on hunting trips, but I only remember him dragging his own carcass home with him.
I put a shell into the chamber and picked a place along the path to fire the rifle- I could just see me pointing it at a rock, and the ricochet comes back and kills me, with the mountain lion snickering away. I pulled the trigger and jesus the noise was an echoing cacophony that must have been heard for miles. I hoped at the very least I may have struck oil like Jed Clampett, and I could move to Beverly Hills where the mountain lions are better behaved.
When I continued into the woods, I heard a sound and spun around to a pair of eyes staring at me- a large fox. It did not seem frightened of me, and started circling my position as if to say, “I think I left my glasses somewhere around here.” I theorized that the mountain lion had made a play for the fox’s young, and perhaps I posed a similar threat in its mind. So far I did not see any evidence that wild animals are “more scared of you than you are of them,” and I think I even saw the fox give me the finger.
I continued on, and noticed a deer blind, which I climbed, toting the gun. I saw movement in the distance- a deer. I turned to call my wife- she would get a kick out of being called by an idiot with a gun sitting in a deer blind 15 feet up a tree. When I turned back I saw something that looked like the tail of a mountain lion, although I was far away and it also looked a little like a dinosaur.
I started thinking, what would Commander McBragg have done in this situation? I started thinking of amusing things to write in a blog. It dawned on me that I better focus here, this could turn into a life-and-death situation for one of us. I wondered if I would actually kill it if I saw it- the thing hissed right at the neighbor; that seems pretty threatening to me. Is a mountain lion an endangered species? Would I get in trouble if I killed it? I thought of getting a restraining order on it, or possibly trapping it. The pickax might come in handy after all if I dug a hole and put leaves over it. After about 45 minutes I popped the shell, climbed back down and watched Judge Judy.
Incidentally, a mountain lion is the same as a puma, a cougar or a panther. Its range is extensive, from Canada down to South America. A black panther is not a panther at all, but more likely a jaguar. The mountain lion cannot roar, but will growl, hiss and even scream, if someone steps on their foot. If you see a Cougar or a Jaguar on the highway, move out of the way, especially if it honks at you. The bobcat is much smaller, and gets its name from “Robert.” The jaguar and the leopard are much bigger, and indigenous to more tropical climates. A leotard is a cross between a leopard and a retard.
So I got a call from the neighbor’s son’s girlfriend the other day- she was minding the dogs (I know those dogs and it wouldn’t work the other way around). She said she just them out back for a walk and came face-to-face with a mountain lion, which hissed at her and scared the crap out of her. We live in a residential neighborhood which abuts a tract of land about seven acres in breadth- not really a wild jungle situation. Which made me think that if the hiss could be interpreted it probably meant, “Do you have any idea where there’s a mountain around here?”
She said she called 911 and they told her to go back into the woods and take a picture of it (and what- post it on Facebook?). Animal Control wanted no part of it either since technically it had broken no law.
The idea of a wild animal in our backyard that you woudn’t normally run over in a car was at once fascinating and frightening to me. My wife walks our dog back there all the time, and although I don’t think a mountain lion would attack a human for no good reason, I wondered if their system for rating reasons might be different than ours.
I thought I had better get out there and… well I didn’t really have a fully constructed plan in place. I put on a jacket and long pants even though it was about 90 degrees, thinking that if it bit me, neither of those garments had been recently laundered, and I would have the last laugh as I sat in the hospital. I put on a hat in case it bit my hair, and I took along a weapon- the deadliest thing I could find in the garage was a pickax.
Once I was in the woods, I looked down at my hand and said what the fuck am I going to do with a pickax? I may as well plan to conk it over the head with a ball-peen hammer, or jab it with a shish kebab skewer. I went running back to the house and found my father’s Winchester 94 (“The Gun That Won The West,” he never tired of telling me). I started keeping the gun in the bedroom ever since I saw that home alarm system commercial where this girl is alone and her old boyfriend with a snarly face breaks in and terrorizes her and her kid. I always thought that the same thing could happen to me: that that girl's snarly-faced boyfriend could break into my house. I have a dog, but the dog always looks like it’s smiling, and the only way it could ever harm a stranger is if it licks his skin off, causing all his organs to flop around the room.
I dug up the shells to go with it, and even though the box said, “best if used before 1974” (I should have asked my Dad- wasn’t the friggin’ West won by 1974???), I figured what’s the worst that could happen? Well I could shoot and kill myself, or be mauled by a mountain lion, but I only thought of those things later.
I thought I better test fire the weapon to see if it still worked after all these years- what if this friggin’ wildcat pounces on me, and I pull the trigger, and the thing makes a “doink” sound and nothing comes out? Or worse yet, the mountain lion puts its finger in the barrel and the gun backfires into my face? I know my father went on hunting trips, but I only remember him dragging his own carcass home with him.
I put a shell into the chamber and picked a place along the path to fire the rifle- I could just see me pointing it at a rock, and the ricochet comes back and kills me, with the mountain lion snickering away. I pulled the trigger and jesus the noise was an echoing cacophony that must have been heard for miles. I hoped at the very least I may have struck oil like Jed Clampett, and I could move to Beverly Hills where the mountain lions are better behaved.
When I continued into the woods, I heard a sound and spun around to a pair of eyes staring at me- a large fox. It did not seem frightened of me, and started circling my position as if to say, “I think I left my glasses somewhere around here.” I theorized that the mountain lion had made a play for the fox’s young, and perhaps I posed a similar threat in its mind. So far I did not see any evidence that wild animals are “more scared of you than you are of them,” and I think I even saw the fox give me the finger.
I continued on, and noticed a deer blind, which I climbed, toting the gun. I saw movement in the distance- a deer. I turned to call my wife- she would get a kick out of being called by an idiot with a gun sitting in a deer blind 15 feet up a tree. When I turned back I saw something that looked like the tail of a mountain lion, although I was far away and it also looked a little like a dinosaur.
I started thinking, what would Commander McBragg have done in this situation? I started thinking of amusing things to write in a blog. It dawned on me that I better focus here, this could turn into a life-and-death situation for one of us. I wondered if I would actually kill it if I saw it- the thing hissed right at the neighbor; that seems pretty threatening to me. Is a mountain lion an endangered species? Would I get in trouble if I killed it? I thought of getting a restraining order on it, or possibly trapping it. The pickax might come in handy after all if I dug a hole and put leaves over it. After about 45 minutes I popped the shell, climbed back down and watched Judge Judy.
Incidentally, a mountain lion is the same as a puma, a cougar or a panther. Its range is extensive, from Canada down to South America. A black panther is not a panther at all, but more likely a jaguar. The mountain lion cannot roar, but will growl, hiss and even scream, if someone steps on their foot. If you see a Cougar or a Jaguar on the highway, move out of the way, especially if it honks at you. The bobcat is much smaller, and gets its name from “Robert.” The jaguar and the leopard are much bigger, and indigenous to more tropical climates. A leotard is a cross between a leopard and a retard.
| Provided by website-hit-counters.com site. |
Thursday, July 15, 2010
LEISURE SPORTS
LEISURE SPORTS
Last week our friends Caryn & Chris took us fly fishing on North South Lake in the Catskills. North South Lake is just East Northwest of South North Lake, only more so. We were in a canoe, and they were in a little dinghy, which seems like more of a description than a noun.
We have never been fly-fishing before, and never fished at all in a canoe, which is an either/oar situation. Don’t ask us if we got any bites, because you really don’t have to fish for the flies at all- they come right over to you and bite the crap out of you. Chris explained that the fly is used to catch the fish, which is a shame because I can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, except in center field.
I asked what we were supposed to do with the fish if we caught one, because I don’t eat anything with bones. Unless the fish is such a friggin coward that it is basically a spineless jellyfish, I won’t touch it. I might consider a peanut-butter-and-spineless-jellyfish sandwich. But Chris assured us that this is a catch-and-release lake. I wasn’t sure if there was a “happy ending” or anything like that involved, so I just kept my mouth shut and kept rowing.
I told my wife that she could just sit back and look pretty, and I would do all the rowing. After traveling in a large circle 22 times, I realized that you had to alternate sides. So I rowed once in the front and once in the back. Luckily the wind blew us over to the side where we couldn’t do much harm.
The very first thing that I almost caught actually ate the lure, the sinker and the hook, possibly on a bet. Chris looked a little pissed- he said it was an expensive lure. I asked why don’t you use real flies? They’re free! All you have to do is catch them! He shot me a look that I interpreted as: “The fish are supposed to catch the flies- that’s how the food chain works.”
He fitted the line with this thing that I swear looked like a small dustmop, and I’m thinking this will appeal to a fish that is a real neat freak- I figured I was done for the day.
The next thing that happened was that I cast the line far and wide, and the top of the pole came off and went flying into the lake- no one told me it was supposed to come off so you could fold it up. So I spent the next half an hour going through the tackle box trying to figure out what might attract the top of a fishing pole.
After I got the pole back together I finally caught a fish. It was a large-mouth bass. You can tell this fish immediately in the field, because it started dishing about its in-laws. Unfortunately only its mouth is large, the rest of it is puny, so even though I wanted to take it home and stuff it, they made me throw it back. I asked Chris if he ever mounted his fish, and he dialed something on his phone that looked like 911.
Then I caught a catfish, which Chris & Caryn told me was a fluke. I said make up your mind. They meant that is rare, so I sent it back until it was well done. If a catfish is anything like my cat at home it will chase a fly for its entire life expectancy, which is one day. Then the fly dies of natural causes and the cat struts around like Lady Gaga.
After that I caught about 20 pounds of seaweed, which I have to say puts up a hell of a fight. The trick is to let it tire itself out as you give it some line, and reel it in slowly- don’t give up any slack. Once you get it into the boat it’s as valid a meal as any fish, at least for vegetarians. I also caught a stick, but that’s not going to make you a big hero- I’m just glad it didn’t run off with another lure.
The whole time I was living in abject fear that I would wind up and catch their dingy on my backswing, puncturing the pontoon and perforating their pleasure craft. But when I looked over at them, they were fighting with some kind of sea serpent or something that actually took Chris overboard, along with their lunch. I have to tell you I just started rowing and didn’t stop till I reached Ulster County.
Incidentally, If fishing in New York State you are required to have a fishing license in your possession unless you are under 16 years old. Which means that you don’t have a driver’s license, and probably cannot afford a boat, so it’s probably best to float there. If you are fishing for an “alewife” you will probably need a fishing license, a marriage license and a liquor license. I will send a gift.
Last week our friends Caryn & Chris took us fly fishing on North South Lake in the Catskills. North South Lake is just East Northwest of South North Lake, only more so. We were in a canoe, and they were in a little dinghy, which seems like more of a description than a noun.
We have never been fly-fishing before, and never fished at all in a canoe, which is an either/oar situation. Don’t ask us if we got any bites, because you really don’t have to fish for the flies at all- they come right over to you and bite the crap out of you. Chris explained that the fly is used to catch the fish, which is a shame because I can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, except in center field.
I asked what we were supposed to do with the fish if we caught one, because I don’t eat anything with bones. Unless the fish is such a friggin coward that it is basically a spineless jellyfish, I won’t touch it. I might consider a peanut-butter-and-spineless-jellyfish sandwich. But Chris assured us that this is a catch-and-release lake. I wasn’t sure if there was a “happy ending” or anything like that involved, so I just kept my mouth shut and kept rowing.
I told my wife that she could just sit back and look pretty, and I would do all the rowing. After traveling in a large circle 22 times, I realized that you had to alternate sides. So I rowed once in the front and once in the back. Luckily the wind blew us over to the side where we couldn’t do much harm.
The very first thing that I almost caught actually ate the lure, the sinker and the hook, possibly on a bet. Chris looked a little pissed- he said it was an expensive lure. I asked why don’t you use real flies? They’re free! All you have to do is catch them! He shot me a look that I interpreted as: “The fish are supposed to catch the flies- that’s how the food chain works.”
He fitted the line with this thing that I swear looked like a small dustmop, and I’m thinking this will appeal to a fish that is a real neat freak- I figured I was done for the day.
The next thing that happened was that I cast the line far and wide, and the top of the pole came off and went flying into the lake- no one told me it was supposed to come off so you could fold it up. So I spent the next half an hour going through the tackle box trying to figure out what might attract the top of a fishing pole.
After I got the pole back together I finally caught a fish. It was a large-mouth bass. You can tell this fish immediately in the field, because it started dishing about its in-laws. Unfortunately only its mouth is large, the rest of it is puny, so even though I wanted to take it home and stuff it, they made me throw it back. I asked Chris if he ever mounted his fish, and he dialed something on his phone that looked like 911.
Then I caught a catfish, which Chris & Caryn told me was a fluke. I said make up your mind. They meant that is rare, so I sent it back until it was well done. If a catfish is anything like my cat at home it will chase a fly for its entire life expectancy, which is one day. Then the fly dies of natural causes and the cat struts around like Lady Gaga.
After that I caught about 20 pounds of seaweed, which I have to say puts up a hell of a fight. The trick is to let it tire itself out as you give it some line, and reel it in slowly- don’t give up any slack. Once you get it into the boat it’s as valid a meal as any fish, at least for vegetarians. I also caught a stick, but that’s not going to make you a big hero- I’m just glad it didn’t run off with another lure.
The whole time I was living in abject fear that I would wind up and catch their dingy on my backswing, puncturing the pontoon and perforating their pleasure craft. But when I looked over at them, they were fighting with some kind of sea serpent or something that actually took Chris overboard, along with their lunch. I have to tell you I just started rowing and didn’t stop till I reached Ulster County.
Incidentally, If fishing in New York State you are required to have a fishing license in your possession unless you are under 16 years old. Which means that you don’t have a driver’s license, and probably cannot afford a boat, so it’s probably best to float there. If you are fishing for an “alewife” you will probably need a fishing license, a marriage license and a liquor license. I will send a gift.
| Provided by website-hit-counters.com site. |
Thursday, July 1, 2010
SOCIAL NETWORKING
SOCIAL NETWORKING
Due to the proliferation of Facebook I was able to reconnect with my long-lost bandmates from high school. Some of them actually were lost, but due to advancements in GPS technology, ended up finding our house by traveling along the railroad tracks.
The reunion was a lot of fun- I had assumed some of them were weird and reclusive for not getting in touch with me all these years. It turns out that they just had sound judgment. The guys are all still talented, and have been playing all these years. Kenny used to play bass once in a while, and his brother Jeff plays bass now in a band. Chris switched from keyboards to bass in 1984. I wasted most of my adult life playing bass. And Ronnie, our bass player, coincidentally also plays bass. I thought about suggesting that we all play bass on one song, which would have been funny probably only to me.
Since no one else was foolish enough to volunteer to sing, I was forced back into action. Back in 1975 I could sing very high. Meaning after smoking half an ounce of pot. These days my range is much lower, possibly because that is where I have set my sights. I seem to have the same range as Frank Sinatra, only with a horrible timbre. When I sing the “Star Spangled Banner,” I have to start it so low that only whales can hear. One time someone said, “Shut your blowhole,” which I assumed was a snarky whale. If Frank Sinatra were alive and knew “China Grove,” believe me I would have suggested him.
Plus I still don’t know the words to any song ever written. I had to go online to find the lyrics to each song, which was a headache, because what these sites desperately want is for you to download a ring tone. Silly-sounding ring tones and people snoring are all I hear on the train these days. Everyone wants to show off a little piece of their personality that is usually better kept under a rock. Am I smarter and more cultured than I look, with my mullet and lower lip pierced so that from far away it looks like I have a social disease? YES! Because I have Beethoven’s ninth as my ring tone! Sorry I fell asleep and Beethoven’s ninth runs an hour and five minutes! Hey what about ME! Even though I work for Geek Squad and wear a bow tie, I am friggin’ JAUNTY because my ring tone is “Pop Goes the Weasel!” Now you can download a ring tone that sounds like a telephone ringing, but no one recognizes the sound anymore. I would prefer if people downloaded a ring tone of someone snoring on the train since I am used to that.
My annoyance radar senses that this is just the beginning of silly ring tones. Where will it end? When my microwave goes off, will I hear, “Come and Get It?” Will my alarm clock sound James Brown’s “Get Up Like a Sex Machine” every morning? If I really had a sex machine I could sleep later, by the way.
Not being able to remember anything makes giving a speech unfathomable. I cannot imagine being a politician back when you had to memorize the speech: “Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth… Let’s see… they brought a fifth of vodka, probably a beach chair, a snack... to be honest I can’t remember what they brought. I’d like to take the remaining time for a short Q & A period.” That empty feeling when the next line of the song comes and you remember NOTHING is a glimpse forward to Alzheimers. So I usually sing the line like Gregg Allman, and nobody notices. We did two Allman Brothers tunes, and I didn’t have to learn the words to either one of them.
It seemed very natural and easy to jam with the old crew again. But there are some important distinctions between now and then: Back then it was still a dream to become an overnight sensation. Now you are more likely to be an overweight sensation. Back then the purple pill was mescaline. Now the purple pill is Prilosec (what would happen if you take acid and an antacid at the same time?). Back in the day you could garner a large following and make a splash in the record business. Now you can garnish a salad and hope not to make a large splash in the pool. Back then you could still believe that practice makes perfect. Now it just makes you perfectly exhausted.
There is a commercial for Blue Cross or something where this gray-haired rocker is jamming out with his buddies. His keyboard player is in a wheelchair, his drummer is bald with a pair of readers on, his bass player is blind with a seeing-eye dog and his rhythm guitarist is just a torso with no head, arms or legs. At least that’s the way I remember it, and I would look at it and go jeez I hope I don’t look like that, so I always remove my readers when I play. The words “rock and roll” and “Medicare co-payment” should never appear together in any sentence other than this one.
Anyway, the reunion was a lot of fun. Even all these years after high school it seemed that with a few hours of work we could make sense of the material. Could the same be said for trigonometry? I have enjoyed music every day of my life since graduation, but I have never enjoyed one sine or cosine, and it hasn’t been for lack of opportunity. I know what you’re thinking: I am off on a tangent this very minute.
Incidentally, Beethoven’s ninth symphony was completed in 1824, and contained the famous “Ode to Joy,” which is based on a poem by Friedrich Schiller called “To Joy.” The poem was written in 1785 and revised in 1803. I wonder what he thought of 18 years later that he forgot? I’m not sure, but he might have been thinking of our reunion and added this line: “And whoever was never able to, must creep Tearfully away from this band!” The fourth movement contains the choral elements that approach the climax of the piece. Every once in a while I bring in a chorus near climax too, so it doesn’t get too lonely. Beethoven wrote the symphony when he was completely deaf. Quite an achievement, but to be fair, he had the use of a hearing-ear dog. Which explains why many of the passages refer to bacon.
Due to the proliferation of Facebook I was able to reconnect with my long-lost bandmates from high school. Some of them actually were lost, but due to advancements in GPS technology, ended up finding our house by traveling along the railroad tracks.
The reunion was a lot of fun- I had assumed some of them were weird and reclusive for not getting in touch with me all these years. It turns out that they just had sound judgment. The guys are all still talented, and have been playing all these years. Kenny used to play bass once in a while, and his brother Jeff plays bass now in a band. Chris switched from keyboards to bass in 1984. I wasted most of my adult life playing bass. And Ronnie, our bass player, coincidentally also plays bass. I thought about suggesting that we all play bass on one song, which would have been funny probably only to me.
Since no one else was foolish enough to volunteer to sing, I was forced back into action. Back in 1975 I could sing very high. Meaning after smoking half an ounce of pot. These days my range is much lower, possibly because that is where I have set my sights. I seem to have the same range as Frank Sinatra, only with a horrible timbre. When I sing the “Star Spangled Banner,” I have to start it so low that only whales can hear. One time someone said, “Shut your blowhole,” which I assumed was a snarky whale. If Frank Sinatra were alive and knew “China Grove,” believe me I would have suggested him.
Plus I still don’t know the words to any song ever written. I had to go online to find the lyrics to each song, which was a headache, because what these sites desperately want is for you to download a ring tone. Silly-sounding ring tones and people snoring are all I hear on the train these days. Everyone wants to show off a little piece of their personality that is usually better kept under a rock. Am I smarter and more cultured than I look, with my mullet and lower lip pierced so that from far away it looks like I have a social disease? YES! Because I have Beethoven’s ninth as my ring tone! Sorry I fell asleep and Beethoven’s ninth runs an hour and five minutes! Hey what about ME! Even though I work for Geek Squad and wear a bow tie, I am friggin’ JAUNTY because my ring tone is “Pop Goes the Weasel!” Now you can download a ring tone that sounds like a telephone ringing, but no one recognizes the sound anymore. I would prefer if people downloaded a ring tone of someone snoring on the train since I am used to that.
My annoyance radar senses that this is just the beginning of silly ring tones. Where will it end? When my microwave goes off, will I hear, “Come and Get It?” Will my alarm clock sound James Brown’s “Get Up Like a Sex Machine” every morning? If I really had a sex machine I could sleep later, by the way.
Not being able to remember anything makes giving a speech unfathomable. I cannot imagine being a politician back when you had to memorize the speech: “Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth… Let’s see… they brought a fifth of vodka, probably a beach chair, a snack... to be honest I can’t remember what they brought. I’d like to take the remaining time for a short Q & A period.” That empty feeling when the next line of the song comes and you remember NOTHING is a glimpse forward to Alzheimers. So I usually sing the line like Gregg Allman, and nobody notices. We did two Allman Brothers tunes, and I didn’t have to learn the words to either one of them.
It seemed very natural and easy to jam with the old crew again. But there are some important distinctions between now and then: Back then it was still a dream to become an overnight sensation. Now you are more likely to be an overweight sensation. Back then the purple pill was mescaline. Now the purple pill is Prilosec (what would happen if you take acid and an antacid at the same time?). Back in the day you could garner a large following and make a splash in the record business. Now you can garnish a salad and hope not to make a large splash in the pool. Back then you could still believe that practice makes perfect. Now it just makes you perfectly exhausted.
There is a commercial for Blue Cross or something where this gray-haired rocker is jamming out with his buddies. His keyboard player is in a wheelchair, his drummer is bald with a pair of readers on, his bass player is blind with a seeing-eye dog and his rhythm guitarist is just a torso with no head, arms or legs. At least that’s the way I remember it, and I would look at it and go jeez I hope I don’t look like that, so I always remove my readers when I play. The words “rock and roll” and “Medicare co-payment” should never appear together in any sentence other than this one.
Anyway, the reunion was a lot of fun. Even all these years after high school it seemed that with a few hours of work we could make sense of the material. Could the same be said for trigonometry? I have enjoyed music every day of my life since graduation, but I have never enjoyed one sine or cosine, and it hasn’t been for lack of opportunity. I know what you’re thinking: I am off on a tangent this very minute.
Incidentally, Beethoven’s ninth symphony was completed in 1824, and contained the famous “Ode to Joy,” which is based on a poem by Friedrich Schiller called “To Joy.” The poem was written in 1785 and revised in 1803. I wonder what he thought of 18 years later that he forgot? I’m not sure, but he might have been thinking of our reunion and added this line: “And whoever was never able to, must creep Tearfully away from this band!” The fourth movement contains the choral elements that approach the climax of the piece. Every once in a while I bring in a chorus near climax too, so it doesn’t get too lonely. Beethoven wrote the symphony when he was completely deaf. Quite an achievement, but to be fair, he had the use of a hearing-ear dog. Which explains why many of the passages refer to bacon.
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Friday, June 4, 2010
WORLD TRAVEL II
WORLD TRAVEL
From Amsterdam we took the train to Paris, where our hotel room was very, very small and made me wish I was a Barbie. Plus there was a sign on the elevator that said, “All Children MUST Be Accompanied,” so I always carried two harmonicas in different keys.
There was a language barrier- In Amsterdam, I could make out some of the words. Since everything they say in Dutch sounds like a Beatles record played backwards, I thought I could make out the words, “Paul is dead,” so I considered that a minor victory. But in Paris, the trick is that they pronounce a word, and then add several syllables at the end in parentheses. Take “Montmartre,” for example. As an American, I pronounced it as is should be: “Mount Marty.” The Parisian says “Mo-mah (cheeseburgerandfriesmakingyourasslargerthanlifeitself).” One thing I did pick up right away is that “la” means “the.” So around Christmastime when you hear, “Fa la la la la, la la la la,” it is French for, “Fa the the the the, the the the the.” You really have to pay attention, but we got through, since my wife speaks a little French and I speak a little English. We went to a Chinese restaurant, which NEITHER of us speaks. Luckily, I am fluent in the international language of love. So I took the waitress in back and made passionate love to her, since we were hungry, but it took forever since she had a stutter.
It is impossible to find really good coffee in Paris, or Europe in general. It comes in a teensie-weensie little cup, a little bit bigger than an adult dose of cough syrup. So even if you COULD find good coffee in Paris, you never WOULD find it since it is so small. In America, we enjoy an enduring friendship with our coffee. We want it to sit beside us the entire duration of the newspaper, steaming faithfully. By the time you finish the coffee at the café here, you have read this much of the story: “BP Successfully Caps Oil Well….” In America, your coffee would have lasted long enough to read more: “BP Successfully Caps Oil Well Liability at One Million using 1886 Law.” Reading further, you learn that BP will be making another attempt to plug the leak in the Earth by using a giant cork. This method has proven successful in the past, but it has only been tried on very large champagne bottles, and never at this depth.
The museums in Paris are legendary. We skipped the Louvre, since it is so huge you could spend a week there (which I should have thought of before I booked the hotel). Plus I hear the Mona Lisa is really tiny and she looks kind of stoned in it. The Louvre is a beautiful building, a former imperial palace, but for some reason they had I.M. Pei design a goofy little pyramid in the middle of it, which everyone is impressed with. If I.M. Pei had designed the one in Egypt I would be impressed, or even that big thing that looks like a cat wearing a football helmet.
The George M. Pompidou Center is their museum of modern art. It is for really creative people, not for the rest of us. In college I roomed with an art major, and he was always picking up pieces of garbage to use for a project. While I was looking around at sunsets, cute girls and hot cars, he was scouring the landscape for garbage- to him it was like gold. Modern artists can see things the rest of us don’t. Here is a quiz:
1. When a band plays “Sweet Caroline,” do you go, “SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD!” during the chorus?
2. Do you clip poodles for a living?
3. Do you have a tattoo of a butterfly anywhere on your body (if you ARE a butterfly answering yes to this, exempt yourself from this quiz question)?
4. Do you say things like, “It’s ALL good!” (although once an existentialist asked me what I thought of his work, and I said, “It is what it is,” so I am exempting myself from this quiz question)?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, your work cannot be shown at the Pompidou Center.
One of the problems I encountered in France was what I call “pulchrivertigo.” This alarming condition occurs when the whole country is so beautiful that you don’t know where to look, and there is nothing to contrast each other with. There is little joy in proclaiming, “I am marginally better looking than you, so HA!” In New York every good-looking, well-dressed woman is balanced out by a fat woman dressed in a 300 dollar Nike jogging suit pushing a double stroller of overweight children old enough to walk by themselves. Or an over-tattooed Jersey boy shouting into his walkie-talkie phone, not realizing that he is actually gossiping. I have gross images in my mind of every race and religion of Americans, so don't think I'm bigoted. I think there is a whole different "No-fly List" for flights to Paris. Between all the art, the architecture, and the beautiful people, we vowed to pay more attention to the unattractive things back home that we took for granted all these years.
Incidentally, Gustave Eiffel designed the tower that bears his name for a 1889 world exposition marking the centennial of the French Revolution. It was ordered by Hitler to be destroyed along with the rest of Paris near the end of the German occupation, but his own military governor of Paris refused to execute the order. Eiffel also designed the armature (or infrastructure) for the Statue of Liberty. It is visible by visitors from below the statue, but you have to look up her dress, which is kind of embarrassing. If you do, don’t forget to say, “I see England, I see France, I see the Statue of Liberty’s underpants.”
From Amsterdam we took the train to Paris, where our hotel room was very, very small and made me wish I was a Barbie. Plus there was a sign on the elevator that said, “All Children MUST Be Accompanied,” so I always carried two harmonicas in different keys.
There was a language barrier- In Amsterdam, I could make out some of the words. Since everything they say in Dutch sounds like a Beatles record played backwards, I thought I could make out the words, “Paul is dead,” so I considered that a minor victory. But in Paris, the trick is that they pronounce a word, and then add several syllables at the end in parentheses. Take “Montmartre,” for example. As an American, I pronounced it as is should be: “Mount Marty.” The Parisian says “Mo-mah (cheeseburgerandfriesmakingyourasslargerthanlifeitself).” One thing I did pick up right away is that “la” means “the.” So around Christmastime when you hear, “Fa la la la la, la la la la,” it is French for, “Fa the the the the, the the the the.” You really have to pay attention, but we got through, since my wife speaks a little French and I speak a little English. We went to a Chinese restaurant, which NEITHER of us speaks. Luckily, I am fluent in the international language of love. So I took the waitress in back and made passionate love to her, since we were hungry, but it took forever since she had a stutter.
It is impossible to find really good coffee in Paris, or Europe in general. It comes in a teensie-weensie little cup, a little bit bigger than an adult dose of cough syrup. So even if you COULD find good coffee in Paris, you never WOULD find it since it is so small. In America, we enjoy an enduring friendship with our coffee. We want it to sit beside us the entire duration of the newspaper, steaming faithfully. By the time you finish the coffee at the café here, you have read this much of the story: “BP Successfully Caps Oil Well….” In America, your coffee would have lasted long enough to read more: “BP Successfully Caps Oil Well Liability at One Million using 1886 Law.” Reading further, you learn that BP will be making another attempt to plug the leak in the Earth by using a giant cork. This method has proven successful in the past, but it has only been tried on very large champagne bottles, and never at this depth.
The museums in Paris are legendary. We skipped the Louvre, since it is so huge you could spend a week there (which I should have thought of before I booked the hotel). Plus I hear the Mona Lisa is really tiny and she looks kind of stoned in it. The Louvre is a beautiful building, a former imperial palace, but for some reason they had I.M. Pei design a goofy little pyramid in the middle of it, which everyone is impressed with. If I.M. Pei had designed the one in Egypt I would be impressed, or even that big thing that looks like a cat wearing a football helmet.
The George M. Pompidou Center is their museum of modern art. It is for really creative people, not for the rest of us. In college I roomed with an art major, and he was always picking up pieces of garbage to use for a project. While I was looking around at sunsets, cute girls and hot cars, he was scouring the landscape for garbage- to him it was like gold. Modern artists can see things the rest of us don’t. Here is a quiz:
1. When a band plays “Sweet Caroline,” do you go, “SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD!” during the chorus?
2. Do you clip poodles for a living?
3. Do you have a tattoo of a butterfly anywhere on your body (if you ARE a butterfly answering yes to this, exempt yourself from this quiz question)?
4. Do you say things like, “It’s ALL good!” (although once an existentialist asked me what I thought of his work, and I said, “It is what it is,” so I am exempting myself from this quiz question)?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, your work cannot be shown at the Pompidou Center.
One of the problems I encountered in France was what I call “pulchrivertigo.” This alarming condition occurs when the whole country is so beautiful that you don’t know where to look, and there is nothing to contrast each other with. There is little joy in proclaiming, “I am marginally better looking than you, so HA!” In New York every good-looking, well-dressed woman is balanced out by a fat woman dressed in a 300 dollar Nike jogging suit pushing a double stroller of overweight children old enough to walk by themselves. Or an over-tattooed Jersey boy shouting into his walkie-talkie phone, not realizing that he is actually gossiping. I have gross images in my mind of every race and religion of Americans, so don't think I'm bigoted. I think there is a whole different "No-fly List" for flights to Paris. Between all the art, the architecture, and the beautiful people, we vowed to pay more attention to the unattractive things back home that we took for granted all these years.
Incidentally, Gustave Eiffel designed the tower that bears his name for a 1889 world exposition marking the centennial of the French Revolution. It was ordered by Hitler to be destroyed along with the rest of Paris near the end of the German occupation, but his own military governor of Paris refused to execute the order. Eiffel also designed the armature (or infrastructure) for the Statue of Liberty. It is visible by visitors from below the statue, but you have to look up her dress, which is kind of embarrassing. If you do, don’t forget to say, “I see England, I see France, I see the Statue of Liberty’s underpants.”
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Thursday, May 27, 2010
WORLD TRAVEL I
WORLD TRAVEL
We recently returned from Amsterdam, which I feel compelled to tell you, is a wonderful city. You might guess from looking at commercials for Amstel and Heineken, that everyone in the city is always drunk. This is absolutely false. The truth is that they are always stoned. If you look around, you can see entire families bicycling into Dam Plaza together. Then they get that look on their face that says, “Shit- I forgot what we came in here for.” They are completely stoned. Even the little children are stoned from secondhand smoke, which I think is a great thing for those who can’t afford to buy it new. Here they call it “Certified Pre-Owned.” Unfortunately, an hour after the cafes open there is a run on Fritos in all supermarkets, and many people are trampled each day. If I was a brilliant entrepreneur I would market a package deal of a gram of hash and a pint of Häagen-Dazs Heavenly Hash together for 20 euros.
Dam Plaza is kind of a congregating point in the middle of town, where tourists can go if they want to look lost and not feel so out of place. The problem is that you are steering your rented bike with one hand, holding the map with the other, and you finally find your destination, which is on Luijkeliedseprinsensplaat. You look up at the sign, and by some miracle, you are on that road! Then a huge trolley car slams into you and knocks you to kingdom come. And when you recover, the street sign now says Luijkeliedseprinsenstrasse. So you are back to square one. If you eventually do get onto the right road, in two blocks it changes to Kaiserspleidenrijkelgracht and you’re lost again. If you are stupid enough to ask for directions, they will tell you, “it is over by the canal.” Every street has a canal next to it in Amsterdam. There are displaced people over here, but I don’t think they are homeless. They just have no idea exactly where they are.
Whenever I am at Dam Plaza I always stick my finger in a dyke, and yes, I have been slapped for it plenty hard.
While we were here, we visited plenty of museums. One we did not get a chance to visit was the Anne Frank house. Which has to piss off the owners, because it wasn’t her house, they were just nice enough to let her stay there. The whole story is a little depressing, since she dies, but I guess if you wait around long enough every story has that same ending. The room is supposedly exactly as it was when she was living there, which made me wonder what would happen if I was Anne Frank, and MY room had to be preserved for many generations exactly as it was when I was living there. That is a LOT of pressure on a teenager to clean up your frigging room. Millions of visitors a year filing past my room behind a velvet rope going, “Gross! Is that a ginormous pile of underwear over there? When was he planning to launder it? I doubt the Nazis will occupy THAT! And what is that tacky blacklight poster of Farrah Fawcett doing there? Her nipples are practically poking my eye out.”
I never even read Anne Frank’s diary, because it seems nosy. What if there is stuff about her and her boyfriend getting to third base or something? She should have locked it with that little key if she didn’t want idiots like us reading it.
On a lighter note, there is plenty to do here. If you go to Max Euweplein square you can play chess on a giant board. The good news is that I was able to castle using an actual castle. The bad news is that on my opening move I think I killed a squirrel.
The van Gogh museum was great. Van Gogh is what I like to call a lasting impressionist. He himself was very impressionable, and soaked up techniques from other painters, such as Renoir, Gauguin and Japanese influences. The onset of mental illness caused him to do strange things, and eventually committed himself to an asylum. Whereupon hearing a voice in his head, he started removing his buttocks with a razor blade. The voice quickly corrected him: “I said cut off your EAR, not your REAR! Are you NUTS?” His fame grew even after his death, which is when he did some of his best work.
We went to the Concertgebouw and saw a kick-ass symphony concert. We were seated actually behind the instruments, facing the conductor. It was interesting to watch him work. With one hand, he was alternately keeping the time and cueing different sections of the orchestra. With the other hand he was texting somebody. Every once in awhile he made a motion towards the woodwind section, gave the finger, and mouthed the words, “F the bassoon player,” so I don’t know what that was about. At the end of the concert a page came out and gave a bouquet of flowers to the first violinist, and he yanked them out of her hand and gave them to the flute player, so I think he is banging her. One thing noticed is that the tympani player is grossly overpaid. He sat reading the paper for most of the program, clicking his tongue at the financial section, and every once in awhile he would turn the page of the music just for show.
Incidentally, Rembrandt van Rijn, who was in his painting heyday at about the time that New Amsterdam was discovering its New World identity, is purported to have painted over 300 works. Included among them are about 40 self-portraits, although in some of them he portrayed himself as looking remarkably like Brad Pitt.
We recently returned from Amsterdam, which I feel compelled to tell you, is a wonderful city. You might guess from looking at commercials for Amstel and Heineken, that everyone in the city is always drunk. This is absolutely false. The truth is that they are always stoned. If you look around, you can see entire families bicycling into Dam Plaza together. Then they get that look on their face that says, “Shit- I forgot what we came in here for.” They are completely stoned. Even the little children are stoned from secondhand smoke, which I think is a great thing for those who can’t afford to buy it new. Here they call it “Certified Pre-Owned.” Unfortunately, an hour after the cafes open there is a run on Fritos in all supermarkets, and many people are trampled each day. If I was a brilliant entrepreneur I would market a package deal of a gram of hash and a pint of Häagen-Dazs Heavenly Hash together for 20 euros.
Dam Plaza is kind of a congregating point in the middle of town, where tourists can go if they want to look lost and not feel so out of place. The problem is that you are steering your rented bike with one hand, holding the map with the other, and you finally find your destination, which is on Luijkeliedseprinsensplaat. You look up at the sign, and by some miracle, you are on that road! Then a huge trolley car slams into you and knocks you to kingdom come. And when you recover, the street sign now says Luijkeliedseprinsenstrasse. So you are back to square one. If you eventually do get onto the right road, in two blocks it changes to Kaiserspleidenrijkelgracht and you’re lost again. If you are stupid enough to ask for directions, they will tell you, “it is over by the canal.” Every street has a canal next to it in Amsterdam. There are displaced people over here, but I don’t think they are homeless. They just have no idea exactly where they are.
Whenever I am at Dam Plaza I always stick my finger in a dyke, and yes, I have been slapped for it plenty hard.
While we were here, we visited plenty of museums. One we did not get a chance to visit was the Anne Frank house. Which has to piss off the owners, because it wasn’t her house, they were just nice enough to let her stay there. The whole story is a little depressing, since she dies, but I guess if you wait around long enough every story has that same ending. The room is supposedly exactly as it was when she was living there, which made me wonder what would happen if I was Anne Frank, and MY room had to be preserved for many generations exactly as it was when I was living there. That is a LOT of pressure on a teenager to clean up your frigging room. Millions of visitors a year filing past my room behind a velvet rope going, “Gross! Is that a ginormous pile of underwear over there? When was he planning to launder it? I doubt the Nazis will occupy THAT! And what is that tacky blacklight poster of Farrah Fawcett doing there? Her nipples are practically poking my eye out.”
I never even read Anne Frank’s diary, because it seems nosy. What if there is stuff about her and her boyfriend getting to third base or something? She should have locked it with that little key if she didn’t want idiots like us reading it.
On a lighter note, there is plenty to do here. If you go to Max Euweplein square you can play chess on a giant board. The good news is that I was able to castle using an actual castle. The bad news is that on my opening move I think I killed a squirrel.
The van Gogh museum was great. Van Gogh is what I like to call a lasting impressionist. He himself was very impressionable, and soaked up techniques from other painters, such as Renoir, Gauguin and Japanese influences. The onset of mental illness caused him to do strange things, and eventually committed himself to an asylum. Whereupon hearing a voice in his head, he started removing his buttocks with a razor blade. The voice quickly corrected him: “I said cut off your EAR, not your REAR! Are you NUTS?” His fame grew even after his death, which is when he did some of his best work.
We went to the Concertgebouw and saw a kick-ass symphony concert. We were seated actually behind the instruments, facing the conductor. It was interesting to watch him work. With one hand, he was alternately keeping the time and cueing different sections of the orchestra. With the other hand he was texting somebody. Every once in awhile he made a motion towards the woodwind section, gave the finger, and mouthed the words, “F the bassoon player,” so I don’t know what that was about. At the end of the concert a page came out and gave a bouquet of flowers to the first violinist, and he yanked them out of her hand and gave them to the flute player, so I think he is banging her. One thing noticed is that the tympani player is grossly overpaid. He sat reading the paper for most of the program, clicking his tongue at the financial section, and every once in awhile he would turn the page of the music just for show.
Incidentally, Rembrandt van Rijn, who was in his painting heyday at about the time that New Amsterdam was discovering its New World identity, is purported to have painted over 300 works. Included among them are about 40 self-portraits, although in some of them he portrayed himself as looking remarkably like Brad Pitt.
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Tuesday, May 4, 2010
EARTH DAY
EARTH DAY
Today is Earth Day- did you get a gift? I must admit, I did not get anything. I have no idea what to get- I will probably just get a plant or something. I think I read somewhere that this Earth day the Earth is 40 YEARS OLD. And I must say it looks pretty good (although I think it has had some work done). Yes there are some cracks and crevices- Haiti looks a little wrinkly, and some of the tectonic plates definitely need to be replaced.
That’s why we all have to do our part. I am thinking of getting a Hybrid car- it’s a cross between a Yugo and a poodle- it’s called a Poogo. But I can’t even trust a battery to run a flashlight let alone my car.
Which reminds me: every time I buy a new package of batteries I go through the same stages of grief. First, Denial. I firmly believe that this will be the first package of batteries ever manufactured that I will be able to open with just my hands. I look for the little tab that says, “OPEN HERE.” I look all over for it. “PULL HERE, STUPID!” I can’t see anything. “NOT THERE, OVER HERE- ARE YOU A FUCKING MORON OR WHAT? YOU GRADUATED FROM SYRACUSE? FIGURES….” There is no tab. Next, Anger. I want to meet the person that designed this package. I want to butter him up with a little small talk, how’s the wife, the kids, etc. and make him feel at ease and light-hearted as we walk in the park, admiring nature. Then I shove him into a 10-foot pit that I have dug and covered with leaves. At first stunned, he regains his senses and pleads with me to throw down an i-phone so he can call for help, or at least pass the time surfing for internet porn. I say nothing for two hours, then throw in the i-phone, wrapped in hard seamless plastic. I watch and laugh diabolically as he ruins his incisors trying to gnaw the package open.
Then, Bargaining. I plead with the batteries to just come on out of the package willingly. Just this once. They decline. Then, Depression, where I just don’t even want to get out of bed in the morning, knowing that I can’t get those goddamn batteries out of the package. Finally, Acceptance, where I realize I will have to spring for another 20 bucks for the AC adaptor.
Anyway, alternative power is becoming a much higher priority. They are considering building a wind farm off the coast of Nantucket. Indian tribes are against that particular location, since some Indians were buried on the planet Earth, where they are thinking of building the wind farm. Congress has provided for tax credits for the proliferation of alternative energy, but what they should do is put the turbines right there in the Senate chamber where the wind is. Growing up on a wind farm is much less work than a regular farm- no milking cows, planting things, picking things. You just water those big wind things every once in awhile and they’re good to go- it’s a breeze. I have seen a giant hi-tech wind generator on top of our neighbor’s barn. It has a rooster on top and the letters, N, S, E, and W, which probably stand for something to do with the output or amperage.
Clean coal is another option that’s getting a lot of airtime these days. But clean coal is very expensive to produce, since it comes out of that mine so darn dirty. If you toss it in the washer (NOT with the delicates) using a little Tide you should be fine.
Hydro-electric power uses current to provide current. For instance, the two generating stations on the U.S. side of Niagara Falls provide 2,700 kilowatts of power, enough to supply one quarter of the electricity in New York State, as long as they don’t use their hair dryers all at the same time.
So if you live next to a coal mine, with a raging river on your property, with no trees to block the sun and constant 60- 65 mile-per-hour winds, chances are you will never have to pay one cent to run your appliances. But I have to tell you that sounds like an awful piece of property, especially in this real-estate market. Plus, one day you are going to wake up and say, “I have ZERO energy today,” and no one is going to feel sorry for you. You sound like a bit of a whiner to me.
Incidentally, Solar energy is produced in photovoltaic cells. The sun excites the electrons in these cells, possibly by telling them that they are going to Disneyworld. The cell produces DC power, which is then transformed via inverter to AC voltage. This AC/DC conversion is similar to taking kilowatts that enjoy Liza Minnelli concerts and changing them into ones that like working with power tools.
Today is Earth Day- did you get a gift? I must admit, I did not get anything. I have no idea what to get- I will probably just get a plant or something. I think I read somewhere that this Earth day the Earth is 40 YEARS OLD. And I must say it looks pretty good (although I think it has had some work done). Yes there are some cracks and crevices- Haiti looks a little wrinkly, and some of the tectonic plates definitely need to be replaced.
That’s why we all have to do our part. I am thinking of getting a Hybrid car- it’s a cross between a Yugo and a poodle- it’s called a Poogo. But I can’t even trust a battery to run a flashlight let alone my car.
Which reminds me: every time I buy a new package of batteries I go through the same stages of grief. First, Denial. I firmly believe that this will be the first package of batteries ever manufactured that I will be able to open with just my hands. I look for the little tab that says, “OPEN HERE.” I look all over for it. “PULL HERE, STUPID!” I can’t see anything. “NOT THERE, OVER HERE- ARE YOU A FUCKING MORON OR WHAT? YOU GRADUATED FROM SYRACUSE? FIGURES….” There is no tab. Next, Anger. I want to meet the person that designed this package. I want to butter him up with a little small talk, how’s the wife, the kids, etc. and make him feel at ease and light-hearted as we walk in the park, admiring nature. Then I shove him into a 10-foot pit that I have dug and covered with leaves. At first stunned, he regains his senses and pleads with me to throw down an i-phone so he can call for help, or at least pass the time surfing for internet porn. I say nothing for two hours, then throw in the i-phone, wrapped in hard seamless plastic. I watch and laugh diabolically as he ruins his incisors trying to gnaw the package open.
Then, Bargaining. I plead with the batteries to just come on out of the package willingly. Just this once. They decline. Then, Depression, where I just don’t even want to get out of bed in the morning, knowing that I can’t get those goddamn batteries out of the package. Finally, Acceptance, where I realize I will have to spring for another 20 bucks for the AC adaptor.
Anyway, alternative power is becoming a much higher priority. They are considering building a wind farm off the coast of Nantucket. Indian tribes are against that particular location, since some Indians were buried on the planet Earth, where they are thinking of building the wind farm. Congress has provided for tax credits for the proliferation of alternative energy, but what they should do is put the turbines right there in the Senate chamber where the wind is. Growing up on a wind farm is much less work than a regular farm- no milking cows, planting things, picking things. You just water those big wind things every once in awhile and they’re good to go- it’s a breeze. I have seen a giant hi-tech wind generator on top of our neighbor’s barn. It has a rooster on top and the letters, N, S, E, and W, which probably stand for something to do with the output or amperage.
Clean coal is another option that’s getting a lot of airtime these days. But clean coal is very expensive to produce, since it comes out of that mine so darn dirty. If you toss it in the washer (NOT with the delicates) using a little Tide you should be fine.
Hydro-electric power uses current to provide current. For instance, the two generating stations on the U.S. side of Niagara Falls provide 2,700 kilowatts of power, enough to supply one quarter of the electricity in New York State, as long as they don’t use their hair dryers all at the same time.
So if you live next to a coal mine, with a raging river on your property, with no trees to block the sun and constant 60- 65 mile-per-hour winds, chances are you will never have to pay one cent to run your appliances. But I have to tell you that sounds like an awful piece of property, especially in this real-estate market. Plus, one day you are going to wake up and say, “I have ZERO energy today,” and no one is going to feel sorry for you. You sound like a bit of a whiner to me.
Incidentally, Solar energy is produced in photovoltaic cells. The sun excites the electrons in these cells, possibly by telling them that they are going to Disneyworld. The cell produces DC power, which is then transformed via inverter to AC voltage. This AC/DC conversion is similar to taking kilowatts that enjoy Liza Minnelli concerts and changing them into ones that like working with power tools.
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