Sometimes you feel like a verb, sometimes not.

Vintage 1977 Almond Joy and Mounds commercial



[2013-05-24]

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Ever hear anyone say, "I got a brain, I could be brain surgeon"?

[2013-05-24]

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Say something else in that ear.

"Suffering is often not an event, but a condition of the heart.

Some crosses are invisible."

--Clarence 0ddbody

[2013-03-10]

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I can tell my brother by the flowers in his eyes, I'm on the road to Shambala.

Click to enlarge: An artist's rendition of Shambhala, in Buddhism a mystical kingdom and place of peace and tranquility.

Once upon a time people sang about things like Shambhala and believed they were real, or at least attainable with sufficient and sincere introspection.

I don't think that's such a bad thing. I can think of worse things to sing about.

 

 

 

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Say something else in that ear.

"We spend most of our lives finding ourselves, which means almost daily deciding we are not what others want us to be.

We often keep this to ourselves, for it's better in the long run, regarding small matters, to be what others want us to be.

That is most often called having manners."

--Clarence 0ddbody

[2013-04-20]

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I can tell my brother by the flowers in his eyes, I'm on the road to Shambala.

Three Dog Night - Shambala (1975)

 

[2013-04-28]

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Prescience is sometimes mistaken for resignation.

Click to enlarge: A bear eating a fish.

Those who work hard and succeed tend to think everyone who hasn't succeeded has failed because they haven't worked as hard.

This is a cultural axiom so ingrained you can't discuss your way around it. Disputing its logic would be like saying you didn't vote but still want to complain about who gets elected.[1]

Salmon struggle upstream to spawn or die trying, perhaps plucked up by a hungry bear. Less than 10% of tadpoles survive to become adult frogs. Most cows end up at the butcher (and even a fifth of dairy cows are turned into hamburger after their utters give out).[2]

We each have our role, our moment, our purpose, if we've been fortunate to find it, and prescient enough to embrace it.

[2013-03-10]

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Say something else in that ear.

"Prescience is sometimes mistaken for resignation. They are not the same thing."

--Clarence 0ddbody

 

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Overheard:
"We prayed like hell"
--Oklahoma tornado survivor on 5/21/2013.

[2013-05-21]

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[1]
Which of course you're welcome to do, but no one will listen to you.

[2]
My Uncle Ken, who was a missionary in the 60's in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, told of us a bug that lives underground and periodically matures and flies up into the air, where it dies and falls to the earth. Children sit over the holes these insects crawl out of, and as they take flight, the children pull the wings off and catch them in their mouths like popcorn. Uncle Ken said they taste like Hersey's kisses.

True story.

Carolee, his eldest child, came back to the United States fluent in Lingala. (She was very little and doesn't speak it anymore.) Their other children Tom Tom and Dee Dee also spent time in the Congo with Uncle Ken and Aunt Dorothy, and I think Tom Tom was actually born there.

Lingala is a Bantu language spoken throughout the Congo.

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Iggy disses the 60's

Click to enlarge: Punk icon Iggy Pop today. I remember him from a caption in a People Magazine from when I was a boy that showed him holding his (blurred) penis in his hand while singing; the caption read, "When in doubt, whip it out."

Iggy Pop disses the 60's:

Renee Montagne:
We are talking the summer of love and music like Jefferson Airplane, something like that.

Iggy Pop:
"I never liked them. They had one good song: 'White Rabbit.' But it was better than [sings], 'Are you going to San Francisco?' That blows."

[snip]

Renee Montagne:
At this point, is it a point of pride that The Stooges won't make money from the record?

Iggy Pop:
"In the mid-'90s, The Stooges and Fun House turned over into the black, and all the band members who survived started getting checks. And then a little later, the same happened to Raw Power. Little by little, that old band has defeated a lot of our shag-haired, frilly-vest-wearing crapola, corporate rock gods and goddesses of the '60s and '70s.

Source >

 

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I had a neighbor on first floor Bolt Hall at Calvin College that was really into punk, including Iggy Pop. I think he deejayed, which was a new occupation to me. He had thousands of vinyl records on a shelf under his loft, and some of the best stereo equipment on the floor. He wore lot of military camouflage.

He was very kind and friendly, especially to freshman like me. He liked everybody.

I don't think he stuck around after my first year. He said of his departing pre-sem roommate going to Notre Dame, "I feel the pain of the Reformation," and he sincerely put his hand over his heart. He wasn't kidding.

I wish I could remember his name. I'd look him up.

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So why is Iggy Pop still so annoyed after 40 years? He seems to have held on to the punk angst that motivated his music in the 70's.

Ad for Chrysler 300C John Varvatos Limited Edition
(Iggy shows up at the end)
 

Selling out? I don't know. Punk is dissonant and unpredictable, so perhaps a corporate Iggy Pop is the perfect fit. Somehow disappointing, though.


[2013-05-02]

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Cooking with Sustenance

Click to enlarge: A tin of generic luncheon loaf, which we'd otherwise likely call Spam. Generic foods obtained some popularity when I was a boy. They promised lower prices and comparable quality without the name brand. I worked at Loblaws and we had an entire aisle of them, everything from cigarettes to napkins. Some generic packaging was white, like this tin, but the variety we sold was yellow with black lettering. My family tried many of them. Crackers and canned goods seemed to be okay most of the time. Most of the others had such poor quality, you only needed to try them once to be convinced there was something behind a brand.

I've always had the idea that there is a market for those who don't want or like fancy food. This decidedly practical food would be called "sustenance," would be block-shaped and light so it's easy to store, would be shelf-stable, easy to cut, and available in a variety of flavors, like pizza, fajita, chocolate, etc. It would satisfy quickly, contain only as many calories and nutrients as needed, and would stick to your ribs, as my family used to say.

This kind of food would be great for writers, in fact artists of any sort who don't like taking time away from their work to eat.

Oh, and there would be only one reality show devoted to food. It would be called "Cooking with Sustenance," and it would involve only dishes you can make with sustenance and what you could do with all the time you saved not making a mess in the kitchen and cleaning up.

[2013-05-13]
 

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Click to enlarge: Are we not men? We are Devo. "Devo" stood for "de-evolution," a term which presumes that evolution is "up" or "better" in some way, which is not a helpful biological concept, and in fact has contributed to support of racism from some academic quarters that were likely unaware of the influence. All that aside, there was something hypnotic in Devo's techno-new wave sound. I didn't care for it, but like generic foods, it had some fans, and similar quirky notes.

It's common for folks, especially young people, to say stuff like Someday we'll figure it out, someday if we all try really hard, we'll fix the world.

I thought so once. I was young and optimistic and thought the right people at the right time could make the right decisions.

But we never will. The world is permanently broken. (Or evolving from one state of disrepair to another, your choice, the metaphor doesn't matter.)

It will remain that way and you can't fix it. You can bandage it, but it won't heal.

Souls are different. Souls you can heal.

But hate and fear and mistrust?

No.

We have our eyes in the front of our heads. We are descended from predators.

Hate and fear and mistrust are needed for survival in a world bereft of love, kindness, and trust.


Jocko Homo (original version)
a.k.a. "Are we not men? We are Devo."

[2013-04-25]

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