Brain Spoon

School To Work

2010-12-14T20:04:00.015-05:00

In 1974, I was appointed Captain of the Audio Visual Unit. I might have refused the position, but I needed the job…mostly to take my mind off Chrissie Darlington, who sat next to me but only had eyes for Jimmy Cooper. Also, I was in sixth grade, and the world was a difficult place. I had to wear special shoes and no one was laughing at my Richard Nixon impression anymore. So I took the job. My responsibilities included assigning film projector duties to my team of students, which required assessing the personalities and technical proficiency levels of each team member and matching him or her to a film or filmstrip.

Early in my tenure, I designed a t-shirt logo. On the day I wore the shirt to school, Chrissie’s smile lit up the classroom. I like to pretend she was experiencing almost anything other than derision. Undeterred (and perhaps obliviously), I earned a degree in Communications, which, over the years, I have put to use as Captain of the Audio Visual Unit at several large organizations. And by the way, Chrissie and I have been happily ma -- okay, you probably guessed that life doesn't happen that way. Someday maybe I'll accept the fact that this isn’t sixth grade anymore.

I Won't Spring Forward

2010-11-09T20:01:00.004-05:00

Gaining back that lost hour this weekend reminded me of the power of sleep. It's time to step up and refuse to set our clocks ahead in the spring. It's an hour of sleep I can no longer afford to lose. How about you? Let's abolish Daylight Savings Time.

Learn to Play Your iPhone

2010-06-10T15:04:00.001-04:00

I made this while recuperating from a nasty cold...

The Death of NJ Journalism

2010-04-08T16:26:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, it was reported that NJ’s Gov. Christie has announced more details of his plan to trim 1,300 jobs from the 63,500-person executive branch workforce, including 129 jobs at New Jersey Network. The plan calls for NJN to be privatized. “The state doesn’t need to own its own television network,” Christie said in his budget address. I guess that sounds reasonable. But what if that statement was phrased like this: public media should not be subsidized by the government. Maybe you agree with that too. Why don’t Bob McChesney and John Nichols? Here's why not:

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/2/4/robert_mcchesney_and_john_nichols_on

McChesney and Nichols talk about their new book, The Death and Life of American Journalism. They maintain that journalism should be seen as a public good. With the collapse of the business model that supported journalism over the past 150 years, they advocate for public subsidies to sustain an independent, uncensored, non-commercial, non-profit news media sector. They argue that currently the resources don’t exist to allow for online journalism, and competition for ad dollars undermines the integrity of an online news system. Also, “new media” is in many ways simply commenting on “old media,” and there is so much less “old media” being produced. Also, the majority of news is coming from corporate news packages.
So what can be done? The authors say that, first, we need to open the dialogue to get citizens thinking about how they can become part of the solution. We’re losing a generation of young journalists, so use AmeriCorps as a model. They suggest a News AmeriCorp: send young people into community stations, develop sites in underserved areas, school radio stations, etc. and provide “supercharged” funding to make it happen akin to European models. And look at the tradition of US subsidizing a free press: the first 75 years we subsidized the postal system, which was largely intended for the distribution of newspapers. In today’s dollars, those subsidies equal $30 billion. That’s the kind of subsidies European countries spend on their public media today. That amount equals about 12 weeks of what we’ve been spending on the war in Iraq, or 5% of the first bank bail-out. For that investment, we might indeed avoid that kind of bank bail-out situation when citizens are informed. It’s a relatively small amount when considering what’s at stake. The Founders meant for freedom of the press to come into play when needed. Citizens must act now to prevent the situation where the vast majority of news information is packaged by power elites. And we can start by reminding our legislators that the government of New Jersey should continue to subsidize NJN, at least to be an alternative to the only other news outlet that covers the entire state. That would be radio station NJ101.5 FM, whose respected news department shares its airwaves with reverb-enhanced talk radio performers and their lockstep, biased callers. Also, NJN is public affairs, emergency information, a source for the arts, history, and much more. To expect the network to survive through the kindness of viewers like you and corporate funders in our current economic environment is foolish. Tell your legislators to save NJN.

New Government and Old Cake

2010-02-15T12:24:00.005-05:00

I love chocolate cake, with its sweet, spongy consistency. Too bad about its off-putting color, which I tend to ignore. That reminds me. Remember those reports issued to NJ's new governor by that transition team last month? I’ve just had a few moments to look it over. Sometimes it takes me a while to soak in new information, so bear with me…I’ve got a few questions. The first report I cracked open was the one written by the Department of Environmental Protection subcommittee, chaired by former Sen. Marcia Karrow (R-Hunterdon). The report kicks off with a healthy dose of skepticism about whether or not the DEP will even survive.

"The department has failed to fulfill its own mission statement of protecting our state's vital natural resources while taking into consideration economic vitality."

Does that mean the DEP has failed to protect our natural resources? Should I stop typing and call an ambulance? I am feeling a little woozy, which usually happens after I eat all this chocolate cake. But now I’m thinking it’s the arsenic I just washed it down with. Hang on. I just read the second half of that quote. Apparently, the DEP's mission statement emphasizes considering our economic vitality. Maybe the report means that the DEP has failed to consider what protecting our natural resources would do to our economic vitality. Well, that makes me feel better. The report continues:

"As policy makers, it is important to realize that baselines have shifted."

Is that true? It’s a good thing that pitchers and catchers are reporting this week. They still have time to strategize about base-runners who might be meandering all over the place. But really, I’m concerned all this has something to do with putting our economic vitality ahead of our environment. Woozy again. I’ll pass on that third helping of arsenic and old cake. And read on:

"The department has driven economic investment out of this state often with policies that, ironically, provide little or no environmental benefit."

Is that true too? DOE policies have provided little or no environmental benefit? That stinks! Was I a fool all this time to think that DOE employees, my fellow NJ citizens, friends, and neighbors, were working every day to keep my surface water quality and freshwater wetlands safe? Weren’t they out there implementing requirements for transporting solid waste and for controlling air pollution from diesel-powered vehicles? I’d hoped DOE policies were protecting me from catastrophic accidents that could cause death or permanent disability beyond property boundaries of the scores of chemical plants and refineries that operate happily around me! I’ve long harbored panicky thoughts of hydrogen fluoride silently hitching a ride on the northeast breeze and wiping out my town. Are my fears justified? Anyway, those things I used to believe in a few minutes ago are a smattering of policies recently adopted or re-adopted, according to the DOE website. But until they get their economic priorities straight, why should I trust them? I don’t really understand half of the stuff in those policies anyway, so now I have to go with the Governor’s transition team and scrap the whole thing in favor of allowing open containers of other peoples' solid chocolate waste to rumble through my backyard, as long as it means more jobs for my neighbors and more grease for my local bürgermeister’s palm.

Next, I guess it’s time to explore the transition team’s recommendation regarding the transfer of our only public media outlet (or, as 101.5FM listeners think of it, that taxpayer-funded, state-owned propaganda machine) into the hands of some enterprising Murdochian who could turn a fair and balanced profit. Think NJN, Inc. Corporations have the same rights as individuals now, so there’s a whole new road to consider. Informed citizenry be damned! It would require a gutsy business model, and some creative writing and acting, to abandon in-depth, fact-based news, public affairs, and education programming in favor of an infotainment empire that has the power to fund elections, to change the nation, to be more in line with what people are watching on commercial channels. And if it’s done Right, viewer/citizens will never even notice the difference.

The Curse of Celebrity 54

2009-06-22T13:18:00.002-04:00

The list of celebrities whose corporeal selves cease at age 54 continues to grow as the bodies pile up. This grim phenomenon came to my attention the year that one of my personal favorites passed away. Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, died during his rest period after working out in his private gym. In my memory, I always linked his death at age 54 with two other celebrities who died at that age: John Ritter and Robert Palmer. The odd thing is, Adams died two years before Ritter and Palmer. And Adams was 49. But he looked older.

Okay, so my theory about the Curse of Celebrity 54 is flawed. Anyway, some celebs make it past that venerable milestone. But Michael Landon (or Eugene Orowitz, as my Collingswood neighbors still remember him) didn’t. John Ritter was just six days away from escaping the Curse. Last fall, I noticed when somebody named Jeff Beitzel, who had something to do with something entitled Real Housewives of Orange County, died at age 54. And just the other day, beloved Philadelphia sports director Gary Papa lost his battle with prostate cancer. He was 54. And will be missed.

I keep thinking: in my fifty-fourth year, am I going to dial 9 and 1 before going to bed every night so that at the slightest onset of demise all I need to do is hit one more 1? Or is that too risky? Will I move next door to the highest of high-tech emergency care facilities? Or save up so I can afford to have my essence transferred to a full-body robotic replica (with on-board neuroses filters)? Maybe the answer is to avoid any type of fame. Most likely that’s my best bet. But first, I should probably focus on making it to age 54…by ignoring the celebrity obituaries.

Dream of the Week

2009-05-08T14:05:00.003-04:00

While working in a darkroom, I accidentally call into existence a shark with human emotions and self-awareness. It swims in a pool outside, and realizes that I am the reason it is here. It tries to kill me, but cannot escape the confines of the pool. Standing a safe distance away from the pool, my wife and I watch in horror as the shark evolves. It grows legs, leaps out of the pool, and runs toward us. We find safety in a nearby house, and lock the doors and windows. The shark rages outside. With the family who lives here, we hide, but they don’t believe a shark is chasing us. “Sure,” they say. “A shark with legs.” When the creature breaks through the wall, we run into a field. People are seated at an outdoor graduation. We sit in the crowd, hoping to hide amidst the others. The shark, seething with anger, shouts, “I’m looking for someone who worked in a darkroom!” The crowd stands and the shark catches sight of me. It runs through the crowd toward me. I attempt to reason with it. As I’m speaking, I notice Brett, the director of our public library, standing near the shark. From the podium, he picks up a hammer and a roll of duct tape, and gestures to me, indicating that I should use the hammer to knock out the shark, and bind it with the duct tape. At first, I don’t get it. In his zeal to make me understand, Brett inadvertently hits the shark’s head with the hammer, but the shark, engrossed in my discourse, and probably too large to feel it anyway, ignores the hammer tap. But now I realize what Brett has been trying to communicate. Stealthily, I pick up the hammer, and crack the shark’s skull. A comic episode ensues involving my attempt to bind the shark. It escapes, of course. Time passes. The shark lands a job, meets a woman, the workplace pays for travel and training. And the shark goes off to live out its life.

The Outlaw Paul

2009-03-22T23:13:00.003-04:00

On New Year’s Day they led away
A man bent forth in shame.
The crowd’s demand forced him to stand
To prove that he’d been tamed.
Satisfied, the crowd relied on justice
And proclaimed,
“He’s our mistake! For Mankind’s sake,
We dread to speak his name:
The outlaw Paul!”

Go go go go GET OUT!
There’s a man in my house
Not a man but a rooster
Took my sister and seduced her
Like a hen in a barnyard pen in my house
My mother’s house

Not yours motherf***r
Dig her up I know you stuck her
You can’t keep me out
You can’t keep me out
I got your message just now
You foul beast on the prowl
You can’t keep me out
I know what you’re about

You can’t keep me out
It’s my house
My mother’s house
I’m on the next bus tonight
You stinking troglodyte
Here I come I’m on my way
I’m your wake up call today
I’ll be there in the morning if I have to hitchhike all night!

Stinking parasite, freaking troglodyte
I’m coming home.

I’M HOME!

I’m looking for the rooster
Took my sister and reduced her
To a secondary citizen
And a culinary specimen

HE’S ASLEEP? IN MY HOUSE?
IN MY MOTHER’S HOUSE!

Sister dear, I’m here
Where’s your little parasite?
I’ve been riding all night
Now I’m here
I brought a souvenir
It’s a Louisville slugger
Such a handy little bugger
Most effective on heads
See it bounce
I hope he likes it
It’s the thought that counts

(Lyrics and Music by Wayne Moon
Copyright 1992)

Yoga Fish

2009-03-04T12:04:00.002-05:00

Fish yawn. At least mine does. Or maybe what I saw this morning was a silent scream for help. His water has been very cold lately. I don’t know how she’s survived this long. Also, I don’t know his sex. Her name is Betty. Or Bert. I keep her bowl by the kitchen window, where the air temperature plunges at night. So I’ve been wrapping my scarf around the fish bowl before I go to bed. But last night, I forgot. This morning, as I stood before the sink, gnashing my teeth over the dirty dinner dishes, Bert’s frozen eye caught mine. At first, I thought her liquid world had gone solid. Amidst the icy haze, Betty seemed lost in thought. His gills and fins were still. I shrugged and went about my business, intending to leave the corpse for my wife to dispose after I’d left for work. Retrieving a cereal bowl from the depths of the dishwater, I disturbed a large pot, upending its lid and creating a ruckus. Already forgetting Betty’s perceived fate, I apologetically glanced toward him. In that instant, she ruffled her feathery fins, turned to face me, then gave me his profile again. And yawned.

I’m told that gills consist of blood-filled filaments. When fish pump water across their gills, CO2 is released and O2 is absorbed. When a fish yawns, it forces water to backwash across its gills, cleaning off whatever might be blocking the filaments. Also, sometimes fish yawn to stretch their gills. You know, just to stretch. Who doesn’t like a good stretch?

Cannot at Seven

2008-11-19T22:21:00.006-05:00

Whenever I say to her, “Never
Let me hear you say
You cannot do something,”
I wait for her to roll her eyes.
But she does not roll her eyes.
She veers around her contrariness,
Restates her argument
To satisfy my command,
As if she understands its logic.
The ancestors are looming behind me
And she has already calculated the futility
Of turning to outrun them.

Did we come to our census or did TV guide?

2008-11-08T08:35:00.001-05:00

“Can you forgive a pig-headed old fool who’s had no eyes to see with and no ears to hear with all these years?”
- Alastair Sim’s Scrooge

To the casual stalker who had observed me during the past eighteen months, it may have appeared that I’d been caught up in the wave of hope that crashed onto the shores of America last Tuesday night. All this week, I am buoyed up, tumbling giddily above the Bloated and the Raving, all those anchored by their fears and malediction, their numbers dwindling even as they retrench and plan to attack anew. So you might be surprised to learn that I am not personally responsible for the outcome of the election. Sure, I did my part, speaking with friends and family who might be swayed by my judgment. And of course, I voted early in the day. But this time, I didn’t march in the street with sign held high, enjoying and enduring the comments from passing drivers (an optimistic “throw the bums out of office!” here, an ill-perceived “get a life” there). I knew that, without my influence, Barack Obama would be our President-elect. The electorate has been changing. America is more diverse, and more tolerant, than it was a generation ago, and we are gradually ticking off ways to recognize this. Today, our representative government represents our diversity a bit more fairly, even, quips the Cynic, in the administration of George W. Bush. Ignoring any question of motive – noble, practical, or, continues the Cynic, dishonest – Bush appointed a more diverse group to top jobs than any U.S. President before him. Now we’ve come a long way since 1869, when the first African Americans were elected to Congress, when Hiram Rhodes Revels filled the Senate seat vacated by Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Joseph H. Rainey became the first black member of the House of Representatives. *

But the real reason I was certain of the outcome of this election was that it had been foretold, or even made possible, by televised fiction. With the election of David Palmer, the first African American President on the series 24 back in season two, the voting finger of America has been guided by TV. Earlier this year, actor Dennis Haysbert said, “If anything, my portrayal of David Palmer, I think, may have helped open the eyes of the American people. And I mean the American people from across the board -- from the poorest to the richest, every color and creed, every religious base -- to prove the possibility there could be an African-American president, a female president, any type of president that puts the people first.”

And so, a toast to Television…thank you for lighting the way once again.

* In 1868, John W. Menard was elected to fill an unexpired term, but was never seated in Congress due to a challenge of his election.

I Crave Your Girth

2008-08-13T16:23:00.001-04:00

Once, I was described by an acquaintance as "a little wisp of a thing." My perception of myself changed in that moment, and I have lived that role ever since. So it was a pleasure to walk into the early morning sunshine and stroll to the train before any large humans were out today. As I sauntered, I noticed the lush lawns on either side. I imagined that each blade of grass was a person. Atmospheres above the cowering minions, I smiled, content to brush aside their cries of horror, waving as I stepped gingerly to the edge of the sidewalk before veering back to the center, sparing each pathetic wisp of a thing. I wonder, what did the regular-sized dog walking the woman think of that?

For More Go To

2008-03-21T14:11:00.003-04:00

www.myspace.com/waynemoonlife...for some of the history and some of the music.

Jersey Fresh

2007-07-27T12:10:00.000-04:00

Earlier this month, New Jersey’s Governor Corzine signed the Global Warming Response Act, calling for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, approximately a 20 percent reduction, followed by a further reduction of emissions to 80 percent below 2006 levels by 2050. Critics representing the energy industry responded, “Waahhh!” One said, “New Jersey acting alone is not going to solve global warming.” Good one. Meanwhile, let’s hope that someday we’ll be breathing fresh Jersey air.

But the Democratic majority in Washington seems to be doing their best to fail us. In June, Congressional Democrats introduced legislation that would limit the power of the EPA to set federal climate change rules, impeding state governmental efforts to reduce global warming.

At least one automobile manufacturer is responding to the consumer onslaught of requests for a plug-in hybrid car. Last week, Toyota announced that it will develop one - which will need a wall socket at night to charge and will rely on an electric motor to go many miles before sipping any gasoline. Of course, critics representing the automobile industry responded, “Waahhh! I don't think there's a huge market for them.” As you may know, in 1996 GM introduced the EV1, the first modern all-electric automobile, leased them, and then, once the leases were up, took them off the road and crushed them.

Aphasia

2007-03-05T12:50:00.000-05:00

Dropped off daughter at a sleepover party, and Wife and I had a date. On the way to the movie, I forgot the word that means partial or total loss of the ability to articulate ideas or comprehend spoken or written language. I said to wife, “Come on, you know the word. You used to use it all the time.” She denied this, and we argued. However, my biorhythms were riding high, and I was sure we’d run into friends at the movie who would know the word. We didn’t. On the way home, we argued again. She was angry, believing that my obsessive search for the word was an attack on her inability to remember things. I was angry, certain that she had been coerced by the government or otherworldly agents to alter my perception of reality. What she did not know was that, in my devil brain, I had made a back-burner deal. If I could not recall the word before arriving home, something bad would happen. Minutes before turning onto our street, the word popped into my head. The agents had relented. This time.

Surge Dirge

2007-01-11T11:10:00.000-05:00

My learned friend, Alan Spectzel (not his real name) insists that we (cowardly, intellectual glacier-huggers) would rather cut and run than give the President’s plan a chance. My learned friend is ignoring two facts. One: contrary to the President’s most recent televised bill o’ goods, the Iraqi Prime Minister did NOT concoct and/or agree to the plan. Two: the “surge” is far from a surge… it would be around 7,000 additional troops, with another dozen thousand or so added during the next few months. This adds up to the brilliantly conceived stay the course policy that failed already. But don’t worry, we’ve already attacked Iran. The best case scenario, learned friend, is that the Iraqi civil war continues for years, Ahmedinnerandabomb enables the annihilation of several majority-Sunni cities beyond Iraq, and our kids eat ash-covered Cookie Crisp and play Christians and Muslims under a poisoned sky.

Here's one way out of this: Forty-three invites Iraq and ALL of its neighbors to a summit, where he announces that his actions regarding Iraq were wrong, that he and the Vice-President are resigning effective immediately, that he will turn himself over to U.S. authorities, and that he is willing to accept a plea bargain in return for his testimony against his former advisors, who will be brought up on charges ranging from corruption to treason. A woman would be the new U.S. President, Iran would be emboldened, and our kids would eat ash-covered Cookie Crisp and play Christians and Muslims under a poisoned sky. But at least those crooks would be in jail.

Scenario AEW *

2006-11-08T10:17:00.000-05:00

And so, your long national nightmare sloooooowly comes to an end. Now what happens when you wake up, older, enfeebled, even hobbled? You sit up in bed but forget that you're no longer young, so the blood drains from your head and you fall back again. Meanwhile, your show-off neighbor (Iran...get it?) is beating his chest in the street and you delay calling the police because you know they've been over-extended across town. And that's when your neighbor moves into your shed and ignites your gas grill, angering your other neighbors so that you have to reinstitute the draft.

*AEW are the initials of the author of the subordinating clause: so that you have to reinstitute the draft.

The Horror

2006-10-04T15:45:00.000-04:00

I always figured that I was a phone-call-from-space away from mental berkdown. But this Amish school house thing...I can't even finish this sentence....

In with the bad air

2006-09-22T09:18:00.000-04:00

I awoke
at 3:30 am
and realized
that if I didn't
breathe,
no one was
going to do it for me.

© 2003 Stan Hayward

Curious Male

2006-08-21T10:56:00.000-04:00

In the unisex rest room at work, did you ever find a small stream of blood working its way down the underside curve of the toilet seat when you lifted it to relieve yourself? I did.

Step One: ID the Enemy

2006-08-15T12:00:00.000-04:00

Now that the President has identified the enemy, let’s explore the history and scope of these “Islahmick Fashists.”

(Due to the poor reaction of this entry in certain test areas, the remainder will be grayed out. Please continue to the next entry. -ed.)

As everyone knows, fashists (or, in the spelling of the pre-Bush era, fascists…the spelling was changed to avoid confusion with facists, or users of Facebook) are bad folk. According to the wikipedia entry, fascism was a radical totalitarian political philosophy that combined elements of corporatism, authoritarianism, extreme nationalism, militarism, anti-communism and anti-liberalism. In today’s lexicon, one may as well add gay-bashing, blind greed, and ignorance of history, and you've got a clear picture of a red state. However, when the President speaks of Islahmick Fashists, he is referring to the state of Islahmia. In Fashist Islahmia (which is said to be located "somewhere out that way but not in our own back yard"), the state controls the means of production, including all of their machines, power generation and labor, i.e., robots that shoot lasers out of their eyes, humans and children. Islahmia’s businesses and government collude to profit by engaging in economic intervention. As a result, in Islahmia everyone is employed. Because all aspects of life are subjected to the national interest, citizens of Islahmia enjoy a bright future. As they say in Fashist Islahmia, “around here, you gotta wear shades.” Oh yes, and they hate freedom...and us.

With All That's Happening in the World...

2006-08-07T09:32:00.000-04:00

This was sent some months ago by voicemail from a viewer identifying himself as Gallon Pencil (not his real name):

Wayne, the following joke -- wait, can you hear me? ‘kay. The following joke has almost certainly been made before, however as far as I know it hasn’t, therefore I’m claiming ownership. Here we go:

Wayne, it has come to my understanding that one of the cartoonish leaders of your beloved, once-great Democratic Party, I’m speaking of the orca from Cape Cod, Schmed Schmennedy (not his real name), has written a children’s book all about the exploits of his little pet dog named Splash (his actual name). And that makes me wonder: does the story of Splash take place in Chappaquiddick?

To respond or forward, press one. To skip, press the pound key. To delete, press star D.

Where am I?

2006-08-03T09:29:00.000-04:00

This was sent by voicemail from a viewer identifying himself as Talon Stencil (not his real name):

So I did this little dance with this chick at the Wawa…no, not that kind of chick, the regular kind…you know, where you’re both moving the same way, trying to get through the door and you keep blocking each other -- heh-heh -- it’s an awkward moment, you know what I’m saying. And then at the end, I kinda laugh and I go heh-heh, y’know. And she goes, ‘You have a good one.’

What does that mean?

Wayne, how do you people do it over there without air conditioning in your little tents? I’m so glad I live in climate-controlled splendor.

To respond or forward, press one. To skip, press the pound key. To delete, press star D.

From the Head

2006-07-14T09:24:00.000-04:00

According to a recent study, office workers who sit near rest rooms have more than twice as many nightmares as other employees. Sleep experts conclude that knowledge of bathroom habits and frequency of rest room trips, combined with the sounds coworkers make while in the rest rooms, trigger the nightmares, which tend to run the gamut from scary monsters to sex with deceased relatives.

Life Slaver

2006-07-11T12:28:00.000-04:00

I am eight and I am standing with my family in a carpet store. The salespeople double team us. The man does the serious talking with Mom and Dad while the woman ushers the children to another part of the store. She is holding a pack of Lifesavers.

“I’ll show you a trick,” she says.

Each of us accepts one Lifesaver, and we pop them into our mouths. The saleswoman continues, “Now, come over to the water fountain, take a drink, and see what happens. Do you know what will happen?” We follow her instructions. The searing cold water, somehow enhanced by the Lifesaver, spills over my lips. “It makes it extra cold!” I say, astonished.

A week later, there is a shiny, blue carpet covering the entire second floor in our new house.

Noxious Nocturnals

2006-07-09T14:21:00.000-04:00

The kinkajou is a nocturnal animal, spending the day sleeping in tree holes. A daytime nap in trees has risks. From above, birds such as the harpy eagle and Isidor's eagle search for sleeping kinkajous. Other predators prowl from below. The jaguar and the ocelot may pounce quickly and devour an entire family in one bite. As a result, the kinkajou has evolved a fallschirm, which is a kind of organic, exploding parachute. When a jaguar swallows a large kinkajou, stomach acids erode the outer layer of the animal, releasing the fallschirm rip cord. The whole thing makes for such a bloody mess I can't even think about it. Fortunately for those people who have their heads in the sand about such things, I made the last part up.

Cold wind a' blowin' on State Street

2006-06-09T08:58:00.000-04:00

I board my train. It is 80 degrees and face-warmingly sunny. When my train arrives in our state's capital city, I depart the station and walk out onto State Street. As always, a cold wind whips down this corrupt lane leading to the State House. I button my shirt and hug my shoulders. Is this a new day?

End Times Anyone?

2006-06-06T12:39:00.000-04:00

Today is the birthday of my childhood neighbor, most likely grown from a dear little girl into a forty year old woman…unless her birth date was a clarion of meaning, in which case she would have grown from a dear little girl into a mistress of dark evil. For, you see, she was born on Six Six Sixty Six. (Cue gasping supplicants crossing themselves in fear.)

Debunking Bionics

2006-06-02T09:38:00.000-04:00

I was as big a fan of Steve Austin as the next sixth grader. But now that I think about it (and why wouldn’t I?): if his bionic legs were pumping back and forth fast enough to travel 60 m.p.h., in reality, his arms would have been helplessly flailing about in an attempt to match the rhythm of his legs. And with all the friction, forget about maintaining virility. Best case, impotency. Worst case, flames.

My contribution to your risk*

2006-05-24T11:04:00.000-04:00

Study: Chemical risks abound in N.J.
(excerpt)
TRENTON - New Jersey has 110 facilities that could pose risks, in some cases a catastrophe, to the public in the event of a disaster, according to a report released yesterday.

An accident or attack at six of these - including three in South Jersey - would put one million people or more at risk, according to a list based on federal and state data compiled by the New Jersey Work Environment Council.

The Chemistry Council of New Jersey, which represents many of the facilities, called releasing the list a "travesty."

"Releasing this information... has put the workers and surrounding communities at risk of a terrorist attack," executive director Hal Bozarth said.

* According to Bozarth, I'm guilty of putting you all at risk too. How many times have I stressed the importance of giving residents a better sense of what chemicals are used in the places where they work, live or drive by? Three, so far:
I'm Awake Now!
Stop Reading This (after you've read this) and Do Something!

The report also notes success stories in New Jersey regarding chemical safety and security. For instance, many of the state’s 290 wastewater treatment facilities that reported using chlorine gas in 1988 have either eliminated or significantly reduced the usage of this potentially lethal substance. New Jersey was also the first state in the nation to issue an order encouraging workers and union representatives to accompany state inspectors on audits conducted under the Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act to better identify hazards. However, New Jersey’s policy for chemical plant security still relies too heavily on voluntary efforts by the industry itself. New Jersey should adopt mandatory requirements.

By the way, the first time I mentioned any of this, I referred interested parties to a useful resource: www.safehometowns.org. As of this writing, the site has been terminated. Please keep up the pressure. Contact your state representatives!

It's not global warming...

2006-04-12T11:12:00.000-04:00

...it's just me, being hyper*

Some years ago, Wife and I journeyed across the United States. Along the way, we stopped in New Orleans, where we enjoyed food, scenery and music. After a riverboat cruise made soggy with the red beverage Hurricane, we stepped boozily landward where we were confronted by two con fellows. One said to me, through my haze, “I bet you I can tell you the name of the street where you bought those sneakers you’re wearing.”

“No you can’t!” I said. I don’t remember the rest of the conversation. In an attempt to convince me with dream logic that he had won our bet, he began shining my sneakers, for which it was decided that I would pay ten dollars. Somewhere in there, the other fellow attempted to shine Wife’s sneakers as well, but she backed away.

“Okay,” said my con fellow. “ten dollars for your shine, and ten for your lady’s. That’s twenty dollars you owe me.”

“I don’t think so,” I replied, handing him a ten.

His jaunty manner shifted and he revealed his true identity. In an icy monotone, he said, “Uh’m gonna gitchyew down a back alley and f--- you up.”

Wife and I turned and fled. But not before I cursed the con fellows with, “One day you and your filth will be awash in the cleansing waters of the hurricane.”

And so it came to pass.

* from a 1983 commercial for something, forgotten by all except me and maybe a man named Alan and maybe a man named Scott **

** does that sound gay?

This Is A Test

2006-03-31T09:37:00.000-05:00

Is there anyone left out there?

This has been a test. In the event that the planet has been obliterated due to tensions in the Middle East or North Korea, or global warming, or some other event that has been advanced, aggravated or subsidized by me and you, please disregard this test.

This is only a wah wah wah liberal guilt why can't we get along Ahmadinejad is crazy and we're all doomed kind of test.

When a Couple is Just a Couple

2006-03-14T13:43:00.000-05:00

Sometimes the people in the street and in their cars and on the sidewalks and under the cardboard boxes and wrapped in foil are just that. However, yesterday, everybody around me seemed pregnant with menace and despair. I found myself on a diverging path with a tall man, who walked with leonine grace. On his face he wore a scowl, and he spoke in foreboding monotone. A woman walked several paces behind, apparently responding with words of subordinate dignity. They matched my speed, then broke off and crossed the street. I checked for my wallet. It was still there.

Rant from a contributor

2006-03-08T12:13:00.000-05:00

Transcription:
“Be it 7-11 or be it Wawa, the Slurpee or Icee machine is always flashing its red light and is never ready to dispense. All you get is soda. This happens 8 times out of 10. I resort to getting a Diet Pepsi Slurpee. They always have an abundance of insane Candy Apple Slurpee! They even had this one that looked like Crayola Orange and they call it Mystery Slurpee. At work, when the copier needs paper, I always add paper. If the Slurpee machine is not ready to dispense Coca Cola Slurpees, why don’t they make it so?”

That crap is bad for you anyway. -Editor

In Memory of Ishtar, Age 21

2006-03-07T19:48:00.000-05:00

Rest your weary bones, old friend.

October 1984 - March 2006

My Speech to the News Camera in my Head

2006-02-27T14:17:00.000-05:00

I don’t know how many times we have to hear this until it means something. It’s probably true that Thomas Jefferson would be appalled how ill-informed or uninformed we are. It’s up to us to read, watch and listen to everything we can to make up our minds about issues that affect us. We allow our beliefs, religious and otherwise, to cloud or tint or filter out all or most of the critical information that is available to us, and all we absorb is the biased news and advertising that sits well. We need to work a little, to do our own research and critical thinking. But that takes time, and the values and priorities in our society are wrong because they no longer allow for the time we need to do that kind of work. And that needs to change.

How It Happened

2006-02-16T23:39:00.000-05:00

Training with DNA

2006-02-16T22:51:00.000-05:00

I was curious about something at work yesterday, but I kept it to myself until now. I wondered, why should office politics and pressure get me down when all I am is a passenger train for deoxyribonucleic acid?

…so little of (our) DNA has any discernible purpose. It starts to get a little unnerving, but it does really seem that the purpose of life is to perpetuate DNA. The 97 percent of our DNA commonly called junk is largely made up of clumps of letters that, in (science writer Matt) Ridley’s words, "exist for the pure and simple reason that they are good at getting themselves duplicated.” Most of your DNA, in other words, is not devoted to you but to itself: you are a machine for reproducing it, not it for you. Life…just wants to be, and DNA is what makes it so.

- Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

Brief Apology

2006-02-10T12:48:00.000-05:00

When I posted the cartoon in Poor Taste for TV Geeks, I had no idea that it would cause such riots. I'm sorry I've inflamed the Moslem world.

Remember how we used to spell Moslem?

No Comment, Mr. President

2006-02-01T13:06:00.000-05:00

Yes yes there's so much to discuss sir. However, as I'm sure you're aware, there's a movement afoot the goal of which is to ban comic sans. Okay, I admit that this is a diversionary tactic. I'd hoped to steer you away from the fact that I have no incendiary comments at this time, thereby rendering this paragraph pointless.

Growing Old

2006-01-30T12:51:00.000-05:00

I fear the day when everyone around me will be younger, hipper, more energetic and more tuned-in than me; when I won't understand their jokes or their language. See! I used a semicolon back there, which illustrates my burgeoning stodginess. I find comfort in the fact that no matter how old I am, there will always be someone older than me. And, of course, if I ever become the oldest person on the planet, I will be too oblivious to care anymore.

Poor Taste for TV Geeks

2006-01-21T18:58:00.000-05:00

One sentence memoir

2006-01-13T09:30:00.000-05:00

Finally rented The 40 Year Old Virgin, a relatively accurate chronicling of my life...except for the part about being a virgin.*

*No part of this sentence has been exaggerated or embellished...except for the part before the part about being a virgin.

Character Lacking

2006-01-06T09:49:00.000-05:00

I am sitting on the train. A young man rises from his seat across the aisle. He looks around, then sits down again. At the next stop, he stands, watches and paces the aisle. When the train moves he sits and shakes his head, apparently a gesture of frustration. I allow myself a peek. He is young, early twenties, and wears his blonde hair cropped short. His scowl indicates a certain penchant for violent behavior. At the next stop, he stands and watches the people outside the train. He looks up and down the aisle. He is standing very close to the empty seat next to me, to which I have assigned my briefcase. I consider that he may be waiting for the right time to steal my belongings and run from the train, so I move my heavy briefcase onto my knees. Now he moves to the seat in front of me. It occurs to me that perhaps he is looking for someone who was supposed to meet him at one of the stations we’ve just passed, in which case my intimation of paranoia would be construed as an insult. So the following runs through my head: I could minimize the insult by pretending to call someone on my cell phone and saying that I’d intended to get off at the last stop, but that I’d decided to continue on. This way, he could surmise that I’d moved my briefcase only to collect my things in preparation of disembarkation. I am about to proceed with this deception when I think, “For cryin’ out loud. I’m an adult, with a family and a position of some responsibility. I should face this head on or ignore it altogether.” But then I realize how much fun it could be. So I have my phony conversation, adding lots of authentic utterances and miscues. I convince my phantom auditor that I will continue on a few more stops, which is, in fact, the truth. After I “hang up,” it is clear that the young hood was planning to rob me after all, for he turns around and faces me, and asks me whether or not I know the time. Although this is certainly the stalling tactic of a criminal (I can see it in his crack-addled eyes), I give him an approximate time, and tighten the grip on my belongings all the more.

The Caws

2005-12-29T11:43:00.001-05:00

Every now and then, my evening walk to the train station is punctuated with the banshee shriek and thunder of urban fireworks. The first time I heard them, my head tucked instinctively while I scanned the summer sky. In the east, I saw weak tails of light and color spilling over U.S. Route 1. I continued walking, eventually losing sight of the spectacle behind some buildings. After settling into my train seat, I cellphoned my colleagues at the television station.

“I dunno,” they said.
“I didn’t notice,” they said.
“It’s prob’ly just gunfire or something,” they said.

In late Autumn, while the dubious display sputtered and screamed and popped somewhere in the city, I called a friend who lives a half mile away.

“Yeah, I’ve heard them,” she said. “I thought they were fireworks at the baseball stadium.”

“But,” I may have mentioned, “the stadium is in the opposite direction.”
“And,” I might have said, “it’s only five o’clock, too early for a game.”
“Besides,” I think I opined, “they don’t look so great. Surely they’re not for large audiences who clamor for excitement.”

Somewhere in there, a wise person stated that the fireworks were used to clear the birds out of the nearby cemetery.

Tonight, bathed by the rockets’ red glare, I ran for cover while skirting along the cemetery wall. When I arrived at the train platform, I found three huddling police officers. I asked them.

“Yeah, they’re for the birds,” they said.
“Somebody’s got permission,” they said.
“One night, someone called in ‘shots fired,’” they laughed.
“They come from that building,” they said.

I identified the building for them. It was the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, which, I had suspected for some time, was the source of the display. But who really has permission? And from whom? And what’s wrong with a few hundred crows hanging out in a historic cemetery?

I looked up, and there they were. Hundreds of crows were flowing from the grave like black smoke at a plane crash site. And now I could hear them. At first, the volume was alarming. But soon, they were high overhead, and by the time I entered the train car, their calls were deadened by the silence of strangers.

G = Bg + (mes)s

2005-12-22T10:57:00.000-05:00

Christmas...a time for family, love, loud cursing and shattered ornaments. For the second time in as many decades, our fully decorated tree came crashing to the floor.

This time, we were out when it happened. Last decade, it happened while we slept. We think it has something to do with an oft-discussed physics problem. It goes like this: if gravity is such a weak force (it takes a whole planet just to pull an autumn leaf from a tree to the ground), why do we need it at all?

Watching the Speech

2005-12-18T21:16:00.000-05:00

The President is spinning his con on television again. I notice his suit. It's nice, isn't it? It's got a sheen. What's with that? Is that...is it made of kevlar? Now why would he need to wear a suit made of kevlar? Well, we're zooming out now. He's about finished. Thank Heaven he didn't need the kevlar suit to protect him on live television. I wouldn't want to see that.
Anyway, bridges are unprotected. This scares the bejeezus out of me. You know "they" are planning to drive "their" engines of destruction onto ten or twenty bridges and set them off simultaneously. What are we doing about this? Illegal wiretapping? Please tell me we've got detection gear trained on every vehicle approaching our vulnerable arteries.

Date with Wife last night. Syriana. Nothing I haven't already imagined, pretty well acted, written, directed. What are we do to about all of this?

On the job

2005-12-08T09:33:00.000-05:00

Yes, I’m sure the FAMs acted appropriately. And it’s encouraging to know that they’re on our planes. However...

…the plane was on the ground. And the guy had run off the plane. The passengers were safe. The FAMs had done their job as far as that goes. Mr. Alpizar was on the jetway. Don’t those things have steel habitrail doors that come crashing down on both ends to trap miscreants? Aren’t you all living in a world like the one in my head?

FREE SCHAPELLE pic

2005-12-05T10:30:00.000-05:00

Last week, Singapore executed an Australian drug smuggler...and, in case you're wondering, it was not Schapelle Corby (pictured), the 27 year old who claims that nine pounds of marijuana was planted in her surfboard bag (don't you need special lights for that?). Anyway, she'll be home from cell No.7 at Bali's Kerobokan prison in time for Christmas 2020.

As for the unfortunate executionee, Nguyen Tuong Van, 25, was, horribly, hanged. In 2002, Nguyen was caught at Changi Airport with 396 grams (14 ounces) of pure heroin. He claimed he was working for a Sydney drug syndicate to help his twin brother Khoa, a former addict, pay A$30,000 ($22,000) in debts.

Debt sucks.

Zipped and/or locked

2005-11-23T12:50:00.000-05:00

I am eating leftover spaghetti, fresh from the office microwave. The container, a flimsy Ziploc® product, is sweating onto my desk. I can already feel the terrible toxic by-product of plastic and heat as it is absorbed by my prostate. Or is that simply the paranoid workings of my brain talking to me? I investigate, and find the following communique:

When used in the microwave, there is no trace level migration of dioxins from any Saran™ or Ziploc ® product. We know this because these products are 100% dioxin-free…Our Saran™ and Ziploc ® products can be used with confidence when label directions are followed…Please help us alleviate consumers’ concerns and share these facts. Thank you for giving us a chance to set the record straight.

This, from the company’s own mouth organ. Now I don’t know what to believe. My pessimistic obsessive hypervigilance vs. their rosy corporate communication. How can we both be wrong?

Peppered

2005-11-15T10:46:00.000-05:00

Y'know, you can't ever coast through life. Not one stinking day. Just when I thought I had my investment instruments all sewn up forever, they changed the adjectival* administrators. Will this cost more in the long run? I don't know.

*Thanks to the wonderful The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey for peppering my language with the word adjectival. Read the book.

Clock in a thunderstorm

2005-11-11T15:00:00.000-05:00

Just back from Chicken Little with family and neighborhood. The tween humor and pasty 70's soft pop hits aren't my style, and Zach Braff's mildly software-enhanced voice was not enhanced enough to be appropriate. The payoff was the movie about the movie at the end.

I thought I'd eat a pizza. But the delivery time was later than I thought it should be. Instead, I thought I'd have a hair cut. But the line at Hair Cuttery was longer than I was prepared to endure. I thought I'd write a story. But the ending was too far down the road to see with my bad eyes. So here I sit. Not waiting for pizza or a haircut. Not waiting for the night or for my ship or for the sky to fall. Not waiting for sleep or for inspiration. For the moment, I'm waiting for the moment. And how nice...here it is.

Forsake the others

2005-11-05T09:10:00.000-05:00

Dreamed that my lost friend Zach Fanueil (not his real name) returns. I am angry about his unexplained dissociation, but I am prepared to reconcile. Suddenly, he bends forward and kisses me on the mouth. He straightens to his full height and explains that he has a very bad cold.

Jerk.

Canine Compass

2005-10-19T13:00:00.000-04:00

The other day, I watched a man wandering blindly on the train platform. His guide dog, sniffing the wind, led him in circles, until at last the man asked, or rather, told a big guy "I'm gonna need you to help me." The big guy escorted the pair to the edge of the parking lot, where the dog resumed his rootless orbit. By then, I'd boarded my train. As we pulled away from the station, I searched among the parked cars. They stood there still, a man and his dog.

Where Were You, My Cast?

2005-10-13T13:15:00.000-04:00

During my walk from train station to work this morning, I noted that some of my favorite dramatis personae had been excised from the passenger list:

Woman, 50, short, bespectacled chatterbox with pan-American accent that seems to fluctuate between Columbian? Cuban? Haitian? Jamaican? Trentonian? (but I do know that the second she enters the train, she never stops yammering…her vague accent reverberates down the street after we disembark).

Woman, mid-20’s, tall, Elven, punky smoker with Amalie-cut black hair, pale skin, little nose, long legs (I usually follow her to Dunkin Donuts, where I duck in as she continues west).

Man, 30, gaunt, lanky, stick-shouldered, multiple man-bag laden speedster with crew-cut brown hair, large ears, long legs (marveling at his warp speed walk, I once attempted to match his gait…eventually I tired and resumed impulse speed.

Woman, 50, tall, regal, African American with a calm smile and quiet speaking voice that resounds reason (often, she is the sounding board for the pan-American chatterbox).

Speeding Toward the Future

2005-10-12T11:04:00.000-04:00

This morning, the radio traffic reporter announced the digital travel time. Sadly, no mention was made for those of us traveling in analog.

God and Country

2005-09-24T13:04:00.002-04:00

The creature appeared on my front porch and struck a pose for my amusement.

Trash Day

2005-09-23T11:04:00.000-04:00

Today is Trash Day. Last night, in preparation, I…

picked up the newspapers and stuffed them in a paper bag headed for the door to put them outside passed the checks Wife asked me to sign put down the bag to look for a pen rummaged through the drawer but no pen noticed my wrinkled pants I’d need for tomorrow thought I could unwrinkled them in the dryer remembered my white shirt was still in the laundry basket went to the basement to throw in the laundry forgot to bring the wrinkled pants on the way to the steps passed the cat litter which needed to be changed opened the new bag of litter but needed a trash bag to dump the old litter into headed back upstairs to get the trash bags once there remembered I’d previously moved the trash bags to the basement passed the newspapers picked them up and headed for the door but the phone was ringing so put down the newspapers found a pen near the phone picked up the pen but didn’t see where I’d previously seen the checks missed the phone call picked up the wrinkled pants and put the pen in the pocket because I also picked up the newspapers and was afriad I'd drop the pen before I could find the checks headed back downstairs to change the litter put down the trash bag and the pants with the pen in the pocket to pick up a trash bag for the old litter dumped in the old litter and left it near the newspapers threw the pants in the laundry and headed upstairs wtih the newspapers and the old litter in the trash bag headed for the front door to put out the trash and passed the checks so put down the trash and the newspapers to sign the checks but remembered I left the pen in the wrinkled pants which I'd accidentally thrown into the laundry instead of the dryer and which was just now turning all our clothes blue and for those of you still following this scenario yes I should have sat down and meditated.

More happened. I went to bed.

Vena Cava Cha Cha Cha (R)

2005-09-22T11:46:00.000-04:00

It's a sort of thrumpy, cored-out, gastrocardio-melange of retiring-and-disintegrating-cell-wall feeling, mostly located in the vena cava. I'm interested in hearing from any of my more knowledgeable readers

who may or may not be associated with the medical community, real or imagined, whether or not my symptoms are caused by an overabundance and/or lack of fiber or otherwise.

And just in case, you should probably practice your on-camera demeanor for the inevitable news byte.

(Oiriginally posted June 4, 2005, presented here in an attempt to add color to an otherwise dreary page)

The Unfortunate Resolution of Thing One

2005-09-13T14:49:00.000-04:00

Because I tend to be assaulted by aggressive female drivers every twelve years or so, it all played out exactly as I had foretold: the more serious charge against me was dropped...I dropped the lesser charge against her...I was left with the lesser charge against me, about which I lied when I pleaded “Guilty, your Honor,” for I am, of course, Innocent.

After Veronica Peoria-Neilssen (not her real name) ran me off the road with her Suburban Assault Vehicle, she cut across my path like a marauding banshee. I veered to my right, and then swerved back onto the road. And continued on my way. As I left the banshee to her wiles, assuming she’d engaged her tachyon drive and streaked across the sky to taunt her next pathetic human victim, I congratulated myself for not feeling enraged. I’d avoided conflict. And continued on my way. Tra La. The Days of Road Rage seemed a relic of the late-Nineties and early-Aughts, before I became an almost daily train commuter. Sadly, I did not realize that when I’d swerved to avoid the hull of the mammoth vehicle that filled my windshield view, there had been contact. Alloy on alloy. Her keel had quietly run roughshod across my fender. There had been no screech or jolt. Only instant deceleration and the frame shift in the heat of sudden avoidance. I knew about the contact only after the police called me to tell me that I’d been involved in a hit and run accident, and that I had fled the scene. Hm, I thought. That doesn't sound like me. Swiftly and stealthily, Veronica had doubled back through the maze of side streets (an astonishing feat unless you’re a frequent passenger in, oh, I don’t know, Uncle’s or Lover's squad car), caught up to me, and secretly called in my license number to her friends and family at Borough Hall. Turned out she was the daughter of The Beadle, or The Prosecutor, or The Sahjhan. Whichever, the deck was stacked against me. The truth is that Veronica lied about her aggressive driving, and crushed me under the weight of her connections. Now she will be mailed a check to have the nominal scrape her Behemoth sustained replaced with a brand new hunk of whatever those things are made from. And, in the end, I’m stuck taking food out of the mouth of my family to pay for it.

I can only comfort myself by suspending my healthy skepticism and turning to a belief in kharma.

But you know me.

James 5:14-16 *

2005-09-02T12:23:00.000-04:00

I walk past the old cemetery. A large section of the wrought iron fence has been damaged, wrenched off its posts and left leaning in place. I look up, suspecting high winds, falling branches, or even the giant criminals who roam these sad urban streets at night.

I turn into an alley. A man is approaching. He rides a bicycle. He wears a do-rag and a pained expression. Twenty feet from me, he stops, leans left, and unloads a voluminous esophagus-ful of vomit into the weeds and broken glass on the ground. “Oh God,” he says, mid-eruption. I step forward, feigning assistance, but heed the unspoken advice of the throng with whom I walk, and we quickly step around the dangerous-looking fellow. My heart skips a beat, then another, and I consider the consequences of losing consciousness so close to his sick. I imagine harmful microbes, liberated from the sticky mess and attaching themselves to my soles or my hair should I fall here. But the throng buoys me up, and, safely, we pass.

*Is any among you sick?

Fear Thy Neighbor?

2005-08-31T13:20:00.000-04:00

Wife has informed me that our neighbor, Johnatha (not her real name), admitted a dislike for Turquoise (not the real color) people. Enraged by this revelation, I might have said something like, “I know, and you always know when they’re barking into (not the real criminal activity) your house because you can taste (not the real sense) them a mile away.” I doubt the sarcasm would have registered. Anyway, I wasn’t there.

Thing Number Three

2005-08-12T14:51:00.000-04:00

Did I mention that my wallet was lifted as I dozed on the train last week?

Waiting for the third shoe to drop...

2005-08-07T14:38:00.000-04:00

Did I mention that my neighbor's dead oak tree dropped one of its enormous branches onto my car, thereby disguising the formerly inconsequential damage from the previous incident referred to below? That must have been Thing Number Two.

TireTracts (No. 002)

2005-08-03T12:53:00.000-04:00

The wheels of justice blur out of control before my eyes. I stood before the Judge shoulder to shoulder with my aggressor, avoiding her eyes as she avoided mine. Workings behind the scenes have allowed that our case be postponed until such time that I may gather my defenses. For now, life continues. I've decided to read Edward O. Wilson's The Future of Life for clues.

TireTracts (No. 001)

2005-08-02T03:33:00.000-04:00

It’s early in the morning before Court Date Number One (capitalized and written long-form in recognition of what I perceive to be the beginning of a long and drawn-out journey that will acquaint me with the mystery and majesty of the in-crowd of the Bar), and the cat, henceforth referred to as Ishtar (not so much in recognition of her given name, but as an homage to her powers of apparent immortality and human speech, for she has mastered the name of her mistress), is thumping her arthritic paws on the floor. “Moira,” says Ishtar, and my wife Moira (not her real name), bowing to the wishes of this twenty-one year old familiar, reaches out, picks her up, and drops her onto our mattress. Too tired to chastise my wife for giving in when this cat should have received the gift of permanent sleep once her leaping abilities had dwindled, and too tired to consider that perhaps what I had heard was an aural hallucination, I roll over and beg that sleep will take me. It does, for thirty minutes. I wake up again, and push back the urge to practice my Defense. Of course, there is no need to practice anything. I will stand before the Judge and tell the Truth. Calmed, I stare at the ceiling and listen to my tinnitus. And I listen to the blood plowing through my neck. I listen to the bedsprings as they shriek a percussive duet with my heartbeat. Who else can make the bed shudder simply by allowing the heart to beat? There is the usual sense of doom, but it seems amplified at 3:32 am. I realize that I am living in the bloom of the moment, and with that, there is the comfort of meditation. I focus on my breathing. It is steady and confident. And why shouldn’t it be? I did nothing wrong. Unless I convince myself otherwise. Did I black out? Could the report of my accuser contain even the slightest hint of truth? No. That person was an aggressor.

In my mind, I allow the worst-case scenario to play out. I imagine the chest-burning moment when I hold my little daughter, and tell her that Daddy has to go away for a long time. “Why?” she would ask. My answer would be the same as the one I will squeak in court: “Because I tried to stay out of the way.”

My Boethius

2005-07-06T13:34:00.000-04:00

Today, the message in my fortune cookie read: Your wish to go up up up will be granted.

I imagine finding myself on the train while crossing a bridge. I imagine glancing up in time to see the fanatic standing in the aisle, daring me to lunge for his thumb as it presses the plunger, completes the circuit, exposes his gelignite to electricity. I imagine plummeting to the river, struggling with the shock and pain and the cold of submersion, reaching upward, up, up, up, and breaking the surface as the wreckage of the bridge releases its pretense of brazen immortality at my expense.

I imagine sinking down down down.

Buster Mood

2005-07-05T12:48:00.000-04:00

You know the tender scene in the movie where the incidental character is invested with humanity by making love with his wife? You know how that scene is followed by the one in which he is horrifically killed, and you wouldn't have cared if he hadn't been in the previous tender scene?

You know how I consider myself an incidental character?

I think about that sometimes.

Temperamental Journal

2005-06-15T09:00:00.000-04:00

When I was twelve or thirteen, I bit down too hard on a thermometer and it shattered in my mouth. From my Mother's quick response, I surmised that the little mercury balls I spat were more dangerous than the glass shards. I wonder...could my current fever symptoms be somehow related to the ingestion of mercury in my youth?

Mood Humanidity

2005-06-14T10:24:00.000-04:00

As I walked through eleventy-six percent humidity on my way to the train, I had these thoughts in mind: Out of my way, large, slow state workers and otherwise biggiesized human obstacles! I have but three hundred seconds to reach my train with its freezer car technology. I'm afraid that you, shiftless amoebae, are already lost to the hell fires of your Earth. Cruel? Perhaps. But it's so stinking hot. Anyway, it got me thinking. I wish I was on friendly terms with someone to whom I could say, "Move your big fat-thing arse out the way!" Don't you want to be able to say that without guilt or vengeance? I wish I was outsized. I’d let you say that to me! As it is, if you see me steaming along the sidewalk, feel free to say “Hey, slow down there, freakish, skeletal, pencil-neck! You’re going to forge some sort of wormhole with that ship’s prow Adam’s apple of yours!” Or some such thing.

Vena Cava Cha Cha Cha

2005-06-04T19:39:00.001-04:00

You know the way the health of the pre-deceased is often described by a friend or loved one on the news ("He'd been saying that he wasn't feeling very well all day yesterday...")? That's how I've been feeling.

It's a sort of thrumpy, cored-out, gastrocardio-melange of retiring-and-disintegrating-cell-wall feeling, mostly located in the vena cava. I'm interested in hearing from any of my more knowledgeable readers

who may or may not be associated with the medical community, real or imagined, whether or not my symptoms are caused by an overabundance and/or lack of fiber or otherwise.

And just in case, you should probably practice your on-camera demeanor for the inevitable news byte.

Train Tract Exchange

2005-05-31T15:04:00.000-04:00

Woman, mid-twenties, five feet six inches, a hundred sixty pounds, shoulder length, curly blonde hair, red-orange lipstick, sad eyes, lots of black mascara. She sits alone, in the double seats on the right side of the train, facing the rest of us. I sense that she is about to call my attention, so I look up.

WOMAN: Do you have a cell phone I can use?

ME (blissfully unaware of any double entendre): Not one I could let you use for free.

WOMAN: Oh. Okay.

ME (continuing to employ absolutely no double entendre): I get screwed on my cell phone service.

WOMAN: Oh. Okay.

She turns away and stares out the window. Another woman sits down, across the aisle, in one of the three facing seats on the left side of the train, her back to the driver. She raises a cell phone to her ear, says something in Spanish. I wonder, once the Spanish call has been completed, will the blonde woman ask to use her cell phone? She never does.

Nuclear Compromise

2005-05-24T14:39:00.000-04:00

In deference to our brothers in charge who hail from points south, as well as Kiefer Sutherland, I've decided to back a controversial proposal that would amend Webster's Dictionary with the word:

Nucuclear (pronounced "NOO Kyoo Klee er")

Let's all join hands and say it together as one.

Steeple Chase

2005-05-20T12:40:00.000-04:00

(Photo courtesy of Dallas News)

From the raised platform of the train, I watch a large bird land on top of a high church steeple two blocks away. The bird defends its perch as a small winged creature (Satan?) spirals about for some minutes. I board the train.

At the next stop, the driver's voice warns passengers that we'll be delayed for a minute until he gets the all-clear. Two police officers race onto our car.

"He's still on here," says the confident policeman. "There's no way he got off."

I am wearing an oversized, black rain coat, and I assume that they are looking for the likes of me. Only the day before, a deranged (as usual) local man on a bridge had shut down traffic by telling an official that he had a bomb. The officer passes me, exits our car, then reappears several times. Four more officers appear. One is my neighbor, Rick Walton (not his real name). I consider catching his eye and waving (as if to say with a side glance at my audience, "Everyone, look! I know him! I have connections!") Someone cuts power and the officers jump down onto the center track to search under the platform. I marvel at the power of the police force, to petition the gods of electricity and, with seemingly little more than a nod and a neck-slicing gesture, cause its life-sustaining current to dry up. At last, one of the officers walks by, towing the alleged criminal (white male, mid-twenties, short-cropped blonde hair, or am I confusing him my Trenton panhandler?) by the handcuffs. Officer Rick passes, both hands occupied as he carries a box of stolen goods.

"Hey Wayne!" he says with the bemused expression of a man who has a dangerous job, and recognizes the absurdity of bad guys who invariably fail to realize that they will be punished eventually.

I return his greeting, "Hey, Rick!" and wish I'd addressed him as Officer Walton, for the edification of the passengers.

With a chuckle, he says to me, "Sorry about your delay."

"No problem," I insist. "Carry on." And I think, be careful out there.

Turtle Man at Work

2005-05-12T12:48:00.000-04:00

This making television. This is a dangerous business. I sit here, fretting and planning, scheduling and defeating deadlines, contacting and writing and fretting and…not thinking as I accidentally SWIPE THE PANT LEG OF MY BRAND NEW KHAKIS WITH A BLACK PERMANENT MARKER! And to make matters worse, I seem to have fretted away five pounds during the winter. Yes, I hear the rattling-bones sound of your collective eye-roll, you normal- and over-sized Americans as you utter something like: ooohhhh, how dreadful for you, losing five pounds by sitting still. But you have no idea how dangerous it is for me, this making television in the warm weather, unable to hide beneath my coats. There I may be, slight and inconsequential, aware that I exist only by the action of the birds who launch into the air at my approach (though that could be a coincidence). I may be walking down the street with a camera crew, an easy mark for any old woman or young tough who desires my shoes or my cameraman’s camera. Oh sure, I could try tucking my head between my shoulders in a half-hearted attempt to create the thicker neck illusion, however I’m sure that means risking some sort of carotid arterial tear. And so here I sit, dangerously making television.

-- Wayne Moon is a producer at a PBS affiliate on the east coast of the United States.

Phenomenologicalosity

2005-05-10T13:28:00.000-04:00

Now as you can see, I'm all business today. I'm wearing The Tie. The sock has been tucked under the elastic wasitband (for some reason, a necessary tactic with this pair of trousers...without the sock, the abdomen seems concave and indented at an alarming angle). I've applied both hair-illusion scalp-treatment products. I'm ready to go. Here I go. Now...GO! Action! Begin! And...I'm going! I'm on my way! There I go.

Whew. That was some essence of experience.

Check back later to find out if I've learned anything.

And Zhang Zi Yi as Dirk Gently

2005-05-04T12:45:00.000-04:00

Blinking tears of nostalgia as the first notes of the original series theme music swept across the theater, I leaned over and gave my wife a thank you kiss. She was doing this as a birthday present to me, braving the weekend kid crowd in a multiplex instead of enjoying a film in our local art theater, with its cappuccino café and cushioned seats. After the opening title sequence, I settled in, ready to enjoy the big screen version of one of my favorite series of books, radio and television. Sadly, the ride was downhill from there. The Arthur Dent actor was almost okay. I had accepted the versatile Mos Def as Ford, but, while his first mumbled lines might have been motivated by the premise that the planet on which he was standing was about to be obliterated and he would need to drink a lot quickly, the remainder of his words might as well have been uttered from beneath his towel. Zooey D. was . . . what’s she from again? Anyway, she was . . . I guess I remember her from something. Sam Rockwell . . . the logic of the second head was a bit twisted from the intent of the original. And how did a third arm sneak in there? So Sam Rockwell . . . why not just get the original Zaphod? I had been prepared to change my idea of the robot months ago, after viewing the website preview. Of course, Alan Rickman’s voice is perfect. Another highlight: Henson’s amazing Vogons. Brilliant stuff! I even liked a beardless Slartibartfast, thanks to the also often mumbling Bill Nighy. Why did this music video director tell everybody to mumble? This is supposed to be, as clueless critics have said, Python-esque satire. So, direct the actors to open their mouths and act big! Or at least provide subtitles.

Maybe next time.

Thanks for All the Cake

2005-04-30T16:37:00.000-04:00

Yes, I had a lovely birthday. Thanks for asking. On Thursday, I spent the day at work, where one of my colleagues gave me a book he'd received for free in the mail. It was about Social Security. Another colleague bought me tea and two doughnuts. At home, I shoveled mulch. A lot of mulch. From the mountain of mulch on the front sidewalk. A toddler, walking with her mother, said, "Look Mommy. They're finally moving that big pile of poop." Later, I made Daughter eat too much cake. She threw it up. The next day, I was whipped (verbally) on various occasions by Wife, to teach me lessons I've already forgotten. Tonight, we're going to dinner. I hope to see Hitchhiker's Guide afterward. However, Wife has just informed me that she has no idea where it's playing. Interestingly, I've just turned 42.

Earth Day 2005

2005-04-22T17:56:00.000-04:00

PlastiCity
from the Brain Spoon Archives

We use 12 million barrels of oil to manufacture our annual glut of plastic shopping bags. Most plastic bags are made from polyethylene, which is made from crude oil and natural gas. Five of the top six chemicals that the EPA reports generate the most hazardous waste are necessary for plastic production. Plastic bags can take five to ten years to decompose.

Wake up, citizens of PlastiCity! You can do your part, and I don't mean by choosing paper bags either. The answer is so simple: use a sturdy, reusable bag.

I brought a couple of big cloth bags to the grocery store yesterday, and before I could take them out, the cashier was already cramming my stuff into a paper bag inside a plastic bag. "No!" I shouted. "I don't need that!" I turned to get my cloth bags, and turned back to find that he'd removed the paper bag, and had reordered my groceries inside the plastic bag. We've been trained to use plastic bags. It's going to take some readjustment, but we can change for the better! Don't wait for the government to tax or ban plastic bags. Find some big, reusable bags and keep them in your pantry or in the trunk of your Hummer.

For more about recycling and reducing waste, check out these sites:
Consumer Handbook for Reducing Solid Waste
Recycling in Flagstaff

Some News from Siberia

2005-04-19T11:24:00.000-04:00

The Krasnoyarsk region may be reunified with the Evenki and Taimyr districts! Who would have thought?

Indemnification of the Species

2005-04-19T11:16:00.000-04:00

In an attempt to advance the stereotype of the greater sex, I call to your attention a typical journey on the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, or on any roadway in America, which involves a display of unnecessary and life-threatening aggression. Try this: while traveling at a steady seventy miles per hour (use your cruise control if you have to), avoid rear-ending the slower car in front of you by glancing in your rear-view mirrors and maneuvering into the passing lane. Inevitably, a large pickup truck or SUV will appear as if from nowhere. The driver, most likely a teeth-gnashing, belligerent homo sapiens male, will mark his territory, accelerating until his teeth-gnashing grille hovers just inches above your sloped rear end, until you return to the slow lane. Next, he’ll move a few car lengths ahead of you, before returning to his previous speed, on the lookout for anyone else who might show any sign of invading his turf, the fast lane. Thus, our warring species spirals on its way to extinction. I imagine our defense department has its best boys working on a nanotech robot virus designed to temper testosterone levels, i.e., when the homo sapiens enemy male feels aggressive, say, after the homo sapiens American male has initiated an illegal war or whatever, the robot virus would gobble up testosterone in the enemy until he returns to the slow lane. Naturally, the robot virus would eventually spread to all homo sapiens, and the planet would be at peace. And maybe a little dull.

Train Tract No. 721: Middle Age Cliché…and Writing Anyway

2005-04-14T15:33:00.000-04:00

I hold out as long as I can. According to train etiquette, I will be required to remove my coat and bag from the adjacent seat in due time. Honest passengers fill the seats. Sprinkled here and there are (what I perceive to be) the criminally insane. They populate my periphery as well. When I see their hoods, I turn away. Before the train lurches forward, I am joined by the young fellow with the Vulcan hair. His frequent companion, suitably pale and smiling, sits in front. Through the space between the seats, I see her black hair dangling above the open book in her lap. I breathe the air, perfumed with sweat, drained of its bacterial offense. I fetch another look, absorbing her, through the seats, and him, at my shoulder. They are young, protected from decay by the dewy shield of unblemished birth, fresh and pink. For a moment, I swim in my own ventricles as the world spins through my feet, and I long to read, to know, to understand what they read. She turns the page of the novel on her lap, he bends toward a textbook. My aging eyes fail to harvest the words in any logical order. Resisting a burning temptation to linger, I turn away, ignoring my desire for their words, the texture of their faces, the scent of their hair. In meditation I hear a cry. I awaken with a start. The seat next to the young woman had been vacated, allowing the couple to rejoin. She is at the window, and I touch my knees to the back of her seat. I watch him through the seats as the train moves away from my stop. The cry had been mine.

A Boa Constrictor Digesting An Elephant

2005-04-06T13:21:00.000-04:00

Prince Rainier has died.
A great artist, I have all his albums.

I'm sorry. I don't know why I wrote that.
I don't have any of his albums.

Train Tract No. 720

2005-04-04T21:30:00.000-04:00

My work day is over. The rain has stopped and I am feeling the strain of daylight savings time. Walking to the station, I pass the remains of an umbrella, splayed out like a pterodactyl on the sidewalk, black wings stripped from its silver bones, the collapsible spine dislocated and bent violently toward the retreating storm. This once-proud instrument, created to shelter us from the very substance which dominates our cells, has been flattened, as if all rain had coagulated and dropped at once on this spot. I wonder if the owner of the drowned umbrella had been lifted up like gum on the bottom of a shoe, as the last rain cloud roiled out to sea.

I board the train and close my eyes. When I awake, we are moving. Absent are the usual clacking noises of wheels on tracks. Outside, I see the flood. The river has crossed the tracks and, to my surprise, we are skimming over the water. A shadow, cast by the setting sun, traces the shape of the train car, and I believe that I can detect an upright mast and a billowing sail. As we glide along the Delaware River, a fellow passenger marvels, “We didn’t even have to pay extra for this ride!”

Morning Walk, Ignorant and Free

2005-03-31T08:59:00.000-05:00

Bennet, Brown, Bogart, Bechtel. They died during the second half of the nineteenth century. They rest before me, in the Mercer Cemetery, with its prickly spires rising heavenward. I walk along the east iron fence. Grant, Creed, Stokes, Fell. From a niche in the gate, a tall man appears. His face is obscured beneath a hood, but I can see his chin moving up and down, working the mouthpiece of a cell phone. The pitch of his voice is low and menacing.

"Oh yeah," I think. "You're inconspicuous."

He stops talking, and I suspect that he hears my thoughts. I pick up the pace and turn the corner. Ahead, three anti-abortion demonstrators stand, their backs against the north wall of the cemetery. I read one of their signs: LIFE YES, ABORTION NO. Most of the pedestrians in front of me ignore these quiet activitsts, but one man raises the middle finger of his left hand as he passes. He flaunts the finger in the faces of the demonstrators . At first, I am appalled. They are older, resolute, unphased. They could be my Mom and her fellow churchgoers. How dare this man gesture in such a way. But I soon relax, and marvel at how much of the First Amemdment has played out before my eyes. I pick up a newspaper, and redress the goverment with grievances.

Doddering in the Night

2005-03-22T20:15:00.000-05:00

Last night I felt like I was going to . . . well, die. I woke up around 1:30 am, my night clothes soaked in sweat, my heartbeat fast and faint, my head in the throes of pre-dizziness. So I nudged the wife, in case there was anything she wanted to say to me. She put her hand on my cheek. "You're cold as ice," she said, conjuring a symptom I hadn't thought of on my own, and then she drifted back to sleep. I summoned my last ounce of bravery to stand up and dodder into the bathroom. Once there, I relieved myself, and went back to bed, where this morning I awoke, ready to greet a brand new day.

My Kingdom for the Body of a Horse

2005-03-18T16:52:00.000-05:00

Spring is in the air. As usual, from the spring air, I extract the scent of dread. This is the time of year I most fear…and I most fear everything! Warmer temperatures usually facilitate horrors such as terrorist attacks and the removal of my protective gear, my sweaters, scarves, gloves. I despise shedding my winter coat. During the dark, chilly months, friends and co-workers had forgotten that my neck and arms were fashioned from broomsticks. They’d forgotten how I tend to vanish when I turn sideways. All this comes roaring laughably back to them, and, while they politely refrain from gasping, they do their best to keep their gaze level with my eyes, willing their eyes to waver above the unfortunate state of my girthless frame. For, regardless of the volume of my food intake, it seems that I am doomed to remain an ectomorph, leaning toward emaciation. This has been the case since adolescence, so the assumption that I am a symbiotic shelter for some hungry organism, earth-born or otherwise, seems unfounded. It is time that I accept my form. Now is the spring of my discontent made glorious summer by the promise of the coming of another cold, dark winter.

Or maybe I could lift weights.

Administration of Evil

2005-03-16T15:04:00.001-05:00

Have you noticed that the Current Account Deficit Hit Record $665.9 Billion in 2004? Round it up .1 Billion, and see what you get.

I'm Awake Now

2005-03-16T13:13:00.000-05:00

U.S. Report Lists Possibilities for Terrorist Attacks
By Eric Lipton

WASHINGTON, March 15 - The Department of Homeland Security, trying to focus antiterrorism spending better nationwide, has identified a dozen possible strikes it views as most plausible or devastating, including detonation of a nuclear device in a major city, release of sarin nerve agent in office buildings and a truck bombing of a sports arena.

The document, known simply as the National Planning Scenarios, reads more like a doomsday plan, offering estimates of the probable deaths and economic damage caused by each type of attack. They include blowing up a chlorine tank, killing 17,500 people and injuring more than 100,000.

Hey, that last's one I keep harping about: Stop Reading This (after you've read this) and Do Something!.

Btw, if you sign up with the NY Times Online, you'll get a handy chart, entitled 15 Nightmares for Disaster Planning.

Lapping at the Cavity Well

2005-03-15T13:23:00.000-05:00

Vote delayed on fluoridated water
By Lawrence Hajna, Courier-Post Staff
The state's Public Health Council on Monday delayed a vote on whether to require fluoridation of a substantial portion of New Jersey's water supplies, saying the public should have an opportunity to comment on the proposal. The council was poised to vote on a petition by the New Jersey Dental Association but pulled the vote upon the recommendation of the Department of Health and Senior Services.

The dental association is pushing for a regulation requiring investor-owned water companies to fluoridate their water to a standard of 1 part per million. The association says this will help in the fight against tooth decay.

Do you really think that dentists want to win the fight against tooth decay? It's a cavity cash cow for them and the insurance industry. They're all in the business to make money. So why is the Dental Association pushing so hard to dump that by-product of industrial processes into our water? Who would be "encouraging" them to do so? It all smacks of . . .

Um, if I should be so unfortunate as to be in a situation where I should, say, require emergency dental surgery, I suggest you delete your browser history. You never saw this.

Train Tract No. 719

2005-03-11T08:42:00.000-05:00

The train is late, and I had not expected to see it now. But, seizing the moment, I run toward it. You have to cross the tracks to board the platform, so the race is on. I am running on the icy pavement with my head down, and as the whistle blows, it occurs to me that the engineer thinks I am unaware of the impending collision. I stop. Once the train passes, I cross the tracks, run the length of the platform, and enter the train. I've made it. Or at least I think I've made it. Perhaps I had slipped on the ice and slid beneath the merciless steel train wheels. Was my life force so strong that I have continued on in spirit form? A loud noise startles me, and I associate the sound with the searing pain of cold wheel slicing through warm leg bone. But the sound is a heavy briefcase that had been dropped to the floor by another passenger. I consider continuing my conceit, if it is a conceit, when I arrive at work. I will greet my coworkers, and in that instant before they respond, I will fall to my spirit knees in mock agony, and cry, "It's true! You can't see me or hear me! I'm a ghost!" And then I will tell them about my near-death experience. And if they do not respond, I will accept my lot and wander off.

Tense, Future and Present

2005-02-28T16:37:00.000-05:00

Here’s what I think. A paramilitary team of you-know-who’s will raid a poorly guarded nuclear missile launch facility in Belarus. Faced with certain execution regardless of his course of action, the young soldier who holds the launch key and codes will feign obedience, reaching for the handset to call his superior, keeper of the second key and the remaining set of codes. With deft precision, the young soldier will remove the knife from his ankle sheath and will plunge the weapon into the nearest thigh before two bullets in his brain will end his heroic ballet maneuver. Switching to Plan B, the terrorists will gun down every soldier at the facility, and will move their technicians into place for the removal of a warhead. However, their movements will alert authorities. More soldiers will surround the facility, and the terrorists will ready their explosives and demand that the soldiers retreat unless they want to be responsible for the complete destruction of a large portion of the continent. I don’t know what will happen next.

But I do know that, while digging out from the current snowstorm, my shovel discovers a man lying under the snowpile at the bottom of my driveway.

“Leave me alone!” shouts the man. The stench of beer and vomit escapes from his beard like fumes in a gas leak. Patches of white and blue punish his cheeks, and there is blood on his dark forehead.

“Man, you’re frostbitten!” I say.

He waves me off, and plunges under his snow bank. With his big hands, he piles snow onto his hair. “I deserve this,” he croaks. The rest is muffled under snow.

“What?” I say, “Look, maybe you do deserve this. I don’t know. But I can’t have you freezing to death on my property. So either crawl into the street and get it over with, or come inside for a cup of coffee.”

Slowly, his shrubby snow head rises and I am standing in the shadow of a broken Donovan McNabb.

“Let you all down…” he mumbles as I guide him toward my front porch.

“Yeah,” I say. “But this should be a learning experience.”

He sits heavily on the glider, sloughing snow from his sweatshirt. “Said dat lasht time…enough learnin’ eshpeeryensh….” He leans back and drops his chin onto his chest.

“Stay with me Donovan!” I try to move him into the house, but he stumbles and drops to the porch floorboards. The wind has picked up and I abandon the big man for a moment. Kicking the door open, I run to the telephone to call for help. At that moment, there is a crash outside. I turn and watch as my front porch, the columns, furniture, and Donovan McNabb are hoisted above the street and out into the blizzard.

A Shield for Cinderfella

2005-02-15T20:40:00.000-05:00

Hey, another one of our 85 million dollar missile defense tests failed yesterday. Well, don't worry. North Korea is probably bluffing about their weapons capabilities. Just like we are. Oh wait. That's not good.

So, after September 11, 2001, I was prepared to pitch in and do my part in bringing the murderers and their masters to justice, and to help prevent another assault on the US. Since I'm not a trained warrior, I thought I'd be most useful providing resources, perhaps in the form of revenue generated by, say, a gasoline tax, to fund our military and intelligence efforts, to provide education and social programs here and abroad, to develop alternative energy sources. I lined up behind the President and my fellow Americans, supporting the removal of the Taliban, the search for bin Laden and his followers, and the rebuilding of Afghanistan. I believed Bush when he said that we'd all need to do our part. Well, he's about to ask Congress for another 82 billion dollars, most of it for the war in Iraq. Except for a couple of checks wasted on the DNC's failed attempt to unseat the greedy neocons and their inept puppets, I haven't done my part. I haven't paid a dime toward improving the chance that humans might survive, safe and free, for another generation. I haven't been given the opportunity. Yes, I should do something about that. However, by blundering into and stumbling in Iraq, by robbing the Social Security surplus to pay for tax cuts for the rich, by raising the debt ceiling and increasing the deficit, the Bush administration is forcing that "opportunity" on our children.

But the really crazy thing is that Jerry Lewis is the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee...providing some explanation for our improved relationship with the French.

Sun humming

2005-02-09T13:52:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, February 8 or 9 (the date on my watch is inconveniently unreliable and often changes mid-morning or later in the day) -

For the first time in 2005, I feel the warmth of the sun on my face. I am surprised by the sensation! While famously enamored of winter and the cold, my skin receives these several and pleasantly whirring molecules of hydrogen, and my brain returns the favor with an autonomic smile. I am smiling at the sun as I turn toward the woman who stands nearby. She is wearing headphones. In a respectful gesture, I had been avoiding her eyes since the moment her hum-along vibrations had registered in my ear. Now, I find that I am receptive to camaraderie. Who will share this moment, this awakening of the fifth sense deadened by so many weeks of arctic temperament? Sadly, she does not indulge in my ebullience. The train arrives and I shudder in its shade. Standing in line behind the woman, I listen to her song, and then we shuffle inside the glossy, white car, where, alone, I will squint and shield my eyes from glorious sunlight.

Happy Inauguration Day

2005-01-20T13:47:00.000-05:00

I hope you’re all happy.

So I’m one of those people who try really hard to memorize our Bill of Rights. And if it wasn’t for the unfortunate size of my head, which seems to sport a circumference rather less than most humans (which probably restricted the development of brain matter within), I would be forever sprinkling fragments of the first ten Amendments into my conversations. Just one thing: can someone please explain to me the Ninth Amendment? I’ve been forgetting to ask an expert about that one for years…

The Queasy Uneasy

2005-01-11T11:52:00.000-05:00

For the past few days, I’ve been experiencing a queasy stomach. It’s the kind of queasiness that has the potential to flare up any time, but usually is provoked by the sight of something or someone that doesn’t agree with me. This morning on the train, I was nearly made to vomit by Toby Maguire. Not the real Toby Maguire, but someone who resembled the superstar with the bland, chalky cheeks, rubbery lips, overlong philtrum, and fetal-pig eyes. I had seen this look-alike a few times in the past, before my current spate of queasiness, with mild results. I had sensed the potential even then.

I should probably have this looked at.

Hey, I was going to write this...

2005-01-06T22:05:00.000-05:00

In Richard Clarke’s Ten Years Later, the country faces a rash of attacks--on malls, casinos, amusement parks, subways, computer networks, and more--and responds by becoming a police state of sorts. Civil liberties are harshly curtailed; the country teems with security workers and various methods of surveillance; and everything coming in, whether by sea, land, or air, is tightly controlled.

To read the article, you’ll have to subscribe to The Atlantic Monthly.

Early Detection of Holidays Winding Down

2004-12-31T01:00:00.000-05:00

It's one in the morning and I'm dwelling on a couple of problems: ringing in the ears, light-headed, fuzzy-brained, forgot what I was just thinking about, you know, the usual...

oh, and the number of things I've dreamed up that, it turns out, were already in development and were about to make someone else a lot of money. For example, sometime in 1997-98, I had been writing a screenplay, the working title of which was Set. Six months later, The Truman Show was released, with my premise intact...however I had planned for Terry Gilliam to direct mine. Next, I expect to see my Christmas invention in Walmart during the 2005 holiday season. I won't provide the details for my invention here, for obvious reasons.

Yes, I know. What am I waiting for? The real story to start?
"You never stop waiting for the real story to start, because the only real story, in the end, is that you die."
- Johnathan Franzen, "Caught" from The New Yorker

Anyway, the tsunami...hey, that word is more fun to write than it should be...reminds me that we ought to get to work on that Asteroid Early Detection System. Seriously, what the hell would we do if we had, say, a month notice that human life was about to be wiped out? What do you do with a month like that? I mean, Christ Almighty!

So, Happy New Year.

PlastiCity

2004-12-28T13:16:00.000-05:00

We use 12 million barrels of oil to manufacture our annual glut of plastic shopping bags. Most plastic bags are made from polyethylene, which is made from crude oil and natural gas. Five of the top six chemicals that the EPA reports generate the most hazardous waste are necessary for plastic production. Plastic bags can take five to ten years to decompose.

Wake up, citizens of PlastiCity! You can do your part, and I don't mean by choosing paper bags either. The answer is so simple: use a sturdy, reusable bag.

For more about recycling and reducing waste, check out these sites:
Consumer Handbook for Reducing Solid Waste
Recycling in Flagstaff

Holiday Giving

2004-12-23T09:17:00.000-05:00

In an attempt to spark reaction and foster the holiday spirit of rebellion, I've decided to give away all of my friends' gift-giving secrets:

Al, you're wife is planning to surprise you with a week in Bermuda. She's made all the accomodations and the small box wrapped in green paper contains airline tickets and a certificate from Edgehill Manor.

Kris, on Christmas morning, your husband will tell you to close your eyes. He will guide you to the back door. When you open your eyes, you will see a jacuzzi wrapped in a red bow. The installers will arrive on December 28.

Pete, your entire family has been pretending that you're not going to be exchanging gifts this year. Actually, they've pooled their money and have made a down payment on your dream house in Camden.

John, your worst nightmare is about to come true. Yes, she is coming for the entire weekend.

Sandy, Paul was going to arrive at your apartment on Christmas morning with a bottle of brandy, and then he was going to tell you how he really feels about you. But now he'll probably stay home and rip his retro telephone off of the wall.

Jack, when you disappeared again, we all decided to give ourselves the gift of forgetting that you ever existed in the first place.

As soon as I find out more secrets, I'll post them here. Happy Holidays!