The Apple Doesn't Fall Far

A wife takes her father to the doctor several times in the course of a year. The journey is an hour's drive one way. They always take the same route. On that route is a fairly new looking large house on the north side of the Amarillo Loop which appears abandoned. There is never activity of residence there, no vehicles, personal articles that make a house look like a home. Just weeds, Texas sized ones. For years. This bothers her father. 

Every trip the wife complains about the level of annoying things her father says and does. She has to handle a lot of his decisions because of his level of reduced mental capacity and plain ignorance of how the universe works and how normal society functions. 

Every trip he mentions, "I wonder who owns that house? I wonder why no one ever tries to live there? I wonder if its for sale? I wonder how you find out who owns it? ... ..."

After every trip the wife complains about her father to her husband - about his antics to the doctors and nurses, his silliness, the wonder moments.

So a few weeks ago both the wife and her father go to the doctor at the same time for the same test work and so the husband gets to be the chauffeur. They get a few miles from the house of great interest to the elderly man in the back seat. Just then husband is reaching in his pocket to get a cell phone to secretly record the inevitable "wonder wonder wonder" statements, as the wife is thinking along the same lines and make funny motions with her head and mouths silently to her husband that the w-w-w house is coming up shortly. He shows her the phone and turns on the recorder.

They wait.

In motion at 70 mph.

Silence.

Nothing.

The husband watches in the rear view mirror as his father-in-law looks at the house carefully during the approach. The father-in-law stares in a focused panning manner while passing over the bridge with the yonder wonder house just to the right and at a lower level looking down on the brown silent brick house. 

Nothing.

A few miles pass and the recorder is turned off.

The husband and wife are silently mildly disappointed to have not captured his words.

They talk about it later when getting home that evening, wondering why he didn't talk about the wonderful house that fills him full with wonder. Perhaps it was because he was in the back seat instead of the front? Perhaps it was because the husband was in the vehicle?

Yesterday the husband takes his wife to the doctor, same journey. No elderly wonderer wanderer this time.

They get a few miles away from the loop entrance and pass a trailer house that is parked on the left side of the road. It has been there for several weeks or months, take your pick,  the husband hasn't kept track.

The wife says, "I wonder why they put that building right there, .... " she starts to continue on but is interrupted by her husband's hysterical laughter, he is able to mention something about her father, 'like father, like daughter' words, he forgets exactly what was said in the intensity of the hilarity while trying to drive properly, but does remember calling her "[put father-in-law's first name here] Junior", which brings on more smiling red faced mock disgust from his wife. But she gets embarrassed and laughs too, only threatening him, "you had better shut up while you still can!" and pops her husband lightly on the arm. He moans in exaggerated theatrical pain clutching his right shoulder, with very poor acting on purpose.

The husband tells her "those are the exact same words that your father told me a few days ago when he threatened to beat me up while we were driving down the road (she wasn't on that trip) when I had an argument with him concerning his rude behavior of ripping out his own IV tubes at the hospital. At least he didn't hit me."

Forte - Poem - on hearing about a book of poetry being burned

Poem based loosely on D.H. Lawrence's 'Piano', one of my favorites

Occasion: I heard that one of my friends was burning a book of poetry due to a lack of shelf space.

Forte

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is burning me;

Taking me back down to the state of ashes, till I see

Myself sitting on a book store shelf anew,

Waiting for the first human to crack me open and take a view.

In spite of myself, the insidious mystery of rhyme

Betrays me back, till the spine of me weeps to belong

To the old Sunday evenings at home, with April 25th outside

And hymns by the cozy fireplace, the blinkling iPod our guide.

So now it is vain for the book to burst into flames

With the tiny black Apple audio appliance appassionato.

The glamour of editorial days is upon me, my table of contents is cast

Down in the flood of remembrance, I smolder like a charcoal briquette for the past.

POETRY LINK: next poem in my blog ...

Baby Elephants Cubed

(Warning: Fiction)

So I get this wonderful idea for a business venture. I offer to dig a cube shaped hole in my neighbor's front lawns. Seven feet x seven feet x seven feet. Why? To capture baby elephants.

I explain to my neighbors that I will pay them 2 cents a cubic foot per month and then split the proceeds for any baby elephants we capture. The baby elephant market is very lucrative. They tell me that they haven't seen any baby elephants around our part of Texas running loose. I reply that the baby elephant traps that I already have in service must be doing their job, but you never know. Do you want your petunias trampled? Do you want small children scared? What about the poor defenseless kitties and puppies? (The weak minded ones start to come around by then - the smarter ones have already ran me off with a broom)

"Why 7 feet?" - they usually ask. I reply that is the optimal size for catching baby elephants. If they are much bigger than that, they are too hard to handle, and smaller ones, not enough money to pay the postage.

"How do you get the baby elephant to get in the hole?"

"A mirror" I reply

"A mirror?" they are puzzled and intrigued

"Yes, you put a small mirror at the bottom of the cube and the baby elephant peers over the edge and see another baby elephant at the bottom of the cube, "a friend!", and jumps in. If the elephant is too big, it won't fit in the cube, and eventually moves on down the street. If its too small, it becomes frightened by the now-much-larger reflection in the mirror at close range and jumps out of the hole."

I even offer that I will be glad to fill their hole back in if they decide they no longer wish to participate at a future date.

So ... (literary pause) a couple months go by. The first person to buy the "hole" story is getting irritated with their 7x7x7=343 cubic foot non-productive baby elephant trap, even though I have paid them $6.86 per month. They call demanding their front yard hole be filled back. I let them know there will be a  $1715 charge (or $5 a cubic foot) to put the dirt back. They are upset. I reply that it is in the contract that they signed. $5 a cubic foot for me to put some dirt back. They demand their dirt back freely and say they will fill it in themselves. I remind them that the next paragraph in the contract shows that they sold me their dirt. They ask how much I will charge to get their dirt back and not fill in the hole. $2 per cubic foot just for the dirt, plus mileage. By this time they are getting livid. They say that they will just get someone else to do it. I remind them of the next paragraph in the contract that states I have a lease on the hole for as long as I pay them $6.86 for the cube. AND if they have someone else fill in the hole there is a $10 per cubic foot penalty, as damages against future earnings for capturing baby elephants.

Then they ask, "I thought you originally told me that you would be GLAD to fill in the hole if I wanted to end the 'hole' thing"

"At $5 a cubic foot, wouldn't you be GLAD too?"

This story is a not-so-far fetched representation of the real ordeal one of my friends went through when dealing with a credit card processing company after they decided not to use the card reader at their business, even though it was never installed.

No neighbors, elephantine or human, were harmed in the making of this story.

Invention Link: The Next Invention in My Blog

My Idea for an Iranian TV Show: "Is Your Cleric Smarter Than A German Shepherd?"

Early this morning I read two and only two news stories. The first one involved a dog who helped save his family's house from fire and the other was an article about an Iranian cleric giving earthquake advice.

The first article tells how a German Shepherd dog, named Buddy, came to the aid of an Alaskan man who accidentally started a fire and then the dog got involved leading the authorities to the site after a GPS unit had failed. The event was recorded on the web cam of the patrol car.

Link to Dog Story

The second article was about an Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati who gave earthquake advice during a recent Friday sermon. He  told people that giving alms and praying for forgiveness would prevent earthquakes. ("Offering plate tectonics" ?) This comes a week after another Iranian cleric had mentioned that earthquakes were caused by promiscuous women. 

That made me want to know their position on Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, and Alien Crop Circles, as well as do they believe that Elvis Presley still walks among us.

From yahoo news which quoted the Iranian news: "Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Sedighi, like Jannati, serves as one of Tehran's acting Friday prayer leaders.

I think that the Iranian people need to learn to do a better job of not allowing ignorant people to become or remain their leaders, either in the positions of government or religion. Besides, it sounds like these two idiot clerics stole their "Sin Equals Earthquakes" idea from the American Pat Robertson who blamed Haitian earthquake troubles on sins committed a long time ago by people who aren't even alive. (I am hoping that the average Iranian citizen is smarter than all this nonsense, please please please, say its so. Prove it by getting these people out of office and into an insane asylum, rest home for the aged or 4th grade science class, as students, where they belong.)

Link to Cleric Story

Clerics, I will keep this next part really simple for you and write these sentences with as few words as possible and use short words as well. Okay? Here we go ....

Earth big. Earth moves. In different places. With different amounts of energy. At random times. Unpredictable. But measurable.

See? ... that wasn't so hard.

Whether or not you believe in the field of plate tectonics, you can set up experiments and measure the distance that the pieces of the earth move, actually and accurately see that a pair of plates move and keeps moving in the same direction.

Iran just happens to sit in a very active earthquake zone.

A few years ago the Iranian city of 97 thousand people with the onomatopoetic name of Bam was devastated by an earth quake that killed approximately one fourth of its people and injured a larger fraction. Had the people sinned? Hmmmm, well, if you call building your houses out of dried mud in an earthquake zone a sin, then you have your own answer.

Iranians would be served by better building codes, not dress codes, and my TV show idea. At least people all over the world have learned to depend on dogs to rescue people trapped in earthquakes. I have never heard of a rescue team of clerics.

Strawberries Incorpor-ate-d

Last night I wrote:

I just encountered some strawberries on my countertop that insisted on becoming a part of me. After a proper innerview process they were allowed to join  Ernest Incorpor-ate-d.

My wifey responded this morning: funny! I must of missed the strawberries sure would of enjoyed some to eat myself.

I responded: These particular berries de straw insisted on me, so I couldn't persist to resist their insistence. They kept saying things like, "Resistance is food-tile !!!"

My wifey responded:  whatever! lol

A sister responded: Too funny!

I responded: It was a joint add-venture, limited liability corp-oration. And yes, there was a joy in my alimentary canal and a welcoming speech.

People will look at me in puzzlement today and wonder, "Did he just recently eat 7 strawberries?" and they will have figured out my secret.

(The wifey reads this as she walks in the room just now - "You are weird")

A friend thanked me for the laugh

I responded: You are berry-ly welcome

Special note: The word "innerview" was not a typographical error

Agog

After the long night,

we awoke agog to a fog,

morning wet white light


Poetry LINK: next poem in my blog ...

Twenty Years Ago At This Moment

Today is one of my favorite days.

April 21st

A birthday of sorts.

Twenty years ago at 10:30 AM I became an artist.

It was a Saturday.

Thank you Mickey, Minnie, and Donald for appearing on that children's game piece and inspiring me to want to draw you, and then beginning a long journey of looking at the world in a totally new way. 

Every year on or about this day I try to refocus my artistic path to something new or revisit a favorite; photography, movie making, drawing etc. So I look forward to this day to see what new is going to be.

A re-birthday, of sorts, an expectation of joy and wonder, light and color in the coming year.

Tic Tac? No, Sic Sac

Link to NY Times Article

Disgusted - I just found out that the evil totally worthless tobacco industry has started marketing candy-like smokeless tobacco products in a variety of flavors with an easily concealable form of a nicotine delivery system, not a smoking cessation device. 

So I wrote a poem ...

Poisonous savory ploy

without the smoky whirl

to poison us with flavor

for every boy and girl

A wolf in Camel's clothing.

What is really sad is when you read the nonsense that the tobacco industry spokesperson David Howard says:

David Howard, a Reynolds spokesman, said Camel Orbs were marketed only for adults and come in child-resistant containers. He denied that they look like Tic Tac mints. 

“Those packages don’t at all look alike to me,” Mr. Howard said in an interview Friday. 

This was published on April 18th, 2010 in the NY Times by Duff Wilson

BUT the next article I found at CNN by Denise Mann of Health.com has the same spokesperson sounding more responsible a day later on the 19th

R.J. Reynolds spokesman David Howard says that the packaging of Camel Orbs and the other dissolvable products is "100 percent child-resistant in accordance with Consumer Product Safety Commission standards" and bears a label that says "Keep Out of Reach of Children." Adults, he adds, should ensure that "children do not have access to any tobacco products -- including dissolvable tobacco products."

But if you want to be reminded of the lack of logic floating around inside his skull, here are some more of his words where he tries to use math to support his argument:

Mr. Howard of Reynolds said it was unfair to criticize the flavoring of Camel Orbs because many other products, including the quit-smoking aid Nicogum, come in flavors. Mr. Howard also said many other common products posed risks to infants or children from accidental ingestion. 

“Virtually every household has products that could be hazardous to children, like cleaning supplies, medicines, health and beauty products, and you compare that to 20 to 25 percent of households that use tobacco products,” he said.

Perhaps a solution to the problem of tobacco would be to gather up all the tobacco industry executives AND their evil spokespersons AND evil product designers, THEN burn them at the stake publicly for all their past, present and (future?) health atrocities they have inflicted upon tens of millions of people in the pursuit of a buck. Only let the fires be not from wood like in medieval days, that would too good for them. Why waste a poor tree? Instead, let the flames come from their last harvest of tobacco leaves and let the stench of their product be the last thing they ever smell with a slow glowing agonizing death, to match the ones their customers have experienced, only in concentrated form.

Oh, was that a bit harsh? Need a Tic Tac?

Hujambo, Gumbo!

My okra popped out of the ground today. "Hujambo, Gumbo!" [That's Swahili for 'Hello, Okra!]

(Okra photo from Wikipedia - used under the Wikipedia Creative Commons license)

My cousin mentioned to me that she had a hard time growing okra in her part of the world because of too much humidity.

My reply to my cousin: I started a dozen plants indoors in a egg container. My father told me a long time ago to place an object over the ground to keep it moist to help the germination process. So far I have 11 out of 12, from a single seed in each segment. I remember the tallest okra I think I ever saw was my step father's in Wichita Kansas, so I don't know how Wichita compares to your spot. I actually like frozen okra just fine from the groc store. The blossoms on the okra are pretty but fleeting, only lasting a day or so. I have grown it once a long time ago. Oh, I just remembered, I think your father gave me these okra seeds when I was in Dakota Lower (South Dakota) nearly 3 years ago. What a cool okra paragraph, my father, step-father, your father! The Okra Connection ...

Okra on Wikipedia

Update: Now 12 for 12, total success!

sMiles Per Zero Gallons

My phone rings.

It's the wife.

She had just left to go to work.

T - "Oh, no I took off to work and now my gas indicator says I have ZERO miles to empty!"

The vehicle beeped a warning in the background

E - "Where are you?"

T - "On Florida Street. I am going to the Phillips station, the one on 6th street."

E - "Where are you at right now? Why didn't you take my car like I offered BEFORE you left the house and you had even told me you thought yours was close to empty?!?!?"

T - "On Florida right before the - oh, NO! - the light turned red!"

The thirsty vehicle beeped a warning in the background

E - "What light?!?!?" thinking she was talking about her vehicle

T- "The stop light" - at 3rd street - so I know she is at least getting close to the gas station.....

T - "Hurry up!!! (she was talking to the stop light, not me) Stay on the line ... I am going to zoom there so I can coast into the place if I have to ... (she laughs) remember that time I ran out of gas in Amarillo and coasted right to the gas pump?"

The thirstier angry vehicle beeped a warning in the background

E - "Yes, I remember, I was there"

T- "OH NO!!! EVERY SINGLE PUMP has an out of order tag on it!" - we're talking about 12 to 16 pumps at one station!!!

[ Special note of 'thank you' to Allsup's Inconvenience Stores for making this tale more dramatic ]

E - "What are you going to do? There aren't any other close stations"

T - "I am going to drive onto work, so get ready to come rescue me. Oh, I have a slow poke in front of me."

The thirstier angrier hopeless vehicle beeped a dire warning in the background

E - "Which direction are you going from there?" - she responds east. I am thinking its about 6 or 7 blocks to go.

T - "I made it to the police station, at least now I can walk to work if I need to." ... heading north now .....

T - "Now I'm sitting at the intersection across the street from my shop"

..... .... ... .. . Mrs. T and The Empty Gas Tank make it to work.

I'm off to find a gas jug for the now quiet fuming nothing-but-fumes vehicle. I'm not taking a chance of driving the next two and a half blocks to a gas station.

Priceless

My Entry for the 2010 Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest

Since 1982 the English Department at San Jose State University has sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.



More information about the BLFC can be found at this link: Contest

My Year 2010 Entry

As he faced the firing squad while sitting in the electric chair in the gas chamber, Wilheim thought to himself, "Even by East German standards this is a bit harsh just for being a little late paying your gas bill, electric bill, and installment payment for the antique WWII pistol"

Link to 2009 Entries

Hank Idiot Johnson Versus The Guam

See the following video:

Okay, I didn't know you could be this STUPID and be a member of congress. But I was wrong.

When I watch this video a small portion of my brain hurts really bad and weeps for the poor embarrassed people of the 4th Congressional District of the fine state of Georgia USA, but then the vast majority of my brain overrules it and says, "Shut up!, let's watch it again!"

I think that Congress should pass a law that when a parent discovers that their child is numerically and scientifically this stupid they should be required, or at least be given the option, to legally rename their child HANK IDIOT JOHNSON so that from that point forward everyone will know what NOT to expect. Boy or girl, it doesn't matter. And anyone who is currently named "Hank Johnson" would be able to get a new less embarrassing name, again for free. And then make an island where all the Hank Idiot Johnsons can move to, but make sure it is a sturdy island, not one made from scary flimsy coral reefs (well, scary to HIJ's)

I think I just remembered something - wasn't 'Johnson' the last name of the people who lived in Rock Ridge in the movie 'Blazing Saddles'? Yes, wikipedia confirmed it for me - everyone's last name was Johnson.

Disclaimer: This is NOT meant to put down everyone who has a name of Johnson. There are many fine Johnsons out there and I am pretty sure I know a few good ones and some pretty fine ones, at that. Its just that this particular congressman has ruined it forever for the two words Hank and Johnson to be right next to each other. There may even be some future down side to being named 'John Hankson' or just even being the son of a John Hank.

It could be that the fine congressman watched the movie Joe Versus the Volcano one time too many, and there is a suddenly sinking island (although volcanic) in that movie and someone named "Hanks" in the starring role, and Meg Ryan playing three parts and mind muddle moments later ... he thought it was a PBS documentary?

"They" are now trying to put a PR spin on the incident saying that he was talking about the ecosystem and was using a facetious metaphor (ref wikipedia), BUT when you listen and watch very carefully he makes motions with his upper body indicating he fears an actual tipping over of the island, and he has a very serious look of concern on his face, both at this point in the conversation and then later as he rambles on about global warming et al:

Congressman Hank Johnson from Georgia:

"My..my fear is that uh the whole island will uh become so overly populated

that it will tip over and uh and capsize"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Johnson

Oh, I almost forgot something. While I was driving across town earlier today I wrote this joke, which I am simply inserting new names and places into someone else's original art. I think the original people were Aggies and the places were Texas and Oklahoma. So here goes my latest reincarnation of the joke:

Did you hear that when Rep Hank Johnson travels from Georgia to Washington DC, he causes the average IQ in both places to go UP?

(To go along with today's Georgia theme, I used Georgia for my font instead of my latest favorite Trebuchet, which, ironically I learned about while trying to decipher what font was used on a letter that I had received from the state of Georgia last year. For this section I continued on with a peach color background as well, same reason. 

2010.04.04 MUSICAL UPDATE: Later in the day I cracked up laughing again anew as I started working on a fresh set of lyrics for the 'This Is My Handle, This Is My Spout' song, only, tip me over and people fall out.) 

How We Did Und Met

One of my (young) relatives posted a request wanting all his friends to tell the story of when he had first met all his Facebook friends, to see if we remembered. Of course the real story is boring:

a) you were an infant,
b) I don't remember .. and
c) neither do you.

So I gave him the following paragraph instead.

I think we were in East Berlin on that secret mission trying to find out why the Communists had so desperately wanted to get the recipe for "New Coke" and instead we gave them that microfilm that had the recipe for "Pepsi"? Remember? Those were good times, da, fond memories. By all OMB calculations, that one single act secretly brought down the Iron Curtain and we liberated Eastern Europe, just you and me, baby, you and me.