Category: Postaday

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World’s Ending? You Want Fries with That?

Postaday for June 6th: Eat, Drink, and Be Merry… …for tomorrow we die. The world is ending tomorrow! Tell us about your last dinner — the food, your dining companions, the setting, the conversation.

The world is ending and all I had was some left over pork roast and quinoa with mushrooms? Are you freakin’ kidding me? Life as we know it puffed out without so much as a whimper, and my last meal was leftovers night, an Adele’s sausage on a potato bun with mustard ketchup relish? If I had know the earth was doomed to explode in a fiery ball at the hands of an evil alien race bent on dominating the galaxy, I would have washed it down with something better than a glass of filtered water followed by a Tollhouse pan cookie.

Although, if I’m being honest here, that cookie was pretty good.

Listen to me very carefully. If you get wind of a secret government project to create a mag-lev driven blackhole reverse polarity inducer, a fool-hardy attempt to leash the power of unlimited energy, please tell me ASAP. I am serious. We all know that the Fenning equation for mag-lev is seriously flawed, and the resulting transductive breakdown will set off a chain reaction, flipping the quark state of every atom within three hundred nanometers and annihilating covalent bonds. I need to know so I can have as many last meals as possible. Last night was leftovers. The night before? Three Jamison and gingers and a slice of pizza and a pulled pork sandwich. I was at a party.

You know as well as I do that there’s a statistical probability that Snorg the Uberdragon awakens on planet Maxifraxx, and when he does, he will fly with space wings of gossamer blacklight straight towards planet Earth, the home of his metafather Tris. They will fight, for there can be only one Uberdragon lest the worshipers of Grennel throw off their yokes and revolt. The red-hot lava breath that Snorg and Tris spit at one another as they beat their thousand-mile long wings will rip our planet to shreds. So if you see Snorg in your backyard telescope, tell me. I don’t want my last meal to have been what I had three nights ago, a cranberry and walnut salad with a vinaigrette dressing that was, in my opinion, a bit heavy on the balsamic.

Four nights ago I had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and baked beans. That’s not a bad last meal. If you happen to know that plate tectonics under the Pacific ocean are grinding together and resonating a feedback surge that just happens by sheer coincidence to be at the same time as an upswell over the Mariana trench thanks to a phase-state-change from the heat of decayed phytoplankton, and an atmosphere-sucking tsunami is on its way to wipe out the entire Western United States seaboard, plugging up the release tubes in five major volcanic systems, causing Rainier to explode and spew a trillion metric tons of ash into the atmosphere, blotting out the sun for a thousand years, then, sure, fried chicken with all the fixings would make a fine last meal.

Just in case, though, right now, I’m heading over to a local Mexican chained called Azteca. If the Old Gods are coming back to devour the earth and we’re to burn in the hellish pit of their stomachs for a millenia, I’m going out with a Macho Burrito and a margarita as big as my head.

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My Wife and I Laugh A Lot

Postaday for June 5th: Happily Ever After. “And they lived happily ever after.” Think about this line for a few minutes. Are you living happily ever after? If not, what will it take for you to get there?

I’m told that tragedies and comedies are differentiated by whether people die in the end or get married. (Go ahead, make your jokes about marriage being a kind of death. No, really, we’ll wait). Happily ever after would seem to be the latter, then. And so, once a person is married, the chief conflict they faced (not being married) is resolved. I’m married, so I guess I’m living happily every after.

Tragedy and comedy in the sense of something bad versus something funny are two sides of the same coin: irony. If you laugh at it, it’s ironic. And didn’t Carol Burnett say comedy is tragedy plus time? I guess it’s tragic when a person’s efforts to get married are the very thing keeping him from getting married. Tell that story with the right soundtrack, and the rest of us are laughing.

I could get all pseudo-anthropological here, and say that human are animals, animals exist to procreate, but humans are civilized, and the juncture of the procreative urge and civilization is marriage. For once my genes have propagated themselves, my reason for being has been fulfilled. And marriage is the potential for procreation, so the conflict of my existence is mitigated by saying “I do.” Happiness, it would appear, is overcoming conflict.

Hooray for me, and so long, existential angst. You kept me occupied as a teenager, broody and unattractive (see dramatic irony, above) but that kept me out of the dating pool until I was older, more mature, and ready to meet the woman I married. Delicious irony indeed, good for a happy chuckle.

Of course, this is a very convenient point of view, and only a story-book one for the sake of discussion. There are lots of people out there living happy who have no intention of getting married. Lots of people out there who are “happily” married and not living happily ever after. Afterall, when the primordial soup was putting together the first few cells that would, billions of years later, become people, it didn’t give two-cents about story-books.

But telling stories evolved too. A way to justify that conflict, mentioned above, between the need to reproduce and the need to build roads and tall buildings. Marriage, in the end, is just another plot device. Make sense that in all the romance languages, romance means “novel.”

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Damned Twizzler Amnesia

Postaday for June 4th: Smell You Later. Humans have very strong scent memory. Tell us about a smell that transports you.

I can tell you about a smell that should transport me but doesn’t: Twizzlers. I’m not talking any old red licorice, or Red Vines. I’m not talking about the cherry pull-strand style Twizzlers either, or the multicolored ones, or those cherry nibs. I’m not even talking about the quarter pound or the half pound bag. Heck, let’s get real specific: I’m not even talking about a one pound bag of strawberry Twizzlers unless that one pound bag of strawberry Twizzlers is on the discount shelf at Albertson’s for just a buck because they’re trying to move old stock the day before it expires.

Every time my wife goes out of town, I end up with one of those bags. Sometimes she buys them for me and hides them around the house, ’cause she knows I’ll find them. It’s too bad Jinny Hoffa wasn’t buried with a bag of Twizzlers, ’cause I would have found him a long time ago too. But as often as not my wife doesn’t buy me the bag, and I get one myself. It’s freaking surreal. We wake up, I toss her suitcase into the trunk, drive her to the airport, drop her off at departures, give her a hug, watch as she walks into the terminal, and when I turn around to get back into the car, I’m in Albertson’s, standing in front of the BOGO shelf, fat bag of Twizzlers in one hand, the other hand in my back pocket, grabbing up my wallet.

Self check-out line. I’m scanning the bar code, then swiping my credit card while tapping through instructions on the touch screen. I’m in the car and half way home and the bag is open and one Twizzler’s in my mouth and I’m chewing furiously, another Twizzler pinched between my upper lip and my nose, a candy mustache like goofy hipster nightmare porn star perverting my blood sugar and will to live.

You’d think that pungent sugary strawberry smell, that cloying noisomeness would take me back to every other time I’ve sat in front of the computer, playing some god-awful video game while masticating a waxy red mess at about a hundred calories per second. You’d think I’d remember the commiserate queasiness, that sickness that starts a sour patch in my gut and works it way up to squeeze my poor withered heart a few times before resting firmly and greenly in my forehead. How I’m ruined for days, me the next day with my Twizzlers hang-over, crumpled up in my easy chair like I’d been discarded there, a cup of tea cooling next to me and something stupid and dark on the TV.

But no, I never remember. The smell does nothing to me. I wish it would. Even now, concentrating, I can conjure up a whiff of those disgusting sucrose sticks, those corn-syrupy stomach-punchers, those red-number-five bowel-busters. And even though I know what it does to me, ruining my weekend, making me wish I was an alcoholic or a junkie instead…

…I’m thinking about how my wife has to work this weekend and maybe I’ll go get a bag.

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You Could Say I’m a Yo-Yo

Postaday for June 3rd: Blogger With a Cause. If your day to day responsibilities were taken care of and you could throw yourself completely behind a cause, what would it be?

Yep, I’m a blogger without a cause. You can find me half-drunk and nearly passed-out on the side of that yellow brick road leading to the bloggosphere. Pick me up and haul me in. Doncha know police stations are just places to make friends with criminals? Dorothy’s there in her red dress, and the cowardly lion too— later on, we’ll give him courage, and it’ll get him killed.

Me, I’m the new guy, the one you’ve known all along. Call me scarecrow. Shun me for stepping all over the mascot. How was I supposed to know that big blue-and-white W was sacred? So let’s go on up to the observatory, where the wicked witch lives, or should I say lived, since that house fell down on her. The sun’s going to go supernova someday, you know. We’ll all be dead long before then. Oz the great and terrible, expanding past all the inner planets. Maybe Jupiter will light up and Clark can write a book about it.

Wanna dance? Fine, we’ll dance. Not you, Dorothy, you had your chance. I’m talking to your old man. Gimme a knife, I don’t aim to knock your teeth in with my bloggy wit while you’re distracted by my blood on your knife. Look at how my words cut and slice! And there, your blade is gone, you dumb punk. You rusted up tin-man. What’s a metal head need chicken for anyway? I’ll show you who’s chicken. Steal us a few cars, we’ll see who lasts longest driving through the poppies.

Rev ‘em up, rev ‘em up! You want me to throw myself behind a cause? How about I throw myself out of this Porsche 550 Spyder while your tin-man parts get stuck inside your own ride. You’re dead, tin-man, and we were barely friends. How am I supposed to get a brain when your heart’s all splattered at the bottom of a cliff? At least Dorothy’s still here. The cowardly’s going up to the abandoned house; I’m going to the cops.

Because there’s justice, there’s fighting for what’s right, there’s standing up to the tornado— but first you got to fix yourself. Here’s my cause: me. I need fixing. Both me and the whole planet, burned up when Oz goes boom— I can only fix one, might as well be the one who wastes his talents not writing all day. (How many words I got so far, now? 400? It’s stll nothin’.) But the cops, they won’t listen. I tried. I’ll take Dorothy to the abandoned house instead. Maybe Cowardly will be there.

He is. Let the wicked witch’s flying monkeys harass my parents, what do I care. Coupla munchkins, hobbits on the run, Sauren and George RR fill bookshelves, sure, but library stacks don’t stop bullets like they used to. Me and Dorothy and Cowardly, we’ll pretend this abandoned house is the Emerald City. That’s easy, see. Didja know cats sleep 20 hours a day? Cowardly dozes like a good kitty. Me and Dorothy go exploring. I don’t know what that’s a metaphor for.

Oh but here comes Cheetah the Moose. Did you know there’s a whole Wikipedia page on flying monkeys? Cowardly, brave now, shoots one of them. Everything’s all messed up. Stop shooting at me, Lion! Everything’s animals. We’re all running back to where we learned about Oz exploding. Here’s the cause I’d blog for: annihilating angst. A worthless cause, so I’m without. But for now I can trade my own red jacket for Lion’s ammo. Dumb cat.

We go outside. Oh, NOW the cops pay attention. “I got the bullets! Look!” Cowardly’s dead. He stood his ground. I’m not going to take up that cause though. Dorothy clicks her heels together. Nothing happens. Because that was a terrible way to end a story.

You think it’s a coincidence that James Dean and Albert Camus both died in car crashes?

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Keeps the Roads in Good Repair. And Listen.

Postaday for June 2nd: Dear Leader. If your government (local or national) accomplishes one thing this year, what would you like that to be?

One thing? They better get a heck of a lot more done than one thing. I got roads I need to drive on, water I need coming out of the taps. Heck, just keeping the lights on would be great. For my money (i.e. taxes) that’s what government is for. Chase down the criminals, keep the schools open, pick up the trash, approve zoning so we can build a new basketball arena downtown.

I know there are a lot of social issues, and those need to be addressed to. But that’s will-of-the-people stuff, and it’s up to us, the people, to take care of it. Do we want a better living wage? We need to get out there and do something about. We can’t sit around waiting for the government to do the right thing. And don’t get me wrong— I’m not preaching “less government” here. I’m not trying to say we need to get rid of regulations and hooray for laissez faire. I’m saying that government’s job is to do what we tell them to do, and they’re not mind readers.

I demand social justice, of course. My own politics lean left, sometimes way left, but I’m not here to tell people who disagree with me to shut up. Indeed, I want everybody out there yammering away until the boys and girls on the hill hear us.

But enough about my philosophical approach to politics. You want me to talk about an issue, don’t you? You want me to bring up gay marriage, or legalizing marijuana, or $15/hour, or banning assault rifles, or progressive taxes, or a woman’s right to choose, or stand your ground, or deflate gate, or Hastert, the Duggers, or Baltimore, or global climate change, or immigration reform, or that idiot in Wisconsin, or that idiot in Kansas, or Snowden and the NSA, or maybe you would even find it amusing if I were to opine on the TPP, which has me so confused I assume jokes about toiler paper perfume are in order.

But to what end? So you know whether to respect or hate me? Please. I’m am an artist. I’m an intellectual. I am tax payer and a citizen. I am NOT a talking head, a pundit, any kind of leader, or, unless I let myself get lazy, a hypocrite.

Our government is corrupt, because all governments are corrupt, because that’s the nature of willful leadership. No one who wants power deserves it. Call me a cynic. Call me complacent. But I go with the will of the people. If, free of the corrupting influences of big business, the will of the people chooses to outlaw cargo shorts, I’ll start wearing chinos, okay?

But its up to us to tell them what are will IS. Its up to us to shout as loud as possible over the deafening roar of that corruption.

And, frankly, spending all our time shouting at the people who disagree with us gets nothing done.

Keeps the roads in good repair. And listen to us when we’re talking to you.

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Don’t Tell, Don’t Ask

Postaday for June 1st: Truth or Dare. Is it possible to be too honest, or is honesty always the best policy?

I have no patience for people who are proud of the fact that they “tell it like it is.” You know, letting her know that the dress does make her butt look huge. Or, being honest, telling his buddy that his band sucks. But that’s not really “honesty,” is it? It’s opinion, and why does it need to be said at all? And if one really does want to hide behind “I’m just being honest!” then why doesn’t one truly be honest and “tell” everything: “Hey Larry, your band sucks, and I was raised with no formal musical training, the bands I respect are hated by the vast majority of decent people, and my opinions on most things are born from withering self-hatred and a seriously abysmal IQ.”

If you wife asks you, “does this dress make my butt look big?” she’s not asking for you to be honest about the size of her back side. She wants to know if she’s going to catch sight of herself, during a vulnerable moment, reflected in a window or nearby mirror. She wants to know if she can carry herself with confidence in an environment built to tear her down just for trying to look nice. You want “just to be honest”? Then answer the real question. Tell her you can’t really decide unless you see her without the dress on first, and you’ll have to take your own pants off in the meantime, just to be fair.

Opinion aside, in my opinion, truth is relative, if only in terms of language and context. There’s philosophical truth (’beauty,’ according to Keats) and maybe even universal truth (Newtonian, Einsteinian, or otherwise) but for everything else, it’s all relative. What’s that mean? It means sometimes it’s ‘dishonest’ to ask a question in the first place, and so any answer is appropriate, whether it’s the truth or not.

Someone asks you if did drugs when you were a kid. Who’s asking? Why is it his business to ask? Is he asking for rhetorical purposes, to make a point about your lack of judgment and class? Screw that guy. Say, “No.” Don’t even bother saying, “none of your beeswax, Bert.” People will take your “honesty” and re-contextualize it to make you look dishonest.

“Hey, I asked Dale if he did drugs as a kid. He told me he did! Can you believe we’ve got a junkie working here!” And now, because you smoked one joint at a party when you were 19, you’re the company drug fiend.

No thanks. Everyone has a right to privacy, and I do not cotton to the idea that “you wouldn’t complain if you had nothing to hide.” That’s BS. Because everyone has something to hide, so why should someone else get to create the context where my secrets are on display but his aren’t?

“I don’t have anything to hide.” Bert says. It has been my experience, every single time, that the person who says that has the most to hide— and is incredibly adept at changing contexts.

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Only 271 Degrees Left to Ignition

Postaday for May 31st: 180 Degrees. Tell us about a time you did a 180 — changed your views on something, reversed a decision, or acted in a way you ordinarily don’t.

Dale here. Nice try though. Getting Jason (that’s Bukkhead, ya twerps) to write up a whole post about online privacy yesterday, and then next day ask him about changing his views. He’s screwed either way, right? Either he used to be a neo-nazi and now he volunteers at the puppy orphanage, or, when he was a kid he gave money to the church but now he’s a god-less atheist hell-bent on the destruction of the American family.

Yeah, I don’t think so. That’s why I got this one. Look, Jason’s a nice kid, shoots his mouth off too much sometimes (who blogs three times a day? Jeebus) but his heart’s in the right place. Me, on the other hand, I got no heart. So I’ll take over here. Besides, as I’m a total figment of his imagination, this will be a good character-building exercise.

So let’s see, let’s see, total 180… I’ve mentioned before about how when my wife goes to visit her sister, I might attend a gentleman’s club or two. Strictly legit, strictly legal, sit on my hands, emphasis on the gentleman. Okay fine, so Loretta never hears about it. That’s not lying so much as, what would Jason say, “contextualizing the facts to create truth.” He’s a brainy little fart, ain’t he?

And just so’s we’re clear, a reminder: it’s not like Loretta goes to her sisters all that often, so it’s not like The Dancing Bare’s got a chair with my name on it. And I don’t even go everytime. Sometimes I do the cheetos and baseball on TV thing. Ya know, now that I think about, come Sunday morning, I’m either covered in orange dust, or glitter. Either way, that long hot shower is like a new baptism isn’t it?

But Digress ain’t just what you get when a Donkey and Tiger make love. Where was I. Oh yeah. Back, I don’t five years ago, six maybe, Loretta’s sister’s lumbago’s acting up. What the heck even is lumbago. Maybe I made that word up. Anyway, she’s out of town, and the boys of summer are still wintering in Arizona, so what am I gonna do? Watch hockey? I step over the The Bare. Kendo, guy behind the bar, make a martini that’d give James Bond a reason to finally quit espionage. I head over.

Carla’s on the stage, doing that thing she does with the feather’s and the straps on her heels. Up on the pole and dropping down, some kinda Icarus thing, I don’t know, I wasn’t all that sober for most of college (until I met Loretta; another story). I get my martian and grabbed a chair a little ways back from the stage. Carla will come by for her tip, she knows I’m good for it.

Three, four girls later, about that many martians, the music changes to something from one of those country’s where it’s dark half the year so all the do is play guitar and commit suicide. Growly and mean and, well, let’s face it, dirty. Here we go. Some tattooed gal in a white bikini and Betty Page bangs. Not my cup of tea.

Except, you know. After a few minutes, I’m thinking, tea’s not so bad. The British drink tea. They conquered half the globe, didn’t they? Maybe I should give tea a chance. The way that Betty moved up there. It was sexual, there’s no lying. But it was something else, too. Powerful. Like she owned it. Like it belonged to her. Like dancing for sad old middle-aged dudes like me was something noble. I was turned on, of course, but I was also, like, inspired. I sat up straight in my chair. I found my self not checking out her gams so much as her eyes. That sleepy gaze that seemed to say angels come in gossamer and they also wield swords. I got both. Gimme twenty bucks.

And I did too. And ever since then, I see some snot-nose on the sidewalk with his tattoos and his piercings, I think, well, maybe he ain’t such a ne’er-do-well afterall. Maybe folks scarring their skin with ink is their own business, and sometimes business is about owning yourself.

So, does that count? Is that a proper 180 on the subject of kids these days and their so-called body art? Don’t worry, don’t worry, I still think their music is crap and the few who do vote are putting pigeons before people, so I ain’t changed all that much. Most of ‘em got no respect, and the feeling’s mutual, I can assure you.

Maybe she was an angel, that Betty, afterall— I never saw her there again. I ain’t saying I’m much of a God guy, but, you know, they do say he works in mysterious ways. And why not send a messenger to the Dancing Bare to get old Dale to ease up in the judgmental attitude. I gave up on the big picture a long time ago, so all’s left is small stuff.

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Open (Face) Book

Postaday for May 30th: Do Not Disturb. How do you manage your online privacy? Are there certain things you won’t post in certain places? Information you’ll never share online? Or do you assume information about you is accessible anyway?

My general rule of thumb is: don’t put it online unless you want your mom to see it. Note that I didn’t say “unless you’re okay with the possibility your mom might see it.” The distinction may be subtle, but it’s a necessary one, because sometimes things end up on Facebook by accident. And yes, your mom is on Facebook.

This is not Facebook’s fault, by the way. A person who very much cares about his online privacy has tools and options available to make sure only certain people see certain things. But these are people we’re talking about. It’s a simple as hitting “print screen” alt-tab, and ctrl-V. Voila, that secret thing is now on Facebook, tagged with your name, and your mom is looking at it.

Some folks trust their own skills and the people they interact with. I don’t. I’m not paranoid— I’m fairly certain no one is interested in cyber-following me until I slip up, post a picture of my bare ass, and then use it to make my mom uncomfortable. The truth is, if someone wanted to do that, they could just as easily do something nifty with free, on-line photo editing tools and make me look foolish. But there you go, that’s my defense. “Mom, you know my profile is public and I don’t post anything, even privately. That thing Dale sent you? What do YOU think?”

I do NOT trust my own skills when it comes to keeping things private. I slip up all the time. I get lazy, forget to opt-in or opt-out as appropriate, and the next thing I know, Facebook is flooded with my latest uploads to 500px. I then have to go in and delete those. Not because pictures of flowers and sunsets are embarrassing, but because spamming friend’s in-boxes with pictures IS embarrassing.

And let’s be clear, when I say “Facebook,” I don’t mean just Mr. Zuckerberg’s little website. That’s just the best synecdoche for social media as a whole. (Or is it metonymy? I always get those confused.) I don’t tweet things that would get me fired, I don’t share provocative content on Tumblr, I don’t write abusive things on YouTube comments.

Not that I have anything to say on those platforms that would be contentious in the first place. But one man’s provocative is another man’s seditious, and who’s to say what could be used against me in the future. No, I play it mucho safe. And I wish everyone else did too. I wish everyone would only post things that they would want their mothers to see. Not because I want to censor anybody, far from it. When I post political rants about the hypocrisy of some of our nation’s leadership, that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

I’m talking about those trolls, evil little kids bent on making the internet a toxic place. I guess I don’t have much respect for anonymity, is what I’m saying. I appreciate that there are some people, around the world, who would put themselves in real physical danger if they signed their screeds with their real names. But those people aren’t saying anything their mothers would be ashamed of.

For the rest of you, I say: if you’re not willing to put your name under it, don’t post it.

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I Empathize with Your Sense of Entitlement

Postaday for May 29th: Childhood Revisited. Sure, you turned out pretty good, but is there anything you wish had been different about your childhood? If you have kids, is there anything you wish were different for them?

I just read an article about how people who are affluent are selfish. No, really! People who are successful have a greater sense of entitlement, and are therefore less charitable. Buncha rich misers!

Obviously this is on average, and not true for any one individual. There are people who are wealthy and give, as are there are people who are poor and stingier than necessary. Nevertheless, it occurs to me that maybe if I wasn’t raised in a middle-class home, maybe I’d be more empathetic.

Which sounds ridiculous. Am I really trying to say I wish my parents had struggled pay check to pay check and that I’d be better off if eating meat once a week was a luxury? We ate meat 7 days a week! Sometimes that’s all we ate! Those carnivorous Edwardses, people would say. They’ve sharpened their teeth to tear through steaks and chops. They chase gazelles through the bush and leap at them with their mighty claws. Oh how they rend the flesh! A bunch of middle-class entitled felines, those Edwardses!

Someday I hope to have a child. Shall I raise him poor, just so he’s more giving, later in life? But what would that entail? My dad tells me his own childhood was laced with poverty (and he’s very generous!) Shall I do unto my son what my grandfather did unto my dad? Hand him a pair of bluejeans and tell him not to sweat in them too much when he worked the fields because they were his school pants, too?

Actually I don’t think my dad ever worked any fields. Also, I think he had more than one pair of pants. One thing my dad did hate about being poor was when people tried to give his family charity. Now ain’t that a hoot. People are more likely to give if they’re poor, but the people they give to (the other poor) don’t like it!

Maybe were all entitled, rich and poor alike. The rich are entitled, and don’t give because they “worked damned hard for this money, why give it away to lazy schmucks!” And the poor are entitled, and give to the poor so they “know who’s really poor, and it ain’t me.”

So, no, after all this very sober reflection, I can’t say as to how I would change my childhood’s economic state. I was kidding about being lions in the Serengeti, by the way. We also ate a lot of potatoes. Lions don’t eat potatoes.

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This is Also France (Photo of the Day)

Also France

My contribution to the Postaday Photo Challenge: On The Way.

We landed at the Lyon–Saint-Exupéry Airport at dusk and took a train into the city proper. I was very excited to start using my new camera, and so started taking pictures right away. I would never have though to share such an otherwise non-vacation-looking photo if not for the prompt. It took all of my (meager) Lightroom and Photoshops skills to make it look somewhat presentable.

We loved what our eyes experienced when were in Lyon and Paris, but France is just a place like any other, really: people, industry, infrastructure. Makes it seem so much less exotic, but that can be comforting in a way, if we remember that all of us, everywhere, are pretty much just the same.