10/06/2009
Dat ol Tar baby got dat Brer Rabbit all bollixed up, sho-nuff
Gene, The Time traveller has something important to tell you.
Yes, oh mighty Time Traveller?
Do not worry about not being around to see it, it has begun.
Oh, no!
Oh, yes! In a short time Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glen Beck will recant their treasonous, immoral behaviour. Money and powerful friends will fail them. The creator is looking into their soul and they are on the brink. They will writhe in their beds. They shall seek solace but none will come. The devil has come to claim them as per their agreement. They will wail and gouge their eyes on national Television. They will beg forgiveness.
Really?
Really!
And I'm going to see it happen?
Yes.
Cool beans! Thanks, Time Traveller you've made me very happy.
No problemo.
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
My, oh my, what a wonderful day
Plenty of sunshine headin' my way
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
My, oh my, what a wonderful day
Plenty of sunshine headin' my way
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
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10/04/2009
A long slough through a long blog
Fuses blow, car in tow and I don't know, or, A crap a nap, and a slap,
Today was a funny, twisted, fucked up day. It was the kind of day that, somehow, everyone seemed to know that I went off my Zoloft and they had decided to test me. It started this morning or rather it didn't start this morning, my daughter's car that is, the one that's hers in name only. She took another vehicle and left me with the problem.
I called AAA before 9:00 AM and they dispatched a tow truck. All I had to do was to figure out who I wanted to make the next donation to, call them and tell them to get ready, the car is on it's way. I opted for the same place that I had recently forked over $2000.00 to, no more than 2-3 weeks ago. Silly me thinking I'd get the A+ treatment simply because I was a fabulous customer. They weren't open yet. A slight panicky feeling was rapidly approaching. My second choice wasn't open yet. Be patient, be patient I told myself, it's almost 9:00 and everything opens at 9:OO.
They did and I was set, they said no problem, that they weren't very busy today. I laughed in the face of almost being made to look like an ass. I laughed into its ass. Its ass was in my face and I was laughing. The tow truck driver came, he hitched up his truck and I told him I'd meet him at the car dealer's service department.
I did, the mileage didn't go over the free allotted mileage so there wasn't any charge at all. I talked to the service desk (man/kid) and drove home, almost. I decided to stop at one of my favorite second hand stores on the way home, The Salvation Army, laugh if you must but my mother was a sales lady for the salvation army for over 20 years. I was born to shop there. I remember, as a small child, Christ-like and everything, going to Christmas dinners there. The men that worked there also lived there, they were on a Salvation Army inspired prolonged self improvements plan and I even grew to know and like a few of them. But that's another story for another blog. or maybe several stories, I'll get back to you.
The first thing I had to do when I arrived at The Salvation Army was to seek some salvation myself and go to the bathroom. At the precise moment I grabbed the men's room key, another fellow was biding his sweetheart farewell. I instinctively knew he was also headed to the men's room. I was walking so close to him we could have been holding hands but truthfully, he wasn't my type. He seemed to be the kind that a lot of men around here have allowed themselves to become, tough guys, men so macho that they sweat testosterone. He was probably headed to the men's room to rid himself of the overflow. We arrived at the door together. I opened the door, holding it ajar, I ask if he wanted to go first, although, what I had to do in there was gaining uregency. He looked dumbfounded and dumb at the same time. He mumbled something about two stalls. I said, "No, there was a commode and that was it."
Then, I did the unforgivable, I said, "I have to shit, if you just have to piss you can go first." He looked at me with pity in his eyes, the contemptible kind, the kind that makes you kill the crippled creature rather than taking it to the Vet's. His disgust with me was immeasurable, he turned and walked away. I stood on the threshold of The Salvation Army men's room, watching him in his superiority and splendor walk away. I yelled, "I was trying to be courteous to you ASSHOLE!" When I was finished I was glad and slightly proud that he and his toothless girlfriend had left the store. I was relieved that I could roam the aisles once again oblivious to a piano wire attack from behind. I bought an interesting toy for my grandson and drove home.
Once home I returned to my current project lying in wait for me in my basement. I had to figure out why the power supply for my rechargeable drill crapped out. Before I could trouble shoot the circuit I had to fix my meter. I replaced the meter's fuse and proceeded. A fuse had also blown in the charger. Hmmm, must be blow a fuse day in heaven. I'll pick up fuses later when I go out.
Nancy, my wife had taken our grandson Tre out and Gina had taken my van to work. I was feeling mean and sick I decided to sleep it off after doing the minimum amount of house work that I could get away with. My foot is still sore, swollen and inflamed. I wanted to call someone and ask what's with all this shit that been happening to me. I ran to my second refuge instead, second only to the sacred napping places: the couch and the leather chair that I love so much, the Internet.
>
I had some ebay business pending and wrote emails reassuring the customers that their orders were shipped the previous day. I'm not knocking them dead on ebay yet but a few bucks here and a few bucks there and everywhere a buck buck. I checked the tuba section. The frenzy to purchase used ebay tubas hadn't started yet, there was still a day or two to go. I searched for one of Duane's (my son) classmates on google, he went into his father's business and plays the tuba for the River City Brass Band here in Pittsburgh, I called and left a message. Finally the nap.
I was awakened by the phone, it was the car dealer, they couldn't get in the car. Huh? The key didn't work, the door key. I said ok, toke note of the time and called my wife to ask if she knew where the spare set was. She called Gina and then called me back, it was around 2:30 - 3:00. "Gina said,' Her door key is on the key ring I gave the dealer and it's been working fine.'" I called the dealer, no answer. I called and called and called. Finally I got through to "Nick," the guy I had been dealing with. I told him the bad news. He said, "No way." I said, "Way" It went on along those lines for a while and then he said he'd look and try the key again. Dead air. Gina came home and in the middle of the explanation to her, Nick came back on the phone. He said they slim jimmed the door and were in. He said something about looking at the lock and figuring why it didn't work. I said, "Don't worry about the lock! Fix the damn car so we can pick it up! You said it would be done today, you're only open until 5:00 and it almost 4:00 now!" He accused me of yelling at him.
The tow truck driver was the culprit that locked the door. Nick suggested I call triple A and yell at them. The bathroom guy was nothing, now I really did want to kill. He said, "I have the parts and I might be able to fix it before 5:00." I said, "If I knew you guys weren't going to even try to start before 3:00 I would never have taken it to you." I reminded him that I had, 2 or 3 weeks ago, just spent $2000.00 bucks there. He then dropped the bombshell that made everything fall into place. He said he was changing the ignition switch mechanism and lock assembly on the steering column. So when he told me he would look at the lock, he meant the ignition switch lock, not the door lock.
He said to leave soon and be here by 5:00 so he wouldn't have to wait around for me when it was his time to go home. My daughter and I left. He showed me a key machine and said there is a chip in the key. The machine should be able to read the key and give him the code for the blank, one of 15 different blanks so he can cut the key, BUT, our key was damaged and the machine couldn't read the code and therefor couldn't tell him what blank to cut. He could do it manually program each one into the machine and see if it was the right one but each key takes 4 minutes for the computer to spit out the information. So that's an hour just tryint to find the blank, then I remembered. Yesterday Gina gave me her key and said look at this, it was bent. It was bend badly, almost 45 degrees bent, I put it in my vise and force it into trueness and also destroyed the chip.
"Are you sure the steering column components are bad," I ask. He was certain, although I didn't think they were, he was the expert, probably at ballooning the bill, but I had all the fight ground out of me by then. "OK." I said, "Monday?" "Yes, Monday," he said. I told him I had felt offended that he accused me of yelling at him, I said, "If you thought that was yelling at you then you've never been properly yelled at." He conceded that he was a little harsh himself but HE didn't like my use of the word kid when describing what I thought he was. "I've got a college education." Then he said he'd try to knock as much off the bill as he could. I thanked him and like two generations of dipshits frustrated at one another we reconciled and bid one another ado.
We came home and ate, Later that evening, Nancy and I went out, refreshed our vows and bought fuses at Radio Shack. I told her I always wanted to open a combination motel / electronics store and call it Radio Shack Up. Maybe someday, I will. Gene
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10/02/2009
Killing two blog entries with one automatic weapon
Pre-Halloween, autumn, tuba blog and we have nothing to fear except fear itself but let's act like a buch scared, out of their mind Lemmings anyway,
I have the unmistakable smell of Ginko Balls on my shoes. It's unmistakable only if you don't have dogs that shit in your yard. Ginko smell = dogshit. I once wrote about our Ginko tree in a poem.
Ode to a Ginko
When Ginkoo balls fall
and that fragrance fills the air
Aromatic Autumn
You smell like old underware
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I just returned from the secondhand store where, wonder upon wonders, they have a beautiful Yamaha Tuba with case. As soon as I sat down I googled it. They have quite a few listed on ebay the most expensive is almost $2500.00 and it isn't as pristine as the one on the shelf above the worn out shoes.
If I remember correctly I bought an accordion on the same premise; that it was worth a whole lot more that I could buy it for. With the accordion I was wrong, I'd have been lucky just to make my money back, let alone turn a profit. So now there's an accordion tucked away in the bowels of my comfy overstuffed basement. I hope some day some offspring's offspring finds it and thinks I knew how to play it.
I did buy a Pharaoh's head gear though, quite becoming on me I think. They also had a Jonny Depp pirate hat that was also quite lovely. It seemed to be woollen or thick felt (is there a difference?) and who wouldn't want that? I may have hit the Halloween mother load, so many colorful head pieces ... Too bad I have only one head.
So I danced and sang King Tut by Steve Martin for a while and then started to feel puny again. This infection in my foot has me in a dithering malaise.
For the ones that read yesterday's, Make a wish Foundation blog and just didn't think it was funny, like my wife who thought it was alarming. I had just watched a Bruce Willis, Die hard, Kill Harder and eat you victims flesh movie and I felt a little jealous that he can shoot down at least 4 helicopters per movie and I have yet to bring down a single one.
So, as Hamlet said, Tu-ba or not Tu-ba, that is the question. Omp Pa Pa, Omp Pa Pa Omp Pa pa.
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Because, you, dear reader, deserve only the best, and I wish I could give it to you, I thought I'd include a partial blog entry that I was meandering with. I once again attempted to meld scientific principles metaphorically with our current state of affairs. The funny part is, everyone knows what's wrong we just can't sit down and decide how to fix it. So my metaphor involved smacking something, I'm not sure what, with a metaphorical hammer and rebuilding the whole kit and kaboodle. Or maybe I was just showing off ...
Theoretic magnetic regions are randomly distributed within an iron bar, each having their own north and south poles. Strike the iron bar with a sharp blow from a hammer and the theoretical magnetic regions align. You now have a multitude of norths and corresponding souths magnifying the strength of the magnetic field. The bar has become magnetically polarized. Cut the bar in half and you have two bar magnets, cuts those halves in half and you have four bar magnets, You never lose a pole. When one is present the other is present.You could bend the bar magnet so that the two poles touch and thereby cancel one another out. You could demagnetise the bar with a second sharp blow or you could heat it, Heating the bar magnet permits the magnetic regions to lose their allegiance to one another and go back to random distribution. No one is sure why any of this works the way but it does and current theories explain it rather well. However, a theory is never proof. A theory is an explanation for certain phenomena based on observation, tests, laws and facts. A theory is a weighty thing. It is not a crack pot idea as certain sects would have us believe.Numerous sharp blows have polarized factions across the country: the birthers, the death panelists, the preemptive war crowd, the gun slingers, the laissez-faire capitalists, the demagogues and the woefully ill informed Fox viewers.The blow; was it Watergate? Reagan? A Bush under every rock? Vietnam? Or was it that most damaging sharp blow in recent history, 9-11? Whatever it was, or is, these things are the primary factors in our zeitgeist.Some, simply need to shake the stupidity that holds them in place and almost everyone thinks that by resisting change, change will never come, They're wrong, the change is here and it reflects our efforts to deny it. Rather that a natural outflow of our justice and good will, the change is as twisted as it is convoluted, trying to jam itself into the space allotted for it.Strike the bar and allow the magnetic regions to become random again. They will eventually align themselves, but maybe, this time, rather that point to war and hate, a new way will appear. Or, are we too steeped in fear to even take the chance?
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10/01/2009
If it's not too much to ask ...
Dial tone, button punching sounds, and then:
Hello, Make a wish Foundation, how may I assist you?I have a candidate for you, to grant his wish.(Sotto voice, Doesn't everyone?)Hello?Yes I'm sorry you cut out for a second, you were saying something about a child and making an application to grant a wish?He's not a child.This is very irregular, who are we talking about?Me.And how old are you?Fifty eight.I'm sorry sir but the Make a wish Foundation is only for children.I'm a child at heart.Yes I'm sure, You have a nice day.Wait, wait, I'm going to die.Aren't we all?But I mean soon.How soon?Real soon, the doctor said I'll never make it to seventy.And you're fifty eight?Yes.You have twelve years to go, enjoy what you have. Now I really ...It's just a small wish. Probably won't cost as much assending a kid and his family to Disney world.Money isn't the issue.Can I talk to the supervisor?One moment.Hello, I have a child here that I believes qualifies for your Make a wish thingie. There must have been a misunderstanding with the first person I spoke to.Ok, let's start this way ... What is the child's wish?Oh, it's going to sound silly after all this hub bub.The wish please?I want ... .errrrr ... My son wants to shoot down a helicopter with an automatic weapon before he dies.Click ...
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