There might be something wrong with this office chair. I think it steals thoughts. Or I think so when I’m in a different chair. In this one select thoughts fly south to … shit on tourists. Snowbirds. Shitting, migrating snowbirds.
I was talking over the fence to the neighbor, well, the neighbors dad. I have spoken often with his wife and daughter and now even the daughter who has only been speaking for about six months. It’s ok, dude is in his last few months of internship at a local hospital, I’m surprised I’ve seen him at all.
The father is from the Bronx. I don’t mean he raised there; he lives there, it’s just in the last year or so he’s spent a whole lot of time here. I don’t know why, I’m sure he’ll tell me if I ask. He likes to talk. Um, I try dodging him. He likes to talk a lot.
Before sitting in this chair I had a flash or maybe a short story or perhaps a novel (though as a novel it would have been missing the last three hundred pages or so, no big deal, I mean you just make the shit up). It was a dialogue that starts off with a neighbor complaining about the other neighbors dog shitting on the lawn, the other neighbor talks about Islamic extremists which winds back to the point; in this country no matter how much we profess the goodness of the afterlife or idealism, nobody wants to die and dogs shit on lawns. The dialogue was snappy in my head. Then I sat down.
It’s possible that is why Hemmingway typed standing up, of course he wouldn’t havew written that story. 1) Neither he nor America was involved with that particular type of Islamic extremist and 2) he wanted to die. I am not comparing myself to Hemmingway. On bad days he was a much better writer than I, on good days he was not, on both days he was published and famous. He also had at least two beautiful daughters, I only have at least one that I’m aware of. I have my opinions too, I don’t really like any of his novels, I really liked his short stories. I probably would have never read his novels left to my own devices. As much as I believe most of ones real education is ones own devices, it’s difficult in this country to get an education, public or otherwise, without reading American authors and there is not such a surplus where one can avoid Hemmingway.
I think the real renaissance in American art and literature began in the late fifties. Just an opinion. I think William Burroughs is more interesting and risked more than Hemmingway and I think Burroughs was not the best of his peers. The most famous of his peers, Jack Kerouac, in my opinion, was less of a writer than Hemmingway, and whereas he was probably riskier it was the same the risk he took, over and over. It’s sort of like listening to counting crows, in my opinion a very likable band, they wrote the same song over and over. It was a good song. I can explain in technical terms why it was a good song. I can’t for On the Road, the most readable and famous of Kerouac’s novels. I can explain why I don’t like it. Like Irvings A prayer for Owen Meany, the narrator doesn’t really do a fucking thing and ultimately isn’t changed in a discernable way. I’m all for bucking convention, but that’s not the convention to buck, that’s not a question of form it’s what makes a story a story. It’s even worse when it’s basically non fiction. People are supposed to change.
If life didn’t change you than you might as well shit on the neighbors lawn and collect your seventeen virgins. I guess if you series of events are spectacular your character didn’t have to change. The early Bond movies counted on that. Um, I never read any of the novels. I don’t really read that sort of thing. If shit is going to blow up I want to see it blow up. In a novel the blowing up of shit has to have meaning, which isn’t a critique of the bond books because I haven’t read them, but I assume they are like the movies only wordier, oh, and bond probably didn’t have a Scottish accent. Heh, in the highlander movies they had the Austrian play a scot and the scot play a Spaniard; neither of them even attempted to alter their accent. That was probably wise but does not account for altering the script. The highlander could have been The Austrian and the Spaniard sidekick could have been a scot. I think if there is a book that it’s probably a funny read.
The other thought that went away when I sat down had something to do with posting more Austin Lounge Lizards. That’s one of the downsides to youtube. You either have to have a whole lot of time on your hands or know what you are looking for. The search engine doesn’t respond to “Funny Shit that I’ll like” or even “Good tunes, mostly rock but no butt rock or hair bands unless it’s good butt rock and hair bands. Oh and easy on the shoe gazing”.
Oh, and I went for a short autumnal drive through town today and through neighborhoods I haven’t cruised through in a while. Most of the young women, college students, were wearing leggings of one kind or the other (skin tight stretchy pants for dance and such) by one kind or the other I mean from capri style to ankle length but leggings all the same. This being a college town maybe only a quarter of them should never wear leggings. I forget the cult classic that had this line “Spandex; it’s not a right, it’s a privilege” but I remember the line. That look is either back in or it just made it out to east lansing. I’m not being snarky, trends take a while to make it here. Ok, hyperbole leaning towards snarky, trends usually make it here in under a decade.
If it were a fashion trend for men another quote would come to mind, one I think was said by my brother or by me in regards to my brother “Wow, you can tell his religion in those”. He went through a speedo phase for about three minutes, I was unfortunate enough to be there for two of those minutes.
I might be in trouble with the GF, I don’t know. My connection to her is very intense almost a physical empathy but it does not change the first basic law of human thermal dynamics; Dames is screwy. Or the second law; That haredawg, there’s something not quite right with him.
I had some thought about the show Madame Secretary and Hilary running for office but I forgot. Something like three shows into the first season (last year) were all sorts of references to Benghazi. The protagonist is the hero of the show. The second season just started. Hard to imagine it’s all coincidence. I have no idea if it’s a popular show or not or, if it is, why it’s popular. Every conservative I know bitches about NPR broadcasts line for line to me. I don’t listen to that, NPR I mean. Every liberal I know used to bitch about Rush Limbaugh line for line. I never listened to him. There’s too many ultra right talk shows and broadcasts now’a’days to pretend I might have caught any of them. My point being that a certain type of educated person is more interested in what the opposition is saying than being the choir what’s being preached to. I can’t really watch FOX or MSNBC newscasts for more than a few minutes without throwing things at the TV.
Kids, you might not believe this, but in the bad old days news reporters used to pretend to be objective and there was no segment for Op Ed. Yes, Walter Cronkite was sad when JFK was shot, but he didn’t say he was shot by some godless queer of an abortion gone wrong. I know, hyperbole leaning towards snarky, but my point is similar things are said by both networks; unsourced unsubstantiated opinion and conjecture. Even the weather is biased. They didn’t used to say; A pleasant day. Just the temperature. That is neither hyperbole nor snarky, well, there’s implied snark but not on my part. People in Florida rave about how nice the weather is. It’s not. Ever. In my opinion which, at times, is humble. This is not one of those times. In this my opinion wears a speedo and thrusts it’s padded pelvis leeward. Hmmm, maybe to stern.
Ok, so that’s my cornucopia of lack of thoughts stolen from my chair which, more than any piece of furniture on the planet, should know what garment does or does not cover my supple ass.
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