Category Archives: gonzo life

got soap?

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Watch your mouth, California, or the State is going to wash it for you.

ralphie_soap

The nation’s most populous state is asking its 38 million residents to stop using four-letter words for an entire week beginning Monday.

Assembly Approves Cuss Free Week – The Fresno Bee

Now, I thought I really ought to share this with you for 2 reasons:

I say fine, let’s do it. But if we’re going to do it, I insist we have Talk Like A Deadwood Character, just to be fair. I think the week of March 15 would be good. First week of Daylight Savings, St. Patrick’s Day, green beer. Perfect.

Second, this is the fist time in the long and storied life of Metaphor that I’ve had the chance to quote The Fresno Bee.

So, this is going to be really nice. Next week, while cities up and down the state are laying off cops, we can all speak politely about it. 

It’s a nice gesture, at the grassroots level, and I kinda have to respect it. But it’s ironic to note, as does The Bee, that it “comes four months after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sparked headlines with an acrostic veto message that began with the letter "F" and ended with "You."

whatever happened to juan valdez?

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I’m not a coffee snob, but I like a good, strong cup. Folgers from Sam’s Club is fine, as long as it’s ready to suit up and get in the game. I can grind beans and do that whole thing too. I’m not completely obsessed like some people. … I just recognize there are differences in quality, even if it doesn’t have to change my day.


When Starbucks came out with their new instant micro-brewed Via brand recently, I did a double eye roll. Isn’t the whole point to get the folks to let you heat the tap water, so you can charge them for that along with the beans? Still, when I received a Starbucks gift card for Christmas I thought I’d give Via a try.

I bought a box about 2 weeks ago and I like it. It has a nice, potent flavor for an instant coffee, And I didn’t mind the price. I was charged $2.95 for a box of 12 servings. Even at home, 25 cents isn’t bad for a decent cuppa joe. I wouldn’t buy it all the time, but now and then. So I stopped in today for another box.

$9.95, the kid said. I really thought he was wrong. It’s 2.95, I tried to tell him. The conversation that followed went something like this.

Bottom line, Via goes for $9.95 for a box of 12 cups. The barista made a mistake the first time. I went ahead and bought it, for the 2nd and last time, because I had the gift card and I was standing at the register, and the alternative would have been embarrassing. 83 cents a cup – at home – is not so good. Not when you can get a big can of Coffee – enough for 300 cups – at Sam’s Club for about 8 bucks.

And this was one of those posts that was a pretty good idea, right up until I started writing it. A little slice of life, self-deprecating humor thing. …Maybe it sat in the pot too long.

that’s showbiz

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Woody Allen said, “Show business is dog-eat-dog. It’s worse than dog-eat-dog, it’s dog-doesn’t-return-other-dog’s-phone-calls.”

I say Facebook is worse than dog-eat-dog, it’s dog-doesn’t-comment-on-other-dog’s-posts.

Update: 7 is still cool

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I’m still liking my upgrade to Windows 7. It’s not vastly different than Vista, just much less annoying, so far. And it runs like a Swiss car. Everything’s quicker than snot.

Sorry.

Just one thing is missing. I was really hoping it would come with ThinkCheck. I envision it as similar to spellcheck, except that it checks your thinking as you work. My thinking frequently needs checking, is my point.

Can’t believe Microsoft hasn’t got that running yet. But they’re probably hung up on trying to build code for moral relativism. Maybe they’re waiting to see what Google does with China.

And The Chink says Ha ha ho ho and hee hee.

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings — always darker, emptier, and simpler.
 – Nietzsche

do not print that!

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Seems they’ve located 22,000,000 e-mails lost by George W. Bush. Well, not by him personally but by his administration. I’m glad. I’m sure that someone got a slap on the back and maybe an extra long lunch hour for finding them. But here’s the neat part: that’s from 94 days of his juntacracy.

Holy hard drives, Batman. That’s over 234,000 e-mails a day. How are they getting any work done, if they’re playing with MS Outlook that much? … Yep, that’s a rhetorical question.

How do you like the title of my post?

Think they will? Print it all out, I mean. Bet they do.

a moment

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I just want to take a moment and solemnly fail to remember the idea for a poem which surfaced and drifted away yesterday, while I was exercising at the gym. I went in there with a bottle of water and my iPod, so when the idea appeared I had no way to record it. Whatever it was, and I think it was something nice, it’s gone. What a drag.

Here’s a flower.

What I’ve Lost

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I was in a store last night; a big, fluorescently-overlighted, linoleum-floored, American Capitalist monstrosity. They sell food there, though in such a place I can rarely imagine myself being actually fed. The food they sell is dead, don’t you think?

Anyway, I always endeavor to persevere to get what I need fast and get the hell out. To linger or tarry is to endure an assault on the senses. Walking in at night is like stepping into the path of a landing jet: light pollution, tense hurried humans, small squealing humans, cage-like battering rams piled with petroleum-packaged eating disorder, large glass cabinetry exhaling cold air, and muzak falling on it all like fetid rain.

It was the latter which struck me as more than usually harsh and cruel last night. From the tinny overhead speakers was falling Touch of Gray by The Grateful Dead. Not Muscrat Love or Copacabana, but a song by my all time favorite band. The audacity! When the hell did the Dead devolve to elevator music? And when did I?

On my way out of the store, I saw a person standing with his back to me, wearing a shirt that said this in large block letters:

HELLO CAN I HELP YOU FIND SOMETHING?

“Yes! Excuse me, but I need help finding something,” said I. “I have lost my youthful idealism. And my faith in the fundamentally implied covenant of due process, good faith and fair dealing inferred by all of us trying to survive in the western world. … And my Art has been canned for the masses, so I guess I’ve generally lost my edge.  Can you help me find those things?”

“I don’t work here,” came the reply. “I’m on my way home from another store.”

Figures.

the venturi effect

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I have noticed something which may well be proof of the paranormal right here in the hermitage.

On windy days, the water level in my toilet goes down.

Really. This is not a joke and I’m not making it up. The level in the bowl today is distinctly lower than normal. It’s always and only the case when the wind is up. If you’re expecting a photo or video as documentation, you’ll be disappointed. Some matters simply range beyond the imperatives of the empirical. I feel no mandate to offer proof. You may believe or not as you wish.

I have no personal explanation for this; even an intellect as encyclopedic and erudite as mine lacks the reach of this phenomenon’s portent. 

Thankfully, we have at easy reach the vast and trivial tubes of the Internets. Truly, nothing is too bizarre that somebody online hasn’t pinched off a piece of it. Behold, the mystery is laid to rest on Yahoo Answers. 

The Venturi Effect – I do so love Wikipedia.

Strange but true. And you learned about it here on Metaphor.

poor little moron

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We are reformers in spring and summer; in autumn and winter we stand by the old — reformers in the morning, conservatives at night. Reform is affirmative, conservatism is negative; conservatism goes for comfort, reform for truth.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

He’s right, you know; at least, he has me down. I don’t usually discuss my politics on this blog, but they are a motley stew. For the most part, change that bears at its core a sense of compassion is a good thing, because things as they are kinda suck.

Which reminds me of something I saw on the freeway yesterday. There was a white van in the slow lane, going slow, and bearing on its back end, in large lettering, this:

Slow Driver
Please Be Kind

And I thought What an amazing idea. He’s not arguing for his right to go slower than the rest of us, or insisting that we’re all going too fast, or in some other way saying bite me. He’s just asking for kindness. It’s something that in our culture – no, we don’t actually have a culture – in our population, we don’t seem to value highly. Unless someone is kind in some very heartwarming way and it winds up on the news, we could scarcely care less.

In my life, I have adopted the phrase Gentle hands, kind words, which I thought was a quote of Albert Schweitzer, though it does not Google well. So I don’t know. But it has become a mantra for me, which I apply to my relationships with small animals. You are not a small animal, so if you cut me off in traffic then Heaven defend your ass.

I’m kidding. I have a phrase for you, if you stumble upon the thoroughfare and cause us all some calamity:

Poor little moron.

It’s the same thing I say of myself when I mess things up. Like the time, not long ago, when I was trying to make myself a blueberry smoothie with my blender. I put in the ice and water, the low-calorie mix, the blueberries, and hit ON. But had a forgotten the lid. Kablooie! All over the kitchen. Poor little moron.

It has a ring of pity or sympathy, right?  I think it’s something my grandpa used to say. And it reminds me of the Nasrudin jokes I’ve heard from Coleman Barks. That’s the best I can do. But sometime in the future, we should ponder this one from old Doc Schweitzer:

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

no events scheduled today

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I’ve noticed that a lot of bloggers like to share timely or funny, or otherwise somehow hopefully interesting e-mails that they receive. I can do that. Here’s one I received early this morning, while I was still asleep.

From Google Calendar
To Kyle Kimberlin
date Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 4:44 AM
subject You have no events scheduled today.
mailed-by calendar-server.bounces.google.com
signed-by google.com

See, every day I get an e-mail from Google Calendar, with my day’s disasters … I mean events. And that’s it, the whole e-mail. It’s rather impersonal, but wonderful, I think. There’s nothing in the body of it today, because – and this is rare – it’s a weekday and I have no events scheduled today. So today I have the luxury of going all Zen on you, as follows:
Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead.
Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. 
Do not walk beside me, either. 
Just pretty much leave me alone.
Got that in an e-mail this morning, too, from my cousin. 

stories

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“You’re a different person when you’re at work, at home, out with your friends. Over the course of your life, your sense of self and where you belong in the world changes. In my case, it was fairly radical. I started out in a fairly poor working-class home, my dad was a construction worker. Now I’m living in a nice suburban community, and I’m a college professor. Identity is a creation that we’re all engaged in. We’re all novelists, putting together the stories of our own lives.”

— Dan Chaon, on His New Novel ‘Await Your Reply’ – WSJ.com.

Well. Can I get a plot twist over here? I can’t even seem to buy a vowel. My story is just plotting along like it’s being written by Franz Kafka, on a bad night of booze and barbiturates, with Charles Dickens and Hunter S. Thompson. Can I get Franz to pass the project off to Garrison Keillor?

I’m joking. He says we write our own stories, doesn’t he? Hmm. Turns out I might need another writing class after all.