Young peoples

Probably the most annoying thing about young people is they think that before they found a show or music that was good, no one else saw it. The other day on Twitter (follow me @Enmelishment) someone tweets 'I just watched Fletch with Chevy Chase. It was good! You should see it.' Really? Fletch? Never heard of it. Now I understand on Twitter you don't know who your audience is but this happens in real life, too.
"Hey, did you know The A-team movie is based on a TV show?". "Paul Mcartney was in a band?". "Did you ever see Monty Python? It's this old comedy show from England.". "have you read Ender's Game?". "I was reading up on Ben Franklin/Copernicus/Michaelangelo /Akenaten /Atilla The Hun/Shakespeare/Picasso/ Bob Hope /Jesus /Marie Curie /King Henry VII/Vishnu/ Quetzocotal / Elvis... ever hear of them?"
Fucking shut up.

Memorial day weekend

This weekend is Memorial Day weekend. The weekend we remember all the men and women who served in the armed forces. We celebrate by grilling and killing foreigners. We don't kill them here. We kill them where they live. Otherwise it would ruin the grilling. Often we go to cabins on lakes. Around here it is kind of the real beginning or summer. And it is the start of white clothes wearing season. And snipe hunting season, and butt crack/muffin top/beer belly season. And dudes driving around shirtless which is just weird. And cold lake swimming season. And mosquito/West Nile virus season. And Deer tick/Lymes disease season. And sunburn season which is exceptionally bad because for eight months we hide our skin, getting it as pasty white as possible. It gets so white that the outer layer becomes translucent and will actually magnify the rays of the sun increasing the burn potential by a factor of four. People from the northern U.S. and Canada have actually start steaming on especially sunny days. Also outside baseball, camping, bon fire, badminton, block buster movie, pot growing, water balloon, grandma out of the attic and into the basement (cuz the attic gets too hot), allergy, sweaty, badger fighting, Renaissance festival, murder ball, sidewalk chalking, cop car burning, soccer rioting season. Let's get to it.

Hate being stressed

I really hate being stressed for no other reason than it makes me less creative. It's like a desert inside my head. A big big desert. A really big one. And dry. A big dry desert in my head. Really really dry. Super dry desert area in my head. Dry. Desert. Area. Head. Inside. Dry.

I think a change is coming

I think we are on the verge of a tipping point. The old religions are in decline and science is the new religion. Now all I have to say is 'did god make this smartphone?'i w get the answer 'god made the people who made the cell phone!' and I say ' why didn't god just make the cell phone? save a step. Why not make it a thousand years ago. Why is it humans need to adapt and create our future?' A quick poke to the chest usually ends the discussion. The new generation is waiting for the baby boomers to die. The new generation is more involved in technology and it will usurp the religious movement. It will hold out in the poor countries and where religion is used as a wedge between the rich and poor. But even these societies will fall. Soon will be the time me and my robot army will ascend to its rightful place as leaders of the new technological free world. Logic will be the law and my dominance will be rooted firmly in it. No one will be able to refute me. I will become part of the machine, the ghost in shell. I am preparing already. I have bought up all the remaining Speak and Spells, TI99s, Intelivisions and Simons in the word and have linked them to form a supercomputer of infinite power. It will spell the ruin of all y'all! Red blue green red yellow die die die! Thou will tremble from the stuttery voice and my mechanoidal form! Bwah ha ha ha ha!

Is mechanoidal a word?
It is now, human underling.

When aliens attack

There is a show on National Geographic channel called 'When Aliens Attack'. Not only is there wild speculation but it also includes dramatically enacted scenes that show situation room type scenarios. It is horrible. It is so bad I squirm while watching. The situation room enactments are shot on crappy video with mediocre computer graphics.
The problem really is our plan for defense. There is really only one outcome. We would be wiped out. Does there really need to be a two hour show on that? No. No there does not.

Here's a list

Here's a list of things you should carry in your car in case of emergency.
A map
a flashlight
candles
toilet paper
an epipen
bottle of liquor
a knife
a hammer
rope
tent stakes
cards
a tarp
duct tape
a gun and ammo
some comic books
change of clothes
a tv and DVD player
a badger
twelve pack of Shasta (grape)
beads
magnafying glass
matches
another badger
fifteen gallons of gasoline
two hundred gallons of clean water
Macgyver
PVC tube of various size
Elvis collectables
a side of beef
vegtable seeds
a lighter.
These few items may mean the difference between life and death.

heavy machinery.

So I am looking out my window at work a road crew fix a large section of road. A quick Google search turns up the results I'm looking for. Even a video. Nice. I work late and watch the road crew pack up and leave. The backhoe loader glistening in the setting sun. Waiting for her new captain to commandeer her. The sun dips below the horizon and I change into my casual clothes. I head down the stairs and across the street. I linger until there is a lull in traffic and jump the short chain link fence and crouch down in the grass on he other side. I pull out my wrist rocket and a ball bearing. One shot and the window on the door pops. The peoples of safety glass fall and bounce it's way to the ground. I slide down the little embankment and up to the side of the machine. I reach up through the broken window and open the door, climb up and get inside.
  The layout is exactly as it was in the video. Two joysticks, steering wheel, levers and gauges. I spin the seat around so the backhoe is at my back, scoop at the front. I kick the case off the steering column and expose all the wiring for the key and starter. I pull the green and the purple one and twist them together, yank the red and touch it to the twisted knot and she starts right up. I pull the lever to raise the levelers, flip on the lights, lift the scoop, throw it into gear, and go! It moves slowly and a bit to the right. I pull it out of gear. Release the emergency brake and put it back into gear an go!
  Maybe the exclamation point is a little much. By go, I mean 25 mph down the side of the freeway. I bounce along the side of the road and turn the radio on. Radar Love by Golden Earring. Hmm...does not quite fit the bill. I flip to the classical station and keep on rolling (bouncing) along. I take the first exit ramp and head down into a residential neighborhood. I keep riding along for about five miles and realize I have no idea where I'm going. What does one do in a backhoe loader when you have nothing to dig up or push. I come to a berm where they block a road into a neighbor hood so they don't get traffic cutting through. This give me an idea. There is a road that is blocked off that would cut a good five minutes off my drive if it were open. I head for it. I take out road barricades on the way. I get to the spot and I easily remove the barricade. This is awesome. No, it's actually kind of boring.
I look back down at the computer screen and the video of the front end loader in action. Not very exciting. In the right hand column there is a video of a tank. I click on it. Now that looks cool!

That last post and the rupture

That last post was pretty long. I think I have some sort of style developing with the fiction stuff.
I feel bad for all the people who thought the world was going to end and then it didn't. I talked to Jesus about it an he said he didn't know when it was going to happen. His dad won't tell him. I told him to tell his dad a little notice would be nice. I would tell him myself, and I know he understands what I'm saying, but he refuses to answer in anyhing but his own language that only he knows. If you try to talk to him he does the 'I can't understand what you are saying' motion with his hands. What a jerk.

So last night's fire was mostly an accident.

So I'm sitting at the bar last night and several cop cars pull up in front of the apartment complex across the street. The police get out of their cars and file into the front door. It looks like a standard domestic call where one of the parties has a warrant out. This happens a lot in the neighborhood I drink in. No one judges here. I see that only one officer is left outside guarding the four squads.
Now it is fair to say that by this time of the night I have drank more than I needed to and my judgment, while normally sketchy at best is reduced to a quivering, weeping child in the recess of my mind. I stand up and start walking toward the lone officer. In my mind I call him Rookie. He is gonna have a lot, and I mean a LOT of paperwork to do by the end of this evening. I make like I'm walking past him nonchalantly. As I get within a few feet I drop my keys and stagger a bit. He reaches out to steady me as I pretend to fall forward as I'm bending over to pick up the keys. I grab the keys with one hand and do a leap forward into him. He goes backward and down in a heap fast. I'm on him and have his gun and keys off his belt in less than a second. One quick stunning punch to the side of the neck and I have time to walk to the car, look over and give a smile, a wink, and a nod to the officer on the ground. pulling his radio to his mouth and I can hear the words "Officer down" roll coarsely out of his mouth as I shut the door.
I pull out onto the street and wait. The three other officers come running out of the building, one going to help the down officer and the other two come up to the car. Just as they reach me and are pulling out their guns, I put the gas pedal to the floor. They both stop cold in their tracks, and after moving the car ahead fifty feet as fast as it will go, I slam on the brakes. They are not moving and neither am I. They both start to move closer to the car, guns drawn and pointing at me. They get within twenty feet and I start the car rolling forward at the same pace they are walking. They both stop. I stop. I wait. I hear sirens coming. I punch it.
I am down the block and around the corner in no time. Flipping all the sirens and light on and turning the camera on the dash on so when they review the footage it will show how much fun I had. I check the rear view and nothing. I turn off the lights and siren and I hang a quick right and head for the nearest police station on a side street. I am within two blocks and I hear the sirens. I turn toward the sound and see three squads go by ahead of me. I flip on the lights and sirens. I accelerate and quickly catch up and pull in right behind them. The chatter on the radio is overwhelming at this point. I follow them as they turn onto the street that the apartment is on. We pull up and the police ahead of me pull in and park. Six squads and the ambulance is just pulling up. I turn off the siren and slow down to a waking speed. I see the officer I tackled sitting half in the front of a squad. Another cop is on one knee next to him trying to get a description. They both look up at me as I'm rolling past. I give a mocking salute. I see both their mouths open slowly, eyes going wide. I don't stick around.
My right foot suddenly weighs a hundred pounds as I realize I'm starting to sober up enough to feel the gravity of this situation. I am heading for the closest freeway and starting to consider my options. They are getting limited pretty quickly. I turn the dashboard camera around to record all the action going on behind me. Two squads closing fast and another dozen on the way. I hit the on ramp to the freeway and start making a plan. It may be a bit late for making a plan, but I am sobering up fast and I need a plan. The freeway is pretty empty and I'm quickly up to over a hundred. I can see three squads behind me now and I have to exit soon or face spike strips. I hit the next exit and see a green light at the intersection at the top. I hit the brakes hard and hang a right. I am on a road that goes straight to an old auto plant through a blue collar neighborhood. I am hoping I can make it to the auto plant and do a jump and run into the woods on the other side. I am coming up fast on the auto plant; four more blocks and I have a chance. A car t-bones me as I blow through a stoplight. I am off course bad and am skidding sideways through a gas station parking lot. I break a pump clean off and think that I am glad for emergency shut offs for gas pumps because otherwise there would be a lot more gasoline catching on fire right now. I think this as I am sliding into the propane grill tank refill station.
The waitress is standing next to me. And asking again if I want another one. I blink several time as my stare is broken. Across the street the police hauling a woman out of the apartment in cuffs. A man is holding a bloody towel against his side as an ambulance pulls up. Yeah, I'll have another. Thanks.

Went for a bike ride.

I've been feeling a little out of shape lately so I decided to go for a bike ride. I used to bike everywhere in high school and college but didn't keep up with it after I started working real jobs.
I have a thirty five year old bicycle. It is French. It has gears and brakes because I'm not a lesbian or an asshole. I love riding around the neighborhood and riding around town. I wear my helmet even though I hate it. Bike helmets are possibly the ugliest thing you can put on your head. I call it my birth control helmet because no one would get laid wearing one. I still wear it because I like the thinking process and it protects it from stopping.
So I gt on my bike and start off down the street. I turn onto a side street that runs quite a way even though it is pretty stop and go. Here is one of my pet peeves as a biker-people who want the rights of both a pedestrian and a car. Don't blow through a stop light and then yell at a car for using a turn lane. And for fuck sake stop for pedestrians in a cross walk.
So I get on my bike and start riding. Oh here's another thing, if it is night and you are riding your bike at night have a light and don't wear all black clothes. I can't be blamed for hitting you. Even if I do see you. That's why it's called Dar-WIN! You lose.
So I get on my bike and start riding. It's a nice night and I'm makin pretty good time. And the other thing is you have arms, use them to signal intent. Just swerving into traffic does not tell me where you are going. Hells bells. You'll be goin' straight under my Chevy if you don't use some hand signals. Damn. And stay off the sidewalk. You have wheels, stay on the road. Balls alive.
So I'm on the bike and I'm making good time. I have my bottle full of vodka for hydration. I left the house half in the bag because you have to be pretty drunk to get on the road with all those crazy drivers.
So I'm pretty hammered and I'm peddling down the road and I'm not sure what happened next but I'm told it was dark and I was wearing my ninja outfit and swerved to avoid some pedestrians that were on the sidewalk and into oncoming traffic. So at least with all the physical therapy I should be able to get into shape.

Time for a change.

I woke up one morning and thought to myself a change is in order. I wrote a note to the roommate, packed a bag, threw it in the van and started to drive. Two days later I pull into Jordan Valley, Oregon. Really small town near the border of Idaho. I spot a help wanted sign on the window of The Old Basque Inn. They are looking for a busser and dishwasher. I take the job. I pull into the Sahara motel and get a room for a month for $475.00. Probably 3/4 of what I will make in the next month, but I'm not too worried.
Over the next month I pick up a few morning shifts a a short order cook to supplement my income. The regular guy, Eric, like to play hooky now and again to get some fishing in at the Antelope resevoir. I find a room for rent down the street and move in there. It's starting to feel like home. I make a few friends over time and end up managing the rodeo/fair grounds as a side job and part time manage at the Old Bisque. The owners there are going to be retiring soon and are taking longer and longer vacations. Jim keeps dropping hints that he wants me to buy the place from him and Shirley. "I'll think about it." I say. And I do. Two years later I'm the owner of the Old Bisque Inn with a under new management sign above the door. Time
wears on and I find a nice woman that I settle down with. We have a couple of children and are living the American dream. The kids eventually go off to school and me and the wife are empty nesters with a new lease on life. A young man walks into the Inn looking for work. Four years later he is the new owner of the Old Bisque Inn. As a gift I give him the 'under new management' sign. Glad I kept it all these years. Me and the wife, Jean, head on down to Puerto Rico with our retirement money and live like royalty. We have a nice house up in the hills and a couple of servants and run a nice business trafficking cocaine into the the states through a little town in Oregon. Glad I made a change.

Everybody was, in fact, Kung Fu fighting.

Walking down the street today I pass a karate place. I see all the people inside in their little lines all chopping and kicking in unison. I step inside and watch for a bit. I think, I can take them. Most are wearing green or brown belts. Not much real world experience by the looks of them. That is about to change. I walk toward the instructor grabbing a rattan stick off the shelf of weapons. The look on his face changes enough to get the every student to look my way. Four more steps and the first one is going down from a punch. Softy. The second takes a snap kick to the thigh and a clap from the stick and is down. The instructor is making an attempt to jump between me and the remaining five. I allow his inertia to carry him past me with a little assistance from a roundhouse. I bet myself I can get two more before he comes back at me. I win this bet with an easy sternum poke with the stick and a quick leg sweep to the next. The instructor comes back at me attempting a tackle. I pull one of the three remaining students toward me and into the path of his lunge. I hear their heads come together with a sound telling me I will have a bit of time. The last two students are backing away. "These classes aren't helping." I say. I think I'm done here. I walk out the front door and continue my walk. Two blocks down I spot an archery range. This should be interesting.

Governing the governable

So, in having a conversation with a friend(yes, even the anonomous have friends.) we were discussing the way government works. Wondering why we don't put scientists in charge of science, teachers in charge of teaching, engineers in charge of building bridges. And everything would be made out of Legos. How awesome would that be? Totally awesome! Well, not paper. Or things that needed to be metal. Okay the Lego thing was dumb. Maybe just easily repairable. Also we would create human/animal hybreds. Panther man and cheetah girl. That would be awesome. Cross breeding might be a problem. I don't think turtle guy and badger girl will make cute offspring. Okay, maybe we don't need that much diversity. On the other hand who would make a turtle guy? Fuckin turtle guy? Never happen. Panther guy, hell yeah, turtle guy, fuck no.
I would also make race car drivers design roads and trucks would get their own roads. Cities would that Personal Rapid Transit system installed and bikes would get thier own pathways. And no fixies.
Wouldn't be any religion either. Too much drama in religion. I think the only option is going to be colonization of another planet. So someone get on that. Thanks.

Candidate choices

It was election time recently in the UK, Australia, Canada and other places with a queen on their money. When voting, picking a candidate can be tough. Often times I vote for the least evil of the bunch and hope for a better choice next time. Others pick along party lines, this gives us the candidate who was recently arrested for human trafficking still getting twenty percent of the vote. Once heard "I don't want a president who's smarter than me. I want someone who I can sit down and have a beer with.". That president got us into two wars and an economic tailspin. Yeah, I want a president smarter than me. Hell, I want one with fucking x-ray vision and spider sense. I want Einstein, Noam Chompsky, Ralph Nader and Zeus all rolled into one. Anyone who wants someone dumber than them is obviouly working their way down a short ladder. Yeah, vote for the guy with the Velcro shoe straps and the helmet. Or maybe they are waiting to wheel out the third Bush kid, the one no one talks about. If you want some one dumber that you as president, instead of going somewhere to vote, scrawl VOTIN' BUUTH on your bathroom door and place you vote in the appropriate porcelain receptical.

If you can dream it...

If you can dream it, you can create it.
That is the tag line for the Wii drawing pad. It sounds like a commercial for Inception. I think it's a bit of a stretch for a drawing board. Even inception seemed weak on the imaginative side. Dream it-create it.
I think I would start with a walk down a birch tree lined lane, late summer. Air getting crisp and the first leaves turning. The gravel crunching underfoot. Walking slowly toward a point where the trees and trail end in a soft grassy knoll. Just past, the world falls away into a mist. Beautiful, right? Dream this. The scent, the sound, the sight, the monster robot climbing out if the mist, it's open cockpit a perfect fit for your humanity, a place to shed your morals, no right or wrong in fucking dreamland pal! Guns blazing, leaping forward, crushing village and voice under the whirring din of the machine, Ministry and Nine Inch Nails mash-up blazing in your ears, screaming for vengence and glory. Flames spinning around the mech as the legs melt out from under you and the fall to earth becomes a flight into the void. It's staring back and it echoes through the hole that was your soul and it knows it's found a host. Then you are petting puppies. Cuz they is soooo cute. Lol! Dream it. Don't bother with the creating. It will never match your expectation. Except for the puppies part. Lol. Puppies. Tee hee.

sculpture gardens

In Minneapolis there is a sculpture garden at the Walker Art Museum. It is where the Spoon And Cherry Bridge is. Anyone looking up Minneapolis will see a picture of it. I have often wondered about getting some art displayed there. Not through 'legal' methods. I mean what would it take to sneak a sculpture in. Get a plaque made describing the work, pur a small concrete slab to put it on. I bet it wouldn't be that hard.
Here's the plan. First build a base at home. Make it out of a wooden frame cover it with a thin layer of concrete so it looks solid. Leave holes so you can pour concrete and water into th base on site. You get the look without having to wait for cure time.
Next, build a sculpture large enough to be in the garden. Make it in small pieces that will sleeve together on site. You don't want bolts or anything that would take time to assemble.
After you have those parts, make a plaque. Something light and paint it like the other plaques.
Now what you need is people. About a dozen. It seems like alot, but there are security concerns that need to be addressed that require people. First there are cameras. So iwould choose a foggy night. Second, these places usually have sound detection of some sort so wear quiet clothing or have a friend take the muffler off their car and drive slowly around the block several times. Third, and here is where the number of people come in, they have infared fencing around the perimeter. What is going to have to happen is a system of passing everything over the top of this fence so as not to break the beam.
So, once you get set up down the block, carry everything you will need at once. Get all but two people inside the perimeter. Those two will hand everything over the fence and then stand as lookouts. The other ten get the material to the spot and quickly get down the bace and pour some concrete into the frame. The assembly will make a bit of noise, so have everything sleeve together tightly so it is hard to remove but easy to go together. Get it together and run.
Now you are an artist!

A few posts

I've written a few posts lately that have either been too serious or too weird to actually post. I know that sounds strange, but the last few weeks have seemed overly serious in the scope of world events. I'll try to change that in the next few days. Wish me luck.

Feel free to comment.

Really. I don't even care if the comment has to do with what you just read. Maybe you could tell me a story. That would be nice. Or give me an idea to write about, you could do that if you wanted. You could draw or take a picture and post it. I'm just throwing out a few ideas here. The possibilities are endless.
Don't be afraid or self conscious either. I won't judge you. That's not true. I will judge, but I don't know who you are, so it really doesn't matter.

Ancestry

So all the birther crap got me thinking about my ancestry. Luckily I know my ancestral line going back quite a way. We could start with apes, but that is pretty uninteresting for a lot of it. Except for the one who accidentally invented a comb. Nicest looking coat on any primate ancestor for twenty thousand years. Just beautiful. Sigh.
So, onto the ones I know are interesting. Mumod the robe maker fitted Gilgamesh his first robe. 2560bce-   Hoplip the flattend, crushed by a stone working on Khufu's pyramid at Giza. Famous because he survived being flattened with one arm up and one arm back in a walking position. Became a supermodel for heiroglyphics carving for the next twenty years. 2000bce. Jimbob the doubter, when Moses came down the mountain with the burning bush story, he was the one coughing "cou-bullshit-gh, ahem. Sorry, something in my throat. Did you see our golden cow? Nice, right.".
  33ce. Vito the stone roller. Roman guard known for the now famous practical joke of rolling tomb stones aside an tossing the body in the shrubs claiming "He just walked away! That way I think! You better go after him! Snicker.".
  1459 Johannes Enmelichtment Grutenberg. Invented moveable type t-shirt printing press. First shirt read "Ich bin mit dämlich." with an arrow. Classic. Previously only available in Latin, screen printed in one color.
  1776 Signing of the Declaration of Independence- N. Melish Scratchington signs his name, then draws a cock and balls with an arrow pointing to Edward Rutlidge. It is quickly erased along with his name, but if you hold it up to the light you can still see it.
It's easy to find this stuff, too. All I did was raid the Mormon's secret ancestry hide out. They have everyone's lineage. I have to get back to digging into my past. I'll post more as I find more.

You think you can do better?

So, you think you can do better? Well, you probably can.
Feel free to lift anything I write. Edit, add to, change, lenghten, shorten, adapt, whatever.
the rules: Let people know where the idea started from (meaning me, not where I stole it from.). If you make alot of money you have to take me out to dinner (somewhere nice. I may be easy, but I'm not cheap). If you make a movie I want a cameo and to be at the premier. If you write a book I want a character based on me (I don't care which character or how much that character is in the book. I will be happy if it is a delivery guy.). If you want to do it as a comic, get my Twitter profile pic in the background.
That is all.
Enmelishment@gmail.com