It's not how you remember it

I was reading the Facebook post of a college friend. He was waxing on about a piece of art that he had made in class. How cool and sweet and well made it was. It was shit. Poorly made, awkward looking and visually unimpressive. It was shit. I know I said tha already but I want to press this point. It was shit.
So now I am questioning everything I did. I look back and think if the things I did in college were as cool as I thought they were. Some things I can say are not all that cool. Example: I have played the game of Risk exactly one time in my life. I played against a group of engineering students that had been playing once a week for over two years. I won in less than two hours. Cool? To me, yes. I jumped my car twenty-five feet. When it hit the ground it split the exhaust pipe. Cool? Maybe not. I juggled knives when I was really drunk. On a related note, I once got a hundred and seventy three stitches and a new lung. Cool? Half cool I would say. I gave myself a 'cool' shaver haicut. Not cool now. I had a theme party every year and people would get so drunk they were unable to walk home. Pretty cool. I made a hat out of beer can tabs. Cool? No. My collection of WWJD bracelets. Not cool. How I got them? Even less cool.
Take stock of your memories. If the coolest things you've done were in college, your memories are tainted by time. Sorry.

An actual thought

I know I often ramble on and on about useless crap, but this one is an actual theory that will probably go on and on.
So here it is. The underdog story. The come from behind tale makes great tv and movies. It is rare. That's why we love the underdog. One in a million, baby!
When I hear people bitch about taxes and how they are going to pay unemployment, food stamps, daycare, rent assistance, etc., I wonder what the people bitching about are really worried about. They are worried that the poor are going to take things away from them. Things like money. Really though, is it the underdog that is going to get your money? No. It's the proven powerhouses that will take your money. It's the people with all the money already that people should worry about. They have shown that they can get peoples money. Politically it is a pretty clear line ideologically if not always in practice. Republicans tend to worry about the underdog taking what they have and Democrats tend to worry the people above them are going to take all their money.
My theory works like a poker game. Big stack controls the game and the betting. Big stack walks away at the end of the game with everyone's money. Short stack has to wait for the best hand before making a move. Short stack, even when everything is perfect does not make a big gain. Short stack has to wait for everything to be perfect ten times in a row to make it to big stack status. Rare.
So there is my theory. Don't worry about the people below you taking a small amount from you when it's the people taking large amounts from you that you should worry about.

A good blog

I was reading the other day that to have a successful blog one must knock out about a thousand words a day. Holy shit! A thousand is a lot. I don't have time to write out a thou a day. I usually get out about fourteen words a day. I have been writing this blog since nineteen and seventy three and i have just over a hundred posts. that does not include the ones I erased because they were so offensive it would have had me banned from the blogging community, or the ones that went so tragically awry that people would get seizures reading them, or the ones that were so good that had they been published, I would have immediately become a Nobel prize winner in lit and then would have gone on to never quite meet the standard that had been set and my life would have become a downward spiral of horrid depression and drug use and I would have ended it all going out like James Dean mixed with Bob Hope and Amy Winehouse, (I don't know what that means), or the posts that just ramble on and on with ridiculous run on sentances...errr..yeah.
What I'm tying to say is I just don't think I have what it takes to be a successful blogger. My skills really lie elsewhere anyway. I'm good at watching TV and listening to music. I'm good at driving and shooting criminals. I'm good at making cupcakes, rapping, wrapping, alliteration, deliteration, safe cracking, knuckle cracking, fodue, finnial finessing, free style jazz and sledding. I'm good at making the girls cry,
and dressin' super fly,
drinkin' coke and Bacardi,
layin' down beats at a party,
I'm Enmelishment and I good at alot
you can't keep me down cuz I'm layin' down hot.
I'm sorry about that. I will never do that again. I promise.

My other racist story.

That last story was a bit touchy feely, and for that I am sorry. I wouldn't want to give the impression that I'm some sort of softy. So here is the story of the other time I met a racist.
I was at a wedding, (funny side story-I went to the town that the wedding was in and knowing the wedding was at a Holiday Inn I stopped in and asked if there was a wedding reception going on. The woman said the Breeze wedding was around back. I was actually looking for the Preese wedding but mis understood. So after walking around the hall for about 10 minutes an old woman asks me if I know where to put the gift envelopes and I say "I don't even thing I'm at the right wedding!" and she looks at me and says "You're a fucking idiot!". She didn't say that. She said "Jack and Amanda?" and I say no and I leave. Off to the other Holiday Inn. Ha!).
That was probably an abuse of parethases.
So I'm at the correct wedding and the reception is nice. Some friends of mine offer to let me stay in their room if I want to go to the bars with them. I say yes, we drink a lot, get back to the hotel and are all hanging out. I have to get something from the car and a cousin of the bride says "I'll go with you, I have to get something from my car, too.".
Now I don't know where or when we picked up this dude on our evenings revelry but he seemed friendly and was sporting a southern accent and that always make people seem kinder for some reason. We ride the elevator down to the parking lot. As we are walking across the parking lot he spies a fish shaped chrome stick on on the back of my car. It is actually an upsidedown fish skeleton, not a Jesus one. He inquires if I am a Christian. I reply I am not. He then asks if I am a ________. I don't understand the word. He says it again and adds the words white power. I look at him sideways. He then lays into song. I'm not kidding. It's some white supremist anthem. I say that I am not anything. I place no label on my self or others. He says something to the effect of how he don't care about that he just don't like ni... He does not get to finish the word. No of his own accord, but because my flattened hand and the chopping blow to his wind pipe. Sometimes you don't realize how strong you are and other times you wish you were stronger. This time is the latter. The look on his face is of pure astonishment. The gaping mouth, the hands over the throat, the eyes tearing up, it was over for this dude. No ambulance could get here fast enough to remedy this situation. I look at him. I almost feel bad. He drops to the concrete slab. I grab his arm and pull him to between the cars. I've got a little time to think this through. I reach into his pocket and pull out his keys. I press the unlock button. Ten cars down from me a car's lights flash. How convienient. I drag him over and put him in the trunk. Just a guy looking to connect I think to myself. me too.
I go back up to the room. We have a few more beers and no one asks about the racist dude. I fgure I will gave to do sonethng at this point. Everone knows I walked out with him. Just no one cared he didn't come back. At least utility the police start asking questions. Hmmm. This is a river town. Located on a beautiful but shallow river. Not deep enough to hide a car. How do I get rid of this dude. I fall asleep in a chair. I wake up early. Before anyone else is up I grab my shit and head to the car park. The elevator door opens and I see a police car. It looks as if someone was missing the dude. By the age of the couple standing next to the car I can only assume it's the dude's parents. Shit. I think of everythng except that his family was here. At his cousin's wedding. Dumb. I walk to my car and get in. I start it up and drop it in reverse. I back out and put it in drive. As I'm rolling forward, one of the officers puts up his hand to stop me. He is going to ask questions. He is going to know I'm lying. I pull up to him and stop. I press the window down button. The officer informs me I have a headlight out and should get it fixed. I say thanks and drive on. I pull out of the ramp and head home. I pack for a long trip, load up my guns, pack the car full. I figure at this point it might as well be the start of a spree. I check my maps and the Internet and head for the deep south. If I go, I'm gonna go out as a legend.

So I met a racist.

This story mght be partially true.
When I was young I worked in a factory. It was full of people striving for a variety of means. Some people were bigots. I know, it's hard to believe that a factory would have in it's employment people of a small minded view of the world, but it's true. So one fine day as I am walking along with a coworker, on our way off of break back to the warehouse where I was a forklift driver, we say a generic greeting to a fellow coworker walking in the opposite direction. We get past him and my coworker says that the guy we just passed was getting married...to a black girl. I give him a sideways look. He looks at me and hurriedly says that he does not have a problem with black people at all, but he doesn't think white and blacks should marry. I am quiet for a second and the ask him if he is saying he would not fuck Tyra Banks. Now let me just say here that this was a while ago when Tyra was not all America's Next Top Model drama queen. Back when she was quiet. And interesting. So my coworker says something to the effect of hell yes he would. I then ask if given the chance that he would not marry Tyra? He replies that hell yes he would marry her. I look at him and calmly say "Maybe that is ho he sees his fiancé. She is his Tyra Banks. That's what being in love is."
He looks at me and very thoughtfully says "I would have never thought of it like that. Wow. You're right."
I look upon that moment as eradicating a bit of bigotry from the world. A moment I feel very proud of.
That coworker was Pablo Picasso. Not really, it was Ho Chi Mihn.
I'm kidding. It was Franklin Delano Roosavelt.
It wasn't FDR. It was Brett Favre. Not really. I don't actually remember the guys name. It was some fucking dumb redneck name. Whatever. The point is, is that he is now married to Tyra Banks. He's not. He's married to Elton John.
I guess what I'm tying to say, is that I felt like I made a difference in the world that day. It felt good.

Space travel. Pretty cool.

Can I just say that space travel is the coolest thing ever thought of. I read some Jules Verne, From The Earth To The Moon and thinking what an incredible thing. The way thy got there was a bit rough. Being shot out a huge cannon, not great for the internal organs I would gather. The current way seems really dubious to me too. Being strapped to the top of a rocket sounds pretty fucking scary. Really really scary. The long rail gun idea sounds like a safe alternative and I can't imagine it would be more expensive than the cost of rocket fuel. A bit easier on the atmosphere also. That's the way I did it. Twenty miles of track and a capsule with wings...and about a gigawatt of power to get me into space. About 1.3282 gigawatts actually. The first time I did it I didn't quite make it into orbit. Really close though. When they say close only counts in horseshoes, they might want to try a near earth orbit. Landing on a plateau near Agdoni in eastern Russia was not my intent for sure. But pretty impressive when knowing I took the long way. Getting out of Russia was a whole nother story. Needless to say my capsule did no come with me.
So my second try was far more successful. I got well into orbit. I'm glad I figured out a good steering method before I went. I used a mock-up in a pool with waterjets to simulate rockets to test out the actual steering method. Getting back into the atmosphere without burning up was a bit more tricky. After a quick rocket burst to get in, I had forward water jets that pushed water out the front. It created an area that was basically a steam insulation. The heat rolled away with the water and as a bonus it would leave an arc of shimmering ice pellets as the water re-froze in the upper atmosphere. From the ground it looked like I was on the front on a iridescent laser beam. Fucking magical.
Like I said, space travel is the coolest thing ever. At least he coolest thing I've ever done.

I've been doing a lot of thinking...again.

Not really about anything useful. Just a lot of thinking. That is all.

You need to make a list

Before you die you should totally make a list. Really, here's the deal, not a bucket list (see previous post in that). A post death list. You never really know what crazy idea people will come up with after you are dead. Some people think Thais is what a will is for. Dumb. No one wants to listen to a will reading. The only reason people go to will readings is to hear what they got.
The list will need to cover important things like what kind of flowers you like, anything you want to be burned or buried with, turn ons, music choices, etc.. Feel free to tell people what you thought of them. Tell your coworker you always thought they were an idiot. Let your friend know he smoked too much pot. Tell your cousin she is a drunk and a slut and that is why she will never get married. Tell everyone your secrets. No shame once you are dead. Write about the time you threw up in the back of your car or when you flashed your teacher to get a better grade. Let your friend know his breath smells bad or your cousins had sex. You can certainly mention the good things, too. Like your spouse is great in bed (in case they are looking for a date already this might help them out.) or your mom was a good cook or you were always jelous of how good someone's beard looked. Once you are dead you can finally clear the air of the burdenous opinions of life.
Let people know you always hated Steely Dan. Picasso was a hack. Regis Philbin sounds high. Old picture creep you out. Tarintino Was too blatant. Ostriches creep you the fuck out cuz o them weird eyes. Popeyes chicken is better than KFc even though it comes out faster. Generic soda, even though irt sometimes tastes better, is still lame. You thought XTC had one good song. You think Betty White is still hot, you laugh when someone says ball peen hammer.Tee hee. Ben Folds is dull. People want to know these things. Let loose, you're dead.

Went to the fair

The State Fair. The Minnesota State Fair. I enter my cumquats every year. I am the only entrant. I've won for six years in a row. They didn't used to have an cumquat category but a quick call from my lawyer fixed that. I don't actually have a lawyer, but if you call and do your best Wilford Brimley impersonation no one will question you. I've used the lawyer voice often and it works surprisingly well in many situations. So back to the cumquats. I had a challenger this year. It came in the form of a four foot nine inch Chinese woman. At the judging, she came over and looked me over, looked at my cumquats, looked at my tagboard display of six blue ribbons and said something under her breath. It sounded like 'pathetic' but I couldn't be sure.
The judges are the same ones who judge apples because nobody really knows what a cumquat tastes like anyway. Plus, with only one person to judge it's not like they needed to know what made a good cumquat. The heat was really on the judges this time. That woman is giving me the hairy eyeball from across the table. The three judges looked over the table. I didn't recognize any of the judges from previous years. In fact I have never seen the same judge twice which leads me to believe cumquat judging is like the initiation rite for judges. The judges looked over both bowls, picked up a few and gently squeezed, sniffed, and poked. All three took a hesitant bite. By the look on their faces I could see they probably had never had a cumquat before. They looked at me, looked at my competition, looked at my blue ribbons and went into a huddle.
I was intentionally avoiding the burning gaze from the other end of the table. The judge huddle broke. The eldest judge held a ribbon in each hand. A red and a blue. He walked to the other end of the table and handed her the red. The look on her face was a combination of disbelief and what ever the yang was to total happiness yin. The judge handed me the blue and quickly got out of range of what was about to happen next. I slowly looked at the woman. She squinted at me just like Clint Eastwood did in those old spaghetti westerns just before he shot someone. I actually stumbled backward a few feet. Here is a little know fact, a fact not known to anyone except me and the woman burning holes in soul with her eyes, my cumquats come from the Asian grocery down the street. I reached for my tagboard and saw her take a quick step toward me. That is all I remember before waking up two days later in the hospital. I seemed to be missing a tooth and was covered in bruises and clutching a blue ribbon in my hand. The one thing I know is that next year i will have seven blue ribbons on my tagboard, a replacement tooth and good chance at blue ribbon number eight.