CONFESSIONS OF A TALKING MIME

Talk about a paradox (Enter a musical interlude from “Pirates of Penzance” here). Mime’s are supposed to be (usually) silent actors mimicking the life, fantasy (or drug induced stupor), social change and politics of the world around them with a gesture and rarely saying a word... if at all. Silent satirists who illustrate what they (and everyone else) sees, thinks and feels but can’t find the words (or guts) to say anything about, some are funny, some are heart wrenching, many are just plain silly or stupid. Sometimes they might lend themselves as the straight man to the Court Jester in a subtle “gotcha” moment (If you happened to be in France or the early Greek Senate). I’ve been known to sit quietly and observe what’s going on around me tucking the experiences into my over filled filing cabinet of a brain or writing them down in my journal, which is the safer of the two “ brains” these days but let’s be honest here…I’m rarely silent. I’m the distant, sometimes (OK many times) arrogant, seemingly aloof, person who when asked a direct question will give you a direct answer regardless of how offensive it may be to the inquisitor but rarely offer an opinion out of the blue to hear the sound of my own voice. A voice I’m not overly fond of. My voice has been compared to Morgan Freeman…on helium. This would, one may think, make for a potentially good recipe as a mime…but let’s examine this all a little further. Yoda decided to “retire” having grown weary of carrying the multitude of things required of me to venture out into the world. That and some of his antics have made him “Persona Non Grata” in many places these days. So I have been in search of a new muse to blame for some of my own foibles and have been auditioning several of late. Every time I go to a doctor these days a new malady is discovered followed by new tests and then referrals to yet another person with initials behind their last name. More tests are done, surgery options to, hopefully, correct whatever the problem is gets discussed and then a new brace of some kind is added to the offended body part. I am becoming Iron Man one piece at a time. I wear more body armor to bed or walk in than most SWAT teams and NFL linemen wear all day. Consequently Iron Man was my first thought. Tony Stark and I have a lot in common (minus the money, cars, house, hair etc.) but Stark likes to blow his own horn as much as possible. I’m not wired that way and don’t (or won’t) blow anything (or anyone) so it’s not a perfect fit…so the search continued. Recently Wendi and I went in search for a Halloween costume for me to wear at an upcoming event we host. I’ve often been reminded that I bear a frighteningly familial similarity to “Uncle Fester” so that might be the perfect costume to obtain. After all of the blank stares and the “Who?” questions from the young sales staff when I couldn’t find one in any of the places…I gave up. I decided to just go as myself, which according to my wife is scary enough. I have, of late, grown fond of French Sailor Shirts. Those horizontal striped, boat necked, three-quarter or long sleeved things that just scream comfort for me. So I put one of those and a pair of black slacks on, fished one of eight or ten beret’s I have (I’ve got just as many hats as I do shoes…which is more than most women so that’s a lot) and we headed out the door. Many people thought I was wearing a “French Artist” costume…I was too embarrassed to say it wasn’t. One person looked at me and started laughing and said all I needed was white face and suspenders (which I do have…don’t ask…some parts of the eighties never seem to go away) and I could have been a mime. The light went on in my head. “HMMMMMMMMM…a Talking Mime…I can say all kinds of bombastic shit and blame it on the white faced guy…I think I like this idea!” I thought to myself. So RIP Yoda…the evil Mime is on its way here.

A CHANGE IN SEASONS

Fall is just moments away. A spring and summer have drifted away while everyone pointed fingers at each other blaming the other person for the debacle their lives have been the past few years and yet no one is willing to accept responsibility for themselves or their own actions. Everything is generally prefaced with some form of “If only”. My life (as you well know by now) took a drastic change as the clock was chiming and the New Year was being rung in. I’d barely had the chance to make one of those obligatory “Out with the Old, In with the New” statements many feel the need to make at times like that but it became painfully apparent things were about to be different without saying much of anything. That statement quickly ceased to be a cliché and turned into an all too real mantra, the effects of which I’m still learning to deal with each and every day. “Out with the Old, In with the New” has resonated in every aspect of our lives this year because of the surreal political and economic climate that grinds on without a plausible solution to anything. Regardless of who gets elected everything will still be doomed to fail because we lack a backbone to make any hard choices. The people we elect have too many IOU’s out there to really change anything and have less of a backbone than we do. No matter what side of the fence you stand on you want the other guy to give up more than you yourself are willing to give up and have become willing to lie, cheat and steal to get what you want while trotting out words like “honest” and “honorable” to use as your shield and if that doesn’t work you invoke the name of God. People have been lying to each other and themselves for so long they no longer know what is and isn’t true. Whatever is wrong with their life…it’s someone else’s fault and they’re going to continue to lie to everyone (especially themselves) until they find out who the culprit is that makes their life so miserable looking for anything at all that might be considered a clue (except a mirror) so they can point a finger in some other direction and say “See! It wasn’t me!” even though they’re clearly implicated in the wrongful deed from the beginning more often than not. The relationships they have are forged by fantasy, half-truths and are fleeting at best. They always have one foot out the door in case they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar. They want people to blow sunshine up their ass and tell them they’re special until they do get found out and when the rift finally happens…again…it’s always the other persons fault. So they begin searching out new victims to replace the old ones while desperately attempting to maintain their popularity. The down side is they don’t know who they are and have no clue what they’re actually looking for. It’s a rarity to have a relationship with someone who knows you warts and all and still willing to stand beside you no matter what. As you might imagine I have few of such relationships that deep these days. The people closest to me and I trust the most can be counted on two hands…minus a finger or two. My wife is certainly on the top of that list. I don’t have the memory or the patience to cultivate that many relationships and my bluntness (and sometimes arrogance) tends to scare many away…besides, as my eldest daughter recently pointed out, I have a tendency to throw everyone under the bus sooner or later. I have many friends, lovers and acquaintances that I deeply respect and admire on many levels but, as much as I care about them, it’s unlikely we could all agree on where to eat for lunch much less accomplish anything important and my frustration would only get the better of me. The year is almost three quarters gone. “The Winter of Our Discontent” is quickly closing in upon us. We have choices to make soon and not just at the polling booth. We’ve betrayed ourselves long enough. I have no desire to become just another character in a John Steinbeck novel anymore. I have learned much about myself this year. My collection of people with a bunch of initials behind their last names grows daily. I write this after just learning I have arthritis in both hands and Carpal Tunnel from my left wrist to my elbow…yet here I sit writing, ignoring the pain, and knowing I may have yet another surgery in my future. Before long they’ll be taping paint brushes in my hands the way they did Monet late in his life so he (and I) could keep painting. I haven’t given up on myself or the human race yet so many seem to have done just that. It’s time for a change. We really do need one…a real one this time.

MISSING THE BEAT

I make no bones about my lack of musical ability. I, regretfully, embrace it. I can tell you what I do and don’t like musically and am willing to listen to pretty much everything at least once to see if it falls into my parameters of acceptance. Much of what I do like may surprise many of you, but then again… Who really gives a shit? This moment of mental masturbation has little (although some in the broad scheme of things it does) to do with where I’m heading with this. This little trip down memory lane kinda starts with the “Beat Generation”. If you’re under fifty years old you probably have no clue who they were or what they were about. They weren’t the cartoonish images most remember from books, TV and movies or the stories in LIFE and LOOK magazines. Maynard G. Krebs was the comic relief to validate Dobie Gillis’ All American values system regardless of how transparent it really was not a real example of a “Beatnick”. He was more the “Slacker” of that generation. The men of the “Beat Generation” didn’t all have goatees, sunglasses and wear black turtleneck sweaters and berets. The women didn’t dance spastically around in black leotards to bad jazz riffs snapping their fingers while someone stood on a stage and spouted complete gibberish to the music and proclaim it was poetry for the beaten down masses (thus the name…they were tired, they were beat). Some of that did happen but there was more going on than that back then. Many of those antics would reappear at times as society grew (pun intended) and would be regarded as “original”. The “Beats” promoted free thinking, changed censorship laws regarding literature and the arts in general, opened doors to embrace your sexuality whether you be gay, bi or straight, explored eastern religions and philosophies of all types, experimented with drugs, distrusted the government (so were regarded as “communists” by mainstream America) and considered everyone equal regardless of race or religion. All of which would be adopted by the “counter culture” a few years later. It didn’t take long for the Beats to (like the “Punks” a few generations later) realize you can’t be miserable and unhappy forever…besides, the drug choices were getting larger and they were becoming unexpectedly…happy. So they moved a short distance around the corner to the Haight-Ashbury area of the same city, San Francisco. They grew their hair out, wore bright colored clothes, still danced spastically like the white Protestants they really were and recited bad poetry to a variety of music. More religions were embraced, saving the Environment was important and the music was as varied and eclectic as we were becoming. We wanted to “Buy the World a Coke” and live in Peace and Harmony never for a moment realizing we were being led down a material path driven by our own ego and consumerism. Places like Chess King happily sold us “Sonny and Cher” fake fur vests for $60.00 at a time when you could buy Levi’s for between eight and twelve bucks at The GAP and we wanted everything we could get our hands on never realizing how out of touch we were becoming. One morning we wake up, and to our surprise, the hero’s of the anti-war movement had become stock brokers. The musical icons we loved had become corporations for tax purposes and had employees to pay health benefits to. The rest have died from using too many “recreational” drugs. Without missing a beat we discard our circus clothes and our “natural” look then bought “preppie clothes” and cases of hairspray. We join the “Young (enter the political party or religion of your choice here)” and convince ourselves we’re making a difference while getting hammered at Happy Hour with our other equally mindless “friends” or we joined “Hair” bands. We “help” the environment by kinasorta recycling and buying “organic” produce. We don’t grow anything anymore…we don’t have the time. The “Punk” movement comes and goes quickly leaving it largely where it started in a disenfranchised New York City filled with many of the first casualties of the AIDS/HIV epidemic. Anger is replaced by Apathy and we all feign shock and disbelief when Andy Warhol gets shot and accidentally exposes how corporate the art world really is and Rock Hudson “comes out” about being gay and having AIDS. John Lennon gets killed a short time later and gets elevated to the God he never was but people use as an excuse to get drunk for weeks on end after that. People begin to think that having a white ring of powder around your nostril is a fashion statement. The odd gyrations thought to be dancing a few years earlier are little more than moving in place fearing someone might look at us and think us “not normal”. The all encompassing euphoria shared in our youth has been replaced by a “rabid attack dog” mentality ready to berate, belittle and, in some cases, kill anyone who doesn’t agree with our views or moral beliefs. We really can’t dance to such a cadence…march mindlessly…maybe. We avoid politics wherever and whenever possible. There are a few that ONLY talk about the subject and do so poorly. Many of the very same people pay way too much for a photo op with no one of any importance outside of their own little world. The $4.99 Blue Plate Special at Joe’s Diner with meatloaf, mushroom gravy and mixed vegetables is now Terrine of Beef with Wild Mushroom Compote and Seasonal Vegetables at $1000.00 a plate in some gaudy ballroom. In return you get the photo, a bullshit promise and little else. Rappers descended out of the heavens one day spouting angry inaudible “poetry” over someone else’s music and proclaimed “original”. It quickly became the deadliest musical genre concocted by man. I know many people think that people with bad grammar, attitudes and clothing choices should be cleaned from the gene poll but I’m sure there are better ways than shooting them and anyone else in a close proximity. In typical evolutionary style the former criminals are now business moguls who happily take our money from us and we feel honored to let them do it. Why else would we spend $200.00 on a pair of jeans that look like shit on us but we feel so elitist in doing it? Stupidity must have a bigger pocketbook than one might imagine. These days we want to be around “real” people like ourselves. The sad part is…we have no clue who we are anymore. Still we feel comfortable being with people who go to the same plastic surgeons, get the same Botox treatments, go to the same gyms and stand next to the same equipment, shop at Needless Mark-up or other trendy places like them and drive the same leased vehicles to the same cookie cutter McMansions every night. No one talks about anything anymore other than themselves and how wonderful they are, what they do for a living or what they saw on the Food Network the other night. Anything deeper than that they’re lost and don’t know what to say. I’m tired, I’m beat. I want a reality in my life that makes sense and isn’t going to turn out to be just another mirage. Change is good. Life always changes. Having to do so because it all was a lie or a marketing strategy is disturbing. Somehow in the timeframe of the last three quarters of a century (give or take) we’ve lost the beat. I, for one, want it back.

THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMM

Have you ever woken up some morning humming a melody in your head that you can’t place? To make it worse you can remember the hook line and closing line but not all of the lyrics? I did this the other morning and went through every resource I could think of (and a few I hadn’t thought of before) and couldn’t find ONE reference for it. I found an odd word or two but not the whole phrase much less a similar tune. It seems, for the moment, the song has yet to be written and this disturbs me on a number of levels. It’s a little too sappy and “touchy-feely” to have come from my heretic brain. Am I doomed to show up on the talk show circuit blubbering about how I “found” myself one morning because of this stupid melody? (Hang on I have Oprah and Dr. Phil holding on both lines…) Anyone who knows me is painfully aware that I am no musician of any kind. I have been prevented by law from singing in several states, counties and cities or doing anything else remotely “musical”. Karaoke bars in the places without such a legal obstacle have been known to duct tape my mouth shut save a small slit for a straw so I can drink myself under the table with the rest of them. I have close friends who are professional musicians, songwriters and instrument makers who won’t let me anywhere near their equipment fearing I may dispatch irreparable harm to those things and render them useless junk…so where the hell did this song come from?! I have no unrequited love or relationships I wish had happened differently to lament. I tell my wife several times a day I love her and mean it without getting poetic about it. She’d think I’d been replaced by an alien for doing something that romantic even though I do love her that much. Besides, if I did it would be about as short and as caustic a poem as “Howl” was for Allen Ginsburg. If I wrote a song about her she’d either die laughing or finally get me that monogrammed straight jacket I’ve had my eye on for a while…either way it would somehow be a fitting gesture. I’m too old to be a rapper. I have no anarchistic agenda to promote or scream incoherently about at the top of my lungs, clubs have no stages big enough to hold a band anymore and the few who do have a pole in the middle of it these days…yet I can’t seem to get this song out of my head. My only fear about the tune is that I find out somewhere along the way that it isn’t original at all it was written by David Cassidy or someone like him of that period of time. That would suck in ways one could not imagine…no matter how medicated one got. What a world.

TRAVELS WITH YODA PART VII

Did you ever see that movie, more than a few years back, called Disney’s “The Kid” with Bruce Willis? For those of you who didn’t the brief summary is this. Willis plays a guy who is an “image consultant” who helps celebrities and other famous people repair their damaged images and he’s very good at it and made the big bucks for doing it. Over the course of a couple of evenings he sees some kid lurking about his house. When he tries to approach the kid one evening the boy runs away leaving behind a toy plane like Willis used to have when he was a boy about that age. The next morning Willis finds the boy inside his house rummaging around looking for his plane. It doesn’t take the two long to figure out that Willis is looking at himself at the age of eight or nine and both become dejected. The “boy” was everything Willis had spent his life trying to distance himself from. The boy was HUGELY disappointed to discover what he will become when he reaches Willis’ age and to top it off Willis didn’t become a pilot like the kid had hoped he would when he was an adult. This leads the two of them on a time warp/odyssey adventure to figure out how and why the “kid” suddenly appeared on his doorstep NOW and during which Willis has to re-live some of his less than pleasant moments growing up none of which seem to be the “key” for why all of this is happening (or are they?). In typical Disney fashion though it all ties together neatly at the end but I won’t tell you how it all plays out in case you actually want to watch it. Yesterday I had a similar moment and it sent a small shiver up my spine (proof I actually have a spine for all those doubters out there… and it’s bulletproof). Wendi, Yoda (actually Mr. Messenger Bag this time….I had a busy schedule) and I made various stops around the valley in search of confirmation that YES, I am still alive and NO, I am not certifiably crazy…yet. I’ve gotten to where I find perverse humor in listening to my doctor’s bicker amongst themselves about what I do and don’t actually have. It’s sort of a more expensive version of the “my dog’s bigger than your dog” we used to play as kids but instead of dogs its degrees. In any event…I found us all sitting in the lobby of my shrinks office waiting to get my meds twisted sideways for the month. We were sitting and having a fun conversation with a group of people about the wonders of “soul food” (one of my favorite types of food) and the grief they were giving to a relative who had just gotten here from Cuba and had yet to experience those delicacies when out of nowhere an office manager appears and lectured us all about having too much fun and being too loud and we needed to knock it off…apparently humor in a shrinks office is not allowed…it might lead to something healthy I guess. But that’s not where I was headed in this little rant anyways so... I had my back facing the “Magic Door” people go in and out of for their appointments to be cured of whatever mental midgetry they have been diagnosed as having. During all of the culinary good times conversation we were having a young boy of about eight or so came out from his appointment with his mother in tow and headed towards the door. I only caught him from behind and didn’t see his face. From the back he looked a lot like me at that age but, what caught my eye were his braces on his legs and the way he walked and I found myself going back in time myself. I don’t really remember how long I wore braces but I don’t think it was a terribly long time. I’m pretty sure I was out of them before Kindergarten or, at least, during that time. I remember mine were wood and leather with sheepskin padding. This kid’s were fiberglass with a camouflage print and nylon straps…very cool. I don’t know how long he’s been wearing them but it seems longer than I had to wear mine. He walked with a slight limp like I do and held one arm in a, somewhat, effeminate way in order to feel balanced when he walks (no doubt more so when he’s tired or physically fatigued). A trait that will cause many people to mistakenly assume he’s gay most or all of his life regardless of whether he really is or isn’t. Times have most definitely changed. When I was young my parents and our doctors were obsessed with having their children be as “normal” as possible to the public at large as quickly as possible. We were raised under the same expectations as everyone else was in the “real world” …just at an unnecessarily accelerated speed. In many ways we were driven harder to excel and be the best at whatever we did as well. Mediocrity or “average” was unacceptable and looked at with disgust. You couldn’t really hide my brother’s deafness but everyone did as best they could to ignore it. Many thought he just talked funny. My sister and I had our own crosses to bear in much more subtle ways it would seem to the outside world but the expectations were there none the less. “Normal” these days seems to come in a shiny new package with a see-through window for the whole world to look at what’s inside. “Transparency” is the new buzzword. Disabilities are now a fashion accessory to be displayed proudly in designer colors and patterns. Have a hangnail? Get a “Disabled” thingy for your car, I have one…and it embarrasses the hell out of me I need it! I saw that boy walking out that door into the heat and I couldn’t help but wonder why he was there. Was he there to learn how to cope with his disability and the cards dealt to him or was he there so they could make him feel better about having to try and lead a “normal” life after being told he couldn’t do this, that and the other thing from pretty much the day he was born when he kept falling down a lot? Are they medicating him into being normal or simply trying to dull his pain? Part of me wanted to walk out after him and say “Hey kid…I’ve been there and it’s going to be OK. Trust yourself NOW and you’ll be amazed at how well things come out for you by the time you get to my age.” But I’m not sure he’d really believe me nor would he have any reason to…no plane. I’m not even allowed to drive much less fly a plane, but I do have a collection of cool canes.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A JOURNAL AND A DIARY I find it interesting what people have to say or ask about some of the things I write in my postings. Some are genuine and some…not so much. Regardless of that the responses generally come in the form of a private e-mail these days rather than a public statement or question and some simply wait until they see me personally, either way it’s all good for me. There is very little in the way of a common connection for all of the statements and questions except for possibly one or two things. Many start out with something like “I’ve known you since DIRT was invented but I didn’t know (FILL IN THE BLANK HERE) about you…” which is only partly true. Very few still living have known me all of my life and even members of my own family haven’t really known me well (more on that later) during that period of time. The vast majority of you never even set eyes on me until 1968 or after that. I often get some version of “I knew you painted, drew, took pictures (whatever) but didn’t know you wrote” or “had Cerebral Palsy” etc. Similarly to the AMEX Black Card…anonymity has its privileges. Sometimes the things people don’t know about you allow you to stay under the radar and lead a normal life without someone feeling sorry for you unnecessarily and the writing can be judged on its own merits not because I would incorrectly be perceived as a “handicapped” person, which leads me to the title of this little trip down memory lane (or what there is left of it.) Someone has recently asked me (more than once) when did I start writing. The simple quick answer is…as soon as I learned how to write. I won the first of many writing contests in the second grade when I took State. I have since written articles and stories for more than two dozen publications and spoken or lectured at more places than I can imagine at one point or another in my life and I have two books still battling to get published as we speak. Like so many of us I started out with one of those spiral bound notebooks we always bought a bunch of at “Back to School” time or those black and white speckled “Composition” notebooks and kept them in the back of my binder to make notes about things that interested me and I didn’t want to forget or just wanted to find out more about. I would doodle from time to time about things that may or may not become a full on drawing or painting later and so on. Every now and then I would jot down the germ of an idea for a class project I was (more or less) supposed to be working on. I’ll confess right here and now…I seldom wrote anything to completion until no more than forty-eight hours before it was due, I liked the pressure…I know, I’m a sick fuck. (The fact that I never got anything less than a B is more embarrassing than ego boost…believe me) I continued on that way until college where, for some unknown reason, I felt the need to minimize what I carried around. So I went to an 8.5 X 5.5 version of the notebooks I had been using but still filled them with the random shit I always wrote. They were then (and still are), by definition, journals. I wouldn’t write a “diary” until several years later when I was going through my divorce with my first wife and there are major differences between “journals” and “Diaries”. Let me explain: A Diary is little more than a Stone Age Facebook . You’re likely to record such Earth shattering experiences as “Had a Chef Salad at Village Inn for lunch today…Yummy!” or fill it with teenage angst (regardless of our age) or outrage, not to mention semi-humorous social commentary. Something like “I saw Johnny kissing Sissy under the bleachers today, what a laugh!” or “I wasn’t allowed to go to the movies with Tommy because Mom & Dad said I was too young ”. As we grow older you write about how you weren’t allowed into the VIP section of some bar or nightclub last night even though you were the best looking person in the place, bought all the trendy drinks to the point you puked your guts out the next morning or…well…you get the picture In a Journal you’re more likely to record things like “I was driving down PCH through Big Sur yesterday and I stopped along the east side of the road where a great restaurant called Christina Mulevey’s used to be years ago. It’s, literally, just a stone’s throw down the hill from Henry Miller’s property up there on Partington Ridge Rd. I remember having a Chef Salad there a century ago with my parents on our way to…I don’t remember now where we were headed.” Or “I saw John kissing his secretary Sissy in the stairwell today again. I was amazed at how far down her pants his hands were this time.” The rest you can figure out for yourself. Journals help you remember whatever it is you want to remember. Diaries help you vent and discard certain thoughts, deeds and actions then forget them. Blogs, these days, can be a little of both with the boundaries severely blurred and not necessarily by intent. In so many ways we have blurred the edges of every aspect of our life. People do things like humorously refer to some quote they heard in life out of context and not give it a second thought. Things like “Banned in Boston” and yet if you ask them if you liked William S. Burroughs writing they wouldn’t know who you were talking about much less why his book “Naked Lunch” was banned in Boston in 1959 that lead to several obscenity trials for a variety of writers (including Henry Miller) who’s books had been published all over the world for years but couldn’t be published or read in the U.S. until the early sixties when they fought the laws that limited their freedom of speech (gee…where have I heard that recently?). Many of us can’t spell anymore we mis-quote, plagiarize and pontificate about things very few really have a handle on to begin with. Our perception of beauty is based on how much plastic is installed yet we demand people be “real”. We watch reality TV to laugh at how pathetic other people’s lives are and then are the first to raise our hands when they want to do a show about the life you yourself lead thinking no one will laugh at you because you’re different. Trust me I know…riding the short bus doesn’t make you special or different and ego doesn’t compensate for any of that either. In the “Indiana Jones” series of movies Indy was always pulling out his Journal to refer to something or add to it. It was weathered, beaten and had little snippets of things stuffed into it. No matter where he was in the world he had his Journal. I have such journals. I have a shelf or two of them and sometimes, when the opportunity presents itself, I still utilize the information they contain. I also have some diaries as well, almost all of which are still packed away in the deepest confines of a storage shed right now. One day when I have the chance (finally) I will burn the diaries up in a “Bonfire of the Vanities” moment. No one needs to read them anymore…even me. The journals I will keep. The majority of the ones from my youth have long ago been deposited in a landfill somewhere but the ones that do exist still I will keep. Someday there may be a great story to tell from them all but probably not by me. Now I’ve filled in some of the blanks you’ve had good, bad or indifferent. Anything else?

TRUISMS FOR THE 21st CENTURY…SO FAR

TRUISMS FOR THE 21st CENTURY…SO FAR No one is going to offer you a recording contract when you’re singing karaoke so you might as well stop looking for them to show up and buy you a drink when you’re done. (Along the same vein…the more you drink the worse you sound but…the audience starts to look better.) Ripping off of or sampling part or all of someone else’s music is not original or creative thinking. You shouldn’t be paid millions of dollars and get product endorsements for doing so instead you should be made to go back to school and learn how to do it for yourself. That favorite pair of shoes you think you look amazing in…don’t exactly go with everything you own or wear nor are they appropriate for every occasion. We’ve been called “Ugly Americans” worldwide for decades for a reason and believe me…it isn’t because they’re jealous of us. The same can be said for art too. That “Warholesque” screen print of the Mona Lisa still won’t be worth the paper it was printed on ten years from now. Art galleries will still be filled with discarded garbage from the street at obscene prices because “After all Dahling…it is New York garbage!”, “Terminator 28, The Rise of the Flesh Eating Microchip” won’t be a blockbuster and recycled TV shows won’t be watched because no one really cares “Who gave J.R. the enema?” this time around. Aspiring to advance in the ranks of any political party or association can only be accomplished in one way now…pressing the “Down” button to prove how low you’d be willing to compromise yourself to get “up” there. “Outsourcing” has already had a few unexpected benefits (If you want to call it that). The North Koreans now print OUR money faster, better and cheaper than we do here in the states and spend it in ways we can’t even imagine yet. And in typical government fashion the U.S. feigns shock and surprise but do little else. I wouldn’t be surprised that secret negotiations are underway to buy our own money from them and close the Mints and lay off more people. The “War on Drugs” will take on a decided turn nobody will expect in this century. With all of the apathy in the United States and elsewhere in the world China will become the dominant country so everyone will be learning Chinese. Before long and as we learn time and time again the Chinese don’t play fair and don’t like competition. The Central and South American Drug Cartels are unlikely to be willing to become subservient to an new intolerant Master after decades of buying off their current one so the Hispanic race will become the “New Jew” of this century and be eradicated from the face of this planet regardless of how remotely many might have been involved in that trade, leaving large chunks of the earth uninhabited once again. Guilt by association will once again be your death sentence. Just think…every environmentalists dream, the rainforests to return to what they once were…and genocide as the fertilizer. Hardly worth the price is it? These are the things I see becoming all too true all too soon. I have no doubt you can easily see other things if you stop and think about it for a moment. What say you friend?