When I was sixteen, I went to live in Germany as an exchange student. I lived with a German family, attended a German school, partied with German kids, ate German food, and had no buffers in my first language aside from evenings spent reading Don Quixote, pretending to be a teenage knight-ress errant (I was the rational companion, faithfully advising my cohort about the potential dangers of those menacing windmills-- afterall..., it doesn't take a space shuttle door-crafting scientist to know that a breeze-borrowing machine of that stature is capable of devouring a cactus and three infants while challenging a tempest to a game of checkers!).
Oddly, though, my most potent and soul-stranglingly influential memory of the experience was...
not the time I rode a tandem bicycle into a creek as my friend and I illustrated the symptoms of the Jaegermeister Curse via fragranced, throat-catapulted projectile displays...
nor was it when I got lost in the countryside, broke bread with an old woman who made me rake leaves in exchange for directions...,
or, when I failed every subject but got the highest score in math (the only subject that required no language abilities)...
It was, in fact, the initial plane ride over there.
I can still taste the vivid excitement/fear brew that tickled my pubescent chemical make-up...; that frightened-shitless-of-the-unknown-but-furiously-excited jolt of existence-recognition that I've come to love and embrace.
And, that's how I'm feeling today...: that same Oh-No!Oh-Yes! sentiment that likes to take you by the hand and point out, again, your mortality and the invigorating brilliance of this peanut-shell-onion-layered-Mexican-bean-dancing Spark that is life...
-c, what is this cliche poetic babble you're toying with?, you might be asking...
Well, a super special someone is coming home tomorrow from Japan, and I couldn't be more scared... and ecstatic!!
(Up the Creek old-timers might remember him from last August's post about obnoxious couples in the Japanese public eye..)
But, hey!, lots would give up their tax returns to feel sixteen and headed for a foreign land again!
I, on the other hand, got lucky...
All it took was a few minutes in the waiting room, and a professional business meeting...
(What can I say? Loki just isn't as busy these days...)
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Monday, March 27, 2006
Comfort Doodlings
Banging on things, staring into fires, doodling on rough-textured emu toes while chatting on the phone...
Sometimes, there are things in life that just seem to be so natural, so comfortable and so easy.
They're the things that gracefully call to us, enticing our primal subconscious, and luring us into game-play without ever requiring a second-guess or a reconsideration...
Let's call these things "Comfort Doodlings" (...because..., I've been told that "Banging, Fire-staring and Emu-decorating" was already copyrighted by a Swiss psychologist to denote an oft-neglected, abnormal-tendency disorder prevalent among down-under pyromaniacs with mobile phones...)
Anyway, these "Comfort Doodlings" are different for everyone.
For some, these experiences come with simply devouring chips and guacamole, dissecting amphibians, cycling into the wall at the gym, watching a good movie, partaking in orgasm-goaled orthopedics (--hey, some people are into that--), and taking romantic walks on the beach.
Me, though..., I'm much simpler.
For me, I'm comfortably doodling when I'm being ass-soaked by moist soil under an Oak tree, writing incoherent perceptions, miming conversation with someone whose language and culture don't translate, reading my way into a fun, new world, engaging in mental impiety while observing an orange blossom-driven hummingbird, taking a bus in a foreign country without knowing its destination, exploring "whys" with curious kids, discovering a novel instrument as new music is conceived, and discussing arbitrarily relevant subjects like home-made salad dressing, skunk-dating habits and the dental benefits of purgatory inhabitants.
But... the reason I set out to write this post (though I seem to have gotten a bit silly-style side-tracked...)
was to express how Rico Suave smooth and comfortable it is to hang out with old friends.
I recently saw a core group of kids that I knew from age three through highschool.
And, though, we've all changed immensely, are on different paths. it was oh-so doodle-comforting to be in their presence!
What can I say? Nothing calls for Comfort Doodles like chilling with someone who knows you used to be a book geek, who saw every truth-or-dare you fumbled when you were twelve, was there when you began your portfolio of Firsts, and remembers when you used to wear florescent Body Glove accessories and pretend like you were a mountain bike expert...
Ahhh, yes... everyone's got their Comfort Doodling favorites... (be they blogging, skipping rope, panda-painting, laughing with the family, creating stick figures, eating raw horse, walking the dog or whistling...)
I DO sometimes wonder, though, if anyone else's comfort doodling involves pineneedles and prisms...
Sometimes, there are things in life that just seem to be so natural, so comfortable and so easy.
They're the things that gracefully call to us, enticing our primal subconscious, and luring us into game-play without ever requiring a second-guess or a reconsideration...
Let's call these things "Comfort Doodlings" (...because..., I've been told that "Banging, Fire-staring and Emu-decorating" was already copyrighted by a Swiss psychologist to denote an oft-neglected, abnormal-tendency disorder prevalent among down-under pyromaniacs with mobile phones...)
Anyway, these "Comfort Doodlings" are different for everyone.
For some, these experiences come with simply devouring chips and guacamole, dissecting amphibians, cycling into the wall at the gym, watching a good movie, partaking in orgasm-goaled orthopedics (--hey, some people are into that--), and taking romantic walks on the beach.
Me, though..., I'm much simpler.
For me, I'm comfortably doodling when I'm being ass-soaked by moist soil under an Oak tree, writing incoherent perceptions, miming conversation with someone whose language and culture don't translate, reading my way into a fun, new world, engaging in mental impiety while observing an orange blossom-driven hummingbird, taking a bus in a foreign country without knowing its destination, exploring "whys" with curious kids, discovering a novel instrument as new music is conceived, and discussing arbitrarily relevant subjects like home-made salad dressing, skunk-dating habits and the dental benefits of purgatory inhabitants.
But... the reason I set out to write this post (though I seem to have gotten a bit silly-style side-tracked...)
was to express how Rico Suave smooth and comfortable it is to hang out with old friends.
I recently saw a core group of kids that I knew from age three through highschool.
And, though, we've all changed immensely, are on different paths. it was oh-so doodle-comforting to be in their presence!
What can I say? Nothing calls for Comfort Doodles like chilling with someone who knows you used to be a book geek, who saw every truth-or-dare you fumbled when you were twelve, was there when you began your portfolio of Firsts, and remembers when you used to wear florescent Body Glove accessories and pretend like you were a mountain bike expert...
Ahhh, yes... everyone's got their Comfort Doodling favorites... (be they blogging, skipping rope, panda-painting, laughing with the family, creating stick figures, eating raw horse, walking the dog or whistling...)
I DO sometimes wonder, though, if anyone else's comfort doodling involves pineneedles and prisms...
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Peace March Delirium
Pour a handful of energy, a fat Zeusian craneful of heart, and a shoebox-full of shared passion multiplied by (3.14159...) times Hope + a few bottled waters + handmade signs of support + i to the Public-Wants-to-be-heard Power, and you've got the makings for a fine, envigoratingly exhausting three days of anti-war marching.
(I actually had some great photos ready to post- to inaugurate my picture-less prose blogousity- ... but, being the self-proclaimed luddite MAC-user I am, I went and just lost all of them to the ether... --Luckily, I believe them goofy scientist geeks who say that energy lost here, is energy found elsewhere...)
But...
If I HAD shown a few photos..., you would have seen thousands of marchers for peace with creatively-penned and painted signs, students and mothers, citizens and lovers, workers, chillers, teachers, policemen, sons and daughters and brothers and sisters who went out of their ways and missed buses home to protest what their Country is doing, and asking WHY?
... I even had a nice little shot of myself, looking quite hippy and naive beside a "PEACE" sign and a home-made "Democracy by example- NOT BY WAR!" banner...
(You couldn't have cut my innocent, hippy idealism and cultured optimism with a samarai sword!)
You also wouldn't have known by looking that I was a perditious cynic, prone to excessive sarcasm, circuitously random blogging, and utter written absurditiy!
You wouldn't have known by looking that, when I can't sleep at night, I count stars like sheep, alternating from English, Spanish, Japanese to German (One, dos, san, vier, five, seis, shichi, acht, nine, diez, juichi...)
You wouldn't have known by looking that my voice is currently coarsely shot from chanting anti-war slogans:
"Que queremos? PAS! Cuando? AHORA!"
("Whadd'we want? PEACE! When D'we want it? NOW!")
and my legs are aching from 20 miles of walking.
But, I've got no complaints... Afterall, I've been walking only a few days with Fernando Suarez (the 50-year-0ld father of one of the first latino soldiers lost in Iraq) who is marching from Tijuana, Mexico to San Francisco for PEACE with many others (check out the mission and awesome trek of these amazing folks at: Fernando's site and Pablo's site)
I have to admit, though, that I'm ready to eat someone's grandfather because I lost my photos, and that, last night, as I tried to relax, I was still chanting as I dreamt...
Whadd'we want? PEACE! When do we want it? NOW!
Whadd'we want? SLEEP! When do we want it? NOW!
(But, I DO promise that if too many more politically-slanted experiences or observations creep into my future, I'll start a new blog for politics alone. This creek shall not be tainted! Nor shall platypuses be hit with political paddles!)
(I actually had some great photos ready to post- to inaugurate my picture-less prose blogousity- ... but, being the self-proclaimed luddite MAC-user I am, I went and just lost all of them to the ether... --Luckily, I believe them goofy scientist geeks who say that energy lost here, is energy found elsewhere...)
But...
If I HAD shown a few photos..., you would have seen thousands of marchers for peace with creatively-penned and painted signs, students and mothers, citizens and lovers, workers, chillers, teachers, policemen, sons and daughters and brothers and sisters who went out of their ways and missed buses home to protest what their Country is doing, and asking WHY?
... I even had a nice little shot of myself, looking quite hippy and naive beside a "PEACE" sign and a home-made "Democracy by example- NOT BY WAR!" banner...
(You couldn't have cut my innocent, hippy idealism and cultured optimism with a samarai sword!)
You also wouldn't have known by looking that I was a perditious cynic, prone to excessive sarcasm, circuitously random blogging, and utter written absurditiy!
You wouldn't have known by looking that, when I can't sleep at night, I count stars like sheep, alternating from English, Spanish, Japanese to German (One, dos, san, vier, five, seis, shichi, acht, nine, diez, juichi...)
You wouldn't have known by looking that my voice is currently coarsely shot from chanting anti-war slogans:
"Que queremos? PAS! Cuando? AHORA!"
("Whadd'we want? PEACE! When D'we want it? NOW!")
and my legs are aching from 20 miles of walking.
But, I've got no complaints... Afterall, I've been walking only a few days with Fernando Suarez (the 50-year-0ld father of one of the first latino soldiers lost in Iraq) who is marching from Tijuana, Mexico to San Francisco for PEACE with many others (check out the mission and awesome trek of these amazing folks at: Fernando's site and Pablo's site)
I have to admit, though, that I'm ready to eat someone's grandfather because I lost my photos, and that, last night, as I tried to relax, I was still chanting as I dreamt...
Whadd'we want? PEACE! When do we want it? NOW!
Whadd'we want? SLEEP! When do we want it? NOW!
(But, I DO promise that if too many more politically-slanted experiences or observations creep into my future, I'll start a new blog for politics alone. This creek shall not be tainted! Nor shall platypuses be hit with political paddles!)
Friday, March 17, 2006
Good-Guy, Bad-Guy, Love-to-Hate Hypothesis
Oh yes...
Bold defiance poking indignant talons at the faceless "them"...
Raging despondency sticking its tongue out from its foaming mouth at the pillars of "normalcy"...
Yes, these are some of the great things in life; these are some of those wondrous marvels that allow us to feel vulnerably alive... the things that let us voice adament public condemnation while simultaneously feeling secret admiration behind closed doors...
I mean, honestly, who doesn't disguisedly love a clever and ingenious villain or a sagacious art thief who takes off with a Monet, using nothing but brilliant cunning and a stick of bubble gum? ... or a modern-day Robin Hood who hacks into the military spending fund, using an orange peel, a rusty antenna and 49 spearment-flavored toothpicks?
Deny it if you will (-- I won't ask you to take a loss on your social credit report points --) but..., we all love a good, old-fashioned Stick-it-to-the-man Trojan Tale every once in a while.
I guess, maybe, that's why I was glued to the doofus tube yesterday, watching FOX News cover a high-speed car chase through Los Angeles. While I clenched my cavities and furrowed my never-once-plucked eyebrows at the reckless speeding and deplorable endangerment of innocent lives, there was some cavernously camouflaged whisper (... probably residing in my rebellious Achilles wedding-ring finger with all those wanderlust parasites and self-destructive, tite-rope-walking, membrane-depleted, nomadic white cells...) that said: "Go Mr. Car Thief! Left at the next corner, and you'll lose them coppers!"
But..., later on in the evening, I learned that the leading role in the Breaking News attraction (the pimped-out Chevy SUV with flashy rims, cable TV, GPS, X-BOX and atmospheric pressure-Stabilizer) was my friend's stolen vehicle that had chauffeured me to dinner and karaoke not three weeks before!
Suddenly, I was cursing what had once been exciting shots fired at the rear window, hexing the once romantic, joint-toking, hot-wiring bandit, and praising LoJack.
Though, it's an age-old lesson, it's one human nature seems to always blank on when Exam time rolls around... Face it- it's easy to love things until they directly attack you or your loved ones, and it's a pleasure to hate things until they pat you on the back and give you a candycane and a kiss.
(Hey, afterall... 1st Amendment rights are all rainbows and puppy dogs until the grandma-mutilating, Mother Theresa-fisting, elephant cock-bearing 12-year-old gymnast-impaling Nazi Oil-coholic Militants get their protest permit!)
But..., that being said..., I'll still be a rapid page-turner if any genius diamond thieves decide to publish their authority-outwitting memoirs of clever deception and criminal successes!
And, hey, the only reason most of us live in LA anyway is to have local coverage of all the car chases!
Bold defiance poking indignant talons at the faceless "them"...
Raging despondency sticking its tongue out from its foaming mouth at the pillars of "normalcy"...
Yes, these are some of the great things in life; these are some of those wondrous marvels that allow us to feel vulnerably alive... the things that let us voice adament public condemnation while simultaneously feeling secret admiration behind closed doors...
I mean, honestly, who doesn't disguisedly love a clever and ingenious villain or a sagacious art thief who takes off with a Monet, using nothing but brilliant cunning and a stick of bubble gum? ... or a modern-day Robin Hood who hacks into the military spending fund, using an orange peel, a rusty antenna and 49 spearment-flavored toothpicks?
Deny it if you will (-- I won't ask you to take a loss on your social credit report points --) but..., we all love a good, old-fashioned Stick-it-to-the-man Trojan Tale every once in a while.
I guess, maybe, that's why I was glued to the doofus tube yesterday, watching FOX News cover a high-speed car chase through Los Angeles. While I clenched my cavities and furrowed my never-once-plucked eyebrows at the reckless speeding and deplorable endangerment of innocent lives, there was some cavernously camouflaged whisper (... probably residing in my rebellious Achilles wedding-ring finger with all those wanderlust parasites and self-destructive, tite-rope-walking, membrane-depleted, nomadic white cells...) that said: "Go Mr. Car Thief! Left at the next corner, and you'll lose them coppers!"
But..., later on in the evening, I learned that the leading role in the Breaking News attraction (the pimped-out Chevy SUV with flashy rims, cable TV, GPS, X-BOX and atmospheric pressure-Stabilizer) was my friend's stolen vehicle that had chauffeured me to dinner and karaoke not three weeks before!
Suddenly, I was cursing what had once been exciting shots fired at the rear window, hexing the once romantic, joint-toking, hot-wiring bandit, and praising LoJack.
Though, it's an age-old lesson, it's one human nature seems to always blank on when Exam time rolls around... Face it- it's easy to love things until they directly attack you or your loved ones, and it's a pleasure to hate things until they pat you on the back and give you a candycane and a kiss.
(Hey, afterall... 1st Amendment rights are all rainbows and puppy dogs until the grandma-mutilating, Mother Theresa-fisting, elephant cock-bearing 12-year-old gymnast-impaling Nazi Oil-coholic Militants get their protest permit!)
But..., that being said..., I'll still be a rapid page-turner if any genius diamond thieves decide to publish their authority-outwitting memoirs of clever deception and criminal successes!
And, hey, the only reason most of us live in LA anyway is to have local coverage of all the car chases!
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Peace and Big Screen Fame
Some people go to church on Sundays. Some people lounge about the house in fuzzy pink platypus slippers. And some people make a pot of coffee and read Dear Abby columns to their loved ones.
But, nope. Not me.
So, what was I doing this past Sunday at about noon?
Why, dragging coffins across the sand on Santa Monica beach and lining up white crosses, of course! Why...? What ELSE would I be doing?!
My mother and I and hundreds of others were taking part in a national Women Say No to War event organized by CodePink. It was an assembly of concerned men and women for peace who gathered on the beach to have their voices heard and be a part of a large, aerial artistic statement.
The sand was the canvass, the people, the paint, and a circling helicopter was the capturer of the image.
And, yup. I think my big debut in the spotlight was quite a hit! I see wide-open Hollywood doors on the horizon and, most likely, a supporting role alongside George Clooney in the near future.
Check me out here! If you squint a bit, you can make out my dramatically intense Cry-for-Peace pose! (I'm the faint pink splotch on the upper right hand side of the O in NO.)
And, if anyone knows of a good agent who'd be interested in helping to find high-paying forums for my powerful theatrical performances, I'll be interviewing all next week...
But, nope. Not me.
So, what was I doing this past Sunday at about noon?
Why, dragging coffins across the sand on Santa Monica beach and lining up white crosses, of course! Why...? What ELSE would I be doing?!
My mother and I and hundreds of others were taking part in a national Women Say No to War event organized by CodePink. It was an assembly of concerned men and women for peace who gathered on the beach to have their voices heard and be a part of a large, aerial artistic statement.
The sand was the canvass, the people, the paint, and a circling helicopter was the capturer of the image.
And, yup. I think my big debut in the spotlight was quite a hit! I see wide-open Hollywood doors on the horizon and, most likely, a supporting role alongside George Clooney in the near future.
Check me out here! If you squint a bit, you can make out my dramatically intense Cry-for-Peace pose! (I'm the faint pink splotch on the upper right hand side of the O in NO.)
And, if anyone knows of a good agent who'd be interested in helping to find high-paying forums for my powerful theatrical performances, I'll be interviewing all next week...
Friday, March 10, 2006
Suckers and Paint
Finger painting has to be one of my all-time favourite pastimes. There's nothing quite like walking up to the visceral gates of artistic orgasm with your hands swamped in raw color and earthy clay-like goop squishing between your fingers...
It just can't really be beat- (... even with a weasel-tail whip or a ceremonial bamboo stick)...
So, why am I inclined NOW to write about this finger-friendly, raw and primordial channel to the divine?
Well... because I just completed a lovely finger-painted piece that, I believe, deserves high accolades for its unlikely and brilliant choice of artistic medium.
--No--, I didn't just rub vomit into a rabbit hide or smear shit all over a canvass, and step back to smile at my workmanship....
But..., ACTUALLY, that's not too far from the truth...
You see, I had first peed conventionally into my mom's toilet bowl and flushed, when I noticed that the water was still continuously running...
So, as one does,
I removed the lid of the toilet holding tank and discovered that the crucial suction sucker, plunger-lookin' thing-a-ma-bob of the flapper was weak and reluctant to properly suck...
And as I tried to coax it back into its sucking vocation, I discovered the bounteous black-orange rusty silth that had accumulated at the base of the tank...
And, wow! what could be better for finger painting than this pasty grime?! (... Had plumbing existed back in the age of Salamancan Cave Life, I'm sure those wall paintings of buffaloes would have been even more alive...!)
With my hands bathed in mamma's neglected sediment-shit-tank ink, I grabbed the first, flat-surfaced disposable item I saw in bathroom sight (a 1970's cut-out foam shoe inlay- probably used as some hiking boot design for my father's first outdoor gear company) and dove into artistic misplay and unsupervised finger painting...
And, so I composed and completed the "Bowl-rusted Soul-shocked Beauty on Blue Foam Foot" (Bids on eBay start at $35 for this creative rendition of a catapulted stick figure trapped in a multi-colored footprint, representative of the loneliness of lavatory life)...
It seems that my mom and I will be trying to install a new fill valve and flapper in the toilet this evening, as I secretly await the big bucks that will inevitably pour in after the release of my first Finger-painted Toilet Sludge Exhibition: Solitude, Synergy and Sink Scum.
*Have you checked the sediment in YOUR local toilet holding tank for colorful, artistically-usable paints lately? You'de be surprised what gifts rusted pipes and apathetic plungers can bring!
It just can't really be beat- (... even with a weasel-tail whip or a ceremonial bamboo stick)...
So, why am I inclined NOW to write about this finger-friendly, raw and primordial channel to the divine?
Well... because I just completed a lovely finger-painted piece that, I believe, deserves high accolades for its unlikely and brilliant choice of artistic medium.
--No--, I didn't just rub vomit into a rabbit hide or smear shit all over a canvass, and step back to smile at my workmanship....
But..., ACTUALLY, that's not too far from the truth...
You see, I had first peed conventionally into my mom's toilet bowl and flushed, when I noticed that the water was still continuously running...
So, as one does,
I removed the lid of the toilet holding tank and discovered that the crucial suction sucker, plunger-lookin' thing-a-ma-bob of the flapper was weak and reluctant to properly suck...
And as I tried to coax it back into its sucking vocation, I discovered the bounteous black-orange rusty silth that had accumulated at the base of the tank...
And, wow! what could be better for finger painting than this pasty grime?! (... Had plumbing existed back in the age of Salamancan Cave Life, I'm sure those wall paintings of buffaloes would have been even more alive...!)
With my hands bathed in mamma's neglected sediment-shit-tank ink, I grabbed the first, flat-surfaced disposable item I saw in bathroom sight (a 1970's cut-out foam shoe inlay- probably used as some hiking boot design for my father's first outdoor gear company) and dove into artistic misplay and unsupervised finger painting...
And, so I composed and completed the "Bowl-rusted Soul-shocked Beauty on Blue Foam Foot" (Bids on eBay start at $35 for this creative rendition of a catapulted stick figure trapped in a multi-colored footprint, representative of the loneliness of lavatory life)...
It seems that my mom and I will be trying to install a new fill valve and flapper in the toilet this evening, as I secretly await the big bucks that will inevitably pour in after the release of my first Finger-painted Toilet Sludge Exhibition: Solitude, Synergy and Sink Scum.
*Have you checked the sediment in YOUR local toilet holding tank for colorful, artistically-usable paints lately? You'de be surprised what gifts rusted pipes and apathetic plungers can bring!
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Door-to-door Redemption
With the daily nagging atrocities of our misguided Administration, the commercialization of humor, the replacement of love letters by text messages, and the exponential super-sizing of life's simple truths..., it's sometimes a matter of heavy weed-wacking and muscle-soaring sludge-removal to get to the essence of things...
That's why it's always so refreshingly grin-grabbing when we actually encounter things that still retain their originally inherent elements of purity...
And, that's why today I'd like to give thanks for one thing that, Thank the Cosmos, still remains sacred in this country. And, that is
the Integrity of the door-to-door Salesman (-- or "salesperson" if you're the type who prefers "person-hole" to "manhole"--)
I just had a lovely exchange with a bubbly young girl, selling window cleaner. It went something like this:
Bubbly Girl: Well, HEY there, girl!!
Me: Uh... hey there.
Bubbly Girl: Is your mom or dad home?
Me: Nope. My mom's probably at work, and my dad lives on a sailboat in Europe.
Bubbly Girl: Whoa! That's some crazy stuff! GEERL, how old are you?
Me: Uh... 27.
Bubbly Girl: DAAMN, girl! YOU lookin GOOOD! C'mon- give it up!
(* Bubbly Girl extends upright palm and I tap it "five")
Bubbly Girl: So, check THIS out!
(* Bubbly Girl takes out a blue marker, draws a line across her white towel and proceeds to scrub it with the aid of her "window cleaner")
Bubbly Girl: Betchu've never seen no window cleaner do THIS before!
(* Bubbly Girl shakes her booty to non-existent beats and the white towel takes on a light blue goopy tinge)
Me: Uh.. nice.
Bubbly Girl: Hell YEAH, that's nice!
(* another enthusiastic extended palm and another "five"-giving)
Bubbly Girl: Just imagine what it can do with coffee stains, red wine, water marks and shower grime... you know what I'm sayin?!
(* Bubbly Girl then - NO JOKE - takes a suck on the nozzle of her spray bottle and..)
Bubbly Girl: It's DAMN good with chicken too!
Me: ..eh.. hee hee..mmm...
Bubbly Girl: So you wanna get you some of this?
Me: uh... I don't think we really need it...
Bubbly Girl: Alright then.
(* Bubbly Girl does one last little music-less hip-shaking performance for the road)
Me: But, good luck to you! Try my neighbor's place!
To be honest, I feel like I should have bought some of her sugar water, if only to thank her for brightening my day, and re-instilling some nebulous crumb of humanity... That, AND, I wish every salesman would dance and high-five with such inhibition... What a marvelous world that would be...
("We have this fine flatscreen available for only $640 - would you like to see my break-dancing moves?")
That's why it's always so refreshingly grin-grabbing when we actually encounter things that still retain their originally inherent elements of purity...
And, that's why today I'd like to give thanks for one thing that, Thank the Cosmos, still remains sacred in this country. And, that is
the Integrity of the door-to-door Salesman (-- or "salesperson" if you're the type who prefers "person-hole" to "manhole"--)
I just had a lovely exchange with a bubbly young girl, selling window cleaner. It went something like this:
Bubbly Girl: Well, HEY there, girl!!
Me: Uh... hey there.
Bubbly Girl: Is your mom or dad home?
Me: Nope. My mom's probably at work, and my dad lives on a sailboat in Europe.
Bubbly Girl: Whoa! That's some crazy stuff! GEERL, how old are you?
Me: Uh... 27.
Bubbly Girl: DAAMN, girl! YOU lookin GOOOD! C'mon- give it up!
(* Bubbly Girl extends upright palm and I tap it "five")
Bubbly Girl: So, check THIS out!
(* Bubbly Girl takes out a blue marker, draws a line across her white towel and proceeds to scrub it with the aid of her "window cleaner")
Bubbly Girl: Betchu've never seen no window cleaner do THIS before!
(* Bubbly Girl shakes her booty to non-existent beats and the white towel takes on a light blue goopy tinge)
Me: Uh.. nice.
Bubbly Girl: Hell YEAH, that's nice!
(* another enthusiastic extended palm and another "five"-giving)
Bubbly Girl: Just imagine what it can do with coffee stains, red wine, water marks and shower grime... you know what I'm sayin?!
(* Bubbly Girl then - NO JOKE - takes a suck on the nozzle of her spray bottle and..)
Bubbly Girl: It's DAMN good with chicken too!
Me: ..eh.. hee hee..mmm...
Bubbly Girl: So you wanna get you some of this?
Me: uh... I don't think we really need it...
Bubbly Girl: Alright then.
(* Bubbly Girl does one last little music-less hip-shaking performance for the road)
Me: But, good luck to you! Try my neighbor's place!
To be honest, I feel like I should have bought some of her sugar water, if only to thank her for brightening my day, and re-instilling some nebulous crumb of humanity... That, AND, I wish every salesman would dance and high-five with such inhibition... What a marvelous world that would be...
("We have this fine flatscreen available for only $640 - would you like to see my break-dancing moves?")
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Change and Golden Calf Worship
"Do you think that's how she has sex?" my friend asked, nodding toward the acrobatic fiddler on stage whose hips floated to musical tide while her smile stunned stars in the sand when arpeggiotic waves receded.
"Well, I dunno," I answered, leaning over a pint of Sam Adams and a bottle of Coors Light, "but she sure moves her bow as if she had embraced and forgotten everything all at once... which is ALWAYS a good sign when pursuing fulfillment of primordial urges!"
"Yeah. It is, isn't it...."
And, back to silly conversation we went, drinking and reminiscing, munching and greeting old friends.
It was my first time back in four years to the mountain/ski town I used to live in. The amazing mountains and trip-you-if-you-look topography were still there. Some of my old coworkers from the bookstore/videostore were still there, wittying up the world. The smiles were the same. The street names were the same. Even the plowed, layered snow on the sides of Main Street looked the same.
Only, it had changed. Three Starbucks had come into town. A multitude of tourist-marketed restaurants had settled. A vertical poll with scantily-clad hired dancers had snuck into one of the bars. And many a tiki joint with Mai Tai specials at escalated prices had landed in the High Sierras. The police force had been tripled, 70% of the locals could no longer afford to live, and private jets crowded the tiny runway south of town.
But..., thanks to my divine Savior and Leader: The Holy Winged Platypus (...now, I don't like to preach, but if you're interested in attaining true happiness and contentment in life, contact me and I can talk to you about how the Winged Platypus can help YOU to help YOURSELF and help OTHERS- 1800-PT-PUSSY)....,
anyway.., thanks to the Winged PlatyPussy, I ended up among good company in what's left of the old mountain town I remembered...
... good people..., good music..., good lovers of the outdoors..., good stuff!
(And, by the way, I have no affiliation with the referenced 800 number.
But...., if it DOES in fact exist, I'd like to submit my resume, and say that, though I don't have webbed feet or a rubbery snout, I have a pretty sexy phone voice...)
"Well, I dunno," I answered, leaning over a pint of Sam Adams and a bottle of Coors Light, "but she sure moves her bow as if she had embraced and forgotten everything all at once... which is ALWAYS a good sign when pursuing fulfillment of primordial urges!"
"Yeah. It is, isn't it...."
And, back to silly conversation we went, drinking and reminiscing, munching and greeting old friends.
It was my first time back in four years to the mountain/ski town I used to live in. The amazing mountains and trip-you-if-you-look topography were still there. Some of my old coworkers from the bookstore/videostore were still there, wittying up the world. The smiles were the same. The street names were the same. Even the plowed, layered snow on the sides of Main Street looked the same.
Only, it had changed. Three Starbucks had come into town. A multitude of tourist-marketed restaurants had settled. A vertical poll with scantily-clad hired dancers had snuck into one of the bars. And many a tiki joint with Mai Tai specials at escalated prices had landed in the High Sierras. The police force had been tripled, 70% of the locals could no longer afford to live, and private jets crowded the tiny runway south of town.
But..., thanks to my divine Savior and Leader: The Holy Winged Platypus (...now, I don't like to preach, but if you're interested in attaining true happiness and contentment in life, contact me and I can talk to you about how the Winged Platypus can help YOU to help YOURSELF and help OTHERS- 1800-PT-PUSSY)....,
anyway.., thanks to the Winged PlatyPussy, I ended up among good company in what's left of the old mountain town I remembered...
... good people..., good music..., good lovers of the outdoors..., good stuff!
(And, by the way, I have no affiliation with the referenced 800 number.
But...., if it DOES in fact exist, I'd like to submit my resume, and say that, though I don't have webbed feet or a rubbery snout, I have a pretty sexy phone voice...)
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