Abraham Lincoln established Thanksgiving Day as a national holiday in the United States in 1863. In honor and in celebration of the holiday, here's the funniest 'virtual' robot fight in film history:
Movie: Eurotrip
Showing posts with label General Wackiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General Wackiness. Show all posts
Friday, November 23, 2007
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Friday, September 7, 2007
Robo-One GP
Here's some clips from the Robo-One Grand Prix in Japan. It's all about robots wrestling! Most of the moves are sloppy, but some of the moves are so prety you'll be crying out "DAAAAAMMMMMNNN!!!"
They're not REALLY robots, as they are not autonomous, but they still fall into the realm of robot-like machines (remotely controlled, however).
Pay particular attention to the belly-to-back suplex executed at ~2:45 in the first video.
Enjoy!
2007 - Retro (Silver) vs. King Kizer (Red)
ROBO-ONE 10 - Championship Match: Ivre (Silver with long sword-like limbs) vs. King Kizer (Red)
Super-Moves! (Various 'super' moves featuring various competitors)
ROBO-ONE GP (Official Korean site in English)
ROBO-ONE GP (Official Japanese Site)
And of course be sure to check out the site that brought us these great videos.
They're not REALLY robots, as they are not autonomous, but they still fall into the realm of robot-like machines (remotely controlled, however).
Pay particular attention to the belly-to-back suplex executed at ~2:45 in the first video.
Enjoy!
2007 - Retro (Silver) vs. King Kizer (Red)
ROBO-ONE 10 - Championship Match: Ivre (Silver with long sword-like limbs) vs. King Kizer (Red)
Super-Moves! (Various 'super' moves featuring various competitors)
ROBO-ONE GP (Official Korean site in English)
ROBO-ONE GP (Official Japanese Site)
And of course be sure to check out the site that brought us these great videos.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
BONUS POST! Free Serials!
Hey folks,
I've stumbled across this site more than once. They've taken old skool serials and other media that have fallen into public domain and placed them on their site for you to enjoy them for free. Yes, absolutely free! Right now they have Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon and Radar Men from the Moon under serials. They have other things you can check out, too. Below is a collected preview of what they have to offer. Why not give them a peep?
http://MoviesInYourHome.com
I've stumbled across this site more than once. They've taken old skool serials and other media that have fallen into public domain and placed them on their site for you to enjoy them for free. Yes, absolutely free! Right now they have Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon and Radar Men from the Moon under serials. They have other things you can check out, too. Below is a collected preview of what they have to offer. Why not give them a peep?
http://MoviesInYourHome.com
Friday, August 17, 2007
Giving Shout-Outs
Hey folks,
Serials will be coming soon, or so I hope. I've been very busy editing stories and working on the website. The serials are just sitting on the back burner for now. They're on their way.
For today's weekly post I bring to you some shout-outs and links to favorite sites and people, all with an old skool sci-fi flair. Let me know what you think and be sure to check them out. Enjoy.
SUPER ATOMIC TV
CIVIL DEFENSE MUSEUM
DRIVE-IN THEATERS
THE GHASTLY ONES
Serials will be coming soon, or so I hope. I've been very busy editing stories and working on the website. The serials are just sitting on the back burner for now. They're on their way.
For today's weekly post I bring to you some shout-outs and links to favorite sites and people, all with an old skool sci-fi flair. Let me know what you think and be sure to check them out. Enjoy.
SUPER ATOMIC TV
CIVIL DEFENSE MUSEUM
DRIVE-IN THEATERS
THE GHASTLY ONES
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
BONUS POST! A Gentleman's Duel
I'm afraid the full version was taken down, perhaps by Blur Studios. That's fine. here's the trailer for it.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
"i laugh and cringe and vomit and die all at once"
copyright 2007 by charles shaver. all rights reserved.
watching the tube
last night
there was this chick
this dame
this broad
talking with letterman
about her tat of a bluebird
on her wrist
and he asks
"so do any of these tattoos have any meaning
or are they just pretty?"
and she says the bluebird on her wrist
was inspired
by a poem
by charles bukowski
i laugh and cringe and vomit and die all at once
here's this porcelin goddess
even has the brit accent
expounding upon
the birdhouse of bukowski's soul
the bird in the heart of a dead drunk
what the fuck
what the fuck did she know
i wanted to cheer cuz someone on the grand stage
of our times
knew who the hell he was
i wanted to throw a red card
throw a red card
of foul, foul
irony
for what could this chick
this dame
this broad
with the brit accent
truly know about creativity
drunkenness
down-an'-outedness
with her multi-million dollar movie contracts
at such a young age
i can't say im closer to buk than her
or any other
no holier than thou's from me
he was a prick at best
but im not flaunting
my bluebird soul
on my wrist
for forty million viewers
while promoting my million dollar movie
i got up from the couch and came in here to my computer
and began to write
watching the tube
last night
there was this chick
this dame
this broad
talking with letterman
about her tat of a bluebird
on her wrist
and he asks
"so do any of these tattoos have any meaning
or are they just pretty?"
and she says the bluebird on her wrist
was inspired
by a poem
by charles bukowski
i laugh and cringe and vomit and die all at once
here's this porcelin goddess
even has the brit accent
expounding upon
the birdhouse of bukowski's soul
the bird in the heart of a dead drunk
what the fuck
what the fuck did she know
i wanted to cheer cuz someone on the grand stage
of our times
knew who the hell he was
i wanted to throw a red card
throw a red card
of foul, foul
irony
for what could this chick
this dame
this broad
with the brit accent
truly know about creativity
drunkenness
down-an'-outedness
with her multi-million dollar movie contracts
at such a young age
i can't say im closer to buk than her
or any other
no holier than thou's from me
he was a prick at best
but im not flaunting
my bluebird soul
on my wrist
for forty million viewers
while promoting my million dollar movie
i got up from the couch and came in here to my computer
and began to write
Monday, May 28, 2007
Book Burning to Protest the Lack of Book Loving?
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Tom Wayne has amassed thousands of books in a warehouse during the 10 years he has run his used book store, Prospero's Books.
ADVERTISEMENT
His collection ranges from best sellers, such as Tom Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October" and Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities," to obscure titles, like a bound report from the Fourth Pan-American Conference held in Buenos Aires in 1910. But when he wanted to thin out the collection, he found he couldn't even give away books to libraries or thrift shops; they said they were full.
So on Sunday, Wayne began burning his books in protest of what he sees as society's diminishing support for the printed word.
"This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today," Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books.
The fire blazed for about 50 minutes before the Kansas City Fire Department put it out because Wayne didn't have a permit for burning.
Wayne said next time he will get a permit. He said he envisions monthly bonfires until his supply — estimated at 20,000 books — is exhausted.
"After slogging through the tens of thousands of books we've slogged through, and to accumulate that many and to have people turn you away when you take them somewhere, it's just kind of a knee-jerk reaction," he said. "And it's a good excuse for fun."
Wayne said he has seen fewer customers in recent years as people more often get their information from television or the Internet. He pointed to a 2002 study by the National Endowment for the Arts, that found that less than half of adult respondents reported reading for pleasure, down from almost 57 percent in 1982.
Kansas City has seen the number of used bookstores decline in recent years, and there are few independent bookstores left in town, said Will Leathem, a co-owner of Prospero's Books.
"There are segments of this city where you go to an estate sale and find five TVs and three books," Leathem said.
The idea of burning the books horrified Marcia Trayford, who paid $20 Sunday to carry away an armload of tomes on art, education and music.
"I've been trying to adopt as many books as I could," she said.
Dozens of other people took advantage of the book-burning, searching through the books waiting to go into the flames for last-minute bargains.
Mike Bechtel paid $10 for a stack of books, including an antique collection of children's literature, which he said he'd save for his 4-year-old son.
"I think, given the fact it is a protest of people not reading books, it's the best way to do it," Bechtel said. "(Wayne has) made the point that not reading a book is as good as burning it."
SOURCE
Saturday, May 26, 2007
"Simple Simon"
Originally published in If - E - Zine(tm) in October of 2006, this short story is number 7 of 13 weekly essay or short story posts. Sorry that it was delayed a bit. Had some comp troubles for a brief moment. Enjoy.
**************************************************************************
"Simple Simon"
by Charles Shaver. All rights reserved.
The moon glowed blue, bathing the landscape in dispirited monotones until every blade of dying autumnal grass arcing to and fro in evening breeze, every bough bowing to howling winds, every stone, every scurrying mouse and cricket seeking underground shelter, every fallen leaf, every bit of September life was dripping sweetly with twilight. The blue light of the moon danced in and out and around hills, trees, homes; shocks of shadows went flying skyward, having spent their day buried beyond the topsoil, while shocks of corn tied to porch posts in celebration of harvest season crinkled and cracked, crying softly, naturally in the whisking wind, whispers of the dying time.
Still other shadows danced with their moonlit partners, hand-in-hand and cheek-to-cheek, in an odd waltz set to the tune of oncoming winter storms, music unheard yet played within the bones of every living thing in the countryside.
While winds chanted shadows swirled forming ghostly shades moving to trick the eye, forming dark creatures dodging between trees. And there, there! Beyond rolling hills, on the highest and farthest hill sat a structure creaking and moaning, moving with nature’s rhythms despite being man-made. Whispering winds, breath of the dead, pierced the sides of the old barn and flowed over its broken wooden back and through its broken wooden teeth to give it a howling voice. The barn groaned under its own weight. Its coughs and shudders sickly as color drained from cheeks, its red paint chipping away under chiseling ghost gusts.
It was a grand, glorious old barn surrounded by a graveyard of headstones made up of the foundations of other buildings long ago fallen and forgotten. While other homes still stood in this country, none were near in age or location to the old, dying barn, dying from a broken heart. It served little use to anyone any more. Except… once a year…
On or soon after the first of October every year Mr. Mulahey would come out to visit the barn with family or friends or farm hands, taking ever deeper breaths, pulling vital air into themselves so they may take up hammer, take up nail, take up broom and breathe life anew into the exhausted barn in preparation for the annual Mulahey Halloween Barn Dance.
The Barn Dance had been an affair for the good people of this part of the country for more than sixty years.
Look now! Beyond the horizon! Just past that ridge! Between those trees! Do you see it? See it coming on at us? A light! You do see it! A small glow… distant, distant… glowing like the moon, glowing when the moon hides behind gypsy clouds… it grows nearer! It comes to us. Closer still! Like an orb, a ball… like a will-o-wisp, don’tcha think? And as we watch it weaving, weaving, growing, glowing, approaching, causing the land to light up white, it descends slowly, disappearing into the old barn.
* * * * *
“How long ya been doin’ this?”
“Over sixty years.”
“No. I meant how long you been doin’ this?”
“Oh,” Simon, dressed in a long-sleeve checked shirt and denim jeans and work boots, said, “Tha firs’ year was ’88. I guess this one here will make it nineteen years.”
“Thassa long time.”
“That’s a long time,” Simon echoed.
Milo Silas, the questioning young man, was of ordinary size and looks. He wore a plain white t-shirt turned gray with work and sweat, jeans and cowboy boots.
“Every year,” Simon said as the two headed across open fields towards the barn, “I think I’m never gonna make it out here ta have another dance again. But then every year, ‘bout the end of September, when the winds shift and the sun cools and the cats seem more riled up, when I breathe in that autumn air it brings into my lungs something a little different, a little more fun and a lot of tradition. I think we need our traditions, ya know? Rituals. Holidays. Fourth of July has long gone and the aftertaste of summer hot dogs has faded. Something happens to the earth and we have to mark it somehow. Do something to show we know.”
Milo silently nodded in agreement.
The noonday autumn sun made the men glow orange as if they had eaten a few too many pumpkin pies, the lands glowed golden brown and the winds swept off the final heat from the land. It was as if the whole world had sighed in its relief from the hot summer sun.
“And I can’t help but ta feel good when I see people smile as they come on inta my barn. People dress up cuz they can. They smile at themselves with painted goblin faces. And somewhere out in that barn between nightfall and home, between punch cups and pumpkin carvings, we secretly, maybe unknowingly, conjure up some kinda magic. We make voodoo. We have fun.
“Now I ain’t sayin’ I’m saving lives out here or nuthin’. But makin’ people smile can’t hurt no one.”
Milo again agreed silently.
Approaching the barn Milo felt he was making a pilgrimage to a holy sanctuary, a piece of the past left standing by the magic Simon fondly spoke of. A caern, an apothecary of candy smiles and a Stonehenge of country living. This old barn wasn’t just a piece of the Mulahey family history, it was a piece of everybody’s history that ever walked through here or danced here or was invited to celebrate here. It was grand and generous of the Mulahey’s. It was grand and generous. Milo smiled.
The two men entered the rickety barn and stopped, staring. Staring up. Staring beyond the two lofts, up into the rafters.
“By God,” Simon whispered. “How’d he get up there?”
Plump and purple from the rafters did hang by his neck a dusty old man in weather-torn clothes.
“Dear God,” Milo whispered. “Who is he?”
The old man’s head, noose about the neck, hung to one side oddly, crookedly. He was ugly and stained with death, dangling like an overripe berry from a vine.
“Who is he?” Simon repeated Milo’s question.
“Who was he?” Milo corrected Simon and himself.
“Get that ladder,” Simon instructed. “Then run along and get Doc Dearborne.”
* * * * *
A few people had made the trek to gather in the barn, Doc Dearborne and Sheriff Arker among them. Daisy, Simon’s wife, had also come when she heard from Milo some tragic thing had happened out at the old barn. Milo had refused to return.
“Who is he?” Simon asked.
“Some hobo named Dusty Jim,” Sheriff Arker answered. “No clue as to a family name. He’s been through this area before. He loved the hard whiskey. One of my deputies talked with him a little last time he was through here, oh, I’d say about early last summer. Lost his wife near on a decade ago to a younger man. She took the kids. He never saw them again. Lost his job soon after. He was a mechanic or worked in a machine shop or something like that. Told my deputy he was killing hisself with booze cuz he couldn’t work up the nerve to eat a bullet. I guess he finally got the nerve.”
“Why here?” Simon asked. “Why my barn?”
The sheriff shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe cuz it’s away from everything and everyone.”
Eyes watched as an ambulance crew tucked Dusty Jim’s body into the back of their vehicle. Eyes followed as the ambulance slowly made its way across the field. It was in no hurry. No lights were blinding them, no sirens blared.
“Yep,” the sheriff said. “Cuz it’s quiet out here. Far from everything. The rope was here. The rafters. Nice, quiet, safe.”
Doc Dearborne explained, “Looks like he climbed up in them rafters, tied the makeshift noose and then either jumper or fell. Snapped his neck completely.”
“Dear God,” Daisy gasped. “Simon, we can’t have the barn dance this year. Not now. Not after this.”
“Ma’am,” the sheriff spoke, “It ain’t my place but I say don’t let some train-hoppin’ hobo ruin your plans.”
“They’ve already been ruined,” she said. “No one will want to come out here now. No one will come.”
Simon shook his head. “In all my years, this barn has seen many things die. Coupla cows, chickens I remember. Lord only knows how many mice and bugs. Even had a goat die out here once when my granddaddy still used this barn. But I don’t remember ever hearin’ a man losin’ his life out here.”
“I best go,” said Doc Dearborne. Simon shook his hand and thanked him before he left. Then the Doc disappeared out across the field much like the ambulance had.
“I best go, too,” said the sheriff. “Happy Halloween.”
The barn emptied out. Only Simon remained with his wife.
“No one will come,” Daisy whispered.
* * * * *
Alex was a local farmer, much like Simon, but every year he planted a new patch of pumpkins for the Halloween season. Simon bought all his pumpkins from Alex. Like Simon, Alex had inherited his land and occupation from his family. He was tall and young and hard working. A few freckles still spotted his face while age lines hid deep below the skin, waiting to burst out. His red hair blazed and mixed in, fitting in, with the autumn sunsets.
Every October, Alex would load his pumpkins onto a flatbed trailer, pull them out to the side of the road that ran past his house, placed a coffee can with a hole cut in its plastic top and a sign taped onto it that read:
PLACE MONEY HERE
THANK YOU
HAPPY HALLOWEEN
He never asked much for his pumpkins and he always sold a lot. Simon was his biggest buyer. So when Simon pulled his old pick-up alongside the pumpkin-laden trailer, Alex came out to meet him.
“Simon! How are you?”
The two exchanged handshakes and smiles.
“Good, good. And you?”
“Can’t complain.”
“How many you got for me this year?” Simon surveyed the landscape of pumpkins across the flatbed.
“Same as every year: As many as you want.” Alex smiled and smiled.
“I think I’ll take the usual thirty.” Simon lowered the tailgate of his truck and the two began picking and loading pumpkins.
“How’s Daisy?” Alex asked.
“Good, good. How’s Marlette?”
“She’s fine. Inside with the kids teaching them to bake pumpkin pies from scratch.”
“God, I love Marlette’s pumpkin pies!”
“Why ya think I married her?”
The two men shared a laugh.
Then Alex said, “I heard what happened out to your barn.”
Simon thumped a pumpkin and smiled at it. “Yeah.”
“It really happen?”
Simon lost his smile. “Yeah.”
“Sorry to hear it.”
“Me too,” Simon placed three fat pumpkins onto his truck to Alex’s one.
“You expectin’ the usual crowd?” Alex asked.
“Not so much, maybe. People get funny about things.”
“Yeah.”
The two worked on, loading plump gourds one after the other.
“How many you expectin’?” Alex asked.
Simon stopped. “I dunno really.”
Alex and Simon exchanged glances.
“Simon,” said Alex. “How long we been friends?”
“Well, I been buyin’ from you since you started growing these things when you was six. That’s what, nearly twenty years? It’s been mostly business between you and me but after twenty years I’d gotta say somewhere along the way we’d had ta have become friends.”
Alex smiled, and then frowned. He picked up another pumpkin and Simon began loading again. “Simon… I don’t think I’m gonna make it out this year.”
Simon kept quietly loading.
“It’s not you, or even the suicide,” Alex explained. “It’s just… my kids got wind of it and it might spook ‘em out right to be there. This year, least ways. But next year… next year you sure can bet I’ll be out that way! We all will!”
“I can understand that. Especially with young’uns.”
Simon loaded a huge, fat, round pumpkin onto his truck, patting it. “This one’s a beauty.”
It glowed fire-orange and had a golden stem with a clean face. It seemed about to burst into smiles without a carved face, smiling while waiting for a smile to be carved. Simon smiled back at the gorgeous gourd.
“Simon,” Alex broke the enchantment the pumpkin had been weaving. “I’ve talked to folks. I… I-I don’t think hardly nobody’s gonna go to the dance this year.”
Simon frowned, patting the pumpkin. His voice grew soft, serious. All the drywall housing that collects and protects a man fell away from Simon’s heart. “What do you suggest I do?”
Alex hung his head. They loaded on the last of the thirty pumpkins. Simon dropped some bills into the coffee can.
* * * * *
For the next three weeks Simon worked alone on the barn. He layered the dirt floor with fresh straw, set bales about for seating, got a big wash tub for apple bobbing, set up tables for food, secured a pulley and rope for a jack-o-lantern piñata; he did everything that needed to be done. And he did it alone.
“No one will come,” Daisy would tell him every morning. “No one will come,” she said every night.
“No one will come,” she said as he went out the front door of the house on All Hollow’s Eve. “No one will come!” she yelled after him as he drove off in the truck, headed for the barn.
* * * * *
Boris Pickett sang on the boom box. The fresh straw crackled under his feet. Oil and battery-powered lamps set the mood. The last few weeks were some of the loneliest Simon had ever spent. Now he stood in his family’s old barn. Alone.
Simon sat on a stool at one of the tables, pulled the big, beautiful pumpkin that smiled before having a smile close, dug in his pocket for his jack-knife and carved.
Early wintry winds howled outside the barn. An owl sounded his night sounds, a moaning, questioning voice carried on and stretched out by winds in ghost tones. Shadows grew into witches dancing, prancing upon a landscape going dead from the great Fall. The barn glowed from within, sending spears of light into the heart of darkness, bubbling blackness troubling the moon, chasing it to hide behind clouds.
And look! A sphere, a sphere, a will-o-wisp bobbing, exiting the barn. Turning, turning, glowing, growing smaller with distance until at last it disappears between trees, behind hills, beyond horizons.
***************************************************************
© copyright 2006 by Charles Shaver. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author(s) and artist(s).
**************************************************************************
"Simple Simon"
by Charles Shaver. All rights reserved.
The moon glowed blue, bathing the landscape in dispirited monotones until every blade of dying autumnal grass arcing to and fro in evening breeze, every bough bowing to howling winds, every stone, every scurrying mouse and cricket seeking underground shelter, every fallen leaf, every bit of September life was dripping sweetly with twilight. The blue light of the moon danced in and out and around hills, trees, homes; shocks of shadows went flying skyward, having spent their day buried beyond the topsoil, while shocks of corn tied to porch posts in celebration of harvest season crinkled and cracked, crying softly, naturally in the whisking wind, whispers of the dying time.
Still other shadows danced with their moonlit partners, hand-in-hand and cheek-to-cheek, in an odd waltz set to the tune of oncoming winter storms, music unheard yet played within the bones of every living thing in the countryside.
While winds chanted shadows swirled forming ghostly shades moving to trick the eye, forming dark creatures dodging between trees. And there, there! Beyond rolling hills, on the highest and farthest hill sat a structure creaking and moaning, moving with nature’s rhythms despite being man-made. Whispering winds, breath of the dead, pierced the sides of the old barn and flowed over its broken wooden back and through its broken wooden teeth to give it a howling voice. The barn groaned under its own weight. Its coughs and shudders sickly as color drained from cheeks, its red paint chipping away under chiseling ghost gusts.
It was a grand, glorious old barn surrounded by a graveyard of headstones made up of the foundations of other buildings long ago fallen and forgotten. While other homes still stood in this country, none were near in age or location to the old, dying barn, dying from a broken heart. It served little use to anyone any more. Except… once a year…
On or soon after the first of October every year Mr. Mulahey would come out to visit the barn with family or friends or farm hands, taking ever deeper breaths, pulling vital air into themselves so they may take up hammer, take up nail, take up broom and breathe life anew into the exhausted barn in preparation for the annual Mulahey Halloween Barn Dance.
The Barn Dance had been an affair for the good people of this part of the country for more than sixty years.
Look now! Beyond the horizon! Just past that ridge! Between those trees! Do you see it? See it coming on at us? A light! You do see it! A small glow… distant, distant… glowing like the moon, glowing when the moon hides behind gypsy clouds… it grows nearer! It comes to us. Closer still! Like an orb, a ball… like a will-o-wisp, don’tcha think? And as we watch it weaving, weaving, growing, glowing, approaching, causing the land to light up white, it descends slowly, disappearing into the old barn.
* * * * *
“How long ya been doin’ this?”
“Over sixty years.”
“No. I meant how long you been doin’ this?”
“Oh,” Simon, dressed in a long-sleeve checked shirt and denim jeans and work boots, said, “Tha firs’ year was ’88. I guess this one here will make it nineteen years.”
“Thassa long time.”
“That’s a long time,” Simon echoed.
Milo Silas, the questioning young man, was of ordinary size and looks. He wore a plain white t-shirt turned gray with work and sweat, jeans and cowboy boots.
“Every year,” Simon said as the two headed across open fields towards the barn, “I think I’m never gonna make it out here ta have another dance again. But then every year, ‘bout the end of September, when the winds shift and the sun cools and the cats seem more riled up, when I breathe in that autumn air it brings into my lungs something a little different, a little more fun and a lot of tradition. I think we need our traditions, ya know? Rituals. Holidays. Fourth of July has long gone and the aftertaste of summer hot dogs has faded. Something happens to the earth and we have to mark it somehow. Do something to show we know.”
Milo silently nodded in agreement.
The noonday autumn sun made the men glow orange as if they had eaten a few too many pumpkin pies, the lands glowed golden brown and the winds swept off the final heat from the land. It was as if the whole world had sighed in its relief from the hot summer sun.
“And I can’t help but ta feel good when I see people smile as they come on inta my barn. People dress up cuz they can. They smile at themselves with painted goblin faces. And somewhere out in that barn between nightfall and home, between punch cups and pumpkin carvings, we secretly, maybe unknowingly, conjure up some kinda magic. We make voodoo. We have fun.
“Now I ain’t sayin’ I’m saving lives out here or nuthin’. But makin’ people smile can’t hurt no one.”
Milo again agreed silently.
Approaching the barn Milo felt he was making a pilgrimage to a holy sanctuary, a piece of the past left standing by the magic Simon fondly spoke of. A caern, an apothecary of candy smiles and a Stonehenge of country living. This old barn wasn’t just a piece of the Mulahey family history, it was a piece of everybody’s history that ever walked through here or danced here or was invited to celebrate here. It was grand and generous of the Mulahey’s. It was grand and generous. Milo smiled.
The two men entered the rickety barn and stopped, staring. Staring up. Staring beyond the two lofts, up into the rafters.
“By God,” Simon whispered. “How’d he get up there?”
Plump and purple from the rafters did hang by his neck a dusty old man in weather-torn clothes.
“Dear God,” Milo whispered. “Who is he?”
The old man’s head, noose about the neck, hung to one side oddly, crookedly. He was ugly and stained with death, dangling like an overripe berry from a vine.
“Who is he?” Simon repeated Milo’s question.
“Who was he?” Milo corrected Simon and himself.
“Get that ladder,” Simon instructed. “Then run along and get Doc Dearborne.”
* * * * *
A few people had made the trek to gather in the barn, Doc Dearborne and Sheriff Arker among them. Daisy, Simon’s wife, had also come when she heard from Milo some tragic thing had happened out at the old barn. Milo had refused to return.
“Who is he?” Simon asked.
“Some hobo named Dusty Jim,” Sheriff Arker answered. “No clue as to a family name. He’s been through this area before. He loved the hard whiskey. One of my deputies talked with him a little last time he was through here, oh, I’d say about early last summer. Lost his wife near on a decade ago to a younger man. She took the kids. He never saw them again. Lost his job soon after. He was a mechanic or worked in a machine shop or something like that. Told my deputy he was killing hisself with booze cuz he couldn’t work up the nerve to eat a bullet. I guess he finally got the nerve.”
“Why here?” Simon asked. “Why my barn?”
The sheriff shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe cuz it’s away from everything and everyone.”
Eyes watched as an ambulance crew tucked Dusty Jim’s body into the back of their vehicle. Eyes followed as the ambulance slowly made its way across the field. It was in no hurry. No lights were blinding them, no sirens blared.
“Yep,” the sheriff said. “Cuz it’s quiet out here. Far from everything. The rope was here. The rafters. Nice, quiet, safe.”
Doc Dearborne explained, “Looks like he climbed up in them rafters, tied the makeshift noose and then either jumper or fell. Snapped his neck completely.”
“Dear God,” Daisy gasped. “Simon, we can’t have the barn dance this year. Not now. Not after this.”
“Ma’am,” the sheriff spoke, “It ain’t my place but I say don’t let some train-hoppin’ hobo ruin your plans.”
“They’ve already been ruined,” she said. “No one will want to come out here now. No one will come.”
Simon shook his head. “In all my years, this barn has seen many things die. Coupla cows, chickens I remember. Lord only knows how many mice and bugs. Even had a goat die out here once when my granddaddy still used this barn. But I don’t remember ever hearin’ a man losin’ his life out here.”
“I best go,” said Doc Dearborne. Simon shook his hand and thanked him before he left. Then the Doc disappeared out across the field much like the ambulance had.
“I best go, too,” said the sheriff. “Happy Halloween.”
The barn emptied out. Only Simon remained with his wife.
“No one will come,” Daisy whispered.
* * * * *
Alex was a local farmer, much like Simon, but every year he planted a new patch of pumpkins for the Halloween season. Simon bought all his pumpkins from Alex. Like Simon, Alex had inherited his land and occupation from his family. He was tall and young and hard working. A few freckles still spotted his face while age lines hid deep below the skin, waiting to burst out. His red hair blazed and mixed in, fitting in, with the autumn sunsets.
Every October, Alex would load his pumpkins onto a flatbed trailer, pull them out to the side of the road that ran past his house, placed a coffee can with a hole cut in its plastic top and a sign taped onto it that read:
PLACE MONEY HERE
THANK YOU
HAPPY HALLOWEEN
He never asked much for his pumpkins and he always sold a lot. Simon was his biggest buyer. So when Simon pulled his old pick-up alongside the pumpkin-laden trailer, Alex came out to meet him.
“Simon! How are you?”
The two exchanged handshakes and smiles.
“Good, good. And you?”
“Can’t complain.”
“How many you got for me this year?” Simon surveyed the landscape of pumpkins across the flatbed.
“Same as every year: As many as you want.” Alex smiled and smiled.
“I think I’ll take the usual thirty.” Simon lowered the tailgate of his truck and the two began picking and loading pumpkins.
“How’s Daisy?” Alex asked.
“Good, good. How’s Marlette?”
“She’s fine. Inside with the kids teaching them to bake pumpkin pies from scratch.”
“God, I love Marlette’s pumpkin pies!”
“Why ya think I married her?”
The two men shared a laugh.
Then Alex said, “I heard what happened out to your barn.”
Simon thumped a pumpkin and smiled at it. “Yeah.”
“It really happen?”
Simon lost his smile. “Yeah.”
“Sorry to hear it.”
“Me too,” Simon placed three fat pumpkins onto his truck to Alex’s one.
“You expectin’ the usual crowd?” Alex asked.
“Not so much, maybe. People get funny about things.”
“Yeah.”
The two worked on, loading plump gourds one after the other.
“How many you expectin’?” Alex asked.
Simon stopped. “I dunno really.”
Alex and Simon exchanged glances.
“Simon,” said Alex. “How long we been friends?”
“Well, I been buyin’ from you since you started growing these things when you was six. That’s what, nearly twenty years? It’s been mostly business between you and me but after twenty years I’d gotta say somewhere along the way we’d had ta have become friends.”
Alex smiled, and then frowned. He picked up another pumpkin and Simon began loading again. “Simon… I don’t think I’m gonna make it out this year.”
Simon kept quietly loading.
“It’s not you, or even the suicide,” Alex explained. “It’s just… my kids got wind of it and it might spook ‘em out right to be there. This year, least ways. But next year… next year you sure can bet I’ll be out that way! We all will!”
“I can understand that. Especially with young’uns.”
Simon loaded a huge, fat, round pumpkin onto his truck, patting it. “This one’s a beauty.”
It glowed fire-orange and had a golden stem with a clean face. It seemed about to burst into smiles without a carved face, smiling while waiting for a smile to be carved. Simon smiled back at the gorgeous gourd.
“Simon,” Alex broke the enchantment the pumpkin had been weaving. “I’ve talked to folks. I… I-I don’t think hardly nobody’s gonna go to the dance this year.”
Simon frowned, patting the pumpkin. His voice grew soft, serious. All the drywall housing that collects and protects a man fell away from Simon’s heart. “What do you suggest I do?”
Alex hung his head. They loaded on the last of the thirty pumpkins. Simon dropped some bills into the coffee can.
* * * * *
For the next three weeks Simon worked alone on the barn. He layered the dirt floor with fresh straw, set bales about for seating, got a big wash tub for apple bobbing, set up tables for food, secured a pulley and rope for a jack-o-lantern piñata; he did everything that needed to be done. And he did it alone.
“No one will come,” Daisy would tell him every morning. “No one will come,” she said every night.
“No one will come,” she said as he went out the front door of the house on All Hollow’s Eve. “No one will come!” she yelled after him as he drove off in the truck, headed for the barn.
* * * * *
Boris Pickett sang on the boom box. The fresh straw crackled under his feet. Oil and battery-powered lamps set the mood. The last few weeks were some of the loneliest Simon had ever spent. Now he stood in his family’s old barn. Alone.
Simon sat on a stool at one of the tables, pulled the big, beautiful pumpkin that smiled before having a smile close, dug in his pocket for his jack-knife and carved.
Early wintry winds howled outside the barn. An owl sounded his night sounds, a moaning, questioning voice carried on and stretched out by winds in ghost tones. Shadows grew into witches dancing, prancing upon a landscape going dead from the great Fall. The barn glowed from within, sending spears of light into the heart of darkness, bubbling blackness troubling the moon, chasing it to hide behind clouds.
And look! A sphere, a sphere, a will-o-wisp bobbing, exiting the barn. Turning, turning, glowing, growing smaller with distance until at last it disappears between trees, behind hills, beyond horizons.
***************************************************************
© copyright 2006 by Charles Shaver. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author(s) and artist(s).
Thursday, May 17, 2007
As I Went Walking That Ribbon of Highway...
Originally published on my website in November of 2004, this essay is number 6 of 13 weekly essay or short story posts. Enjoy.
*****************************************************
As I Went Walking That Ribbon of Highway...
-or-
Everything I Ever Needed I Learned by First Turning Off the Television...
by Charles Shaver
from November, 2004
© copyright 2004-2005 by Charles Shaver. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author(s) and artist(s).
This is simply a list of observations I've made as of late, with a few confessions thrown in.
I've learned fear will win you more votes than truth.
All forms of dental work is now viewed as a "luxury", despite the fact that my health is at considerable risk without receiving proper dental care. Funny, I guess my health and well-being is a luxury.
Bob Marley was not much smarter than the average man, though he was more observant and truthful.
Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Duke Ellington were the greatest composers and songwriters in American history because, while they wrote and performed largely for and from an American perspective, they were and are universal.
Tim Burton single-handedly inspired the launch of the Goth Topic... erm, I mean Hot Topic chain of stores where buying is apparently rebelling.
Lars Ulrich is a whiney little bitch.
KRS-One is a better speaker than he is a rapper, and he's a better rapper than most speakers are speakers.
John Ashcroft has resigned. Too bad the damage is already done.
Having been born in Flint, Michigan I grew up knowing Michael Moore was an idiot. While he may stand on the side of righteousness, or says so, he is often the centerpiece for his own works and therefore makes every piece of work about himself and less about the actual subject at hand. Also, anyone can present facts and say "2+2 =... well, audience? You can make up your own mind here." It's a standard tactic in propaganda. Just ask Hitler's S.S. While I, too, did not support the war in Iraq and often find myself, for lack of a better term, "on the same side of the fence" as Moore, I at least have some tact and rational judgment. His little speech at the Oscars only served to aggravate me. I understand that saying "Shame, shame!" to the president of the United States is meant to show that he needs to be treated like a child. But it speaks just as much in volumes about the speaker, Moore himself, and is rather childish, schoolyard name-calling bullshit. He does NOT represent my voice, and he represents by and large only his own.
I prefer Brian Eno over Digweed.
Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, even in death, is still getting ripped off.
Tupac Shakur, even in death, is making more money than my ass.
Jesus seemed like a cool guy who would have a tough time living in America today. He would most likely be stabbed, beaten and raped to death for being a dropout-hippie-freak... and most likely in his own name.
I am not a Christian, nor will I ever be.
I know that some who may take offense to any of the 'more serious' comments I've made here will use the above admission to slander and discredit me.
Despite my hopes for the best for the people of this nation, I will never be called a Patriot.
I once read about a study where historians claimed that should the United States ever fall, it would most likely be at the hands of the Native Americans because they have the greatest justification.
I know I will most likely be investigated, or further investigated, for this post.
I have very few friends, but they have each proven to be more than I've ever needed.
I know that I am occasionally filled with hate. Some of it is childish bullshit. I'm working on that. Some of it is 100%, undeniably justifiable.
Hawaiian Homelands is a prettied-up way of saying "reservation". Especially since every parcel of land is Hawaiian Homelands.
I recently heard about a senator who traveled to Puerto Rico and told the people there that they should really consider joining the United States as the 51st state and gave as an example how the Hawaiian people supposedly "begged to be a part of the U.S." The Puerto Ricans weren't stupid. They knew the truth behind the occupation of Hawai'i (unlike this stupid, idiotic senator) and most likely told him to find out about The Rest of the Story: http://www.hawaii-nation.org/paulharvey.html
Ignorance is the lack of knowledge. Stupidity is having the knowledge available and just not taking advantage of it (see above example).
Stupid is as stupid does is stupid. Tom Hanks has gone from funny guy with potential to boring, over-hyped hack.
L. Ron Hubbard was once quoted as saying, "If you want to make money, start a religion."
Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath was so titled (having taken the title from a lyric in the song "Battle Hymn of the Republic" that says "where the grapes of wrath are stored") in order to escape any possible persecution as being anti-Patriotic or communist. Today he would have to do the same to avoid being called anti-Patriotic or a terrorist.
I breed mice as a hobby.
I study war-gaming theory as a hobby.
I know that people are content to just being left alone, not getting involved, and staying out of just enough debt so as not to get into any trouble with anyone.
Bruce Lee was great. His films were action-packed, often suspenseful, and always intelligent. But what made the man great was not what he did, but what he could do. Not what he captured on film, but what he said on paper, from the heart.
I have met more people than I will ever remember.
N.W.A is alive and well and living in my CD player.
Love is not so complicated as The Bard would have us believe. It is not some mystical thing that has caused the ruination and so much pain for so many of us, most especially for our young women, in Western Civilization. It is as easy as looking into a loved one's eyes and having the willingness to do whatever it takes to make a happy life for the both of you. It really is just that simple. If anything else gets in the way of that, then you're not in love. You're in bullshit Drama.
Life is a temporary existence between non-existences.
Death is the great leveler, the great equalizer. Death is what makes life precious. As we trip through that fourth dimension of ours, we eventually come to our end. It is death, and our temporary stay here in a state of life, that makes us precious. Death isn't so fearsome after all.
Waking up to find my baby kitten curled up next to me in bed, seeking warmth and comfort, shows me that life truly is beautiful.
Waking up to find my sweetheart, the love of my life, curled up next to me in bed, seeking warmth and comfort, shows me that life truly is beautiful.
To learn anything, jump in head first.
Mick Foley is a great Storyteller, but not much of a Writer. He needs to stop trying to be The Writer and just tell good stories.
Television is good for nothing, except wrestling and the occasional football, futbol, and baseball game.
I am no more precious or worthless than anyone else. I am no smarter or ignorant than anyone else. I am just tripping through life like the rest of the world without a fuckin clue as to what's going on or where I'm going..
While Confucius was a smart man who worked towards many righteous ends, and I can respect that, I still prefer Taoism over Confucianism. perhaps it is due to my cynicism for humanity.
Cartoons and comics continue to be the single most real, honest form of mass media.
With the release of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy fans, friends, and scholars of Tolkien could finally cry out in victory that this man, this author, finally got the attention he deserved. Some cried that he was the most under-appreciated literary figure of the 20th century. While I will not argue his place in literary history, it is truly deserved, I will argue that he is not the most under appreciated. The single most under appreciated literary figure of the 20th and now the 21st century is Stan Lee. While he is finally, FINALLY getting some of the proper representation in pop culture through a larger audience and film-makers who love comic books, he is still seen as not much more than that guy that makes the funnies. Yet more people across this nation can associate with Spider-Man or The Fantastic Four or The Hulk or, for myself, Iron Man than we could with Perseus or Bilbo or Frodo or Achilles or Beowulf or most other literary figures. I love Tolkien, but he is far from the most under appreciated... especially now.
What idiot at Cartoon Network decided it was a good idea to air Ray Bradbury's classic Halloween Tree on the Friday before Halloween at noon when no kids are around to watch it? Wouldn't it have made more sense to air it at noon on Halloween Sunday? This movie should be seen by all kids and kids-at-heart who love Halloween.
"Gay marriage disparages the sanctity of holy unity and religion!" says the Christian. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a few little boys to molest."
Paper Mario 2: The Thousand Year Door is hands down the best RPG I've played this year. And that includes Gayble... erm, I mean Fable.
While a somewhat solid title (I experienced some clipping) Fable did NOT bring anything new to the RPG table that Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Dungeon Siege and KOTOR hadn't already done... in some cases years before Fable ever came into being. I had already waited two years for this game. I would have waited an extra year or two to get the game I was promised. Fable is only what FF: Mystic Quest SHOULD have been. IMHO, PM owes me money.
I will hail the Shaw Brothers as much as I will hail Akira Kurosawa.
Marcel Duchamp and Clement Greenburg were both intelligent men. Unfortunately, Greenburg opened the floodgates of mediocrity and Duchamp fucked up the art world for all of us.
Read Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky.
Jack Kerouac and Andy Warhol are dead.
Wearing black sweaters and drinking coffee does not a good artist make.
Pharaohs believed that they were placed into power by gods.
In Plato's classic The Republic, his vision for utopia (ideal, peaceful society), artists not working directly for the Republic were outlaws. He feared the power that artists had to give The People a voice or to use that power to undermine the Republic. An ancient philosopher recognized the power of art. Too bad too few artists today recognize it.
We are each filters of the world around us. But what the hell makes you think you're so goddammned important that I have to spend my own precious time, money and put forth an effort to see your artwork if all you're going to do is talk about yourself? If that's all you do, it is called mental masturbation. You are only concerned for your own pleasure and seek the approval of others. You are nothing to me unless you prove otherwise. you MUST bring it home to me. Until you do so, I do not approve of you and you are NOT an artist.
Wanda Sykes reminds me of a slightly taller, female version of Gary Coleman.
Usagi Yojimbo is my favorite comic book.
We are now living in the age of information, yet no one is saying anything. Including me?
Conflict is harmony, for in conflict things are being discussed, fought over and, perhaps, resolved. Complacency is chaos, for in complacency no one is thinking, no one is doing, no one is living. This does not mean that peaceful living is complacency, no more than conflict is intellectual striving. Peaceful living and educational benefits can exist with or without the two.
The irony is not lost on me that I am taking a muscle relaxer called Clarisoprodol... a generic form of a drug called Soma.
Read Gilgamesh.
Kids today will actually spend upwards of $20 to buy a chain specifically designed for them to "look cool". What ever happened to buying a real dog chain at the 99-cent store or, better yet, getting one in a junkyard for less or even for free from the junkyard dog to wear for the purpose of self-protection?
Whatever happened to The Crass and The Clash? We could use them now more than ever.
Bruce Springsteen is more rebellious than Green Day.
The Rolling Stones remain the greatest rock band in the history of rock, even over The Beatles who couldn't... stay together...
Bo Diddly is alive and well and playing in every juke joint that knows better.
Brook Benton, Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Leadbelly mean as much to me as Fats Domino and Bo Diddly.
Basho was the greatest rapper of all time. ("Too long!" *chop*)
An ocean's water has healing properties for the human body... given that the water is actually clean.
I have known more than one person who have had good, steady jobs where they make $18 an hour, eat nothing but ramen and sandwiches, and yet they still have to have more than one roommate to split the rent and share expenses.
I should have a house of my own by the time I'm 24 and... oops. I'll be 28 this year. Damn, I suck.
Did everyone just up and forget about AIDS?
"At the end of 2003 an estimated 34-46 million people were living with HIV/AIDS – 31-43 million adults and between 2.1-2.9 million children below the age of 15 years. More than 65 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS (25-28.2 million) live in Sub-Saharan Africa; another 16 percent (4.6-8.2 million) live in South and Southeast Asia." [where the sex-slave trade goes unnoticed and unchecked] Source: http://www.aegis.com/ni/topics/referenc.asp#stats Also check: http://www.aids.org/
And here's some info close to my heart, no pun intended: http://www.aids.org/factSheets/507-Hepatitis-C.html "Hepatitis C is a liver disease caused by a virus. The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is transmitted through infected blood. Hep C spreads easily when drug users share equipment. Over 80% of injection drug users have hepatitis C. Hep C can also spread through sexual activity. Hep C spreads more easily than HIV through contact with infected blood. In the US, about 4 times as many people have Hep C as have HIV. You could be infected with HCV and not know it. About 15% to 30% of people clear the Hep C virus from their bodies without treatment. The other 70% to 85% develop chronic infection, and the virus stays in their body unless it is successfully treated. Hep C might not cause any problems for about 10 years or even much longer, but it can cause serious liver damage leading to liver failure and death. Almost all cases of hepatitis C could be cured if treatment with interferon starts very soon after infection. Unfortunately, early signs of hepatitis can seem like the flu. Most cases are not diagnosed until years after infection." <~~ [from the above link] And before I have to be subjected to any of your fuckin snide-assed remarks, I contracted Hep C when I was 8-years-old during open-heart surgery and received some infected blood via transfusion. That was 20 years ago this last August.
High school has nothing to do with education.
College has nothing to do with education, but if you work at it, you just might get one.
If I sit at the computer for more than an hour, the brilliance of Asimov occurs to me.
I'm alive and doing my best to learn and teach. It's the cycle of life.
We are all human. Equality is built in to nature, but, unfortunately, not government or society.
Just before the U.S. went into Iraq, people all over the world organized and protested. It was the single largest (in number of people and expanse of geographic places) peaceful public demonstration to ever be held in the history of the world. In response, Bush said that he cannot base his decision upon a small minority who do not want the war.
I hope Leonard Peltier by now has learned to be more free than I have.
I will miss Wesley Willis.
People will hate me for the above statement.
I remember when Halloween came in October, Thanksgiving in November and Christmas in December. Now it's more like Halloween starts in September, ends the second week of October and Christmas starts soon after.
Each artist has to be the shaman.
If asked the proverbial question: "If you could meet one person in history, dead or alive, who would it be?" I would mostly likely answer Joseph Campbell. But I'm unsure how much I would actually speak with him. I would most likely just sit and listen.
I've noticed a lot of artists treat the director's cut of Blade Runner like an art-house flick, yet not many understand it. They just like the pretty and degenerate scenery and enjoy watching Rutger Hauer crying.
Euro-centrism is a disease.
When it comes right down to it, if a cop is unsure of your motives and has been filled with fear and lies and paranoia -- admittedly occassolly for good reason -- he/she won't give a damn about your Constitutional rights and will care more about getting home in one piece.
The U.S. Constitution. Though it seems most people don't do much more than wipe their ass with it today (most especially politicians who make it their job to wipe their ass without looking like their wiping their ass), the one thing most people don't do is read it. While it doesn't apply to a society filled with hate, racism, and sexism (since it states that "all men are created equal"), it actually has some pretty good stuff in it and is a very well written, intelligent document.
I can't change the world, but I can plant seeds in my own garden.
With Alberto Gonzales in, and Condoleezza Rice stepping up for Colin Powell, who will take her place? Probably some other wonderbread minority.
Girls: As much as I love Popeye, Olive Oyl is not sexy. Quit trying to look like her! Eat a burger, for crying out loud. They're not even expensive! Most places now have $1 value menus! Hell, if you go to some place like White Castle, you can get TONS of burgers for a few bucks!
"Whatevahs" is a philosophy.
None of this is profound.
I am a Very Small Animal.
This essay entitled "As I Went Walking That Ribbon of Highway" is © copyright 2004-2005 by Charles Shaver. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author(s) and artist(s). Contact me at LordShen@juno.com.
*****************************************************
As I Went Walking That Ribbon of Highway...
-or-
Everything I Ever Needed I Learned by First Turning Off the Television...
by Charles Shaver
from November, 2004
© copyright 2004-2005 by Charles Shaver. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author(s) and artist(s).
This is simply a list of observations I've made as of late, with a few confessions thrown in.
I've learned fear will win you more votes than truth.
All forms of dental work is now viewed as a "luxury", despite the fact that my health is at considerable risk without receiving proper dental care. Funny, I guess my health and well-being is a luxury.
Bob Marley was not much smarter than the average man, though he was more observant and truthful.
Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Duke Ellington were the greatest composers and songwriters in American history because, while they wrote and performed largely for and from an American perspective, they were and are universal.
Tim Burton single-handedly inspired the launch of the Goth Topic... erm, I mean Hot Topic chain of stores where buying is apparently rebelling.
Lars Ulrich is a whiney little bitch.
KRS-One is a better speaker than he is a rapper, and he's a better rapper than most speakers are speakers.
John Ashcroft has resigned. Too bad the damage is already done.
Having been born in Flint, Michigan I grew up knowing Michael Moore was an idiot. While he may stand on the side of righteousness, or says so, he is often the centerpiece for his own works and therefore makes every piece of work about himself and less about the actual subject at hand. Also, anyone can present facts and say "2+2 =... well, audience? You can make up your own mind here." It's a standard tactic in propaganda. Just ask Hitler's S.S. While I, too, did not support the war in Iraq and often find myself, for lack of a better term, "on the same side of the fence" as Moore, I at least have some tact and rational judgment. His little speech at the Oscars only served to aggravate me. I understand that saying "Shame, shame!" to the president of the United States is meant to show that he needs to be treated like a child. But it speaks just as much in volumes about the speaker, Moore himself, and is rather childish, schoolyard name-calling bullshit. He does NOT represent my voice, and he represents by and large only his own.
I prefer Brian Eno over Digweed.
Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, even in death, is still getting ripped off.
Tupac Shakur, even in death, is making more money than my ass.
Jesus seemed like a cool guy who would have a tough time living in America today. He would most likely be stabbed, beaten and raped to death for being a dropout-hippie-freak... and most likely in his own name.
I am not a Christian, nor will I ever be.
I know that some who may take offense to any of the 'more serious' comments I've made here will use the above admission to slander and discredit me.
Despite my hopes for the best for the people of this nation, I will never be called a Patriot.
I once read about a study where historians claimed that should the United States ever fall, it would most likely be at the hands of the Native Americans because they have the greatest justification.
I know I will most likely be investigated, or further investigated, for this post.
I have very few friends, but they have each proven to be more than I've ever needed.
I know that I am occasionally filled with hate. Some of it is childish bullshit. I'm working on that. Some of it is 100%, undeniably justifiable.
Hawaiian Homelands is a prettied-up way of saying "reservation". Especially since every parcel of land is Hawaiian Homelands.
I recently heard about a senator who traveled to Puerto Rico and told the people there that they should really consider joining the United States as the 51st state and gave as an example how the Hawaiian people supposedly "begged to be a part of the U.S." The Puerto Ricans weren't stupid. They knew the truth behind the occupation of Hawai'i (unlike this stupid, idiotic senator) and most likely told him to find out about The Rest of the Story: http://www.hawaii-nation.org/paulharvey.html
Ignorance is the lack of knowledge. Stupidity is having the knowledge available and just not taking advantage of it (see above example).
Stupid is as stupid does is stupid. Tom Hanks has gone from funny guy with potential to boring, over-hyped hack.
L. Ron Hubbard was once quoted as saying, "If you want to make money, start a religion."
Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath was so titled (having taken the title from a lyric in the song "Battle Hymn of the Republic" that says "where the grapes of wrath are stored") in order to escape any possible persecution as being anti-Patriotic or communist. Today he would have to do the same to avoid being called anti-Patriotic or a terrorist.
I breed mice as a hobby.
I study war-gaming theory as a hobby.
I know that people are content to just being left alone, not getting involved, and staying out of just enough debt so as not to get into any trouble with anyone.
Bruce Lee was great. His films were action-packed, often suspenseful, and always intelligent. But what made the man great was not what he did, but what he could do. Not what he captured on film, but what he said on paper, from the heart.
I have met more people than I will ever remember.
N.W.A is alive and well and living in my CD player.
Love is not so complicated as The Bard would have us believe. It is not some mystical thing that has caused the ruination and so much pain for so many of us, most especially for our young women, in Western Civilization. It is as easy as looking into a loved one's eyes and having the willingness to do whatever it takes to make a happy life for the both of you. It really is just that simple. If anything else gets in the way of that, then you're not in love. You're in bullshit Drama.
Life is a temporary existence between non-existences.
Death is the great leveler, the great equalizer. Death is what makes life precious. As we trip through that fourth dimension of ours, we eventually come to our end. It is death, and our temporary stay here in a state of life, that makes us precious. Death isn't so fearsome after all.
Waking up to find my baby kitten curled up next to me in bed, seeking warmth and comfort, shows me that life truly is beautiful.
Waking up to find my sweetheart, the love of my life, curled up next to me in bed, seeking warmth and comfort, shows me that life truly is beautiful.
To learn anything, jump in head first.
Mick Foley is a great Storyteller, but not much of a Writer. He needs to stop trying to be The Writer and just tell good stories.
Television is good for nothing, except wrestling and the occasional football, futbol, and baseball game.
I am no more precious or worthless than anyone else. I am no smarter or ignorant than anyone else. I am just tripping through life like the rest of the world without a fuckin clue as to what's going on or where I'm going..
While Confucius was a smart man who worked towards many righteous ends, and I can respect that, I still prefer Taoism over Confucianism. perhaps it is due to my cynicism for humanity.
Cartoons and comics continue to be the single most real, honest form of mass media.
With the release of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy fans, friends, and scholars of Tolkien could finally cry out in victory that this man, this author, finally got the attention he deserved. Some cried that he was the most under-appreciated literary figure of the 20th century. While I will not argue his place in literary history, it is truly deserved, I will argue that he is not the most under appreciated. The single most under appreciated literary figure of the 20th and now the 21st century is Stan Lee. While he is finally, FINALLY getting some of the proper representation in pop culture through a larger audience and film-makers who love comic books, he is still seen as not much more than that guy that makes the funnies. Yet more people across this nation can associate with Spider-Man or The Fantastic Four or The Hulk or, for myself, Iron Man than we could with Perseus or Bilbo or Frodo or Achilles or Beowulf or most other literary figures. I love Tolkien, but he is far from the most under appreciated... especially now.
What idiot at Cartoon Network decided it was a good idea to air Ray Bradbury's classic Halloween Tree on the Friday before Halloween at noon when no kids are around to watch it? Wouldn't it have made more sense to air it at noon on Halloween Sunday? This movie should be seen by all kids and kids-at-heart who love Halloween.
"Gay marriage disparages the sanctity of holy unity and religion!" says the Christian. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a few little boys to molest."
Paper Mario 2: The Thousand Year Door is hands down the best RPG I've played this year. And that includes Gayble... erm, I mean Fable.
While a somewhat solid title (I experienced some clipping) Fable did NOT bring anything new to the RPG table that Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Dungeon Siege and KOTOR hadn't already done... in some cases years before Fable ever came into being. I had already waited two years for this game. I would have waited an extra year or two to get the game I was promised. Fable is only what FF: Mystic Quest SHOULD have been. IMHO, PM owes me money.
I will hail the Shaw Brothers as much as I will hail Akira Kurosawa.
Marcel Duchamp and Clement Greenburg were both intelligent men. Unfortunately, Greenburg opened the floodgates of mediocrity and Duchamp fucked up the art world for all of us.
Read Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky.
Jack Kerouac and Andy Warhol are dead.
Wearing black sweaters and drinking coffee does not a good artist make.
Pharaohs believed that they were placed into power by gods.
In Plato's classic The Republic, his vision for utopia (ideal, peaceful society), artists not working directly for the Republic were outlaws. He feared the power that artists had to give The People a voice or to use that power to undermine the Republic. An ancient philosopher recognized the power of art. Too bad too few artists today recognize it.
We are each filters of the world around us. But what the hell makes you think you're so goddammned important that I have to spend my own precious time, money and put forth an effort to see your artwork if all you're going to do is talk about yourself? If that's all you do, it is called mental masturbation. You are only concerned for your own pleasure and seek the approval of others. You are nothing to me unless you prove otherwise. you MUST bring it home to me. Until you do so, I do not approve of you and you are NOT an artist.
Wanda Sykes reminds me of a slightly taller, female version of Gary Coleman.
Usagi Yojimbo is my favorite comic book.
We are now living in the age of information, yet no one is saying anything. Including me?
Conflict is harmony, for in conflict things are being discussed, fought over and, perhaps, resolved. Complacency is chaos, for in complacency no one is thinking, no one is doing, no one is living. This does not mean that peaceful living is complacency, no more than conflict is intellectual striving. Peaceful living and educational benefits can exist with or without the two.
The irony is not lost on me that I am taking a muscle relaxer called Clarisoprodol... a generic form of a drug called Soma.
Read Gilgamesh.
Kids today will actually spend upwards of $20 to buy a chain specifically designed for them to "look cool". What ever happened to buying a real dog chain at the 99-cent store or, better yet, getting one in a junkyard for less or even for free from the junkyard dog to wear for the purpose of self-protection?
Whatever happened to The Crass and The Clash? We could use them now more than ever.
Bruce Springsteen is more rebellious than Green Day.
The Rolling Stones remain the greatest rock band in the history of rock, even over The Beatles who couldn't... stay together...
Bo Diddly is alive and well and playing in every juke joint that knows better.
Brook Benton, Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Leadbelly mean as much to me as Fats Domino and Bo Diddly.
Basho was the greatest rapper of all time. ("Too long!" *chop*)
An ocean's water has healing properties for the human body... given that the water is actually clean.
I have known more than one person who have had good, steady jobs where they make $18 an hour, eat nothing but ramen and sandwiches, and yet they still have to have more than one roommate to split the rent and share expenses.
I should have a house of my own by the time I'm 24 and... oops. I'll be 28 this year. Damn, I suck.
Did everyone just up and forget about AIDS?
"At the end of 2003 an estimated 34-46 million people were living with HIV/AIDS – 31-43 million adults and between 2.1-2.9 million children below the age of 15 years. More than 65 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS (25-28.2 million) live in Sub-Saharan Africa; another 16 percent (4.6-8.2 million) live in South and Southeast Asia." [where the sex-slave trade goes unnoticed and unchecked] Source: http://www.aegis.com/ni/topics/referenc.asp#stats Also check: http://www.aids.org/
And here's some info close to my heart, no pun intended: http://www.aids.org/factSheets/507-Hepatitis-C.html "Hepatitis C is a liver disease caused by a virus. The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is transmitted through infected blood. Hep C spreads easily when drug users share equipment. Over 80% of injection drug users have hepatitis C. Hep C can also spread through sexual activity. Hep C spreads more easily than HIV through contact with infected blood. In the US, about 4 times as many people have Hep C as have HIV. You could be infected with HCV and not know it. About 15% to 30% of people clear the Hep C virus from their bodies without treatment. The other 70% to 85% develop chronic infection, and the virus stays in their body unless it is successfully treated. Hep C might not cause any problems for about 10 years or even much longer, but it can cause serious liver damage leading to liver failure and death. Almost all cases of hepatitis C could be cured if treatment with interferon starts very soon after infection. Unfortunately, early signs of hepatitis can seem like the flu. Most cases are not diagnosed until years after infection." <~~ [from the above link] And before I have to be subjected to any of your fuckin snide-assed remarks, I contracted Hep C when I was 8-years-old during open-heart surgery and received some infected blood via transfusion. That was 20 years ago this last August.
High school has nothing to do with education.
College has nothing to do with education, but if you work at it, you just might get one.
If I sit at the computer for more than an hour, the brilliance of Asimov occurs to me.
I'm alive and doing my best to learn and teach. It's the cycle of life.
We are all human. Equality is built in to nature, but, unfortunately, not government or society.
Just before the U.S. went into Iraq, people all over the world organized and protested. It was the single largest (in number of people and expanse of geographic places) peaceful public demonstration to ever be held in the history of the world. In response, Bush said that he cannot base his decision upon a small minority who do not want the war.
I hope Leonard Peltier by now has learned to be more free than I have.
I will miss Wesley Willis.
People will hate me for the above statement.
I remember when Halloween came in October, Thanksgiving in November and Christmas in December. Now it's more like Halloween starts in September, ends the second week of October and Christmas starts soon after.
Each artist has to be the shaman.
If asked the proverbial question: "If you could meet one person in history, dead or alive, who would it be?" I would mostly likely answer Joseph Campbell. But I'm unsure how much I would actually speak with him. I would most likely just sit and listen.
I've noticed a lot of artists treat the director's cut of Blade Runner like an art-house flick, yet not many understand it. They just like the pretty and degenerate scenery and enjoy watching Rutger Hauer crying.
Euro-centrism is a disease.
When it comes right down to it, if a cop is unsure of your motives and has been filled with fear and lies and paranoia -- admittedly occassolly for good reason -- he/she won't give a damn about your Constitutional rights and will care more about getting home in one piece.
The U.S. Constitution. Though it seems most people don't do much more than wipe their ass with it today (most especially politicians who make it their job to wipe their ass without looking like their wiping their ass), the one thing most people don't do is read it. While it doesn't apply to a society filled with hate, racism, and sexism (since it states that "all men are created equal"), it actually has some pretty good stuff in it and is a very well written, intelligent document.
I can't change the world, but I can plant seeds in my own garden.
With Alberto Gonzales in, and Condoleezza Rice stepping up for Colin Powell, who will take her place? Probably some other wonderbread minority.
Girls: As much as I love Popeye, Olive Oyl is not sexy. Quit trying to look like her! Eat a burger, for crying out loud. They're not even expensive! Most places now have $1 value menus! Hell, if you go to some place like White Castle, you can get TONS of burgers for a few bucks!
"Whatevahs" is a philosophy.
None of this is profound.
I am a Very Small Animal.
This essay entitled "As I Went Walking That Ribbon of Highway" is © copyright 2004-2005 by Charles Shaver. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author(s) and artist(s). Contact me at LordShen@juno.com.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
New Cover Art for Issue 9 of If - E - Zine(tm)
It's still tentative, some things are sure to change, but here is the proposed cover for glorious Issue #9 of my If - E - Zine(tm): The Free Online Magazine of Thrilling Speculative Fiction!
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Read the Dam Letter
This is an actual letter sent to a man named Ryan DeVries by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Quality, State of Pennsylvania . This guy's response is hilarious, but read the State's letter before you get to the response letter
SUBJECT: DEQ File No.97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Lycoming County
Dear Mr. DeVries:
It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity:
Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of Spring Pond.
A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity.
A review of the Department's files shows that no permits have been issued. Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.
The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and flooding at downstream locations. We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the stream channel. All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31, 2007.
Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our staff.
Failure to comply with this request or any further unauthorized activity on the site may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement action..
We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this matter. Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
David L. Price
District Representative and Water Management Division.
Here is the actual response sent back by Mr. DeVries:
Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Lycoming County
Dear Mr. Price,
Your certified letter dated 12/17/06 has been handed to me to respond to. I am the legal landowner but not the Contractor at 2088 Dagget Lane , Trout Run, Pennsylvania .
A couple of beavers are in the (State unauthorized) process of constructing and maintaining two wood "debris" dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond. While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their skillful use of natures building materials "debris." I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate their dam project any time and/or any place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no way you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic.
As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they must first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of dam activity.
My first dam question to you is:
(1) Are you trying to discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers, or
(2) do you require all beavers throughout this State to conform to said dam request?
If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies of all those other applicable beaver dam permits that have been issued. Perhaps we will see if there really is a dam violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sect ions 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.
I have several concerns. My first concern is, aren't the beavers entitled to legal representation? The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to pay for said representation -- so the State will have to provide them with a dam lawyer. The Department's dam concern that either one or both of the dams failed during a recent rain event, causing flooding, is proof that this is a natural occurrence, which the Department is required to protect. In other words, we should leave the Spring Pond Beavers alone rather than harassing them and calling their dam names.
If you want the stream "restored" to a dam free-flow condition please contact the beavers -- but if you are going to arrest them, they obviously did not pay any attention to your dam letter, they being unable to read English.
In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green and water flows downstream. They have more dam rights than I do to live and enjoy Spring Pond. If the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection lives up to its name, it should protect the natural resources (Beavers) and the environment (Beavers' Dams).
So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can be referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why wait until 1/31/2007? The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice then: and there will be no way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them then.
In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention to a real environmental quality, health, problem in the area . It is the bears! Bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave the beavers alone.
If you are going to investigate the beaver dam, watch your step! The bears are not careful where they dump!
Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this response to your dam office.
THANK YOU.
RYAN DEVRIES & THE DAM BEAVERS
SUBJECT: DEQ File No.97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Lycoming County
Dear Mr. DeVries:
It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity:
Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of Spring Pond.
A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity.
A review of the Department's files shows that no permits have been issued. Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.
The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and flooding at downstream locations. We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the stream channel. All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31, 2007.
Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our staff.
Failure to comply with this request or any further unauthorized activity on the site may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement action..
We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this matter. Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
David L. Price
District Representative and Water Management Division.
Here is the actual response sent back by Mr. DeVries:
Re: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Lycoming County
Dear Mr. Price,
Your certified letter dated 12/17/06 has been handed to me to respond to. I am the legal landowner but not the Contractor at 2088 Dagget Lane , Trout Run, Pennsylvania .
A couple of beavers are in the (State unauthorized) process of constructing and maintaining two wood "debris" dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond. While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their skillful use of natures building materials "debris." I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate their dam project any time and/or any place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no way you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic.
As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they must first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of dam activity.
My first dam question to you is:
(1) Are you trying to discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers, or
(2) do you require all beavers throughout this State to conform to said dam request?
If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies of all those other applicable beaver dam permits that have been issued. Perhaps we will see if there really is a dam violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sect ions 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.
I have several concerns. My first concern is, aren't the beavers entitled to legal representation? The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to pay for said representation -- so the State will have to provide them with a dam lawyer. The Department's dam concern that either one or both of the dams failed during a recent rain event, causing flooding, is proof that this is a natural occurrence, which the Department is required to protect. In other words, we should leave the Spring Pond Beavers alone rather than harassing them and calling their dam names.
If you want the stream "restored" to a dam free-flow condition please contact the beavers -- but if you are going to arrest them, they obviously did not pay any attention to your dam letter, they being unable to read English.
In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green and water flows downstream. They have more dam rights than I do to live and enjoy Spring Pond. If the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection lives up to its name, it should protect the natural resources (Beavers) and the environment (Beavers' Dams).
So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can be referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why wait until 1/31/2007? The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice then: and there will be no way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them then.
In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention to a real environmental quality, health, problem in the area . It is the bears! Bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave the beavers alone.
If you are going to investigate the beaver dam, watch your step! The bears are not careful where they dump!
Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this response to your dam office.
THANK YOU.
RYAN DEVRIES & THE DAM BEAVERS
Friday, April 13, 2007
Odd Epitaphs
Here's a collection of odd epitaphs from around the globe. Enjoy... ?
"She Was More to Me Than I Expected" -- to Jennie Wilson; College Hill Cemetary; Lebanon, Ill., USA
"Final Decree" -- California Supreme Court Justice Silas Sanderson; Laurel Hill Cemetary; S.F., CA, USA
"Asad Experience Wilson
1895-1946
His Mother Gave Him This Name" -- Idlewild Cemetery; Hood River, OR, USA
"Papa Did You Wind your Watch?" -- Charles B. Gunn; Evergreen Cemetery; Colorado Springs, CO, USA
"Those Who Cared for Him While Living Will Know Whose Body Lies Resting Here, To Others it Does Not Matter" -- unnamed; Old North Cemetery; Hartford, Conn., USA
On a sign posted on a tree on Normandy Road in France translates thusly: "Attention Drivers: Make Your Will Before You Hit This Tree"
"Dearest Tom,
Thou Art Gone
Thy Kind Heart
I Miss
You Did Not Say
Goodbye, Tom
Nor Give Me the
Parting Kiss" -- in Laurel Hill Cemetery; S.F., CA, USA
"Here Lies Mary Brooks Who Died in 1736, Aged 11, She was Very Excellent for Reading and Soberness" -- Hill Burying Ground; Concord, Mass., USA
"I Don't Know How to Die" -- Forest Hill Cemetery; East Derry, N.H., USA
"Here Lies the Body of Jonathan Tilton Whose Friends Reduced Him to a Skeleton, They Wronged Him Out of All He Had and Now Rejoice That He is Dead" -- Chilmark, Mass., USA
"As you pass by
and cast an eye
as you are now
so once was I" -- Bridge Street Cemetery; Eastham, MA, USA
"My Dear Friends as You Pass By
As You are Now, So Once Was I.
As I am Now, You Soon Must Be.
Prepare Yourselves to Follow Me" -- Irwin Cemetery; Crested Butte, CO., USA
"Here lies Lester Moore
four shots from a .44
No Les--no more" -- NV, USA
"Hi!
Stay high
Bye" -- Hookstown, PA, USA (included an etched picture of a marijuana leaf)
"I Told You I Was Sick
Nothing like getting one last 'I told you so'!" -- Round Rock, TX
"I knew this was going to happen to me" link
"Ma Loved Pa,
Pa Loved Women,
Ma caught Pa with one in swimmin..
Here Lies Pa" -- Florida, USA
"I Am Woman
Hear Me Roar
And Boy Did She" -- Douglas County, NE, USA
SOURCES:
Ripley's Believe It or Not 15th Edition
Article
Senior Citizens sharing epitaphs they've witnessed
"She Was More to Me Than I Expected" -- to Jennie Wilson; College Hill Cemetary; Lebanon, Ill., USA
"Final Decree" -- California Supreme Court Justice Silas Sanderson; Laurel Hill Cemetary; S.F., CA, USA
"Asad Experience Wilson
1895-1946
His Mother Gave Him This Name" -- Idlewild Cemetery; Hood River, OR, USA
"Papa Did You Wind your Watch?" -- Charles B. Gunn; Evergreen Cemetery; Colorado Springs, CO, USA
"Those Who Cared for Him While Living Will Know Whose Body Lies Resting Here, To Others it Does Not Matter" -- unnamed; Old North Cemetery; Hartford, Conn., USA
On a sign posted on a tree on Normandy Road in France translates thusly: "Attention Drivers: Make Your Will Before You Hit This Tree"
"Dearest Tom,
Thou Art Gone
Thy Kind Heart
I Miss
You Did Not Say
Goodbye, Tom
Nor Give Me the
Parting Kiss" -- in Laurel Hill Cemetery; S.F., CA, USA
"Here Lies Mary Brooks Who Died in 1736, Aged 11, She was Very Excellent for Reading and Soberness" -- Hill Burying Ground; Concord, Mass., USA
"I Don't Know How to Die" -- Forest Hill Cemetery; East Derry, N.H., USA
"Here Lies the Body of Jonathan Tilton Whose Friends Reduced Him to a Skeleton, They Wronged Him Out of All He Had and Now Rejoice That He is Dead" -- Chilmark, Mass., USA
"As you pass by
and cast an eye
as you are now
so once was I" -- Bridge Street Cemetery; Eastham, MA, USA
"My Dear Friends as You Pass By
As You are Now, So Once Was I.
As I am Now, You Soon Must Be.
Prepare Yourselves to Follow Me" -- Irwin Cemetery; Crested Butte, CO., USA
"Here lies Lester Moore
four shots from a .44
No Les--no more" -- NV, USA
"Hi!
Stay high
Bye" -- Hookstown, PA, USA (included an etched picture of a marijuana leaf)
"I Told You I Was Sick
Nothing like getting one last 'I told you so'!" -- Round Rock, TX
"I knew this was going to happen to me" link
"Ma Loved Pa,
Pa Loved Women,
Ma caught Pa with one in swimmin..
Here Lies Pa" -- Florida, USA
"I Am Woman
Hear Me Roar
And Boy Did She" -- Douglas County, NE, USA
SOURCES:
Ripley's Believe It or Not 15th Edition
Article
Senior Citizens sharing epitaphs they've witnessed
Thursday, April 12, 2007
By the Gods!!!
I think I did it. I finally did it. I think I finally found something wrong with the Spiderman movies... O_O
Is it me, or is there no catchy theme song?!
Every so often, generally on happier or carefree days, I find myself humming some tune. Usually it's a jazz or blues standard, or an xmas carol if it's Yule time. But from time to time I'll just be going along and I'll start humming and then I realize, "Hey! That's the Superman theme!" or I'll say to myself "Hey! That's from Batman:The Animated Series!"
But I cannot recall, for the life of me, a good, solid, memorable theme for Sam Raimi's recent trilogy. Am I wrong? WTH?!
Does Spidey even have a theme at all?! I mean, I can't even remember the theme to Spidey and Friends (oh, wait... yes I can!). I can also remember the theme to the 1994 animated series. Of course there's also always the "Spider-man, Spider-man... doin' the things a spider can..." theme. But I can't remember a damn thing from the recent movies!!!
PLEASE... let me know if I'm wrong, if my memory has faded, or if there's some inside scoop as to whether or not Raimi wanted to stay away from such things that could be construed as 'hokey' in this day-and-age.
Is it me, or is there no catchy theme song?!
Every so often, generally on happier or carefree days, I find myself humming some tune. Usually it's a jazz or blues standard, or an xmas carol if it's Yule time. But from time to time I'll just be going along and I'll start humming and then I realize, "Hey! That's the Superman theme!" or I'll say to myself "Hey! That's from Batman:The Animated Series!"
But I cannot recall, for the life of me, a good, solid, memorable theme for Sam Raimi's recent trilogy. Am I wrong? WTH?!
Does Spidey even have a theme at all?! I mean, I can't even remember the theme to Spidey and Friends (oh, wait... yes I can!). I can also remember the theme to the 1994 animated series. Of course there's also always the "Spider-man, Spider-man... doin' the things a spider can..." theme. But I can't remember a damn thing from the recent movies!!!
PLEASE... let me know if I'm wrong, if my memory has faded, or if there's some inside scoop as to whether or not Raimi wanted to stay away from such things that could be construed as 'hokey' in this day-and-age.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Get Goofy
Don't get me wrong, I'm with all of you on the whole "I refuse to forget" deal when it comes to the problems facing the world (poverty, genocide, war), but sometimes there's things you can't fix no matter what. I can't fix the government, but do I forget it? No. However, I do realize that there will be people in life that will do whatever the hell they want to do and back it up through force of law or violence or social pressures or in the name of their god(s). The only time I really fight is when they do it to me. I simply can't win every fight AND I don't have the time or energy to fight every battle. Pick and choose, I say.
It's like being a boxer in the ring. You absolutely HAVE to expect to get hit, even blind-sided on occasion. All you can do is keep standing and pick and choose where you're gonna throw your next punch.
Life is gonna throw enough punches at you, why make yourself sick on top of all the other natural pain?
I bitch a lot. A LOT. Way more than I'd like to admit. But I also take the time to enjoy life. Take for instance: I BBQ'd this week! It was chilly, but sunny. I spent a day making homemade sausages and then the next day I smoked them (insert perverse joke here) (insert perverse joke here because I said 'insert'). I paid for it because it was a lot of work. I was sick for the next few days (still trying to get over it, really) but it was a lot of fun and something I've wanted to do for a long time. I let go of the world for that time and had fun.
I guess my point is: I hate to see anyone suffer to any degree. It concerns me at least and enrages me at most. But I know everyone has stuff they have to work through and as long as they come out happy and healthy and okay in the end I'm good with it.
I want you good people to be idealistic. I won't use terms like "self-righteous indignation" (such terms are often used for snobbish insults... and did you know the first time I came across this term was in Advanced RECON from Palladium Books? Haha... odd, huh?) but I will tell you to fuck it all once in a while and go have a nice day. Go to the beach. Park on the strip. Go into one of those little local grocery stores and buy yourself a bubblegum flavored Jones soda and walk and drink the day away. Get some ice cream and eat it on a hot day in the park. Eat lunch in a small cafe you've never been to before. Try checking out the shops at a kitschy tourist trap. Wear different colored shoes. Baseball season starts soon... when was the last time you went to a game? How about some mini-putt? Start a mini-putt league with friends! Cap it off with a nice dinner and a coffee at a late-night coffee house.
Long story short: don't worry yourself sick. I guess that's all my wisdom for you. Pretty cliche, huh?
Take care, folks. Get goofy.
It's like being a boxer in the ring. You absolutely HAVE to expect to get hit, even blind-sided on occasion. All you can do is keep standing and pick and choose where you're gonna throw your next punch.
Life is gonna throw enough punches at you, why make yourself sick on top of all the other natural pain?
I bitch a lot. A LOT. Way more than I'd like to admit. But I also take the time to enjoy life. Take for instance: I BBQ'd this week! It was chilly, but sunny. I spent a day making homemade sausages and then the next day I smoked them (insert perverse joke here) (insert perverse joke here because I said 'insert'). I paid for it because it was a lot of work. I was sick for the next few days (still trying to get over it, really) but it was a lot of fun and something I've wanted to do for a long time. I let go of the world for that time and had fun.
I guess my point is: I hate to see anyone suffer to any degree. It concerns me at least and enrages me at most. But I know everyone has stuff they have to work through and as long as they come out happy and healthy and okay in the end I'm good with it.
I want you good people to be idealistic. I won't use terms like "self-righteous indignation" (such terms are often used for snobbish insults... and did you know the first time I came across this term was in Advanced RECON from Palladium Books? Haha... odd, huh?) but I will tell you to fuck it all once in a while and go have a nice day. Go to the beach. Park on the strip. Go into one of those little local grocery stores and buy yourself a bubblegum flavored Jones soda and walk and drink the day away. Get some ice cream and eat it on a hot day in the park. Eat lunch in a small cafe you've never been to before. Try checking out the shops at a kitschy tourist trap. Wear different colored shoes. Baseball season starts soon... when was the last time you went to a game? How about some mini-putt? Start a mini-putt league with friends! Cap it off with a nice dinner and a coffee at a late-night coffee house.
Long story short: don't worry yourself sick. I guess that's all my wisdom for you. Pretty cliche, huh?
Take care, folks. Get goofy.
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