Monday, April 30, 2012

UnKool


Next time I say that it would be a good idea to dress up in plaid bellbottom pants and a disco shirt and ride my 1974 Vespa Ciao down to see Kool & The Gang in concert....remind me of tonight and I'm pretty sure I'll change my mind. Just once I'd like to swim with the current. Just once.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

American Dream

Awoke in a fit of suffocation last night, imagining Kickapoo Indians attacking my van as tornadoes blew the farm into Illinois. My subconscious was a tortured demon. My tongue was dry like a lizard's ass and my socks were biting into my diabetic ankles. I wrote something down and then masturbated until I fell asleep. In the morning I looked at the chicken scrawl and read: "Justice might be blind but it wears expensive glasses."

Friday, April 27, 2012

10 years gone

Public Enemy #1
The smartest thing I could do is not renew my passport and simply move to Mexico and travel like everyone else on trains and crawling under fences to Belize.

Hate Mail

In this edition of hate mail we find a sandwich baggie duct tapped to my driver's side window. No one wants their hate mail to be ruined by the thunderstorms!

"Park this van where ever it is that you walk to or ride your bike to. We don't want it here anymore. it's a eye sore."

Pretty generic. In Venice, at least the hateful homeowners pretended to have a "Riviera Street Coalition" to defend their territory against the invasion of bands of Gypsies. I really thought I left the snobs behind in NH.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Bongo Mania

Estate sale bongos. Martillo rhythm is next. The van departs for Chihuahua soon.

Homework

before
after

It really was a miracle that this is finished.
magic
Carried away with joint compound

Mining Asteroids

I want to stay positive but unfortunately I've got an advanced degree in Practical Philosophy and that prohibits the slightest bit of optimism to shine on the dark side of my moon. I read about clean energy and wind turbines and genetically modified crops and chickens with no beaks and goats with no lips and efforts to collect precious metals from asteroids....and I know where this is going.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Turn in Your Badge

That was what my boss said anytime someone groaned or moaned or complained.
"If you don't like it, turn in your badge."

"Can I go to the bathroom?"
"Turn in your badge and you can do anything you want."

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Digital Defense

My blog is the target of an international spam robot attack (brought on by that thoughtless hooker post) and I'm trying to devise ways to figure out how to beat them. The forum eliminated all the hate mail and the spam comments but it also totally silenced anyone with casual advice too since forums aren't too cool and no one is brave enough to be the first kid to take his clothes off and jump into the pond. That's a bummer but I'll get over it. But the traffic to my blog is probably 99% digital spiders crawling for ways to post virus related links. But that deflates my ego because I don't have any idea what kind of traffic is actually arriving here at the van man's door step. Enter the jump break summary selection....

1982 SkyDiver Human League Erections

1982 was the year I became musically aware. 30 years ago. I haven't recovered.

I think the Gotye song is the modern equivalent of "Don't you want me" by the Human League...which was from 1982 and really dominated the summer of '82 along with Hold me, by Fleetwood mac and Jack and Diane my John Cougar Mellencamp. That was the summer that the carnival came to town and set up by the mill pond and me and Brad went on the ride called the Sky Diver.

 

Two Strong Ideas

My brain cancer has given me superhuman ideas....and I want to lay them down for you now.

One: Animal disposal service. I pick your animal up and deliver you some ashes back. (It's called "The Last Walk") But instead of taking the dog to the vet, I put them to work running on treadmills in shifts to keep giant turbines running to power a 24 hour drive through movie theater where the only thing on the screen is a live stream of the dogs running on the turbine. I want to make this happen today!

Two:  I forget what two was. But I need to use it as a place holder for my brain until the other idea comes back to me. One problem with my....see it came back to me.

Bedtime Reading

"The signs and symptoms of a brain tumor vary greatly and depend on the brain tumor's size, location and rate of growth....
General signs and symptoms caused by brain tumors may include:

Monday, April 23, 2012

The Silent Man

I just finished a screenplay about a mysterious man who is found playing guitar on the river boardwalk. HE shreds like angels licking razor blades. So a guy says he wants to manage him and asks what his name is. The guitar player just smiles and plays guitar. HE NEVER SPEAKS. All he does is play guitar. I'm thinking Ryan Gosling is in the lead. I'll take the highest offer from any studio. The above is a scene with his girlfriend in a dry rehearsal in New York City. Please, this is very serious. The screenplay is called "The Silent Man" and it's a dirty investigation of ego in the post modern culture scene of Montreal.

Ecological Thoughts

"One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds."
Aldo Leopold
I wish this quote made no sense to me.

приветствие

Добро пожаловать бывшей красные.
коллективных хозяйств являются моя мечта.
Кроме того, Фокс меха головные уборы.

I'd like to welcome those Russians spambots who find this blog informative/amusing. Here's a haiku but I really am not sure how it translates in your language. If it is offensive then I apologize. Please send me your address so I can crash on your couch when I travel through Europe next year.

Another Reason Oggy Is Bad At Clerical Work

Let's say I count and sort a pile of 25 forms. That's called a "First".  Now, that pile is going to be counted again by someone else. That's called a "Second" It's a redundancy feature to ensure no one says we lost their form. Now, I counted 25 and also counted 5 groups of 5 so I've counted the 25 forms twice to make sure the number is right. Then I pass it on to another person to count again, to double-check my count. OK?

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Mexican Drum Circle To End Drug War

The latest plan is to fill my 1969 Econoline Van with bongo and conga drums and make one last excursion into the heart of the Mexican drug war to lead the largest drum circle ever assembled. The point is to smoke pot and get laid while playing drums obviously, but the official press release will say that we want to "Make a Sound for Peace." "Sonido Para Paz" has the nicest ring to it.

The Sky Has Fallen

It's Earth Day again and I want to make my argument once again for voluntary change rather than what I expect will be mandatory as a crisis looms. See, the problem is that there really is no justice for the ignorant gas and oil producers who claim the market rules their decisions. The climate change deniers can say it's a total left wing conspiracy so pot dealers can make more money but there's no punishment for ignoring the obvious. In a perfect world you would either take steps to reduce your carbon imprint or you would personally suffer the consequences when the crisis escalates. It doesn't matter how rich you are or how well intended your resource intense gadgets were meant, you would be flayed with shredded iPads when the sun finally goes dark. But it's not a perfect world and I guarantee that the hoards of trolls rowing down the denial river will eventually say, "Well, that's all water under the bridge now. No use crying over spilt milk." and they will be referring to several cities in America (not their own) being obliterated by super storms. Obviously, that kind of person is repulsive and has no place in a civilized culture. But the truth is that they are also the motivated capitalists who will immediately embrace solar power and wind power and pot farms as soon as the market dictates the demand.

Brain Fart

Any clerical work demands real focus so I'm pretty bad at it. Three particular strategies I want to describe for the record so you'll know why I get fired:

1) When counting stacks of 25 I like to break it into 5 groups of 5. But when I count to 5 I don't use numbers; I use letters because the forms I'm stacking are full of numbers and when I think "2" but am looking at a "3" then it can mess up the count. So I say, "B" since there are no Bs on the form. A,B,C,D,E. This is crazy and it's also not flawless so don't listen to me. It's also impossible to count more than 26 of anything without saying, "B subprime...B prime...B superprime" as you cycle through the alphabet. Remember that I count from one to 25 for 8 consecutive hours.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Inside Oggy's Head


This is as close as you want to get to the cage match of combating resentments and philosophical contradictions that wage war inside my head. I did come to the conclusion that the chief job of a parent is to assimilate their child into the culture as seamlessly as possible. If you give someone a car you should be able to train them how to make it run...what it does. If you have problems with the car then don't give it as a gift to someone more ignorant than yourself. But I'm an asshole so that's probably totally wrong.

1040 Hiaku

Tax Returns trod on
the W-2 cracks my forehead
static in the night

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Perplexed?

This is a pic I took of a caged Arctic Wolf in Nova Scotia.

E.F. Schumacher's philosophy was more than mere mental masturbation. Practical Action, a forward thinking development group, monitors parasites on Peruvian alpaca tits to determine the relative health and sustainability of the farmers. That's the ticket and it all started with Schumacher's philosophy and now it has a budget of 26 million pounds. That's like a billion dollars. And they manage to apply around 85% to the actual operation programs. For comparison, The Red Cross is spending 40% to pay people to decide how to spend the other 60% in places like Haiti.
I came upon this book in the Goodwill and since I'm as perplexed as I have ever been with the state of the world I shoplifted it in the hopes that I could learn something.
It's philosophy like this: MXYZ represent Minerals, Life, Consciousness, Self Awareness. Man is represented by MXYZ. A Wolf is represented by MXY. A plant is MX. A rock is M. Schumacher says calling mankind "a naked ape" is like calling a wolf "a tree that runs." E.F. Schumacher would've been a real hit with T.E.D Talks because that's a real solid statement. I've called humans naked apes before and my reasoning was that I feel that apes have self-awareness. Isn't that obvious? I've seen drunk kids less self-aware than a chimp. But I won't say it anymore.
And hold onto your hats, campers,he goes on to say that the first task in progressing as a human being is to "learn from society and "tradition" and to find one's temporary happiness in receiving directions from the outside.. The second step is a process called individuation, becoming self directed. The third and final step is seemingly to surrender to ones instinct and become God-directed or free from outside and internal direction"
I'm still perplexed.





Tuesday, April 17, 2012

America Corporation

I can not ethically speak in detail about my IRS gig and my eyes are almost blind from looking at 2011 and 1040a and 1040ez but I do want to pass on the meditations that I had while bundling 26 tax returns in a pile that is supposed to be 25.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Open Letter To CNN

I feel that while CNN does not make the news you do decide what to report on and clearly a decision has been made to report on divisive events and then to divide sides even further with subsequent reports. Of course that's a contemptible decision but a profitable one that won't soon be put to rest. The comment section is another matter and I must bring to your attention my opinion.

I have read your terms of service guidelines and I believe that you have made an honest effort to foster the expression of opinions on news items and you have made available this comment forum in good faith. However, I believe that it would be in the best interest of your audience if this comment forum was suspended. I say this in good faith after having studied the general trends in the comment sections of news articles. I think the majority of comments are negative, hateful, incite violence, are not beneficial or well intended, would not be said to each other in person, would not be said in front of one's mother, are not well thought out, are not spell checked, are politically biased rhetoric and serve no positive purpose but instead fan the flames of anger and hate and fear. At best, most comments are a hateful attack on someone else for being hateful. In a recent story about a town near my own hometown I read this tasteless remark regarding a police chief killed in the line of duty:

good riddance to bad rubbish.. saves tax payers some money I hope.

 Now, this user, luckylemmons, is implying that this police chief is "bad rubbish" and that (erroneously) the tax payers in coastal New Hampshire are going to save money because they don't pay his retirement benefits. Of course you have provided the option of reporting this remark as inappropriate but I feel that does not begin to quell my disgust for luckylemmons. His remark is not merely inappropriate, it is cold blooded, pathological, cowardly, heartless, disgusting, and ignorant. Here is a short exchange between three of your readers that chills my heart:

  • Tomjw
    This is extremely sad seeing humans enforcing the law and having their life taken for having an above and beyond honest life.  Curse those responsible for an innocent mans life and family taken.
  • matism
     Curse those instead who swear an oath to the Constitution, but instead spit on it as soon as they pin on their badge.
  • GDINY2
     matism, back up your statement with proof.  Curse those who allowed you to be born!
 Ah, the first amendment to the constitution really wins another victory with that conversation!
Obviously, if this speech were overheard IN A KINDERGARTEN CLASS there would be immediate action taken. But CNN allows for what? Flag as inappropriate? Three readers casting hexes on each other? Is Voodoo inappropriate? That doesn't begin to describe the depth of hatred between GDINY2 and matism. I would say that a rational, humanist institution devoted to fostering goodwill and kindness would not allow either of them to voice their opinions on their hosted forum. Wouldn't you?

I truly believe in the sanctity of free speech and I believe everyone has the right to publish their own newspaper full of their opinions but I do not believe it is your responsibility to provide a forum where anyone may express a hateful or violent opinion. Yes, you provide an option for someone to flag inappropriate comments and those comments will be reviewed by a moderator. I believe you provide this option in good faith but after my study of the comment section I feel it is safe to say you would have to employ an army of moderators to work full time in moderating/censoring those who express inappropriate opinions on your site. I do not believe it would be possible to moderate the volume of villainous/hateful comments. No. Furthermore, that puts you in an unpleasant position of censoring some but not all individuals. I could and may write a much more comprehensive brief to highlight the vile comments found on your forum but I invite you to look for yourself. I assume that no one on your staff is voluntarily moderating the comments section or else these cowardly and divisive comments would never be allowed to remain public. Obviously this enlightened opinion of...
AppleOrange
You would think 40 pounds of donut fat would offer better protection.

...would be immediately removed if anyone with the power to do so had read it. I'm not alone in saying that if AppleOrange was standing in front of me then I would karate chop him in the trachea. To mock and belittle and minimize the death of a police chief and to do so using the cowardly anonymity of your comment section is beyond repulsive. This does not exalt America's love of free speech. No. It does not compliment our position as free people. Your comment section is not a reason to respect America. Do not delude yourself. You report news articles; the opinions of your audience members ARE NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to publish. Comments such as this have no defense:

Even out the score against the blue.

I feel that even though Realdirect wrote that comment, CNN has been the one to provide a platform for him and by default you approve that message. Is that how you feel? That more police should die to pay for the criminals they killed? I feel that the forum administrator is partially responsible for the content of the forum and that would suggest you approve of Realdirect's scorecard concept. Consider the policy of sports broadcasts to refuse to show pranksters streaking naked across a field because they don't want to encourage or elevate that behavior. The CNN forum basically provides a national audience for the sub literate to voice their petty attacks from behind the protection of untraceable digital avatars. Some feel genuine sorrow for the policeman and post their condolences. Some are indifferent but post viciously hateful remarks to see what kind of response it gets. Some are sincerely hateful and stop at nothing to hurt those who are already hurting by writing truly ignorant things like this:

How were they Ambushed? They kicked in his door and ended up getting their backsides handed to them. If they would have handled the arrest a little differently they might still be alive. No need for the crash squad the only thing that's good for is inflating their egos. No tears here.

The only thing missing is a rude comment asking if the perpetrator also shot the deputy. Obviously you can not expect there to be a breakthrough in the debate on police violence and crime on the comment section of your website. So, please, the only people who benefit from this comment section are those who seek to wound others with their spiteful remarks. I say deny them this platform. They can start their own blog that they can promote as they are able but do not give them a brick wall and a can of spray paint and expect them to be courteous. And do not rely on neutral users to inform on others. Those who are truly courteous will understand the removal of the comment section. Those who are not courteous will feel bitter at being denied a public audience for their filth but I feel that is the best decision. Please review your comment section and reconsider a post-moderation policy. If you wish to change to a pre-moderation policy where every comment is previewed and approved first then I gladly volunteer to be moderator.
(I recently went through a CNN article and flagged any comment I felt was inappropriate. I flagged 30 comments of 60. Many were blatant hate speech. Of the other 30 maybe 4 were not volatile and inflammatory.  The remaining 26 were mildly annoying and frivolous but tolerable.)  

Comments about a story of a Jewish woman who survived WWII by playing piano were peppered with hateful holocaust deniers saying the woman wasn't telling the truth.
 
thinkabbadit 
 Mass immigration and "assimilation" forced on  ALL white countries and ONLY white countries.
Genocide is genocide,it makes no difference if it is accomplished by bullets and mustard gas,or mass immigration and social engineering.
Anti-racist is a codeword for anti-white.

  • ThirdeyeAZ
    I dont know about a piano, but I hear a violin playing.
  • ThirdeyeAZ
    These stories are made up.
I flagged these comments because if they aren't inappropriate then nothing is.

From CNN: 4/17/12
Greetings,

Thank you for contacting CNN. Occasionally, during breaking news or moments when we experience unexpected spikes in the amount of comments, it may take longer than usual to process them all. We have forwarded this message to our team of moderators and can assure you that appropriate action will be taken.

Thanks again for bringing this to our attention.

Regards
Jamaal

CNN.com Technical Operations

Friday, April 13, 2012

Religion or Not?

I listened to a NPR debate on religion.
The motion was: "The World Would Be Better Off Without Religion"

Let me say that I once worked with a guy who talked of a construction contractor in an awed tone, "I admire and respect him because we think exactly alike," he said. He meant that they had the same practical approach to problem solving. And I would add that they both went out of their way to solve problems for other people. In fact, they made a living from finding someone's problems and fixing them by design. The world is their graph paper and they concentrated on the problem until it was solved. Consequences or philosophy never entered their process of reasoning. Physics and supply chains and budget were the only things that mattered to them. They are both huge successes in the eyes of the modern world, while I'm a complete asshole who is a burden to all.

Now, I have to say that I don't feel the same way about contractors. I admire them but I feel no affinity with them. I study them objectively, from afar, knowing that they operate in a realm (physical and immediate) that is not my home. All efforts to embrace this realm have led to problems for me. The Merchant Marines was truly 6 months of comedic misadventures. My home improvement problems have left hundreds of DIY forum participants vowing to never help a novice again. My vehicle maintenance efforts involve the oldest daily driver in America. I literally drive the oldest car I've seen on the road. From Mexico to Labrador I've one encountered one truck that was older. It was a 1967 Ford Bronco that was buried on a beach. Hell, my 1974 Vespa Ciao moped is older than every other car on the road. I'm an isolated anomaly chugging along with points and condenser on a lobbed spark distributor, one step above steam.

But hearing this debate on a totally theoretical topic revealed members of my own tribe. And I don't only mean the two secular humanists who argued in favor of the motion. The one Rabbi and the Christian president of King's College London were as convincing as any and as comforting as most.

This topic is not practical and only a philosopher/rabbi would bother engaging someone else in a debate. I am that philosopher. These panelists, especially Dinesh D'Souza, reminded me of myself. His twist on the whole "hypocrite" accusation was the best I've heard. "Failing to meet high ideals is different than pretending to strive for high ideals." If you are already bored with what I'm writing then you are on the contractor side of the world and I mean no disrespect when I say that you and a hammer and a carpenter's level should become well acquainted. I am on the side of the fence who is asked to hang a picture level with a window and I ask, "Why?" My heroes are the hermit Thoreau, the martyr Socrates, the writer Hesse and the fictional character Ignatius Reilly. Henry Thoreau built a house but only after 30 years of debating whether he should. Socrates rationalized his own suicide. Hermann Hesse wrote lovingly about two different celibate monks and Ignatius Reilly longed for a return to Feudal Secularism and lute music.

On the topic of religion these four people could literally entertain me for centuries. If food and shelter were not a factor we 5 would happily debate this topic for eternity. And I mean eternity. I would never tire of examining the theoretical angles involving religion's meaning and application. NEVER. Considering all 5 of us are basically secular humanists I guarantee that for the sake of the debate all 5 of us would become passionate Christians.

Listening to the four live NPR panelists debate this topic was like watching philosophy porn because they attacked and defended the topic exactly like I do, with a range of humor and rhetoric and denial and exclusive definitions and selective history and rewriting facts and metaphors and stories and some facts and appeal to reason and faith and anger and passion.

Not content to listen, I placed myself in the panel and asked myself the following question: What human endeavor/activity is 100% devoid of religion. If I could find this activity then I could examine it to see if this activity is "good" Because if the world would be better without religion then all activities would be devoid of religion and if I could find something that is currently devoid of religion then that would help my examination. See? So, I've narrowed it down to two activities.

Electrical Engineering. Cosmetic Surgery.

Maybe there are more but I can't think of any off the top of my head. It seems every other endeavor has some trace of religion in it. I'm smiling because this really is climbing a philosophical mountain that should seem totally fruitless to those who are tradesmen. But you are projecting your values onto me. I realize that shelter and food and not philosophy are the staples of man, but I'm defective because I have it reversed. I'll trade 80 years with an architect's ruler for five minutes writing a sloppy philosophical treatise. That's me. Call me an asshole but first define "asshole."

Anyway, let's focus on Cosmetic Surgery. I can't think of anything less related to religion but I haven't dissected it for very long. I'll probably make a connection between religion and cosmetic surgery later but unless I want to write this essay for five years then I'm going to move forward. I mean the actual application of a face lift or breast implant or ass flab suction is so humanist/human/vain/egotistical/culturally derived that it's my choice as the activity that is purely human. When you listen to those who desire cosmetic surgery and those surgeons who do the surgery, there is never ever an appeal to Jesus Christ or Muhammad or Buddha. It's also a relatively recent activity and is a western endeavor. Yes, religious people must get cosmetic surgery, but I haven't seen any religious people justify it with religious arguments. It's a very human thing to be impacted by the body image/superficial values of modern cultural spin doctors. One religious argument in favor of cosmetic surgery could be that since we were made in God's image and if you have your nose blown off by a grenade then you are no longer the image of God so you need to have a plastic nose installed on your face to bring you back to the image of God. But that's a stretch because mostly it's about being publicly accepted. Like when I wear my bell bottom pants and every other person calls me an asshole or throws an aluminum can at me then it's safe to say God didn't wear Bell Bottom pants...and I should wear normal jeans to blend in. But that's crazy. My desire to fit in outweighs my desire to dress in the image of God...who probably was allergic to polyester.

Maybe we should focus even further on breast implants. That would help me move on and since I'm making the rules I get to say that the single activity that humans participate in that is devoid of religion is breast implantation. It's purely about meeting a personal ideal appearance in this earthly realm. I'm not arguing with this desire but I'm merely trying to find the one thing that we can expect to see a lot more of in a world without religion...because one could conclude that since this is an activity devoid of religion in a world with abundant religion then in a world without religion then there would be a dramatic increase.

(If you listen to the NPR debate then my insane philosophizing will sound comparatively tame)

Can we agree that breast implantation is an activity devoid of religion? Maybe I'm missing something. If we can agree on this fundamental premise then can we then say that the world would be better with more breast implantation? Somehow that statement didn't come out like I expected. What I mean to ask is if the world would be better with more of the impulse that leads to breast implantation? Philosophically, the impulse is conformity and vanity. Women want to be a standardized shape and size, like they are parts of an automobile. This is an ungodly desire...and if Larry Flynt wrote the bible it might be in accordance with his tenets but the King James bible says nothing about breast size. So, the impulses of conformity and vanity are what we can expect more of in a world without religion.

One of the best arguments I heard in favor of the calming influence of religion was that for every murder you can attribute to some fundamental religious argument, you can find ten murders that were committed by an atheist. In other words, California prisons, the state with the most criminals in the world are not in the business of persecuting the devout. No. Not at all. The crimes they committed were not fundamentally religious in nature; their crimes were departures from their faith. You look at the Iraq war...is it an attack on infidels by armed Christians? No, it's an attempt to secure more oil because we don't like to walk to the grocery store. The Spanish inquisition killed 2000 heathens total. In the name of atheism Pol Pot killed 3 million Cambodians. Hitler's persecution of the Jews was actually a political campaign to win the votes of the Bavarian Catholic. Hitler didn't really care for either religion but you wouldn't know it by his speeches. So was it religion that caused the Holocaust or was it an extremely selfish political campaign, the product of democracy? Did democracy cause the Holocaust? 

Hell, go to your local court and count how many religious crimes were committed. In fact, the only religiously motivated crimes I can think of are the attacks on feminist health care clinics by fundamentalist Christians who believe abortion is murder because the bible suggests it. Politically, it was murder only 40 years ago and even then the number of abortions performed compared to the number of doctors killed because of it was probably 100,000:1. Now it has to be 500,000:1. It's definitely a purely religious murder but it's such an incredibly small fringe group of fundamental Christians who will actually kill to defend their religious beliefs that it's more of an example of how weak and insignificant religion is instead of how strong and influential it is. Of course, I'm not a doctor at a feminist health care clinic so that's easy for me to say.

Maybe it's wrong to quote from one of the most shabby excuses for a website (that is the philosophical equivalent of Oggy trying to replace a window sash) but here's one Pro-Life "argument"

Psalm 139 again makes clear that the fetus (unborn baby) is a human whom God loves. And God told the prophet Jeremiah, “before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5). God had plans for Jeremiah even while he was in his mother's womb.


This quote makes me wonder if a miscarriage is an abortion caused by God? Maybe that's a subject for another essay if only I could get Jeremiah on the phone. Seriously, this argument using Psalm 139 is pitiful...totally circular reasoning. This book says God knew and sanctified a fetus so the fetus was already a human and since this book is true and that's proven by the book itself, therefore... Hahahaha. First of all, the quote specifically talks about the pre-Jeremiah, NOT EVERY FETUS IN THE FUTURE. Jeremiah might've been sanctified by God but He pretty much ignores every other fetus. Second of all, Psalm 139 is the most manipulative flim flam bullshit crock of shit and has no relevance in the earthly realm at all and definitely has no sway on modern health and justice affairs. To quote A.C. Grayling, the new testament quotes "literate goat herders" and should be treated as such.

Hey, that makes me think of another activity that is purely secular and humanist: abortion. No one would say that God told them to abort their baby and no one would say that God decided it was their calling to abort babies. So, abortions and breast implants are the two activities that are devoid of religion and I feel it's safe to say that the world would not be 100% better without religion. It wouldn't have lasted so long if it were 100% bad. And to those who say that there is at least a small fraction of negative influence from religion I answer that there is an equivalent fraction of negative influence from atheists and I'm unconvinced that the removal of religion, the obliteration of the notion of God would improve the world. Isn't there room for opposites: God and Reason; Prayer and The Scientific Method; The Bible and Lolita; The Sistine Chapel and Hustler? Darwin and Galileo thought so and so do I

Of course, this does not address the question of the existence of God. That's a separate question. Santa Claus doesn't exist but kids are still positively influenced by his myth and religion may be a completely manufactured hoax but it still has some positive effects. You don't have to know how your car works for it to get you to the custard shop.

AUDIENCE RESULTS
Before the debate:
52% FOR
26% AGAINST
22% UNDECIDED

After the debate:
59% FOR
31% AGAINST
10% UNDECIDED

I should point out that in the pre and post poll of the audience absolutely no one flip-flopped from in favor to opposed. Only 7% of the undecided people sided with those in favor of the motion. And 5% sided with those opposed to the motion. In other words, if you are on the fence then you can become convinced one way or the other but if you have already decided then you will not change your mind. What do you think?

I could go on all day but unfortunately only Rabbis and presidents of colleges get paid to pontificate on philosophical matters so I'm going to go finish fucking up the stain on the fence.

I leave you with these words of comfort from Mr. D'Souza:

Nietzsche once said that if we get rid of God, we’ve got to get rid of shadows of God. In other words, the ideas that Judaism and Christianity brought into the West and into the world, those will begin to erode as well. Dostoevsky said a long time ago, “If God is not, everything is permitted.” And Dostoevsky’s point is that when we get rid of transcendence, when we create a world without religion, we license terrible calamities.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Manson Denied Parole Again

Well, that was $15 wasted.

Feeling better

ok. I'm done. I've been writing that last post about current events spun by CNN for 5 hours. That firing squad picture went through so many permutations you wouldn't believe someone would care so much to trivialize and mock something so serious. It started out pretty smooth but then I realized I was trying to summarize everything I feel at the same time as actually trying to unspin the spin on the Ozzie Guillen/Castro incident. I think I wrote everything I needed to get off my chest about it and I'm so happy with the piece that it went to my top post section. It's got all the ingredients that I've been developing over the last three years. Humor. I hope it's got humor because I think it's in the satiric tradition of Mark Twain. Yeah, I use swear words more than him and Thoreau, but different ages call for different techniques. I laughed a few times as I wrote it so I think some wisdom is hidden there under my angst. I'm proud of the sarcasm and multiple metaphors and critical analysis and self deprecation and original cathartic analysis of an event that could be described as insignificant but represents something of an evil trend I've noticed. Evil sneaks in disguised as the generic or mundane and benign but under the surface once scratched it is obviously a cancer.

My neck and arms are aching and I am disillusioned and I don't understand what is happening and I don't want to hide but I'm really looking for an escape. The analysis is finished and the conclusion is Americans are pawns in the media game. Their opinions are manufactured. If they hide then they aren't critical thinkers since they are ignoring current events. But if they don't hide then they will be manipulated by the spin doctors of mass media. So there is no way to seize independence back. I really don't see a solution beyond systematic rebellion and active destruction of mass media. And, since I've got bad eyesight and a crooked spine, I don't see that happening and already hear the FBI and Homeland Security trucks pulling up next to my van then I have to take the advice of the people who hate Ozzie Guillen and "move back to Venezuela to fuck my buddy Chavez." or something to that effect.

We Americans are definitely going to push the climate to the absolute edge and then some. Resources will be totally depleted before we rearrange our priorities. Like my buddy Dennison said in New Foundland, hundreds of millions will die and eventually a new system will be arranged that won't include CNN or coal-fired energy production. But that will happen only after a grisly era. From the ashes will rise something else. Wind Power, electric vehicles, solar, water shortages, food shortages, different modes of communications, bad movies, celebrities, etc. This is our future but I've seen poor villagers living in Iron Age conditions who are more content than the folks at Walmart today. They were content because they were not alienated from their lives. They might die a little earlier but their troubles were common and their opinions were immediate. It sounds like a Christian fundamentalist has occupied my brain because I am seeing decay of common sense and healthy values and a spike in hateful remarks and bad health. So I remain unconvinced about the promise of progress. Prostate cancer or Diabetes will get me as my sweet tooth has become uncontrollable. I bought discounted Easter bunnies made from yellow cake with chocolate frosting for $2 and ate them like a wolf.
Oggy's Vegetarian Dinner

 The nurse says I have a wasting syndrome symptomatic of cancer. It really makes no difference. My homeless manifesto seeps from my fingers too slowly to keep up with the arthritis that creeps into my joints. I have another epic romance in a dystopian future that I'm developing to cure my broken heart but will never be finished. And maybe someone will option my Thoreau script to give me the money I need to buy my grand piano to play jazz piano. And the collection of essays about the old sheet music is still a solid pitch. The ebook could include recordings and license the sheet music itself. I'm telling you that's a winning idea but I've got to learn how to play piano so I can record the songs. And get a new computer so I don't have to keep posting via the text keyboard on my broken phone.

So much to do but Time clicks away. That current events essay is pretty damn good but right now I'm getting two visitors a day to the blog. One of them is my father and the other is a spambot who sends me Viagra links. I'd also like to welcome the three visitors from Thailand. My sweatshirt is a little tight so please send me your address so you can resew it.
It's a shame that I'll be dead long before anyone reads these posts. In an ocean of asshole opinions I'm right in the middle of Blah Harbor.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Current Events Spin


CNN "reporters" really are the most incite-ful, shit-stirring, shit-talking bunch of cock suckers imaginable. They are a small step above TMZ, reporting on incidents that they manufacture with their own bullshit articles. Why do I ever stray to that fucking site except to punish my own low self esteem? I really imagine a group of 25 year old kids drinking gallons of coffee under strict deadlines spewing misspelled essays about their own previous articles and calling it news as long as BMW keeps paying the advertising bills. I guess it is part of my mission to fully understand the United States. The media is largely a can of compressed shit that says, "Shake Can Then Spray." I really and truly hate it and feel like there can never be intelligent and critical thinking as long as the major news networks tug and pull on media events like we're Muppets with hands in our asses. It is impossible to conceive of a worse predator to humanity than CNN and Fox. Pure propaganda and mass manipulation. It's such addictive trash disguised as topical events. I'm in awe and I can't turn away and I loathe myself and I'm ashamed and filled with hate and fear for humanity.

Should I go on?

Buttons and Bows from The Paleface 1948

Buttons and Bows was written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans for the 1948 film The Paleface. The sheet music was in the lot that I was forced to buy to get my hands on Petula Clark's Downtown single so I'm going through the songs and trying to generate some interest in old music and learn the songs as I go for therapy*. I already wrote a few paragraphs about the Shelby Flint "Angel on my Shoulder" tune that was pretty damn catchy. That was from 1960, if I recall, and I find myself singing it despite it being 52 years old.

The Paleface goes way way back to freshly post WWII and Jane Russell's titanic tits being all veterans wanted to see. Oh my god! Curves to spare on that frame. Howard Hughes pushed the movie ratings to the limit to showcase her rack in The Outlaw. Bob Hope should always be known as an entertainer who loved to entertain. The country was at war for 5 years and Hope spent 5 years with the USO following the mission of boosting morale and entertaining troops. I hate to compare apples and oranges but has Jimmy Fallon even recited the pledge of allegiance let alone spent 20 years eating mess hall food and telling clean jokes about dirty things? Nevermind. This is about Buttons and Bows. I learned in my research that this song, a kind of annoying western parody, won the Best Song award in the 1948 Academy Awards. That's a strange category because sometimes there are 4 nominees and sometimes there are 11. Well, it didn't have any competition and you could say it was the Academy's reward to Bob Hope for his wartime contribution to the USO.

I want to say here that the Bob Hope era films (ie Billy Wilder) are probably the purest examples of five star premises ever created. For instance, one of Hopes films is called "Alias Jesse James." In which, the bumbling insurance salesman, Hope, accidentally insures Outlaw Jesse James's life for some huge sum. Hope is then charged with protecting James from harm while trying to nullify the contract...and he falls for Jesse James's girlfriend...etc. I mean, that's the most perfect premise. You understand perfectly the entire situation within like 7 minutes. The remaining 70 minutes is pure entertainment. I regard Billy Wilder's "Some Like it Hot" as the perfect premise: two male jazz musicians witness a mob killing and must go into hiding in an all girl's big band...where they fall in love with singer Marilyn Monroe...who thinks they are women. FUCKING PERFECT. The premise of The Paleface is a little weak as Hope plays a hapless dentist who is used as cover for Russell, playing Calamity Jane, until everything works out. Whatever. I'm not going to review the movie but I will say that the fact it seems the plot is a parody of western movies would suggest the songwriters intentionally made the song a parody of the clippity-clop hop along songs about horses and cowboys in love with dust.


The song is actually sung during the movie so I guess this would be the equivalent of a Disney animation song like Beauty and the Beast except Rodgers and Hammerstein weren't available so Livingston and Evans stepped to the plate. The song is written in F Major but I'm not sure that's the key it is sung in. Shelby Flint's song was written in F major but she sings it in D Major.
The lyrics basically describe Hope's dislike for the desert. I'm not sure where in the west  they are supposed to be (Saguaro Cacti would suggest Arizona or New Mexico) but it's far from the city where Hope feels more comfortable. That is also a sly twist from the songwriters who know that all the previous Zipadee doo dah songs exalt the western life and praise the cactus. So I can forgive the annoying lilt of the song and the fact that it's as sexist a song that you'll ever hear.
"Let's vamoose where gals keep using those silks and satins and linen that shows...:
It was published by Famous Music Corp. 1619 Broadway, NY.
The torn and aged copy I have is probably a first edition because it makes no mention of the fact this is an academy award winning song. Usually awards are used to promote a piece of sheet music but this was probably published a month after the movie came out in 1948 and that was it. Hollywood is a machine and if you can say anything it's that they don't rest on their laurels, unless your name is George Lucas. This movie and this song are part of the Paramount production and they are gifts to the future provided by 1948 audiences because truly the movie and the song don't generate enough revenue ($0) to justify existing 64 years later. As soon as the sales dropped then this was never heard from again and that's why I want to resurrect it. Bob Hope and Jane Russell's tits teamed up again in a few years for The Son of Paleface, a weird sequel where it seems the two actors play two totally different characters in the same universe. Again, the machine plows on ignoring any logic. (They even reprise the Buttons and Bows song with different lyrics) The formula worked so it was pushed ahead. Bob Hope could pull these characters out of his ass with no effort at all. He probably learned this song in 20 minutes while I've struggled with it for a few weeks and still can't sing in tune. And if you want to watch his recording you can hear that he really plays with the inflection. He has fun with it because it's natural to entertain...always entertain. Clearly it's his motto. It's unusual to watch these slow developing scenes now because digital video is cheap. Bob Hope only made films. And since these were expected to be in and out of the theater in five minutes there was a budget for one camera. So they got in the habit of singing songs like this the whole way through a couple times with the camera in different locations. Notice how few close ups there are. The line "I'm ready for my closeup" really meant something back then because it involved a total lightning and set change and more makeup etc. This scene was filmed with only two angles, a close up of Russell and a false background screen that's playing the film of a landscape rolling by. It was obviously filmed in Studio 39 or one of those huge hangers where I used to deliver vats of pasta and salad for $8 an hour at Paramount Studios. Hope even does a great job pretending to play the sailor's organ. Buttons and Bows...35 cents. Worth every penny.


Next up...Al Jolson's "Anniversary Song" from The Jolson Story (1946)

* The latest news really has me puzzled and perplexed. A murderous rampage by a marine is eclipsed in the news by two different race related murders. To read the news really breaks my heart. If playing songs from 1948 keeps my brain distracted then that's all I can do. I'm going to bed.

Your Mother...

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Moonshadow

"I'm being followed by a moonshadow." Cat Stevens

Oggy pushed his maimed bicycle up the dark trail. The downhill side of the trail was so narrow that Oggy risked falling back into the ravine if he pushed from that side. But the Track side of the trail forced him to step over railroad ties or trip on the loose gravel. He wasn't being followed by a moonshadow but the presence of the white ethereal glow through the dense redwood canopy inspired Oggy to hum the melody from a Cat Stevens song from the innocent 1970s. Often reviled and villainized, criticized and condemned, like Oggy himself, Cat Stevens recorded the song for laughs with Tillerman dreams and Jasmine tea. The song danced around the tonal shelter of D major and the philosophic equanimity of blindness and amputation and destitution. "I won't have to cry no more," sang the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens and echoed by the forest elves in the green Santa Cruz arboreal domain.

Cheddar Cheese

I can't find a piano to save my life so I'll let Richard Marx sing a love song to my 1980s hair cut that is gone and has been replaced with flaky psoriasis and graying horse hair on a thin and dying mule . I truly had visions of performing this and making a video tribute to someone who broke my heart but my computer has failed completely and I have no piano. Even if I performed it A Capella I couldn't edit in the photo footage. I'm fucked.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Stained



Cabot Cordovan Brown Semi trans stain. Guaranteed not to bend, break, tear or turn up at the edges.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Friday, April 6, 2012

FraudNet

Let's all call the Government Services Administration and report fraud.
"Where did you observe this fraud?"
"The Government Services Administration."
"What is the nature of the fraud?"
"Employing anyone in the Government Services Administration."

This is the most insane waste of money I've ever seen. It's an administration that rewards itself for finding ways that it can save money within itself. It's devoted to administering itself. That's worse than Enron inventing a company that would gladly buy Enron stock. I bet they pat themselves on the back when they turn the lights out in the bathroom. Disgusting. You really are an idiot if you pay your taxes when something like the GSA exists. Flush the money down the toilet at Caesar's Palace. Or throw it at a stripper. Don't pay taxes unless you are like a GSA employee and have no idea where the money came from. GSA invents ways to spend money and then invents ways to save money. It's a total flim flam agency. $1 million Vegas banquet to award prizes to each other and somehow Oggy is an idiot for riding a 1974 Vespa Ciao moped. ahahahah!

It's Easter so let's see what the good book says

Isaiah 5:20 "What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter."

Oggy 9:44 "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? Blah blah blah. Strike me dead!"

Do Not Stand on Top Step

Here I am really being an idiot and no one yells at me. But I ride my moped around town for one day and suddenly I'm a villain. Motherfuckers. Tuckpoint this.

Safe Haven

I finally found a place on the internet where racist comments aren't the common currency. No, it isn't the Hustler forum. It's CNN Money. The articles are still handpicked and edited for minimal impact and maximum spin but the people who take the time to comment on the articles spell all their words correctly and don't swear. My head starts to spin when I read death threats over and over. It's draining my life, I'm telling you. This fucking world is really bringing me down. When CNN Money is the one place I can go for relief then that's pretty much the end of the line.

PS: Does anyone remember the name of the lunch counter that used to be in the Pic N Pay in Portsmouth? IT had a fake fisherman motif and nets and a helm and you could probably order an egg sandwich and clam chowdah. The store is now Hannafords and the counter is gone but I'm feeling nostalgic for a grilled cheese and malted milkshake for $1. Anyone? I bring this up because 1982 is 30 years in the past. 1982 is the year I became truly aware of music so it's pretty much the best music I know...and it's 30 years old today and so totally awesomely old and out of date that it hurts my head. 1982. I'm so out of shape my fat rolls wrote their congressman asking him to pass a bill forcing me to stop eating hot dogs and get some exercise. I think this Republican congress won't sign it.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Idiot

I'm the asshole for riding my 1974 Vespa Ciao to my IRS job, Missouri folk yelling at me from their V8 trucks pulling empty landscaping trailers as you try to cut me off and I swerve into traffic to avoid you and you try to hit me with your truck door. "IDIOT!" Yeah, I'm the idiot you fucking cunt who gets 8 mpg as I have eggs and milk tied in a basket balanced on my head and a bag of flour lashed to the handlebars and bananas and diced dates bouncing around in the cooler I have as my rear rack. I'm the idiot because Illinois is $123 billion in debt. Yeah, what a fucking asshole I am for trying to live by my own standards, one person with one cylinder in a city congested with hate and fuel runoff into the Mississippi. Go to hell you proper punk asshole and may you end up living in Los Angeles where absolutely no one walks or rides bicycles or mopeds and everyone drives alone in a huge V8 truck with empty trailers and it takes 45 minutes to go three blocks. That's your idea of paradise and I pray that you find it you fucking cunt.

Atlas Shrugged

Finding a fair and impartial juror for this film has to be impossible. Only someone too young to want to watch it will be innocent of the weighty prejudices that come with reading even some of Rand's books and essays and having at least one extended argument with someone at a coffee shop over the viability of her theories. So, as a movie I think this is disposable. There's very little in her books that demands reenactment. "We The Living" is a better epic romance, "The Fountainhead" is easier to follow with fewer players, "Anthem" says the same thing "Celebrate the Ego" but it does so with fewer words. Why not make Anthem a movie? Don't ask me how Harry Potter and Hunger Games and Twilight garner billions of dollars for budgets while Atlas Shrugged seemed to have been put together with Final Cut and popcorn revenue. I think an objective investor would see this as a bad investment because no one wants to sit down and be lectured to about principles. The story line is way too transparent and underneath is Rand's pro-capitalism philosophy shining through in all its unglamorous mess. I love her books but this movie was a bit painful to sit through. I realize a book as popular as Atlas Shrugged demands a movie adaptation but because the subject matter is so heady then being so blunt is not going to work. As a screenwriter, I puzzled for years over how this could be successfully adapted. Many many screenwriters tried to adapt this book for over 50 years and in the end they just transcribed it note for note. I don't think that does the book justice because it doesn't romanticize the book's theme: "the role of man's mind in existence" maybe in 50 years a screenwriter will get some creative license with this book and celebrate it properly. Furthermore, personal computers didn't exist in 1957 but everyone in the movie has them, and cell phones. Don't you think John Galt would target telcom moguls and Dell executives before bankers? Oh, wait, the telcom industry exists because of govt. (druids and moochers) funded defense spending. Ooops.

Oggy as The Third Man






HARRY (O.S.)
            ...in general. Nobody thinks in
            terms......of human beings. Governments
            don't, so why should we? They talk
            about the people, and the
            Proletariat... I talk about the
            suckers and the mugs...
            It's the same thing. They have
            their five-year plan, and so have I.

                         HARRY
            I still do believe in God, old
            man... I believe in God and Mercy
            and all that... The dead are
            happier dead. They don't miss much
            here...

                         HARRY (O.S.)
            ...poor devils.

                         HARRY
            What do you believe in?

                         HARRY
            Well, if you ever get Anna out of
            this mess, be kind to her.

                         HARRY
            You'll find she's worth it.

                         HARRY
            I wish I had asked you to bring me
            some of these tablets from home...
            Holly, I would like to cut you in,
            old man. Nobody left in Vienna I
            can really trust - and we have
            always done everything together.
            When you make up your mind, send me
            a message... I'll meet you any
            place, any time. And when we do
            meet, old man, it is you I want to
            see, not the police. Remember that,
            won't you?...

                         HARRY
            Don't be so gloomy...After all,
            it's not that awful. Remember what
            the fellow said...

                         HARRY
            - in Italy, for thirty years under
            the Borgias, they had warfare,
            terror, murder, bloodshed, but they
            produced Michaelangelo - Leonardo
            Da Vinci, and the Renaissance...In
            Switzerland, they had brotherly
            love. They had five hundred years
            of democracy and peace, and what did
            that produce?...The cuckoo clock.
            So long, Holly.



Film Noir...learning something you wish you didn't learn. I think I learned that I can't act. This is another good monologue every aspiring actor should learn. Like the Ricky Roma "All train compartments smell vaguely of shit," monologue from Glengarry Glen Ross. The whole movie is pretty good. But this one scene is very good. The monologue starts at 3:40.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Amaryllis Hiaku

Oggy saved the bulb
for Isabelle's birthday gift
she crushed it in rage

Hank: My Imaginary Friend

If punch pin bear portraits were in demand I'd be rich.


Sunday, April 1, 2012

Campfire Songs

“We can share the women we can share the wine. We can share what we’ve got of yours ‘cause we’ve done shared all of mine.” Grateful Dead

The hourglass bottle of Night Train wine hung on the four remaining fingers of Wino Sam’s bereaved hand, a stub of his ring finger poking into the scratched surgeon general’s warning against the consumption of alcohol during pregnancy. “My mother drank every day while I was cooking in her hot box and I turned out fine,” was Wino Sam’s shaky dismissal of the warning.

Sam’s brood of drinkers and recovering Tweakers stared into the campfire they had built to dry out their socks after the river crossing. Tattered toenails and foot flesh dried like beef jerky as the wood crackled. Smoke from the burning branches slithered between their toes and into the redwood canopy above, hypnotizing the 4 hobos with a demonstration of adaptivity. What is this life except an series of adaptive efforts to assimilate the surroundings while maintaining personality?

As if reading their minds, Sam announced, “Better to cross the river under the bridge than get caught on the bridge with your pants down when the sheriff gets a hard on for highway walkers.”
“You got that right.”
“Yes.”
“Grunt”
His chorus of followers muttered through the smoky air without enthusiasm. They didn’t need to confirm that an interview with the sheriff was not on their list of life goals. Warrants, drugs, lack of identification, bad attitudes toward authority, old resentments, short tempers and long rap sheets made them steer clear of the well-patrolled highways and city streets of the besieged city of Santa Cruz. The war for philosophical liberty would be fought without their cooperation. Thanks to Wino Sam’s equanimity they did not entertain delusions of strict neutrality. No, they were allied with themselves first and one another second in the spirit of the immortal hobo. Their sworn enemy was the uniform with the training to beat them down and the firepower to render their carved willow stick clubs useless and the savage army of uniformed soldiers with unfeeling demands who out-manned their own guerrilla outfit.
“If you can’t beat them then retreat,” Wino Sam has explained during one of his late night strategy sessions. “We’re not activists and we’re not stupid. The City Hall uses the Police to distract attention from what the Mayor is doing. We fight the Police and the city council pushes through their agenda. The Police aren’t the problem; they’re pawns and we can’t beat them. And even if we could beat them they aren’t the ones we need to beat.”
Wino Sam explained that the laws prohibiting innocuous actions such as public drunkenness, pissing behind a dumpster, sleeping in a park, occupying an abandoned building, camping in your van, smoking pot, growing vegetables in the highway median…etc were not the product of the Police but instead the strategy of the City Council to regulate the average man.
Without exploring the topic too deeply and overwhelming his troops with philosophical trifles, Wino Sam concluded that things were, “Fucked up and fucked down.” so claiming and defending their own territory would better serve them all for the uncertain future.
“We won’t go down without a fight,” added one of the sockless men who wiggled his toes near a steaming pair of shoes.
“Careful, Tommy,” cautioned Wino Sam, “Our fight is here and patience is our best friend. Let the hippies and college students go to jail.” Then Wino Sam tactfully referred to their unresolved legal issues. “See, they’re not in our situation.”
Head nods fell like sleepy horses among the men surrounding the fire. A college student with resources and a clean record was at liberty to protest the status quo without the same ramifications as your typical wood-dwelling hobo.
One of the dark men in his patched jeans turned his damp socks with arthritic toes as the group suddenly heard the coming of a bicycle. They all held their breaths and wrinkled their leathery brows as the sound came closer. Then the strain broke as they heard Oggy’s moaning voice singing, “Oh will you wear white, oh my dear oh my dear, oh will you wear white Jenny Jeeeeeenkins?”
“It’s only Oggy,” said Wino Sam in his calming voice. Oggy was on his way to the mountaintop to visit his guru and that was a mission the men neither hindered nor helped. They listened to the rusty bike chain grind and squeak in alternating misery through the forest path along the railroad tracks. They heard Oggy’s voice singing until he reached the narrow washout that demanded total concentration to navigate. Silence prevailed upon the forest as Oggy coasted across the deteriorating landing below the railroad where a mud slide had left only a thin band of dirt hardly a foot wide that the bicycle tire cut into. The men knew the difficult passage well and were not surprised to hear an alarmed cry as Oggy’s front tire slipped over the edge of the dirt path and caused his bicycle to tumble forward throwing him headfirst into the train ties. They heard the sound of Oggy’s guitar striking the creosote railroad ties and the echo of painful moans soared like the course of a butterfly through the woods. It was dark and the hobos around the fire could only imagine the chaos that followed as Oggy had to slide feet first down the muddy ravine to retrieve his bicycle. Then he has to drag it up the hill or else traverse the slope at a 45 degree angle, tugging the bicycle behind him and grabbing onto tree branches and roots in his desperate struggle for the summit. He gets there and then finds his damaged guitar and juggling pins and puts them back in his basket. The basket immediately breaks and falls onto his warped front wheel. So the next ten minutes are spent feeling blindly (it is pitch black in the forest) for the piece of wire coat hanger that Oggy is using to secure the basket to the handlebars. Then he is on his way, aiming for a dot of light shining from the moon onto the forest floor. Abraham awaits with his wisdom to soothe Oggy’s tortured psyche.
“Men,” says Wino Sam, “We are out of wine.”

More Opinions That Don't Apply To You

This video really doesn't have anything to do with you because you are special and nothing you do impacts or affects the world at all. You go through your life in a bubble of denial and that bubble protects every one else from anything that you do. You are special because the self-absorption skills you have developed over the years have actually succeeded in insulating all of your actions from the laws of physics. So, this video is pure entertainment to watch while your Fox channel plays some commercials. Hahaha. It's funny to watch the people talk about peak oil because it has nothing at all to do with you since you live on a precious mountaintop that philosophically protects everything around you. You ride to work on a unicorn and Tree Gnomes wash your ass with dragon tears. The plight of other men is not your concern so it doesn't matter if you watch this or not. Go back to sleep and dream of flying whales in their plaid skirts doing somersaults in the sea. This is all an April Fools Joke. haahaha. Got ya! Oil never runs out like your laundry detergent.

Creative Commons License
Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.