Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Old Man River

Lonestar Natural Gas Facility

The wrong side of the tracks


1974 Vespa Ciao overlooking Mississippi
 A storm is coming.

Foot in Mouth

I'm famous for opening my big mouth without regard to consequence. Speaking truth to Power sometimes leads down a terrible detour to going berserk when someone walks on a reseeded grass patch. That doesn't really compare to the incident where a U.S. soldier slaughtered 16 civilians in Afghanistan but it's an example of how I used to offer my opinion even if it wasn't asked for on things that I can't understand. Lately, I am beaten down by the topics of the day, Acidification of the Ocean, Desertification of the West, Climate out of control, gadget after gadget thrown on the shelves as surrogates for happiness. It's exciting but the science is running neck and neck with the spin and it's not just kooks predicting the end of the world if nothing changes. I'd like to apologize to anyone I've offended in the past with my big mouth. My response to the latest killings in Afghanistan is going to come in the form of comments written on CNN. CNN audience isn't the bottom of the barrel of humanity but they are close cousins. You go from a misleading article on climate change to a video about teenagers skipping school to huff paint fumes. Fast food and car advertising dominates the screen. CNN is a perfect record of how adults want to state their opinion on far ranging topics but they often have nothing to say or shouldn't say what they want but do anyway. Some will comment only to say, "I'm American and it's my right." It's an awful awful forum but I tell myself we're a young animal and in 2000 years things will improve. Christians used to stone Roman Pagans and now we send Atheist soldiers to shoot and burn Muslims. That's progress, right? If I can figure out a way to make these lyrics into a song I'd be rich. U.S. commanders say he was a rogue soldier but that's because the commanders haven't been reading the CNN comment board. Obviously, plenty of people think what happened is great. If we had a few hundred rogue soldiers like him the war would be over in a week. Wait, that's a line from Apocalypse Now. Who wants to go on a hunger strike to end the war?


Black 8

My lucky number is 8 and when I'm in a Casino I put money on Black 8 in the Roulette Table. Of course I'm seldom in a casino and seldom have money, except today when I got lost by the Mississippi River looking for aluminum cans on my moped and ended up taking a dump in the River city casino bathroom. I had $6 in my pocket, my entire allowance for the week. I saw from the board that Black 8 had plunked down ten turns earlier. It probably wouldn't drop again. I walked over and laid my $6 on the table. The man counted it out. "Are you playing inside or outside?" I hesitated. Would I lay $6 on Black 8 or play the safe bet on Black or Red to double my money, build a stake and then play Black 8?
"Outside," I say.
He hands me a $5 chip and a $1 chip.
It's a $5 minimum bet so I place it all on Black, then I change my mind because Black just hit. I put my two chips on Red. The man spins the ball.
"No more bets."
"Come on Red!"
It drops.
"Black 8!"
Groans.
He takes my $6, I head for the door and my moped with aluminum cans.
35:1 odds on $6 pays $210.
The odds on a kick in the ass every time I walk in a casino door is 1:1.
Creative Commons License
Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.