Like Sand Through The Hourglass...

I'm getting old.
   I know that I've lamented my impending old-man-ness* from time to time... all right, I've done it frequently, but the process is speeding up. I can feel my dewy youth slipping away like the orderly who steals your pills from your dresser when you're just resting your eyes. I've noticed my slide by several factors:

   I listen to NPR almost exclusively. All right, I admit I've been doing that for over a decade, but that just shows you how early I began my descent into advanced old-man-ity.*

   I harbor a secret longing nostalgia for 70's AM radio. Which I guess isn't secret any more. I wasn't old enough to have any say in what we listened to in the car, and my parents really, really, really liked lame music, so that's what we listened to. Lame AM 70's radio. Lately I've been appreciating Abba and Hall and Oates. I may need someone to put me out of my misery before I discover Leo Sayer again.

   I do a killer Fred Mertz impression. I did it just this afternoon, dead-on perfect. It's only a matter of time before I too wear my pants rib-cage high like Fred, and not in a mocking way.

   I talk to myself in the grocery store. 'Big deal,' you say, 'lots of people do that to remember what they need to buy.' But talking to myself while running errands is the preliminary stage before I start muttering all the time. And start chewing an imaginary mouthful of something. And get huge tufts of hair growing out of my ears.

   Sweet things are too sweet. I understand there is more sugar in prepared food now than there used to be, but I'm losing what used to be an epic sweet tooth. When I was in the full bloom of youth I could almost polish off an entire pie. So maybe aging prematurely isn't entirely bad.

   I understand how governmental policies from twenty years ago have shaped the society we have now. If that doesn't make me an old man before my time, I don't know what else would. Reganomics is directly responsible for the mess we're in now, and if you want I can tell you exactly why. And get off my lawn, you stupid kids!

   I have a lawn.

   I know how escrow works.

   I know how to navigate State and Federal bureaucracy to establish a business and pay taxes.

   I go to the post office at least once a week.


There's nothing I can do about it. I'm done. Gone. Might as well get me a Hoveround and a helper monkey. Really. At least the helper monkey, I've always wanted a helper monkey. His name would be Mr. Chimps, which is a reference to a 72-year-old film. Old men fondly remember old films.

   ADDENDUM: I think Saturday Night Live is funny again. For years, decades, it was definitely not at all funny, in any way. It's funny again. I think maybe it's because they stopped trying to do 'Saturday Night Live' and just started doing funny stuff again. Or maybe I'm just old...

* old-man-dom? old-man-itude?

Were I A Billionaire...

Everybody wants to have lots of money, and most of us don't want to have to do anything to get it. That would be the best, tons of cash in a Scrooge McDuck-style money bin just free and clear. I'd dive and cavort and everything else Scrooge McDuck does but without all the bother of actually having to manage my money.
   There are, according to Forbes Magazine which tracks these things, 1,011 billionaires in the world. Aside from being a complete socio-economic travesty and an insult to hard-working people across the globe, the fact that there are over one thousand billionaires means it's becoming increasingly common. The possibility exists, is what I'm saying. I could be one of them.
   But what do you do with $1 billion in assets? I mean, really. When you have more than enough for any ten lifetimes, what do you do with it? You could endow libraries, like Andrew Carnegie, or you could support crackpot political movements that pretend to help the very people they're screwing the most, like the Koch brothers. So I sat and pondered what I would do if I had the money to do anything at all.

Build a Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang car. One that really flies.
   Endow pure scientific research projects. But the scientists have to call me 'Uncle Moneybags' on weekly video conferences broadcast over the web.
Punch Alan Greenspan in the nose. And kick Phil Gramm in the nuts. Bastards ruined our economy for no good reason...
   Go to Vegas and procure midget hookers, then make them carry my luggage.
Buy lots of ranch land and raise gigantic armadillos, ones big enough for kids to ride, then take over the kiddie-ride industry.
   Go to clown college. Then flunk out.
Teach an army of gorillas sign language, then send them all to school to get their MBAs. Then get them jobs at every major US corporation. And then when anyone at that corporation puts forward some illegal, immoral, or just plain stupid idea the gorilla gets to rend them limb from limb. That ought to cut down on the shenanigans in corporate America.
   Make a Summer blockbuster that doesn't completely suck.
Learn how to mambo. Because 'mambo' sounds funny.
   Start a World Family Reunion, that everyone has to attend, all six billion of us. We're all related, after all, if you go back far enough. People don't remember that enough.
Buy up all the TV air time for one day and just turn it off. All of it, every channel. You people need to figure out what to do without the idiot box flashing at you every two seconds.

See? My wants are few, my needs even fewer. I could probably do all that with just a couple of billion dollars, no need for $50 billion or anything outrageous.

Food Confidence

Have you ever had a sandwich prepared by a surly food service worker?
   How did that make you feel about the meal you paid for? Because today I felt suspicious, which kind of made me surly myself.
   When you walk into a restaurant or fast-food joint, usually you're greeted with a smile, perhaps an over-enthusiastic one or a sarcastic one, but still a smile. When I was a waiter it was my job to be friendly even if I hated your guts from the moment you walked in. Especially if I hated your guts.
   Obviously this was part of our training, if for no other reason than a smile prompts bigger tips. It really does, I made an experiment of it one weekend.
   But there's a better reason why food service workers are friendly. It gives the customer confidence that no one's going to do something to their food. A meal prepared by a surly worker is inherently no better or worse than a meal prepared by a similarly-skilled friendly worker. But if the guy making your sandwich isn't smiling you're pretty sure he's up to something. With your food. That you're going to put in your mouth.
   All this ran through my head today as I watched the frowning lady at Schlotzky's make my sandwich. I couldn't see her hands, which totally bothered me. What kind of morning did she have that made her that frowny? Was it her kids? Her dog? Her husband who I might resemble closely enough that revenge on me would be revenge on him? Why wasn't she happy making my meal? Or at least less upset? What was she doing back there? To my Deluxe Original?
   I'm not ashamed at all to say that when I got back to my desk at work I double-checked my sandwich before I took a bite. Nothing amiss so I proceeded with the eating. But it's only maybe the second or third time I've ever felt the need to do that. If she'd just smiled a little, tiny bit, even for a moment, I would have been more at ease.
   So smile, food service workers, if for no other reason than to give the rest of us false hope you're not doing anything weird with our sandwiches.

An iPhone Failure

You know what I do with my iPhone?
   I make phone calls.
   Yup, kickin' it old school. I actually like to talk to people instead of typing at them. I do send and receive the occasional text message, I'm not a complete Luddite, but I really do prefer to talk with a real human being.
   I have a game or two to while away the odd free moment or two, but I haven't paid for a single app and I probably never will. And, no, one of those games is not 'Angry Birds.'
   I don't like being tagged in pictures and I don't tag anyone else, I don't take pictures with my phone because I don't want anyone to know where I've been. I don't use the compass or the GPS or anything on my iPhone that has the remotest possibility of talking back to me.
   I just want a freakin' phone.
   And before you start in with the 'so why did you buy an iPhone, you big hypocrite?' I can tell you it's an old one, which I got for $49 from ATT when I moved. Fifty bucks for a new phone and I'll take what they give me.
   If you need to reach me, give me a call, I may not answer any text messages.

Things That Worry Me Which Probably Shouldn't

I'm concerned that I might suddenly develop see-through vision.
   I don't mean x-ray vision, not like I can see bones or spleens or what have you. I'm concerned that I might suddenly develop the ability to see people as if they had no clothes on, like the X-Ray Specs they used to advertise on the back of comic books.
   On first consideration that might seem to be a pretty cool thing, especially when you think of supermodels or Playboy playmates or the hot chick checking groceries. But then, after a moment's consideration I realized that I've never actually seen a supermodel in person, and the only Playmate I've seen was a coked-out wreck fifteen years ago at the Dallas Fantasy Fair, and though she had a booming bod her face looked like what you'd expect a coked-out Playmate stuck at the Dallas Fantasy Fair would look like. Not good. Not good at all.
   Then you consider all the homeless guys and truckers and transsexual-looking people you see in a week (or at least that I see in a week) and the opportunity to see the occasional MILF or college cheerleader with no clothes on doesn't seem like a very good trade-off.
   And the thought of going to the local Wal-Mart and seeing the sagging, jiggling, varicose-veined train wrecks there would make me want to claw my eyes out.
   God invented Indonesian sweat shops so that we Americans could have the clothes our flabby bodies need to hide our excesses and indiscretions. And I'm fine stopping right there, no need to look any further.
   I just don't see how Superman does it...

If I Were A Blues Musician...

If I were a blues musician I'd have a great nickname. Because all blues musicians have great nicknames, like Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker, or Lightnin' Hopkins. If you have a cool nickname people treat you better, they move aside when you pass by, they hold doors open for you. Mostly, though, you get that cool nickname on your tombstone so people 100 years from now can pass by your grave and wonder how cool that guy was to get a nickname like 'Jelly Roll.'
   So I decided to cut out the middleman - and, coincidentally, all the tragedy and pathos of being an actual blues musician - and come up with my own blues nickname. I tried to think of things that define me, or at least that others might think define me.

   Scratchin' Don H.
Needs a Shave Hartshorn
   Junk Food Hartshorn
Don 'Cut the Damn Grass' Hartshorn
   Knee Poppin' Don
Old Man Groan Hartshorn
   Don 'Too Much Mayonnaise' Hartshorn
The Bellybutton Lint Kid
   White Guy Rhythm Hartshorn
Bad Haircut Don
   Don 'Pays Bills On Time' Hartshorn
Sullen Resentment Hartshorn
   Inappropriate Mutterin' Don

   One of those just has to fit. I'll go to local jazz clubs and get the emcee to announce me over the microphone, see which one has the right reverb.

Feeding The Five-Year-Old In Me

Guess what I had for dinner? Go on, I'll give you three guesses and I'm positive you're never going to figure it out.
   A hot dog wrapped in a tortilla with cheese and some salsa?
   Jeez... first try...
   Yup, I ate a tortilla-wrapped hot dog for dinner. With some cantaloupe and grapes on the side. For lunch I had lemonade and yogurt and some bread pudding (not really sweet, but it's very good. From Sun Harvest.) For breakfast I had iced tea and Pop Tarts, the chocolate chip kind, which are much more honest than the fruit-flavored kind which pretend not to be the candy they so obviously are.
   I'm regressing back to my childhood. When I was five this was what I thought it would be like to be an adult and to feed myself. Not junk food, not really (except for the Pop Tarts and hot dog), but not the most nutritious day I've had in my life either.
   I don't know, lately I just can't be bothered. Either I'll go days subsisting on fruit and vegetables because I just can't quite make it to the grocery store for animal protein, or I end up raiding the pantry for whatever's in there that might go well together. No middle ground. I'm waiting for the 'leftover lemon chicken - ranch style beans' night that will inevitably happen some time soon.
   I can cook meals. Really. I used to be a cook, years ago. I can make fifteen pans of lasagna and four-hundred-fifty hand-breaded cheese sticks and work the ovens and stoves on the line. And still have time to read to orphans. I'm good. But I'm terribly, terribly lazy, especially when the meal is only for me, myself and I. I dread what's going to happen to me next. When I was five I thought a stellar breakfast would be Lucky Charms but with all the pesky cereal bits taken out. I pined for a bowl of just Lucky Charms marshmallows but my mother foiled my efforts to bring my dreams to life.
   Now that I'm good and grown I might just need to make that happen. Although maybe that's a cry for help...

Shuttle Down

It's the last NASA Space Shuttle mission. And you know what? I'm glad.
   Don't get me wrong, I'm not a flat-Earther or one of those people who thinks that all space exploration is the next worst thing to searching for extraterrestrial life. On the contrary, I think manned exploration beyond our tiny planet is humanity's manifest destiny. It's what we do, exploring. It's what we as a species have always done and it's what's going to take us, inevitably if far too slowly, out into the Solar System and then beyond.
   This is the reason I'm glad the Space Shuttle program is ending. We're meant for bigger and better things, and when the Short Bus to Orbit finally stops being a viable option, we'll focus on what's really important. The Shuttle was really only meant to help build the International Space Station (ISS), and it's done that. As George Bush said, Mission Accomplished. Time to move on.
   Low-Earth orbit - the ISS is only about 200 miles up - isn't even getting your toes wet in the cosmic ocean. It's not even at the high tide mark it's waaaay back in the dunes where the sand fleas get into your swim trunks. We need to go farther, go deeper, get out there into the Cosmos and see what happens. The Shuttle was all about playing it safe, baby steps, nothing too risky or adventurous. Sure, we lost fourteen astronauts, but only the second lost shuttle was really an accident, the first was caused by entirely preventable bureaucratic mismanagement. Which is what you get when you play it safe instead of committing to something truly monumental.
   We need to cut loose, blaze a trail to the next frontier, get our people out there and make things happen. When Christopher Columbus set out for the Western Passage to India, he was... pretty sure... he was going to find it. But he miscalculated severely and found nothing. His crew almost mutinied, and then - voila! - he hits land. Not India, but something much, much better. The same thing will happen when we really commit to space exploration. We'll go looking for one thing but we'll find something far better. I guarantee it.
   Yes, people will die, but they'll die actually doing something worthwhile instead of busy work ferrying satellites into orbit and garbage back down to earth. The Shuttle was nothing more than an extremely expensive delivery van. I'm glad we're done with it.

We Shall Know Them By Their Fruits

For those of you not personally acquainted with me, I’m coming clean: I’m a bit of a nerd. No, really, don’t look so shocked, it’s true. Case in point - I like sci-fi. I’m not just talking Star Wars* or Star Trek, my sci-fi doesn’t have to include spaceships and laser blasters, it can be near-future or historical or parallel universe, doesn’t matter. I like Captain Nemo just as much as I like John Connor or Flash Gordon. It’s all good, and sometimes I like my sci-fi best when it’s ludicrous yet takes its premise a bit too seriously. Think Pitch Black or Mansquito.
   One thing’s always bothered me, though. The aliens in sci-fi are either completely benevolent – the grays from CE3K** - or out to kill every last human being on the planet – the bugs from Starship Troopers. I think that should we ever meet real extra terrestrials the truth is going to be a bit muddier than we’d like it. I think they’d have mixed motives and mixed emotions about meeting us. I mean, let’s face it, we’re kind of a filthy species, any aliens we meet are going to want a lot of hand sanitizer. Or tentacle sanitizer. Or three-lobed appendage sanitizer. Whatever, you get the idea.
   So I thought there might be a quick way to use our own culture to tell whether an alien species are good guys or bad guys. We lay it all out for them, one-hundred-fifty channels of cable, all the People magazine they can stomach, enough internet to choke a horse, block parties, gangster rap, the whole enchilada. When we see which of our creations has caught their eye – compound or laser-blasting – then we can determine their intentions.

Aliens will be good guys if:
   They love Adam West’s Batman.
   Their spaceships look like what people in the 50’s thought spaceships would look like.
   They like dogs, and dogs like them back.
   They think Citizen Kane was a fine bit of cinema indeed.
   They're horrible at basketball but they still want to play.

Aliens will be bad guys when:
   They agree with anything espoused on Fox ‘News.’
   They like broccoli.
   They think toll roads are a good idea.
   They harvest us for our tasty organs.
   They like Jar Jar Binks. Or, God help us, they look and act like Jar Jar Binks.
   They start wearing hipster fedoras like a bunch of tentacled douchebags.

Aliens will be hopeless wrecks and want to sleep on our couches and eat our groceries and never get a real job if:
   They like Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
   They wax rhapsodic over the ouvre of Keanu Reeves.
   They believe that such a thing as Highlander 2 ever existed. Which it did not.
   They think cosplay is anything but a colossal waste of time and energy.
   They like pineapple on pizza.


* Only the first three movies, the last three abominations don’t exist in my space/time continuum
** Nerd shorthand. No, I’m not going to translate for you.

Wouldn't That Ruin Your Pants?

I was in Lowe's this morning, buying ant poison and a flashlight* and when I was checking out I noticed a laminated sheet posted by the register that listed the most shoplifted items in the store. They call it 'shrink' but they mean 'five-finger discount.' There were the expensive things, like drills, and easily-concealed things, like drill bits, but I'll give you one guess as to the fourth-most-shoplifted item in that particular store. Go ahead, you'll never get it. I'll stand right here while you decide ... not gonna even try? Okay, fine, be that way. I'll just tell you.
   Circular saw blades.
   Ouch. Talk about your dangerous items to steal. I can think of two reasons these would be a challenge to shoplift: they're big and they're sharp. Really, really, really, really sharp. They're freakin' saw blades, they're designed to cut wood or ceramic or melamine or whatever is unfortunate enough to get in their path. Plus they're eight-inch diameter rigid steel disks, they're not going to fold up and slip in your back pocket, they'd have to fit on your chest like one of those discs from Tron.
   Think about it. Who's going to shoplift a circular saw blade? My mother? Well - she actually might, but my point is women aren't the ones stealing these things. Guys are. Contractors who come into Lowe's in paint-spattered jeans and sweat-soaked t-shirts. Not carrying a purse to slip the random saw blade into, and nothing extra to conceal a stolen item. Just the jeans. Can you imagine trying to walk out of a store with a circular saw blade shoved down your pants? You'd have not just the paranoia of getting caught, you'd have the paranoia of that saw blade getting loose and slicing your butt to ribbons. Your butt if you're lucky...
   And yet, it happens enough that circular saw blades feature prominently on the list of 'shrink.' I guess when you're desperate enough you'll find a way to steal almost anything.


* two entirely unrelated projects

There's Your Problem Right There

I was just in Sears, where I haven't been in quite a while. The last time was, I believe, before December 2006. I can't exactly remember why I was in Sears then, but I know I visited right before I went to Australia, and that was December 2006. So it's been a few years. I know that the company is facing financial problems and management problems, and I think I may have found the root cause.
   Their clerks are clueless.
   This is not to say they were impolite, quite the contrary, the three I talked to were very pleasant, and even eagerly helpful. They just didn't know what was in the store. I went in looking for one esoteric, rare thing - a deep root feeder for trees - and one ridiculously easy thing - an air compressor. I talked to three people because the first guy didn't know home and garden, and the home and garden guy didn't know hardware, not even enough to know an air compressor isn't hardware. So I bounced around from clerk 1 to clerk 2 to clerk 3, only to find - eventually - that neither of the things I wanted was in the store right then. I'm still not sure what clerk 1 did besides direct people to the other clerks.
   Time was you went into Sears and dreaded asking a question because the clerks would quiz you about things you weren't prepared to answer. 'I'm looking for a deep root feeder.' 'Oh yeah? What kind of tree? How tall? What kind of soil do you have? What's your water pressure like? Is the tree on the North or South side of the house?'
   But I gotta tell you, getting the third degree from guys who knew waaaaay too much about deep root feeders was one thousand times better than Blank Stare Larry, who had never heard of a deep root feeder in his online chat room, much less seen one in person.
   Is this a problem with Sears' hiring practices, with its training, or with the quality of people available to work? I'm thinking it's a combination of all three, but mostly probably the hourly rate, which has to be supremely crap-tacular. You get what you pay for after all, and if you're not paying much you'll get exactly that.
   Another part of the problem might be that people these days don't know how to do anything. By the time I was fifteen I'd changed tires, framed storage sheds, used a chainsaw (probably a little too much), rigged a rope bridge, replaced an exhaust system, changed oil, hammered shingles, run a roto-tiller, chopped down trees, etc. etc. etc. I think Blank Stare Larry couldn't recognize a deep root feeder because he had no idea that such a thing was possible, let alone that people had been doing it since the 50's.
   This has to change. People need to know stuff and they need to know how to do stuff. I guess it's up to me...

The Thai Menu Guy

There are a few things I miss about SoCal, right now I mostly miss the temperate climate, and of course I miss Trader Joe's - the two nearest to me are in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, not even really close enough for a road trip, that's a three-day excursion. I do miss the weirdos too, though I suppose I'm just used to my Texas weirdos so they don't seem all that weird to me. But yesterday I found myself missing the most improbable thing, something I would never have dreamed had found a spot in my heart.
   I miss the Thai menu guy.
   Not the guy himself, because, as my SoCal friends are well aware, you never actually see the Thai menu guy. You look away for one moment and when you turn back - BAM! - your bare door knob has become a place to hang the menu for a Thai restaurant. He's a ninja, that Thai menu guy, a shadow moving in the darkness, a whisper on the wind as he passes.
   And it's not just the Thai menu guy, although he certainly does leave more than his share. There was the local pizza place menu guy, and the Mexican restaurant menu guy, and the soba noodle place menu guy, and the Cuban menu guy, and even the Jamaican menu guy. It was kind of comforting to come back to my apartment and find a batch of menus hanging on the front gate. It was like menu Christmas. Well, maybe more like Chanukah, where you get presents they're just not amazingly great presents. Menus are good but they don't solve the financial crisis.
   I don't get menus on my door here in Texas. From time to time I'll get a folded card for someone who wants to mow my grass or power wash my driveway, but no menus. No friendly reminders that I don't have to cook for myself, and no half-heard swish as the menu ninja escapes into the moonless night.

Under My Skin

Maybe I'm a little sensitive, maybe a little touchy, or maybe - just maybe - I'm a touch too polite. Living the Golden Rule and all, it just aggravates me when people don't think of others when just a moment's consideration would go so far.
   Here, in no particular order, are various impolite things that have gotten under my skin lately.

In the car:
   The douchebag in the Cadillac Escalade in front of me flicking his cigarette ash out the sunroof.
   Same douchebag veering across three lanes of traffic to make an exit.
   The battered green LeBaron making a right turn from the left lane. Just go a few blocks down, turn around and come back. Nothing you have on your agenda is more important than my life.
   The flattened aluminum cans falling like raindrops from the flatbed trailer pulled by the wheezing and laboring Ford utility pickup. You can't be environmentally conscious about recycling if you're littering for miles on your way to the reclamation station.

In the grocery store:
   Every woman who's ever pushed a grocery cart in a grocery store. The place is packed full of people, you're not alone. Get the hell out of the center of the aisle. Watch the men, see how they stay out of each other's way? Do that.
   Morbidly obese people elbowing people out of the way to get to the diet soda. You're not fooling anyone, and you're only making your condition worse.
   Serving sushi in the middle of a South Texas Summer, right at the front of the store. So many things wrong with this idea it's hard to know where to begin the list.
   The person who forgets his coupons until he's already paid for his groceries with his debit card, so the clerk has to give him cash back. Seems like some sort of scam to me.

At the Post Office:
   The passport office is that one over there. With the big label that says 'Passport Office.' Don't get snippy with the clerks because you waited in the wrong line.
   Mr. Impatient who shows up at the Post Office at noon on a weekday and is put out when he has to wait more than two minutes. Of course if all the passport people weren't in the wrong line...
   The same Mr. Impatient who gets testy when the postal clerks run through their list of added services. It's their job to ask, so don't get all pissy about it, just say 'No, thank you' like your parents taught you when you were three.

In the gym:
   Mr. Smell-Good. The slightest spritz of Axe body spray makes you smell like an Armenian pimp, practically drowning in it clears the room. Just take a bath like a normal person, Junior.
   The Chatty Kathies on the treadmill. It's a gym, not a coffee shop, and you're yelling to be heard over the whir of the machines. I can hear every icky detail of your lady-parts surgery story, and I'm twenty feet away.
   The Creeper standing by the water fountain, trying to be slick while he watches the hot chicks on the eliptical machines. Gonna get yourself arrested there, Peeping Tom.

The Haircut Indeterminacy

I may have complained about this before, but it's been a while - probably a long while - since I mentioned it. My cross to bear. My public shame. The thing that keeps me awake at night as I silently sob. What could get me as emotional as a spinster watching Brian's Song?
   I cannot get a good hair cut.
   Which is not entirely true. I have gotten good hair cuts once in a great while, which is how I know that a good hair cut and my head can exist in the same place at the same time. What I mean is I cannot usually get a good hair cut most of the time. Like right now, if you could see me you'd see a mushroom-y sort of thing, where the top is disproportionately longer than the sides so my head looks like I'm sprouting a Portobello above my eyebrows.
   Other times, when I've been subject to the tender mercies of a different butcher with scissors it can look like I've sprouted wings above my ears or like I've got the beginnings of a mullet working on my neck.
   I don't get it. These guys go to barber school. They're licensed. They've been in business for years, decades even. And yet when I sit in their chairs I know that no matter what I say my hair cut is going to look good for a day or two, maybe inside of a week, before it all goes to shaggy Hell.
   There was one barber who never gave me a bad hair cut. JB. Had his own shop down on Austin Highway. He used to cut my father's hair when my father was in high school, no lie. When I started going to see him JB had largely retired, so I had to choose my days carefully. Now he's almost certainly retired, maybe passed on to that Great Barbershop in the Sky. And with him goes my chance of ever getting a good hair cut regularly.
   This is why some guys shave their heads, I'm convinced. My problem is that if I shaved my head I'd look like a mental patient or a serial killer. Or a serial-killing mental patient. I have a lumpy head underneath my mushroom hair.
   Which, now that I think of it, might be the problem.

George Washington Walks Into A Bar...

Hey there, pal, nice waistcoat. Snappy breeches too.
   Hale and well-met to you, my good sir.
You're looking glum.
   Aye, naught that a ration of posset might not cure, though.
Sorry?
   No posset then. Cider, perhaps?
Nothing with any kick to it. How about a hard lemonade?
   A tickle to an otherwise Puritan drink. Something Old Ben Franklin might have invented when he was done whoring or tinkering with his stove. A cup of that, innkeeper.
Harvey.
   George.
I figured I'd seen you before. Like on money.
   I asked them not to do that. I don't like the way I look printed.
So what's on your mind, George?
   The state of things. The state of the State, as it were. How far this generation has strayed from our intent.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. You were a slaveowner after all, and we don't do that any more.
   Aye, that was a product of the times, as were I and Jefferson and that wee rascal Madison. I meant the impracticality and burdensome nature of your government.
Don't you mean your government?
   By the least measure, sir! I know we founding fathers all had different ideas and opinions regarding the nature of the people and of the government formed by their consent, but none of us in our worst nightmares could have imagined the state of affairs now. Pointless bickering, empty political maneuvering, keeping score for a game destined to have only losers. Madness.
You guys had your share of political fights. Fistfights even.
   Aye, but fistfights for a reason. For a cause. Not for show. I fear for the safety and continuation of our dear, fragile Republic.
I think we'll be okay. We lived through Grant, Hoover, and Bush 43. We're still kicking. We'll make it another 200 years.
   Point taken, fair innkeeper. Yet still... has word reached you of a portly knave called Limbaugh?
Oh yeah. You know for all his bluster and ignorance and vitriol, I think his heart's in the right place. He does actually care for this country. He just has a mental patient's way of showing it.
   A fair assessment well said, Harvey.
So... just between you, me and this bowl of pretzels, what would you change?
   You're familiar with the High Court justices Scalia and Thomas?
Mmm-hmm...
   Abuses of power and severe lapses of ethics demand restitution. And that an example be made.
Do tell.
   You're familiar with the stockade, perhaps?

Building A Mystery...

There's a question I've been pondering for years now - YEARS - and I still don't have an answer. I'm a fairly smart guy, so this lack of a solution has me troubled; is it something I'm just not seeing, or is there some veil the truth is hidden behind. I don't know, and the longer this goes on the more I think there are some things man was just not meant to know. What's the question? Glad you asked.
   How does Radio Shack stay in business?
   Seriously, have you been in a Radio Shack recently? Or even in the last ten years, because they haven't changed at all. They stock store-brand RC cars, terrible off-brand cell phones, grossly overpriced TV and stereo cables, batteries and... that's about it. Every time I've had to buy something at a Radio Shack* there's been one guy working and nobody else in the store. I felt I was interrupting his day, or perhaps a pending drug deal, with my petty commerce. Like going into that suspect hamburger joint, you know the one, that never seems to be open except late at night or early in the morning, and then you find out from a neighbor that Armenians own the place and are using it to launder money from whatever fraud they're perpetrating.
   Radio Shack bothers me and yet intrigues me at the same time. Bothers me because I strongly suspect there's something crooked going on, either at the stores or at the corporate level or both. If you can't reconcile their reported profits with the fact that the stores are mostly empty all day long, then somebody somewhere is fudging the numbers or completely making them up. Intrigues me because, on the off chance they're not totally lying then they have a magic business model, something other corporations would do well to copy.
   But I'm putting my money on the lie. You just can't sell enough batteries and cables to keep a store like that afloat.

Now... what about the Sunglasses Hut? They're always devoid of customers, so the fact that they're still in business seems kind of shady. HA! Get it? Sunglasses... shady... hooo boy... that's comedy right there.


* cell phone charger, cell phone battery, and cable TV adapter. And, with the cell phone battery, I bought a gorilla-shaped flashlight. Really.

There's Just The One

I have a theory. Well, it's more than a theory, it's more like a lead-pipe cinch to be fact. I just don't have a valid way of testing it. Yet. But it's one of those things that when you hear it you just know it has to be true.
   A bit of explanation. In one of my prior jobs I used to travel a lot. All over the continental US and then to various foreign parts of the world. So I lived out of suitcases and ate in strange restaurants and lurked in funny-smelling comic books shops in cities and towns and villages far from my home. I also spent a lot of time in airports and had a chance to see where they're different and where they're the same. And they're all pretty much the same, no matter if you're in Honolulu, Savannah, Frankfurt or Fukoka. This is where my theory comes in.
   I'm convinced that there is only one airport. Just one. Everyone all over the world uses the exact same airport no matter where they are. It's just that the airport looks different depending on which door you use to enter it. And you can't see the millions of other people using the One True Airport, only the ones who came in the same door as you.
   It's a multi-verse kind of thing, with a touch of experientialist solipsism thrown in. When you go into the airport in LaGuardia you have to traverse a certain path, travel certain roads to get there. And that path determines what the One True Airport looks like to you when you enter it. Same thing when you go to the airport in Adelaide, Australia, you have to work your way through the local environment to get there. It's kind of like solving the maze on the back of child's placemat in a restaurant; locally there's only way way to get to the One True Airport, and that one way determines how you see everything inside. So when you go to the Leonardo DaVinci Airport outside Rome all the signs look like they're in Italian. But when you go to Gatwick all the signs - which are the exact same signs - read in the Queen's English.
   That TGIF Friday's in DFW? It's the same one in McCarran. Exact same one. The burrito places are the same, the newsstands are the same, even the shoeshine stands are the exact same in each and every airport you're ever going to visit. The details just look different to you.
   You ever wonder why the janitor cleaning the bathroom in O'Hare looks just like the janitor cleaning the bathroom in Brussels? Because they're the exact same guy. It's true.
   Yeah, it's a brain-twister. But anyone who's traveled for a living knows what I'm talking about and they're with me. They get it. Now, if I can just figure out a way to prove myself right...