Let Them Loiter on The Screen Awhile

A chasm has yawned between myself and my writing. I find it difficult to write as I used; it seems an idle pastime of my recent slightly less-old days. My conceit that no one would ever read my words, as if that matters, seems, irrationally, to matter. No one will read my books, it seems. I have no head for self-promotions. The uncounted keyboards of the world, matched with minds yearning to express that inner-world of subjective thought has flooded the Internet with garbage words, these included. These words, spewing forth from my brain like an overflowing sewer, typed off-hand on some Sunday morning, unsolicited by an uninterested world, flow nonetheless. Not edited, no reverse, just typing forth rubbish into the Internet. Howling into the void, an aging man types on the Chromebook of his dead father. Yet here I sit, starting another sentence that might lead anywhere, as this stream-of-consciousness thing, this aging brain attempting to convey its subjective existence, unable to wrestle down its own thoughts, cannot fathom that there is no reason to continue. The sun shines on half the backyard, shade and bright green grass share a plot of land behind the house I pay the bank to let me use. There is a great tree back there, which for a long time I mistook for a Honey Locust, and maybe it is some species of that line, but it is large, and it is there every day, immobile, but more importantly, unthinking, unworried about the purpose of life or the cost of the mortgage. It will be there, if left unmolested, for years to come, yet I will, restless and malcontent, move about in various circles, getting, spending, worrying and finding distraction, all the while approaching a certain and immobile grave. Then I will be as content as the tree in my backyard, immobile, unthinking, unworried about "the purpose of life or the cost of the mortgage." So. A chasm has yawned between myself and my writing. But maybe not. Because here is a cluster of words, more stuffing for the great Internet, read yet unread, loitering on a screen.

OPINION TIME

What is your opinion about OPINION TIME?

Here is where we will have a frank and open discussion about our opinions about OPINION TIME.

If someone disagrees with you about OPINION TIME, make sure to let them know; tell them your opinion about them disagreeing with your opinion about OPINION TIME. This is constructive.

Do not change your opinion about OPINION TIME under any circumstances, but be certain that with a reasonable argument, you can change another person's opinion about OPINION TIME.

Remember, if someone disagrees with your opinion about OPINION TIME, they are wrong, and their disagreement with your opinion about OPINION TIME is a personal attack. It is best to respond in kind with a personal attack. Insult their character, heredity, or intelligence. This is a sound persuasive tactic that always works, and brings those of differing opinions around to your way of thinking.

OPINION TIME. What is your opinion?

# IS THE WORLD GETTING STUPIDER?

It seems like every day, we see more people doing and saying stupider things. Why does it seem like the world's population is getting stupider? I have four general theories, all completely impossible to prove, and probably stupid in themselves:

1. People are just getting stupider. Through the decline in education, our increased reliance on Frankenfood, and, among other things, the popularity of stupid things on television, it is possible that an increasing percentage of the population is becoming stupid, slack-jawed non-book-reading lazy slobs, lumbering around, doing and saying stupid shit.  People are simply getting stupider and stupider.

2. People aren't getting stupider, but there are more cameras to catch more stupid things happening. With so many television channels, more people must bloviate more often about stupider subjects. There is also the cheap way to make television: stupidity as entertainment. Find a group of idiots, put them on television, and viola! a hit television show.

With cameras in phones, on dashboards, buildings and traffic poles, more stupid things are caught on camera, and with the Internet, those stupid things caught on camera are disseminated to more people, thus making it seem like humans are getting stupider.

3. The percentage of stupid people is not increasing, but there are simply more people, and while the percentage of stupid people isn't going up, the sum total of stupid people walking around doing stupid shit is rising. And since the chance of hearing about stupid shit is increased by increased surveillance, (see point 2. above) it SEEMS like people are getting exponentially stupider.

4. People are just getting stupider.

2013 in Review

This year that thing happened and we were all like, NO WAY! And some people were naked too much, and others were wearing suits and they spoke into microphones. Then some political stuff happened, and we were like, NO WAY! ARGUE ARGUE ARGUE! But then something new happened, probably on television or in the news.

Some good TV series ended or began, and some people were like, THIS IS SO AWESOME, and others were like, "Meh."

There were some award shows, where men wore tuxedoes and women showed off their boobies, and everyone was like, "She looked this way or that!"

Then some science stuff happened, and robots. Just last year, we were all thinking, I can't believe 2012 is already over with, there was so much bullshit. What bullshit is going to happen next? And bullshit DID happen. This year we are all thinking, I can't believe 2013 is over with, there was so much bullshit, What bullshit is going to happen next?

Sports and award shows, and weather happened. There were some emergencies. Some people got all shot up and we were all sad for a few days, but then sports happened.

And economy. Gas prices were one price, and then another. There were jobs and stuff, or no jobs, and men in ties stood at microphones and said some stuff.

So anyway. Freedom 2014.

WHY THE RICH CAN RUN OVER THE POOR

Recently in the news, you may have read that a rich kid ran over four people and for his drunken crime, gets to spend time in a half-million dollar a year resort for rich people. You may be annoyed by this. But you must understand that the rich cannot possibly be expected to be thrown in jail, because they are rich. These are the aristocracy, and they are better than you and me, in every way, and the law is on their side.

It is a law that they have created in their own image, with their money, which God has bestowed on them because They are his favorite children.

They work very hard in their fancy schools to which their parents, whom God loves very much, sent them in order for them to take their rightful places in society.

It is a society in which you must struggle. You will continue to exist in this system, which works just fine, and although you may work much harder for much less, it is because you did not have the forethought to slide out of a rich lady's vagina in an expensive hospital when you were born. They had that foresight, and they are rewarded for it with all the riches in the world.

They are organized. They can pay people to devote entire careers to promote their interests in the halls of power, by giving money to their friends in the halls of power. This might seem like "bribery," but that is a vulgar term. They prefer to call it freedom of speech, so it becomes freedom of speech, and who in their right mind has a problem with freedom of speech? They can shape the laws to make sure they remain happy and rich! Would you deny them this right? You could organize too, if you had time, and since time is money, you don't have time. If only you had more money, you could take time off to organize. But who has time for that? Those bills aren't going to pay themselves.

Is it fair? Of course. The rich are organized and powerful. You could organize too, but if you do, it is probably against the law somehow, and if it isn't, it will be, because laws can be changed. If you organize enough, armored thugs with utility belts filled with torture devices will spray poison in your poor, proletariate faces and electrocute you with stun guns because you will learn your place. You live in the time of the Oligarchs, but you don't know it yet because of patriotic songs about "freedom" and "bravery," and you believe it: oh yes, you had better believe in it, because if you start to think about it too much, you might realize where you are. You will believe it until you get a whiff of pepper spay, and then you back off, for freedom.

Once you learn to know your place, it will be easier to take. But like it or not, you will take it. So know your place already.

The Rich can run over the poor because they must deal with the overwhelming burden of money and power, to which they are entitled. Being obscenely wealthy has its side effected, so how can they possibly be held responsible for their actions?  Why would they take responsibility? Who would hold them responsible? Other rich people? The law? The law belongs to them. They are above the law because they own the law. They write the law.

Now get back to work Proles. Know your place and be thankful the incredibly wealthy are out there, running people over, writing laws, fixing elections, gerrymandering, closing factories and speaking to you on giant screens.

Because Freedom.

AMATEUR SPOONBENDING FOR BEGINNERS

Spoonbending is coming back! You've read about it all over the Internet, you've seen it on the news. Perhaps you've seen the flyers in the coffee shops! Everyone is spoonbending, and of course, you want to get in on this hot new trend!

Spoonbending is simple. Get an ordinary spoon. Hold the spoon by the "neck," that supple, narrow part of the spoon under the spoon part where the soup goes. Don't put soup in it. This is a clean spoon. Don't put it in your mouth. No. We are repourposing the spoon to amaze and astound our friends and family.

Hold the spoon between your thumb and forefinger, so the handle hangs down (by gravity!) and the scoopy part is up above where you're holding it, which is the neck (See the above paragraph, above).

Now you've got it by the neck. That spoon knows who is in charge. Yet the neck of the spoon remains stubbornly solid. It is its solidity we must tackle, and we'll do it by this one simple trick:

Simply empty your mind of all conscious thought and completely vaporize your ego, so that you are empty phenomenon, holding what? Nothing! The spoon is gone, and so are you! Now the spoon bends . . . in your mind. The spoon is still exactly as it was before, but will anyone see it? No! You no longer want to impress anyone by spoonbending, because you are now selfless phenomena, one with the universe, and the spoon! Get it?

But that is a cop out. Let's get real. Let's really bend that spoon: How to really bend spoons: First, you need a guru. Perhaps you know some bearded gentleman in your neighborhood. If you are picturing an old, wise Asian gentleman, or some sort of turbaned Hindu mystic, you should check yourself. That's total stereotyping, and you should stop it. God, you are such a racist sometimes, I swear. You need a guru of some sort to teach you mental disciplines and physical calisthenics, yoga or perhaps deep breathing exercises.

Then, after months or years of training, you are ready to bend the spoon. Now: hold the spoon as described above in the above paragraphs (above). Focus all of your mental energy on the neck of the spoon, and as you do so, move the two fingers, between which you have grasped the neck of the spoon, and make tiny circles, focusing all of your mental and physical energies on that point, heating it with friction and the psionic powers you developed over your months of training with your guru, who may or may not have charged you money in the form or "donations," or "dinner," or outright fees. He has to eat, you know. "All of the guru powers in the world don't change the fact that people have rent. I mean Jesus Christ, I can't live on good vibes you know. Why are you always such a tight ass? We talked about that. Your materialism is what's holding you back. And the issues you have at work." So anyway. Make small circles. You will feel your life-force focused exclusively on that point of the neck of the spoon. You might feel doubts. A thought might flutter through you mind, even for a moment, "I should have gone to college like my parents wanted me to," or, "What am I compensating for, trying to bend this spoon? Isn't there some better way to spend my time?" or "I think this 'guru' is taking advantage of me. I've never seen him bend a spoon." Ignore these distractions. Focus. Focus on that god-damned spoon. That spoon that insists on being so solid. Convince it that it is not solid. "You are a spoon, bend already. Jesus Christ, the embarrassment alone should bend you in half. Everybody's thinking this isn't going to happen. Why didn't I practice this alone? They already think I'm a freak, and now this." Make excuses, and after the awkwardness, don't leave right away, or everyone will think it is because you are embarrassed. Have a drink, laugh it off, make some small talk, and then get the hell out of there and try to regroup.

Okay: how to bend a spoon with your mind: This is serious this time, so pay close attention to every word I'm about to lay down, because this is some mind-expanding stuff right here.

Hold the spoon as described in the above paragraphs. BY THE NECK. Got it? Okay. Now: picture someone who is dead. Patrick Swayze is a good choice, because he helps people with various arts and crafts, but he isn't the only choice. What you need is someone from "the other side" to bring a blowtorch from "the other side." I know it sounds fantastic, but if you don't believe in spiritual stuff like ghosts and afterlives, why don't you open up your mind and stop being such a damned nihilist? I mean, if there's no afterlife, what's the point of all this? You always do this! You're always so negative about stuff, no wonder you can't bend the spoon. Can't there be any mysteries in life? Does everything have to be a lab experiment with you? So cold. So god damned cold and clinical. Wait, where was I? Oh yes. Other suggestions would be people who were famous for welding . . . did I just open my web browser and Google "famous welders?" Possibly. Did I find any? Not really. As far as I can tell, there are no seriously "famous" welders you could summon from the Indescribable Paradox of The Afterscape to bring a welding torch to heat the spoon enough to allow you to bend it. Summoning a demon is always a bad idea, although they bring their own heat and could melt the spoon in a snap, but they always want something in return, and I'm not about to go into it, but it is bad news. Believe me. So demon summoning is out. So you are stuck with a spirit of the dead, and I'm thinking the only dead person that could help would be Patrick Swayze, who, as far as I can tell (from his Wikipedia page) has no welding experience, but he does things in clay, and even though that doesn't apply here, for all we know, he could have taken welding in shop class in high school. Anywhoo, summon the spirits of the dead to bend the spoon, somehow.

I think that covers the basics. After reading this essay, you should be able to perform the following tasks:

1. bend spoons with your mind.

# VEHEMENT PROPAGANDA

I would like to write some vehement propaganda. I would like it to be widely read and influential. Not only on the Internet, but also in newspapers, books, universities, churches, and discussed at length on television. My vehement propaganda will be controversial, at first. But with the right combination of well reasoned arguments, jingoistic nationalism, junk science, pop psychology, magical thinking, and neuro-linguistic programming, I want it to influence a vast majority of both the reading and non-reading public. Influential think tanks and shadowy groups of paranoid conspiracy theorists will huddle together to discuss the precepts of my vehement propaganda. Various television personalities and influential thinkers will argue, scream, and come to blows while debating the various sublime aspects of my vehement propaganda.

My vehement propaganda will create unexpected alliances between formerly diametrically opposed groups, who will consolidate and simultaneously obliterate political and economic power based on the theories and clear incremental planning that will be found within the dense, massive volumes of my vehement propaganda. Vast worldwide upheavals in the socio-economic framework in which we currently live will leave society unrecognizable. Some who are great will fall, and others who are obscure will triumph in the unpredictable aftermath of my vehement propaganda. Who can question it? My vehement propaganda will defy logic. It will redefine logic in its own image. Conventional ideas about gender, class, race, creed, wealth and poverty, day and night, up and down will be rendered obsolete by the sheer weight of the towering arguments found in the hallowed pages of my vehement propaganda.

Will there be marching? Possibly. Armbands? Perhaps. But only if, decades after I am dead, or at least rumored dead, with those enduring rumors that I am really alive even after the span of my mortal years are long past, only when my vehement propaganda can be twisted by wicked men who rise to power after I am no longer around, only then will come the marching and the armbands and the military parades. But until that unfortunate (and unavoidable) time, my vehement propaganda is for the people. You know who you are. For you! The backbone of what makes society work! Those of you capable of understanding. Those of you who are awake! You are the ones who get it; my vehement propaganda is for you. Without you, it is nothing. Alone, we are helpless. But together, you, me, the magna populorum, and my vehement propaganda, we will unmake and make the world. I would like to write some vehement propaganda. I would like it to be widely read and influential.

# TODAY I AM THANKFUL FOR GENERAL DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

General Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, and I don't know about you, but I think that is one kick-ass job description.

As a boy growing up in Kansas, Eisenhower converted a small barn into a makeshift laboratory, where he invented the Internet, the National Highway System, and NASA. Young Dwight was a childhood friend of Clark Kent and Dorothy Gale.

But then, a threat emerged in Europe, and our three young friends joined the army, fighting the Nazis and having adventures. Who can forget the stirring images of Eisenhower, Superman and Dorothy Gale leading the charge onto the beaches of Normandy?

Finally, on April 30th 1945, Eisenhower tracked Das Feuer to the Berlin bunker and killed Adolf Hitler after an exhausting shirtless knife fight while a terrified Eva Braun looked on. It ended with Eisenhower slowly pushing his Bowie knife into a wheezing Hitler. Eisenhower said. "Shhh, shh. It will be over soon. Shhhh." Hitler's disgraceful last words were, " Ich habe gerade gekackt ein wenig." ("I just pooped a little.") With this knife fight, Eisenhower won World War II, launching the careers of a both Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.

On his Internet blog, IKE'S PLACE, Eisenhower warned: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." And we totally guarded against that, and whew, we dodged a bullet on that one. No misplaced power here. No way.

He once punched Joseph McCarthy in the face and said, "Cool it with the witch hunt stuff man, this is America."

Eisenhower had absolutely nothing to do with 1953 coup in Iran and all of its unintended consequences. Nope.

Moving on: He proclaimed that, "Blacks and whites should be able to go to school together. Stop being such racist dicks you guys," and everyone was like, "General Eisenhower killed Hitler, we better do what he says," and so ended racism.

After WWII, General Eisenhower was Army Chief of Staff for Harry S. Truman, but after killing Hitler, ending racism, averting the police state, and inventing the Internet, being a "Chief of Staff" was a letdown. "I used to be Supreme Allied Commander, by comparison, this sucks," so he pursued his destiny and went on to become the 13th President of Columbia University.

# TODAY I AM THANKFUL FOR VARIOUS MEATS AND CHEESES!

The only thing better than bacon is more bacon. I am thankful for Ham. Hamburger. Steak. Salisbury steak. Sausage. Sausage links with bacon. Salmon. Those red circles on pizza. Fish sticks. Catfish. Chicken. Large chicken (known as LC, or turkey). Fried chicken. Chicken nuggets. Buffalo. Buffalo wings. Pork roast. The various meats found in various chilies and stews. Bacon.

I am thankful for cheese. Aged cheese, American cheese, Swiss cheese. I am thankful for the shredded and wheeled cheeses. Also the various wedges of fancy aged cheese.

I am thankful that various meats and cheeses can be combined to make various foods, like cheeseburgers, pizzas, and various lasagnas. Sometimes various meats and cheeses can be placed in a basket, and given as a tasty gift. They can be placed gently on crackers (even saltines!), and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Various meats and cheeses later went on to become our 34^th President. 

# TODAY I AM THANKFUL FOR BRUCE, THE GROCERY CART GUY

I am thankful for Bruce, the guy who brings in the grocery carts at the supermarket where food comes from. He is always cheerful. He always greets everybody with "HI, THANKS FOR COMING BY" or "HAVE A NICE DAY," or sends them off with a "COME AGAIN SOON," or "THANKS FOR SHOPPING" or some variation like that. He's very enthusiastic. He's there every day. He's got a bit of a limp. He seems mentally challenged, but I don't know, I could be wrong. Thing is, he's happy doing what he's doing, he's as dependable as an atomic clock, and I'm just glad he's there. At first, I found him annoying. STOP BEING SO GOD DAMNED CHEERFUL, I would scream at him (in my mind), but now I wouldn't have it any other way. We need more people like Bruce, and less people who don't even bother to put their carts back in those collection racks because they're too busy being "successful" and "busy" and "fulfilled," or whatever self-centered bullshit they're up to. Bruce is everything good and hopeful in this world. Unstressed by the news, or politics, or "the economy," he lives his life day to day. What bliss. He alone is immune to the bullshit churned in overactive brains. What merciful disregard for all of the dumb things that nag at us. Here is an example of a kindhearted soul. Bruce should be in charge. Not a cruel thought in his head. Here is compassion and wisdom. He minds his own business. He cares about others. Collecting shopping carts when he should robed and revered as a holy man. He should sit on a throne, and people would come to him and say, "Bruce, tell us your wisdom," and he would say, "Be nice."

He would later go on to become our 34th President.

# TODAY I AM THANKFUL FOR FRUIT LOOPS AND CARTOONS

Today is Saturday, and that means sugary cereal, footie pajamas, and violent cartoons! I am thankful for sugar, harvested by machete in the cane fields of Hawaii, and the corn flour blend fields of Nebraska, where corn flour blend plants stand taller than a man for miles and miles. I am thankful for the whole grain yellow corn flour paddies of Asia, and the degerminated yellow corn flour mines of Moria, where degerminated yellow corn flour is mined by the stoic dwarves of Middle Earth. I am thankful for wheat flour from Kansas, and whole grain oat flour from the whole grain trees of Florida. I am thankful for oat fiber from the Hanging Oat Flour Gardens of Babylon, and soluble corn fiber, harvested by the corn fiber divers of Japan: a corn fiber diver of Japan can stay underwater for seven or eight minutes at a time. 

I am thankful for the hydrogenated vegetable oil drillers of Texas, who drill thousands of feet below the earth to extract this precious resource. I am thankful for salt, collected by following absentminded girls on rainy days. I am thankful for "red 40", painstakingly harvested through backbreaking labor by immigrant workers under harsh conditions from the beautiful yet deadly red 40 poinsettias. I am thankful for Natural Flavor, which is the indefinable essence brought into being by meditating monks in Tibetan temples. Natural Flavor is collected like dew from the low ceilings of their solitary cells, and carted down mountain trails by Sherpas in handcrafted glass bottles with cork stoppers inscribed with mysterious koans. I am thankful for Blue 2, extracted from the ice below Superman's Fortress of Solitude by Intuit villagers rowing outrigger canoes. I am thankful for turmeric color, mined from the surface of the planet mars by blind robots that worship a forgotten god. I am thankful for yellow 6, rubbed patiently from the Lotus flowers of Nepal by virgin Buddhist nuns. 

I am thankful for annatto color, which is dreamed by four Precogs floating in a nutritional bath in a futuristic police headquarters. The elusive annatto color is captured by computer and converted from digital to analog signal, which is then scraped from the solder joints of circuit boards within the Metabase computer. Annatto color isn't actually a physical thing, but a concept brought forth by complicated algorithms within the Metabase, a byproduct of pre-crime screening. Annatto color is very rare, difficult to harvest, and you should be damned lucky it is in your Fruit Loops, for which I am thankful. God Bless America. I am thankful for blue 1, which is scraped from the surface of blueberries by Army widowers, and mixed with their tears to enhance flavor. 

And finally, I am thankful for BHT, as everyone knows, is Butylated hydroxytoluene, also known as butylhydroxytoluene, is a lipophilic organic compound, chemically a derivative of phenol, that is useful for its antioxidant properties. European and U.S. regulations allow small percentages to be used as a food additive. While there may be some dispute in BHT's use in the human diet, the chemical is widely used in industry wherever oxidation in fluids (e.g. fuel, oil) and other materials must be treated, and free radicals must be kept in check and I totally did not just cut and paste that last part from Wikipedia. BHT was developed in the childhood laboratory of our 34^th President.

# TODAY I AM THANKFUL FOR SLEEP.

When everyone sleeps, the combined weight of billions of heavy eyelids pulls the sun down, and that's why we sleep at night, or that’s why it is night while we sleep. Science doesn't know. Sleep researchers say stuff, I suppose, but I'm too lazy to look that up right now.

If everyone stayed awake at the same time, all of the open eyes would use up all the sunlight, and the sun would burn out, and no one wants that. The stars shine for those who stand the watches of the ungodly hours, and those who fret and lie awake and yearn for the solace of sleep.

I am thankful for the one thing we all agree on, besides breathing and food: sleep. CEOs and drifters are equalized for a few hours. Their material things are equally uselessness. Muslims, Christians and Jews, all believe, for a few hours, nothing, and are at peace. No one is so busy, hateful, or stupid to not sleep.

I am thankful for the death rehearsal.
I am thankful for the ultimate peace before the ultimate peace.
I am thankful for the innocence of unconsciousness.
I am thankful for temporary oblivion before permanent oblivion.
I am thankful for sleep. The universal reset. The snuggled snooze of billions of temporarily harmless souls.

When we dream, our relaxed brains pick up the thoughts of people on the other side of the planet because of gravity and earthworms, and that's how thoughts are recycled, so we do some of the stuff people ran out of time for on the other side of the earth. But what about the excess dreams? The moon acts as a sponge to soak up all the dreams. That's why there are dark spots on the moon. Those are dreams. The moon is held up by dreams, and it scoots—moved by the same force that moves Ouija board thingies—to the edge of the sky at some point because the sun is waiting to come up, and they have this awkward thing (they used to date) so she hides whenever he shows up, although everybody thinks they should get back together, but—oh, it's a whole thing, I'm not going to rehash it—so anyway, the story is that the moon goes down to make room for the sun. When you see the moon during the day, that means somebody is taking a nap and slacking off!

By now you're wondering, what does this have to do with our 34th President? Well, as you know, in the 1950s, everything was in black and white. (That's why photos from that time are black and white. duh) and we dreamed in color. Well not anymore. Not after our 34th President. Coincidence? You decide.

# TODAY I AM THANKFUL FOR "EVERYTHING SUBTLE, COMPLEX, ABSTRACT, AND PROFOUND"

I am thankful for a thousand forgotten Thursdays. I am thankful for unobserved dew covered spider webs on spring mornings near dilapidated barns. I am thankful for routing tables, IP addresses, the unrecorded thoughts of Shakespearean characters, the question of existence vs. non-existence, and medieval drawings of imaginary creatures. I am thankful for unheard trees falling in remote forests. I am thankful for languages I won't know, religions I won't follow, and various kinds of welding. I am thankful for engineering and medicine. I am thankful for the violins in the song "Kashmir." I am thankful for the sighs of aging strangers on distant continents. Empty sunlit afternoon sidewalks. I am thankful for untaken photographs and the airy space in the lower boughs of well formed trees. The unspoken names of all the sparrows in the world. I am thankful that somewhere, someone is being born who I will never know, who will live out a complex, unique life and never know that you or I or anyone reading this ever existed. I am thankful for the smell of library books. I am thankful for weekday waves on deserted Caribbean beaches. I am thankful for questions about free will and determinism. I am thankful for the Latin terms for rare medical conditions. I am thankful for slide rules, multiplication tables, old tide charts, almanacs, and forgotten hand-silhouette turkeys in Big Chief tablets. I am thankful for the pretentious hackwork of listing unrelated things, and the calculated cowardice of false humility. I am thankful for half remembered phrases of classical music. I am thankful for the souls of forgotten spreadsheets and the sad memories of empty filing cabinets. I am thankful for dust motes in sunbeams in for-lease office spaces. I am thankful for the forgotten chance genius of drunks and stoners. I am thankful for solitary nuns in desolate suburban afternoon churches. I am thankful for thirty-year-old copies of TV Guide in abandoned Arizona desert doublewide trailers. I am thankful for the olfactory scheme of dogs, the Dewey Decimal System, and scientific discoveries that will happen a thousand years from today. I am thankful for comedy sketches yet unwritten. I am thankful for unwanted glass knick-knacks in Goodwill and Salvation Army stores. I am thankful for new music I will never appreciate. I am thankful for changing fashion and geologic time. I am thankful for esoteric terms used by pompous wine tasters. I am thankful for Euclidean geometry and the Earth's rotation. I am thankful for tinnitus and the DNA damage theory of aging. I am thankful for the New York Stock Exchange, solar flares, and whatever is beyond observable space. I am thankful for the failures and achievements our 34^th President. I am thankful for quiet moments of contemplation happening everywhere. I am thankful for "everything subtle, complex, abstract and profound." I am thankful for the countless things and unthings for which I am unaware that I should be thankful.

-----------------------

Full disclosure: the phrase "everything subtle, complex, abstract and profound" is lifted directly from the Epilogue of a book:

Dobelli, Rolf. The Art of Thinking Clearly. New York, Harper Collins, 2013. Print 

# TODAY I AM THANKFUL FOR AIR!

Without air, there would be no Wright Brothers, because an airplane works because of differential air pressure on a wing foil as it passes through air. No Wright Bros., no airplanes. No airplanes, no Fantasy Island. No Fantasy Island, no Hervé Villechaize saying "De Plane! De Plane!" I don't want to live in a world where that didn't happen.

Air: without air, we would all have to wear spacesuits. I wouldn't want to live in a world where we all wore spacesuits. Plus, Hervé Villechaize in a tiny spacesuit is horrifying.

Not only that, there would be no movie, "The Boy In The Plastic Bubble," (he wouldn't need a bubble, he would always be in a spacesuit) That movie in turn inspired the "Bubble Boy" episode on Seinfeld. That was hilarious! "Moops?"

None of that would have happened, and even if it had happened, it would have happened in spacesuits. Not as awesome.

And anyway, giving everyone spacesuits wouldn't even work, because there would be nothing to refill the air tanks with, so we would die.

Can you imagine? A landscape filled with spacesuits, which would in turn be filled with human skeletons? The malls filled with spacesuit-wearing skeletons, hospital nurseries with basinets filled with tiny skeletons in tiny spacesuits, lifeless old-folks' homes with wheelchairs full of lifeless spacesuit-wearing skeletons, and highways filled with wrecked cars, which in turn would contain space-suited human skeletons, mold growing on the surface of their Starbucks Lattes. Think about it. Now you're thankful for air, huh?

With no air, there would be no early sailing ships. {no wind ya'all} No early sailing ships, no pilgrims, and NO THANKGIVING!

{mind blown}

And even if we had managed to have a Thanksgiving in our rudimentary space suits, we could never have given smallpox-infected blankets to the Indians, because the smallpox would never kill them because they would always be wearing their Indian spacesuits, so they would have eventually wiped us out with their plasma rifles. (They wouldn't have arrows, because arrows are made of wood, and can a tree grow in a vacuum? I think not. Think these things through people!)

No, it would be nothing but herds of spacesuit-wearing buffalo and spacesuit-wearing Indians riding spacesuit-wearing horses.

Nope, I don't want to live in that world. So today I am thankful for Air.

# THE ICE CREAM CATS OF ANTIOCH

The Ice Cream Cats of Antioch bore down on our cities in their silver ships. Merciless, clear-eyed, and silent, they were precise in their attacks on our infrastructure. They quickly took down power plants, bridges, military installations, and highways. As an extra warning, they took down exactly one hundred water towers: a demonstration of both their power, and their restraint.

How quickly mankind capitulated when faced with the overwhelming power of the Ice Cream Cats.  Then came the humiliating signing of surrender at the UN. The Ice Cream Cats said nothing. Aloof, looking bored, they collected the signatures of world leaders, and then returned to their silver ships. Thus began the reign of the Ice Cream Cats of Antioch.

# "NOT A STEP" MEANS NOT A STEP

These rags hang about me in sad rot, sad, unclean decay, and they steam in the fiery heat of the banks of the very river of fire, the great Styx. I am beyond worrying about my appearance. It does look ominous, however. Cowl, scythe, bony being, I.

And I am called a Monster. Death they call me. So I try not to be seen.  But they call me. The old. The sick. The unfortunate. The violent. The mad. The addicted. The suicides and fools.

They call me, so I go. To roadsides and bedsides and everywhere my little trade takes me. Almost always unwelcome. Sometimes unlooked for. Almost never embraced.

But, sometimes sought out. Those seekers of the deeper peace. Those mortal coil shufflers. Bridge Leapers and Pill Gobblers. Razor Blades and Rat Poisons. Depressed Gloomers in dark blue apartments. Dusk-sighing spurned lovers. Catatonic, medicated mules in tiny dusty offices.

Well shod bankrupts in large houses. Beautiful bulimics in smeared mascara.

So they call, and I go. But mostly, I arrive unbidden. To roadside wreckage. To chest-clutching, obese alcoholics. The occasional aneurysm at a sales conference. The backyard barbecue, the late night snack that only goes halfway, and stops up the pipes.

One minute before the paramedics, five years after the diagnosis, or, SURPRISE! On someone's birthday, or Christmas Eve, or on some random Tuesday afternoon, when no one expects me.

Sometimes the television is on, stared at by unseeing eyes. Sometimes I will sit on the sofa next to my cooling charge and we will watch together: fitness infomercials and news stories and cooking shows. Sometimes we sit for days until the concerned neighbor or adult child finally starts banging on the door.

And always, the cell phone. Sometimes still in the very cold hand, it will ring and ring, until it goes to voicemail. And after awhile, it will ring again. A corpse can get a lot of texts. I never read them, because I would be tempted to answer them.

In the silent forest, the sightless man glares up at the cold, cruel stars. And there's his cell phone. The opening strains of "The Final Countdown" echoes among the redwoods. Does it make a sound?

Fish nibbling at peaceful faces. Ants crawling across sightless eyeballs.

"Your troubles are over," I always want to say, "relax." But they never see me. They are often in no condition to relax. They only relax afterward. But before, there is always some glimmer of hope in all that fear, so I am only a hint. Only an idea. They cannot truly imagine.

I like my work piecemeal. I don't like when they die wholesale, but they do. Oh, slaughter most foul, much too often. When it is a large group, they sing a dirge as we plod slowly along, single file to . . .

To where, you ask? That is a secret. Not where you think. Not where you have been told. Oh no. If you don't know, you should ask somebody.

Yes, you. Because someday, you and I will meet. Any random Tuesday maybe. In the afternoon, or early some frosty winter morning. Could be later today, or in about a week, or a year, or a lifetime from now, but you should remember. Do that thing you were planning sooner than later. Remember me, and all arguments should cease. Say that thing to that someone now, not later.

And remember: if it says, "NOT A STEP," take heed.  You would be surprised how many people ignore that to their peril.

# THE NEW SPEEDWAY IS OPEN! FREEDOM!

The Speedway near our house has been closed for a couple of months.  They tore it down to build a new one.  It is just a few blocks from our house.  Oh how we took it for granted.  

So it opened today, just three hours ago, and despite the 98 degree heat, Deb and I walked there to check it out.

As we walked toward the future, to that grand spaceship that was the new Speedway, I dreamed of all the magical things that would be there: lotto, beer, meat-like things, snacks, donuts, pizza-adjacent foodlike items, candy, chips, an ATM, gasoline... everything my American Freedoms allow me to enjoy.

Old Glory flew high and proud above the car lot next to the Speedway.  The New Speedway was open! It was open! Oh the Freedom to exchange American currency for products and scratch-off tickets.  I was like Charlie, and I had a Golden Ticket to the Wonka Factory, only the tickets were green, and the Wonka Factory was a convenience store.

We strode in as though striding through the very gates of heaven.  If Elvis Presley himself was behind the counter, I would not have been shocked, for this was heaven on earth.  Lite Beer and Lotto!  Breath Mints and those brown gloves with red lining!

Wide eyed with innocent wonder, we walked the candy isles.  There were HUGE bags of sunflower seeds!

Everything was new and shiny.  The employees, yet to die from the inside out, gave the impression of actually being alive inside.  Their spirits were yet to be broken!!  There was a WALK IN BEER COOLER which I walked into. It was very cool in there.  I didn't want to leave.

They had Coca-Cola in GLASS BOTTLES.

Oh to be Free and American in this great land.  To buy lotto tickets and a 40oz. Lite Beer in the same place!  Hunting magazines and car magazines!  5 Hour Energy and Snickers bars!

My first Muzak Moment in the new Speedway?  Kansas's 1977 smash hit, "Dust in The Wind."

I stood there a moment, serenaded by a 35 year old recording of soft guitar, and pondered what this all meant as four flavors of Slushies slushed around in their American Freedom Slushy machines.

In conclusion, Freedom.

# IMPOSSIBLE INDEX OF FORGOTTEN THINGS

I wandered the forgotten corners of foreclosed yards, where rabbit pellets whiten in the sun, and I saw a vision of these things:

The formal names of every individual crack in every for-lease parking lot, named as lovingly and thoughtfully as a mother naming her own precious children.

Book length descriptions of every telephone pole. Poles that tower unnoticed along squalid strip-malls and stand unappreciated along crowded, fume-spewing highways.

The forgotten inhabitants of abandoned Burger King Parking Lots  - each parking lot weed, indexed and numbered and registered in the timeless database of unimportant things.

Alas! The cast off ends of zip ties languishing unclaimed in the dusty gravel of convenience store construction sites. No more! Each zip tie is unique, and each has a name and history, written in marble, illuminated at all times, and revered as heroes by all!

A map of every track of every wheel of every absconded shopping cart. Records of the tracks in the dirt at the crumbled ends of sidewalks in dilapidated, half empty commercial districts. The details of the voyages of every cart that ever buoyed the worldly goods in plastic bags belonging to homeless, mumbling men.  The maps, detailed inventories of those belongings, and biographies of the men who pushed those shopping carts are stamped into plates of gold and launched into space to represent mankind.

A caligraphy scroll of the lost forgotten thoughts of slack-jawed, Kool-Aid stained children with plastic toy guns before the time of the Internet. The thoughts they had when they had thousand-mile stares with visions of half-imagined, unseen, unnamed idealized cities. All dreamt while standing motionless at the end of driveways on summer afternoons.

The indexed surnames of every individual pine needle from every discarded Christmas tree in 1972. Where is that list? Does it exist? It does now.

A ledger of the exact moment of the fifteenth rotation of every tricycle wheel in Bangladesh.

A coffee table book of every piece of school kid's artwork ever created, one picture per page, and the name and weight of every hand silhouette turkey ever made.

Every stick that was ever an imaginary weapon in the mind of a child at play (playing cops-n-robbers or playing WAR), displayed in a museum. A separate, full length motion picture (directed by Ken Burns and narrated by Morgan Freeman) about every pretend battle each stick was involved in, and a three volume hardback compendium about all the pretend wars and battles. A museum dedicated to these sticks, and a separate room in that museum dedicated exclusively to each stick and an artist's rendition (acrylic on canvas) of what the weapon looked like in the child's mind.

The tenth text sent on every Tuesday in Taiwan, each carved into an individual marble monolith planted twenty feet deep beneath the dark side of the surface of the moon.

The first, middle and last name of every blade of fescue grass that has ever existed, their dates of birth/death, their political leanings, a brief biography and a photo, and a serialized commemorative plate from the Franklin Mint for each one.

The secret dream of every hog slaughtered for its meat throughout all of history. An oil painting of each dream on a 72" x 24" canvas. The individual name of each bristle of each brush used to paint those pictures. A play by play description of every brushstroke, given by Joe Buck and Bob Costas, at the renovated Koševo Stadium in Sarajevo, where all of the homeless men from East St. Louise (1963-1992) will paint those pictures before a packed crowd of delirious spectators, and each artist is paid one-million one dollar bills for their troubles.

The serial numbers of each of the dollars mentioned above, in numerical order, each written in Roman Numerals on a single grain of rice.

Zombies

There are zombies.  There are not zombies.
Why are zombies so popular?  They represent something.  They represent our fear of other people.  Other people are scary.  Other people are running out of jobs, dreams, and reasons to behave in a civilized fashion. Zombies represent our fear of what is going to happen when the bottom drops out. Zombies represent our fear of overpopulation.  Our society is fracturing into a thousand little groups. Zombies are a replacement thought. We can't go around with a baseball bat bashing people's heads in. It would be easier than dealing with all of these people. People in traffic, people at the store, people we work with, people in the hallways at school or college.

There are so many people; if the bottom dropped out of this thing we call ordered society, the problem won't be fixable with baseball bats and shotguns.

But we will be surrounded by angry, frightened people.  People who gotta eat.

# MIRACLES HAPPEN EVERY DAY

I have one of those refrigerators with a water dispenser on the door. When I am thirsty, I can take a clean glass out of the cupboard and put it under the little spout in the water dispenser and cold filtered water comes out. I can have ice and water and I can drink the whole thing or have another one or only half until the fillings in my teeth hurt from the cold. This miracle happens millions of times a day in developed countries and we are so used to this miracle, we don't even realize how lucky we are to live in this age.

To live in this age. To have conditioned air. Through the miracle of Wikipedia, I can tell you that air-conditioning as we know it wasn't invented until around 1902, and it became commonplace over the following two decades. U.S. Pat# 808897 was granted to the father of air conditioning, St. Willis Haviland Carrier in 1906 for an "Apparatus for Treating Air". It wasn't until 1928 that Carrier came out with a residential unit, and sales only took off after the depression and WWII. So no widespread air conditioning until around 1945. What hellish world did mankind live in before that? That means for tens of thousands of years, mankind suffered through intolerable heat. Can you imagine?

There are people living today (many of them in the hot parts of the world) who have never been in air conditioning. They have no running water. No Internet. They must poop in the streets.

A glass of cold water. Clear and cold in a clean glass. Transparent. Ice floating, cracking. It is a miracle. The odds of being born human in this century, in this age of creature comforts, to be lucky enough to be one of the haves, are very thin. It is much more likely that one is born unlucky, baking in the sun, wasting away, idle and angry. What is man's fate? Why do some get to drink ice-cold water any time they want while someone else is dying of thirst? How many millions go days without a decent meal while I can walk into a cool, clean grocery store and buy a cartful of food and load it into my air-conditioned car, serenaded by music while I navigate smooth streets with orderly traffic and take my load of food to my air-conditioned house and put that food in a refrigerated box that also dispenses cold water whenever I want it? Why do I get to do that while another family somewhere in the world lives in a landfill, sifting through garbage in order to survive?