It's Just Getting Weird Out There

It would be a nice change of pace to have, say, a week ease past that isn't loaded with these thorny revelations of corrupt mayors and governors, or seedy details of voraciously greedy business folks, poison-tainted food, the clueless cluckings of cable TV and radio clowns, and poverty growth at rates which seem akin to the plot lines of really bad science-gone-mad B-movies.

I mean really, I have to ponder if it's safe to eat some peanut butter?

I have enough anxiety all on my own without getting drowned by the excesses and horrors of incompetence which seem to gleefully tumble across our world today. It's as if the planet is devoured by each person at war with everyone else and with themselves for what they are or what they are not and all chattering and protesting it all at the same time. It sure seems that the one television show which defines the times we live in is rightfully called "Lost".

I used to make a joke that there should be these giant blocks of Valium located every few miles, so that, like cows who lap up a salt lick, humans could lap up a little bit of anti-anxiety medicine as they moseyed about their day. Now, I realize what would happen were such to exist - all out war for control of these Valium licks plus the stacks of dead folks who decided to break off huge chunks of it and wolf it down like it was the latest triple-bacon cheeseburger.

I was reading today about some poor bloke in England who somehow fell and got trapped beneath his own sofa for two days and could not move as he had some sort of back problems. Once rescued, he told reporters he had been able to snag a bottle of whiskey which was within reach there under his couch and he thought to himself - well, things are not that bad. Luckily a neighbor noticed his window shades had not been moved and actually bothered to check and see if he was OK. I suppose he was being an optimist regarding the whiskey, but I'm more sure he was grateful for friends and neighbors.

But really, it's just getting weird out there.

Take the rather odd marketing plan from DC Comics, who have decided the way to boost sales of their product is to kill off Batman and have a whole bunch of other people in Gotham City have a "Battle for The Cowl" come the first of March. The image below is supposed to be clues as to what will happen.

I know all the having two identities deal is problematic and neurotic for old Batman, and outrageous marketing is sometimes needed to help push sales. And then I read that Bat's longtime comic title Detective Comics, following this "battle", will be about a brand new Batwoman. Or, as the headlines proclaim "Batwoman, The Red-Headed Lesbian Is Unleashed".

Dang.

You know things are bad when the lives of the imaginary super-heroes turn into Warholian dreamscapes. Perhaps they have always been so.

Maybe I'm just getting too old. But it would be nice for just one week to pass when the lead story in the news is something like "Family Thinks Tuesday's Meat Loaf Dinner Was OK."

As I've been sitting here noodling on the keyboard to somehow compose my stray and ponderous thoughts, I began to recall a song by John Prine which seems to fit right in here somehow. It's called "Big Old Goofy World".

On A Sleepless Night

Time was when hit with some insomnia on a night in early Spring, I might have taken to the road and found some forgotten diner and sipped coffee, had some pie, maybe play the jukebox and strike an Edward Hopper moment of timelessness.

Or, more recently, there was television's endless surfing, no longer a domain where anything even close to a 'sign-off' ever appeared.

Instead tonight there is the unbounded internet, where time has no meaning, and someone has already created a page to document each soul and each soul's imagination.

A lot of silly things, really. Like the Techno Viking (he hits the streets about one minute into the video):


Or maybe French tecktonik craze, which invokes the pluralism of the intentionally ironic. (Here's a tutorial if you wish to learn how to do it right.)

I can see what people are doing these days with bacon.

Or I can read a brand-spanking new sci-fi story at Futurismic, called Mallory by Leonard Richardson (warning: profanity abounds) in a satiric jab at our connected un-connectedness.

Then there's the video presentation about the search and wonder behind the question "What did Leonardo Da Vinci really look like?"

If you seek a museum of the water-gun, or the tools of another age, or maybe old radio shows, or anything it's out there. Did you know if you just type in "what is everyone doing right now?" on Google you'll have 24 million options to choose from?

There is much to capture your attention and - wait a second ... I think my cat wants to play with some string. I'll just do that then and you keep drifting thru the web. We'll get together later.

A Little Known Fact About The South

I'm willing to bet cash money there was a super-secret provision in the surrender agreement signed at the end of the Civil War.

What was it?

Any time a snowflake falls to the ground in any state south of the Mason-Dixon Line, any business or school or government office can declare a legal holiday.

Just one reason I like living in the South.

Jes' sayin'.