A dream scene that should be in a movie.

Scene opens on a green woodsy place and a little gypsy caravan. Day glow colors in dark woods. Tiny top heavy wagon outside, big live-in kitchen inside. A dozen odd half prepared circus people are mingling or eating but mostly scoffing skeptically at the ringmaster. He is sharing the news of a new performer, a new act for the circus that will really change things. Not just more people thru the gate, but better gigs. She has connections, she knows a guy.

Cut to a hospital bathroom. A dwarf is putting finishing touches on his clown make up. Grubby dirty frayed costume. Emmet Kelly -ish. He grabs the doorknob leaning way back hanging off it, then lunges against the door, popping it open so fast it knocks down a patient. Midget clown struts and swaggers away. Walks faster. Throws hands in air, skips to get going and starts running. Leaps, bounds off the leg cast of a person in a wheelchair, onto a gurney with a dying patient being pushed by three big orderlies. Uses that speed. Leaps off to the side and grabs a light, the kind used over a surgical bed. Swings from the handles around, changing direction to blast out a window.

Not far thru the air to land on a bound girl. She is hanging from a thin wire by her ankles in shackles dangling upside down. Clown grabs onto her with all limbs, like a monkey. Laboriously shuffles around and turns over so they are face to face.

“Tell me the source!” the clown shouts. He has to shout. The girl has been screaming a while. She resists. Clown slaps her to get her to stop screaming and pay attention. She won't talk.

“Gentlemen. Please.” He gestures. Two henchman swing in from the sides, also hanging by their feet. “You look like you want to be right side up. Should we do that?”

She nods, looking apprehensive, not expecting anything nice. Each henchman grabs half of her long hair as they swing back out a little. She initially screams, but then realizes it does not hurt all that much.

“You expect me to talk? This is not torture.” She sneers.

“No. This is not torture.” The clown pauses. He bites a button off her blouse, then sticks his tongue out, displaying and wiggling the button and leers at her. She just rolls her eyes. He takes the button daintily between middle finger and thumb. “Let me clarify.” He snaps his fingers, flicking the button and it nicks the wire holding her feet. They lurch downward a little. Now she is screaming again. Clown grins and snaps his teeth at her. The rest of the wire unravels and snaps and they tumble a bit. Wind up hanging from her hair. More screaming, changing to a screech as her hair takes the weight of them both.

“Now this! This is torture.” Clown is pleased with his wit.

“You need a haircut, I think.” Clown pulls an old school switchblade, shaves a bit above her temple. “Tell me where your guy gets his money, or of course you will lose more than just your nice hair.” Now she talks.

“I already knew that, that's not the main source. Your boyfriend apparently didn't let you in on his big connections. The big BIG fish. Tell me more. You need to tell me, more than you need to protect him right now, yes?” Clown nods. She nods. She tells everything.

Again the clown says “I already knew that! Such a waste of time”.

Clown tosses the blade upwards, looks like he is discarding it. It flicks through her hair on one side, and gravity has it now. Comes back and flicks through the other hank of hair as the clown plants his feet in her gut and launches off her. She hits the side of the building and scrapes, breaking a limb or two against a window sill, tumbling out of sight.

He is in freefall now. Arms and legs out, spread eagle. Grungy clown suit flapping in the gale. He looks around getting his bearings. Picks a direction, turns and pulls in his limbs, heading down fast. The wind is streaking his makeup, from some of the girl's spittle and tears. He calmly kicks off his shoes like he is getting ready for a shower. A series of close in shots show sleeves and things flapping then ripping and falling away. From a distance we see him plunge into a cloud bank. [you didn't really want to see a naked midget clown close up did you?]

Close in shots again. Moisture, then ice collecting on skin. A shoulder? A storm has him now, a vortex. Spun and then spit out sideways. Medium shot now we see a long voluptuous woman, clad only in glitter. We see her just for a glimpse and she darts into plump green trees. Close in shots again as a leaf plasters a nipple. A few more large soft green leaves slap and stick to strategic places on a generous shapely figure. A vine tangles around waist, knees, ankles. Some glitter from dew and fireflies are adding to the glamorous sheath. You get the impression now, she is flying, no longer falling.

She soars and swoops. Heads straight up above the tree line. At her peak we get a good look at her. She is a mermaid. Tail longer than her whole body. It coils in the air as she chooses a new direction. Looking about she spies the gypsy camp.

Flies that way. Darts down into the camp area, startling some horses. Aims for the little wagon. Pops thru a window. People lean away and cover their heads with their arms. Breaking glass and sudden entry making them cringe. She flutters across the long table and lands in the arms of the ringmaster, her tail coiling across somebody's plate, and the end flopped around a girl's neck.

Ringmaster stumbles from the unexpected catch. Burns his leg a little on the cook stove. Recovers himself and says “OK, we gotta work on your entrance.”

quotes to save

My wife thinks I am witty. I think I am just lucky to have her. Here some quotes originated by me that she thinks are interesting enough to be preserved. This will be updated if I actually get witty.

I was almost as hammered as him, but I had style.

You are right, but right now I am anxious and that takes priority. [while driving and botching directions.]

I don't think I know anybody under 200 pounds. I don't even LIKE anybody under 200 pounds. [after noticing a warning label an a chair]

If it's not hickory smoked, it's just meat.

Crack gnats!

Bride: What if I lost a few pounds and grew a little teacup butt?

Me: I'd still love you.

Steak Day

It's been a very long time since I posted anything here. School has just been nuts this semester. Since I have a spare minute for the first time in months I figured it would be a good time to talk about stress and more importantly how I destress.

The most important thing you have to know about destressing is that different things work for different people. If something that somebody else suggested isn't helping you, try some different things until you find something that works.

Here's what I do: Every once in a while when stress is building up I'll pick a day where I'm home alone and declare it Steak Day. I go to the grocery store and pick out a nice big steak, preferably a porterhouse, and some potato salad. I bring it home, season it to my liking, and grill it to a nice medium rare. I then eat it usually while watching a movie.

It's a simple thing but the act of pausing for a breath and cooking a nice meal for just myself, doing something just a little bit self indulgent, centers me. Maybe Steak Day will work for you. If not good luck in finding whatever works.

black metal [no not that kind]

I have been craving a motorcycle for a long time. Fat boy like the one arnold schvanzisbigger drove in a terminator movie. Black prolly. The way he got this bike is he beat up some guys and stole it, but that is not my way. I actually have a piggy bank. It's a huge macho adult piggy bank with mostly quarters. A big jug from a water cooler. Hey I stole it so maybe I am kind of badass. Well, it was empty and labeled as leaky so they would have thrown it out anyway. But I did NOT ask anybody's permission dammit! So I am gonna sell off some audio cruft and put the proceeds in the piggy bank. Also gonna sell: an old antique typewriter, black metal. An old movie projector, metal and black. A microscope in blue chrome! No ok, it is black metal too. Hmm. Black metal that is not serving me traded in for really fun black metal.

So what does this mean? Each of the collectible things in my home had once been very important to somebody. Now they have only cash value for me. The people who bought them and used them with enthusiasm are gone.

Someday maybe my fatboy will be cluttering up somebody's garage. It could someday be worth more as cash than as stylish transportation. Circle of life or something.

read the instructions

Don't burn your foot while barbecuing.

No, really.

I bought a cheap smoker and made some bad ribs and some pretty good pulled pork.

In the process, I learned that I am not as patient and thoughtful as I though I was, at least not when there is burnt pig to be had.

I botched the burn-in time when you season the smoker. I got the impression that you oil it all up and run a fire through it. Need to do this before the next fire when there will be actual food in it. Well, yeah. True. But a made a fire bigger than called for and scorched the black paint off part of it. "A small fire, making sure no coals touch the edges" is what was called for. But hey.

So then a few fires later I act like I am getting the hang of things. I made some ribs that turned out pretty good for a change. But while I am doing that, I managed to burn my foot. Wait, it gets stupider. I blame mostly myself but the smoker is a bad design in a lot of ways. It is easy to have a coal pop out the side. A couple did. I flicked hot one off my new recycled plastic deck. Got back to work on the ribs and felt a discomfort on the side of my bare foot, suddenly hot, then burnt foot. Stepped on a coal of course. Blistered foot AND puckered blackened spot on nice new plastic porch.

Now I betcha the book for the smoker says not to use it on a questionable surface and not to do it barefoot. I bet the material safety data sheet for the porch 'boards' say not to grill on it. I bet I even glanced at them. So anyway.

I used to brag to Guys that I read the owner's manual before I plugged anything in. They would scoff and say "you're not a real man". Well yeah, I am a real man who does not want to blow up his new stuff. Why did I not pay attention to these fire issues? I guess it seemed so basic and obvious that it should just work.

No excuse.

A Step in a Different Direction

So the more Bob and I talk the more I realize that the things we tend to discuss are not necessarily men's issues per se, but human issues, albeit from a decidedly male perspective. Thus I think a change in mission statement may be warranted. I'll have to discuss this with Bob in the near future.

A Step in the Right Direction

So at Bob's suggestion I've been reading and very much enjoying "The Story of B" by Daniel Quinn. The underlying message is that the environmental problems that we as a culture are experiencing, are caused by two interrelated factors: overpopulation, and overproduction of food.

The basic laws of ecology state that if a population's food supply increases so does the birth rate of said population. Normally in nature this works because there is a finite amount of food. Therefor if there is enough food to sustain 150 deer, the deer population in that area, assuming no change in food supply, will always be roughly 150.

We as humans have broken this system by becoming producers of food. Every year we increase food production, and every year our population continues to grow. The next year we have to increase food production to feed all these new people. And so on and so forth until we run out of floorspace and have to start building up like Coruscant.

In any case, I came to my own realization while I was absorbing this message. All of the ideas I've seen for sustainable living, while they do what they are intended, will never catch on for one simple reason. At worst they are viewed by the majority as a step backwards for our culture, and at best they represent a step sideways. All the major changes that were ever adopted by humans, be they metal tools, electricity, automobiles, or telecommunications, required a lot of time, money, infrastructure, and elbow grease to bring about. So why were they brought about? After all weren't people able to perform the tasks they needed to with stone tools? Couldn't they see in the dark by burning candles? Couldn't they move around by horse or steam train? Wasn't the pony express a good way to get a message where it needed to go?

Of course they were. The things I have described here were all perfectly adequate performers in their intended purpose. The reason the change is adopted, is that it offers an IMPROVEMENT, real or imagined, over the old system.

Now I've seen a few different ideas of sustainable living models. Some are fairly high tech while others advocate a return to a hunting gathering lifestyle. As I've said, the choice as it stands right now is a step backward or a step sideways. Hardcore fundamentalists are the only people who will step backwards and intelligent people, who know that we're running out of time are the only ones who will step sideways (keep in mind the world's population is largely composed of morons, if you doubt this statement take a trip to your local Wal-Mart and do some people watching).

The answer, clearly, is that for a sustainable living system to be adopted on a wide scale it must represent an IMPROVEMENT over the current quality of life. People need to be tripping over each other to adopt this new system like Best Buy customers on Black Friday when a new video game console is coming out. Anything less is just a finger in the dike.

Now I know what you're about to ask: what's the solution? Well unfortunately I don't have one. I'm an historian, not a scientist, my specialty is in studying and interpreting the past, so that we might avoid repeating mistakes. Improving the future is the specialty of a different thought process than that which I possess. All I can offer is the above mentioned historical perspective on why change is adopted. As I said before, people will fight stepping backwards, some will step sideways and some won't. In order to really change things, quality and ease of life must improve if we are to effect a lasting change in our culture.