This Big Box I Live In

Work is never quite as entertaining as I would like. In the varied roles I have played in the effort to acquire the goods of life, I have seldom been quite entertained. Nevertheless it isn’t boring either.

My workplace is a big box with polished concrete floors. It is a home improvement store. It appeals to the human nesting instinct, and so it is not surprising then that so many humans seem to have their kids with them, either in shopping carts done up like toy NASCAR racers or riding around like human merchandise in ordinary carts. Others have future kids riding around, no more than than an abdomenal bulge among the young married women. Our customers are oft in the flower and fruiting stage and talking to them is not a bad way to spend your time.

We provide for the homeowner, who in conjunction with hired men (or occasionally women) decorate, modify, expand, demolish, and equip their homes. We appeal to the DIY instinct in us all. DIY meaning in my personal experience "Destroy it Yourself", since it seems you can get yourself into lots of trouble doing it yourself. I still have a garage door that I did myself and I wish to God I had hired someone to do it for me. Others more talented or brave than me may have better luck. My home seems to be going the way of the universe, which is running down. The gutters fall off and the eaves rot, the paint flakes and weeds and errant wildlife threatens to invade my inner sanctum through cracks in pavement. Wasps build their annoying nests all over the place and I skirmish with them hitting them with blasts of chemicals, but they always seem to return. Two of my three neighbors I am sure despise me for being such a slob of a homeowner, but fortunately here in unincorporated suburbia you can do what you damn please.

Procrastination seems to be what I do for a living. Time passes, you eat, you sleep, you talk on the phone, you mow the lawn, and you pay your bills to keep the world at bay. Nitrogen, solid waste, and excess fluid flow through the body. Stuff goes in one opening and out others, then you have to go to the store to buy more of it.

I keep myself entertained at night playing video games and fielding silly questions on the internet. I think of politics, God, and etiquette. At a safe distance, humans are fascinating animals, but frustrating. Many of them can’t spell to save their lives. Somehow I can. I am blessed amongst humans in my ability to spell. My fifteen minutes of fame came early when I went to the state contest spelling bee, only to be felled by the then unfamiliar word "equivocal". Since then I have found obscurity preferable and easier on the nerves.
In my work I wear a red and blue Jacket with my name tag on the left and a big blue "Ask Me" button on my right. the Velcro pockets at the bottom of it bulge with pens, scraps of paper, a mobile phone, a box knife, and box tape. These are the indispensable tools of my trade as I wander the store from the garden store to the lumber and shingle department, from doors to carpets, to blinds, wallpaper, to "fashion lighting" (where I work) to "rough electrical" (where I work), home appliances, "fashion bath" (with toilets mounted above and bathtubs and whirlpools in the aisle) and "rough plumbing" (which includes furnace filters and ductwork, although the duct tape is with the glues and paints).
Above me is a sky that is always bright with fluorescent lighting. There may be rumors of a universe beyond and sometimes we get clues to its existence as rain clatters on the metal roof of our building but in here the sun always shines, and the air is always full of music: music that mostly I can’t stand. No, it isn’t Shostakovitch or Khatchaturian’s saber dance. Sometimes I wish it were. Instead it seems that our corporate fathers have bought the entire pop songbook of Carly Simon and James Taylor. Either that or Stevie Wonder doing "Isn’t She Lovely" or latter day Paul McCartney doing "Maybe I’m Amazed" or a woman singing "There She Goes" (which I first thought was a song about lesbian love, but is actually about the wonderful feeling the woman singing gets when shooting heroin).
Other music is even worse. Years ago I actually paid money for the album on which Paul McCartney recorded with "Maybe I’m Amazed" and "Silly Love Songs." Other stuff is stuff I would never own, like the song that goes "I don’ wanna wait for my Liiiife to be Ova..." etc, by Paula Cole. Much of it defies description.
There are lots of things you can do with the human voice, most of them ugly and boring. You can whine about love in a tuneless and desolate way, you can sing indistinctly, you can modify the sound of your voice to make it sound weird, or you can holler like you are being murdered. All happen at various times during the workday at my store. If I listened to it much I would lose my mind. Maybe I already have. On the other hand if it weren’t there I would miss it. I wish the music program was more melodic and edgier. They need some Led Zeppelin playing "Stairway to Heaven" or the Rolling Stones singing "Sympathy for the Devil", but that will never happen.
But I must listen. It is part of my job. Not necessarily for this kind of stuff, but for messages. There are these customer call boxes all over the store and an uber mommy advises us that "BING BING BONG! Customer Service is needed in the wire cutting area" and if nobody responds and shuts if off it repeats "WIRE CUTTING AREA" etc. An invisible microprocessor keeps a careful record of the response times in various departments. We are expected to respond in under 60 seconds and are graded on them, as is our management. At other times, when these aren’t used, people turn to the often clueless cashiers and salespeople from other departments page for help. It is even worse when they forget to specify where. Someone pages me to come back to my department (usually when I am on the crapper) somehow forgetting that my department has about 7 aisles. I curse to no one in particular as I hurry to respond, saying "Where dammit?" God might as well page me to "COME TO EARTH, COME TO EARTH!! YOUR ASSISTANCE IS NEEDED!!!"
The Stepford women that inhabit the machinery and the public address systems, also ask you for your money in the self-service checkout, thank you for shopping, and remind you not to forget to take your merchandise. Nevertheless a human cashier has to stand there to make sure that customers don’t screw up the machines or just walk through without paying. These are the unhappiest cashiers you can imagine. Like all cashiers they are more or less rooted to a spot and must stay there. I walk past them on the way to the rest room. They look bored out of their minds. At least I can walk around.
The Stepford women of my store also break in at inopportune times (usually in the middle of the occasional song I actually like) to announce in an incredibly luscious and cheery voice something about the wonderful selection the store has in one or more departments. These women also answer the phone, first thanking you for calling the store and then asking you to punch one, two, or three, depending on what you want. I generally know what I want already and punch "O" for operator so I can speak to a real human being.

Degrees of Separation

I went to Wal Mart today and bought a copy of the film "West Side Story" which is a musical about gang violence and young love in the streets of New York City. Most of it was filmed in Los Angeles of course. The Lead actor was a fellow named Richard Beamer. He played Tony. Originally they wanted to cast Elvis Presley but Colonel Parker nixed the deal because he thought Elvis was wrong for the part. On a previous film in Los Angeles Beamer made the acquaintance of Sharon Tate, then a struggling young starlet who was later married to Roman Polanski, the director. They were renting a home at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles where Terry Melcher had recently lived with his girlfriend Candace Bergen. Terry Melcher died of Melanoma at the age of 62. He was the son of Doris Day. Melcher was in the music business. One day a friend of his Pete Wilson of the Beach Boys picked up a couple of hippie women who knew this guy named Charles Manson.








Manson wanted to record some records. Manson thus met Melcher who helped him record some songs. Later Melcher decided he didn’t want to deal with Manson, but that was after he had invited him over to his house on 10050 Cielo Drive. This upset Manson and so he later paid a visit with his "family" to Melcher’s house, only by this time Polanski and Tate were living there. They murdered Sharon Tate and several of her friends, as Polanski was away on business. As part of this act of murder they painted the words "Pig" on the walls of the house in the blood of their victims. Later one of the musicians of the group Nine Inch Nails bought the house and built a recording studio in it which he named "Pig Studios". This offended one of Sharon Tate’s sisters who mentioned this to him to his face. Later he decided in the mid 1990s to move out of the house because as he said there was "too much history" in that house. Someone else bought the house and had it demolished and built a new home there with a different street address.


Natalie Wood played the role of Maria opposite Beamer. She was born Natalya Zacharenko, who got her start as a child in "Miracle on 34th Street." She was married to actor Robert Wagner twice. She drowned off Santa Catalina Island in southern California at the age of 43. Wagner went on to play a supporting role in the Austin Powers movies. Early in his career he was Barbara Stanwyck’s boyfriend.


Wagner and Wood met after her divorce from him at a party given by John Houseman. Houseman is best known (by me) as the actor who played the law professor in the movie "The Paper Chase." He is best known to most people
as the spokesman for Smith-Barney the investment firm. (We make money the old fashioned way, we EARN it). Born in Bucharest he was an Irish-Welsh Hungarian Jewish hybrid brought up in the UK and later working mostly in the US. Houseman taught acting at Juilliard and co-founded with Orson Welles the Mercury Theater.


Orson Welles was born in Kenosha, a dreary rust-belt city in southeast Wisconsin. His family was wealthy, but unhealthy, and his father drank too much and died when he was 15. He had just graduated from a residential boy’s school in Woodstock, IL. While at the boy’s school his headmaster had fostered his education in a John Dewey sort of way and like the hero of "Rushmore" was staging plays and theater productions at the tender age of 14 or 15. His mother died of jaundice when he was 9. One wonders if perhaps his mother drank too much too. After being adopted by a Russian emigre and successful Chicago physician, Welles went on a tour of Europe with money he had gotten in an inheritance and talked himself into a theater production in Dublin. His first film was his greatest achievement and one of the most celebrated classic films in cinema history. Unfortunately Hedda Hopper found out about it and the Hearst organization exerted considerable pressure on RKO and the theaters that chose to show the film. It was critically well received but the public didn’t care for it. Everything else he did in his career was bedeviled by studio interference and unauthorized editing. He chose exile to Europe for its artistic freedom. Like Frank Lloyd Wright, a genius of a different sort, he was constantly in trouble with his clients/employers. By the end of his career he was doing TV spots for cheap wine and narrating films for the likes of Hal Lindsey in much the same manner as John Cleese has hosted industrial films after his stint as a python. Welles died two hours after appearing on the Merv Griffin Show in 1985. He was cremated and what was left of him was buried on the Spanish estate of a bullfighter friend.







Yul Brynner died the same day. He was of Swiss-Mongolian-Russian extraction and was born in 1920 in Vladivostok, about as far east as you can go in Russia. His biggest claim to fame was as the King of Siam in Rogers and Hammerstein’s "The King and I" in which he starred in both the stage versions and the film. He may have started the shaved head look, which he began while playing the king and other exotic roles. He died of lung cancer in New York City. A lifelong smoker he made an antismoking spot shortly before he died.

Another thing that can cause cancer is ham, which contains nitrites. These are also found in bacon. Orson Welles liked bacon and eggs for breakfast. So does similarly rotund actor Kevin Smith. Kevin Smith is no relation to Kevin Bacon but they both like bacon for breakfast.

(Most of the research on this was gleaned from Wikipedia.com)

Economics in a time of Recession

Economics
Recessions are like a bad spell of nausea only they last longer. They jolt us out of our economic complacency and make us worry and not spend money. This unwillingness to spend money and ineffable thing "confidence" leads to people economizing. Next thing you know you aren’t buying that new Mercedes Benz or Lexus and as a result you see a lot of Mercedes Benz workers out on the street saying "Feed me!" or whatever that would be in German. Money stops coming in but mortgages still have to be paid. Savings get depleted. Real estate companies find they have a lot of repo houses that they can hardly give away. Car companies find they have a lot of repo cars they can hardly sell. No one is lending money even though the prime rate has dropped to zero. No one is driving their repo cars and the bottom has fallen out of the price of fuel. Hugo Chavez, why don’t you suck on that, buddy.

One wonders of course if 700 billion here and 800 billion there if this isn’t going to be enough to get the world economy going again. This is indeed the winter of our discontent. Don’t knock global warming until you’ve tried it. If this is such a huge problem, then why is it only 5 degrees F. outside right now. This is the coldest damn winter we’ve had in about 15 years. We have just finished eight years with a faux conservative prez and now are beginning another few years of a real liberal prez, and all we have really gotten in so far as change, has been a slight darkening of skin color.

A recession is like a train wreck. People sell stock for various reasons. People sell stock because they need money. This causes the price to go down. Other people get worried and sell their stock because they are afraid of losing money represented by the value of their stocks. People sit on the sidelines because they are afraid to invest money, figuring they will lose it in bad economic times.

Governments respond in various ways. Some are raising taxes because, with a sinking economy there is less revenue coming in. This makes matters worse for everyone not in the public sector. This shifts the pain from the public sector into the private sector. Even in the private sector there are winners and losers. The large very visible industries like the US auto manufacturers get bailouts because they represent a large and highly visible interest group in politics. The smaller businesses without such friends in high places die on the vine. Other governments, especially the Feds, are shoveling money into the economy. This money tends to go into certain things that the government approves of, such as expanding the public sector permanently. They talk about "creating jobs" as if jobs are the goal. Jobs shlobs, the thing the people need is money.

The Key to Personality is in the Palm of your Hand!

Don't be Dumb about your Thumb!

or

Why are You Staring at my Hand?

The thumb will show a person’s drive and how they apply that. Look carefully. There are two sections, the top which shows willpower and the bottom which shows just how much you will push to get what you want. Large thumbs show a strong personality and a tendency to hitchhike.
Small thumbs show the person is more gentle. Long, broad thumbs belong to people who push hard and succeed. They love conspiracy theories and believe everyone is out to get them. In their case they are right. If you see a long broad thumbed person it is best to hurt them immediately.
Long, narrow thumbs belong to people who want to succeed but don't have the driving force. Small, broad thumbs belong to small broads who lack determination. Very long, very clean, and wet thumbs indicates that thumb sucking has probably persisted into adulthood.
Thumbs that have an exceptionally wide top belong to aggressive and nasty people. If the top is very narrow it indicates a sign of weakness. You can probably take advantage of these people without much trouble.
A thick top joint shows a person who is blunt. The tapered tip shows a subtle way of doing things. No joint at all means many bar fights.
A thumb that holds itself close to the side of the hand shows a stingy person. Never ask such a person for a paper clip unless you intend to return it. A thumb that sticks out indicates a carfree personality. Being carfree they will not hesitate to hitchhike.

Index Finger:
A long index finger shows self confidence but little awareness of body odor. The owner is sure of their ability, extremely rude and proud, and isn’t afraid to point. They have a predilection for artichokes.
People with this finger are keen on advancement. They like to be in charge and have their own way. They have special abilities in the field of keyboarding. They make excellent typists but at other things they are hopelessly incompetent. Never, NEVER put these people in positions of responsibility.
People with prominent forefingers are capable and do well being in charge of a crisis situation. Finger odor however is a clue to personal hygiene or nasty habits. Don’t put people with lots of finger odor in charge of cooking. If you must touch such people use a hand sanitizer or non-latex gloves.
For people with a short index finger the reverse holds true. They are usually shy, female, quite sanitary, afraid they will fail and inclined to have self doubt. They are excellent cooks however. They always hate booger jokes. People with a curved index finger are collectors and often have many hobbies such as cleaning their nasal passages in public.

Middle Finger:
If the middle finger is long it indicates a person who treats life very seriously. They believe strongly in getting ahead of other drivers and are unafraid to express themselves with rude gestures. They have an unusual aptitude for this. People with short middle fingers are careless and generally prefer not to work. As a result they are often unemployed and short of funds. They are polite and are afraid they will make people laugh if they reveal their presence.
Most people tend to have a middle sized middle finger, meaning they are somewhere in between. Some of them may be malevolent lunatics and some of them are the salt of the earth. You can never tell with such people. .

Ring Finger:
If the ring finger is long the person will have a creative nature.
They will do well in the fields of oil exploration or insurance adjusting. They should be discouraged from going into any other endeavor.
Sometimes this long ring finger is associated with people who have a gambling problem. Notice if they have any rings at all. A lack of rings in the married indicates habitual infidelity or maybe their jewelry has been hocked already. In the unmarried it may mean they are the emotional opposites of Sammy Davis Jr. or Liberace. They don't sing, and they don't tap dance worth a damn. It may also mean that they are safety conscious and operate power machinery. Many suffer trauma trying to remove rings or have lost them in poker games.
Short ring fingers are extremely rare. Check carefully to make sure they aren't fake. Toupees do not work for such people, but combovers work unusually well.

Little Finger:
People with long little fingers have a high I.Q. and are as smart as a whip. They make good writers and speakers and have a strong sex drive. Their strong sex drive tends however to disengage the brain so they will often do incredibly dumb things involving their sexual organs.
A short little finger reveals emotional immaturity or an unfortunate accident in early life. They are not quite as smart as overcooked spaghetti and are more usually dumber than dirt. Either that or the short-fingered person has tended to borrow money from loan sharks and forgets to pay it back.
If the little finger is low set it indicates the person as a child had a problem with one of their parents. In some cases it indicates they were a victim of child abuse, especially if it is missing and they have no history with loan sharks.
If the little finger sticks out from the hand it may indicate the person is involved in a relationship they do not want to be in. Either that or they are in a relationship their partner doesn't want to be in. On the other hand they may just both want to be in the relationship. Maybe you should just ask instead of checking their stupid hands.

One more thing:
If the middle and the ring finger easily separate, bear in mind the person may be giving you the Vulcan blessing. Accept such blessings or you may find yourself vulcanized.
Your brain will then turn to rubber and you will be easily tired.

Don't Be Elfish

Some people only think of their elves. Such people are very elfish. Santa Claus is not very elfish. He’s giving stuff away. But is it his? No it belongs to his elves.

We should tell our elves the truth. To thine own elf be true, and I am. Roosevelt once said that all we have to fear is fear of elves. He was very elfless, but he was President. He was not afraid of elves, in fact he had a few in his cabinet.

People who think only of their elves are very small. They are thinking small. Walt Whitman loved elves. Perhaps he loved them too much. He even wrote a long poem called "Song of My Elf". Hamlet hated elves. Otherwise why would he have said "If only the Almighty had not fixed his canon ‘gainst elf slaughter." He talked openly of killing his elf. But that is truly elfish. Think of all those who would suffer if you killed your elf, including, of course, your elf.

Buddhists try to get rid of their elves. Like Mother Teresa they strive to be elfless. Meditate on the infinite and your elf will disappear. Who needs an elfish ego anyway?

Jefferson knew about elves: He had a special phrase for "Duh!" when he said "We hold these truths to be elf-evident". He was addressing King George III, whom he felt had been very elfish. Indeed the UK, even today, is full of elves. Most elves are nice enough and work for next to nothing but they ain’t rocket scientists, okay?

And then there is the elf-fulfilling prophecy. Even if your elves aren’t very bright, and not rocket scientists you still shouldn't give in to elf-doubt. Don’t doubt anything that your elf tells you. Otherwise you might not be able to live with your elf.

Do you drink too much? No doubt you are elf-medicating. Go see a shrink and learn more about your elf. However, if you must elf-medicate remember that they are very small, so you should break those pills in half. Go to the elf-help section of your local bookstore. There are all sorts of books about elf help. They are often about boosting your elf-confidence, about not beating your elf up so in the end you feel good about your elf and in turn the elf will feel good about you. Help your elf, but be sure to pay with a credit card on the way out.

Above all, don't lose elf-control. This is especially true if you have more than one elf. For most of us, you just have your elf. But Santa? He has scads of them. If he lost elf control, there would hell to pay. Elves ain't half human and they get into stuff. You would be amazed what mischief a few thousands of those little buggers can get into if you lose elf control. Yes, you probably would end up having to get out your elf gun and dispatch a few of them but could you do that, looking into their cute little beady elf eyes? I didn't think so.

Even if you don't end up shooting them, they can be a problem. Many elves cannot find jobs making toys any more and you see this sad fact every day. It's seasonal work and they get laid off in January. There are so many elf-service gas stations. Poor little guys checking your oil and wiping your mirrors. Be sure to give em a tip.

about the photograph (Hannibal, MO)

I grew up in Hannibal Missouri, which is still an interesting town, but it has changed drastically since I was a boy. My family arrived in 1960, when my Dad started his practice in town as an OB/GYN. At least that was the rumor. I never actually saw him on the job, though his apparent command of female problems was impressive. He kept getting up at all hours of the night to "deliver" a baby. As a small child I had a mental picture of him driving around knocking on doors and asking whether they ordered one with pepperoni or extra cheese.
Anyway with all that delivering, Dad seemed to suffer perpetually from sleep deprivation.

I learned to develop film when I was about 14 and went around the town taking pictures. Lacking transportation I was restricted to places near to home such as this one, termed "lovers leap". It is probably not the only one, but in this local legend star-crossed lovers both meet their demise in the river. The lady in question sees her true love killed in a naval action on the river, and despairing then leaps to her death in the river. Since that time, obviously the river has moved. Otherwise she must have gotten a tremendous running start. Or, perhaps she was launched from a catapult. In any case, it was a spectacular way to show your love.

Others less lovesick but needing to drain their bladder and intoxicated (and thus fatally lacking in balance) have periodically and probably unintentionally also met their untimely demise up there. Last time I was up there, there was a chain link fence so as to discourage such things. The railroad tracks are gone, the old bridge was taken down before it fell down, and a new modern bridge created farther upstream. The tallest building in Hannibal, the old Grain Elevator was demolished. Although they were useless I kind of miss those things. Lovers Leap is still a great place to admire the river, the town below you, and the Illinois bottom land across the river.

Now is the time for Christmas

Now is the time for Christmas
As I live down on the isthmus
It surely is some big ass bisthmus
Round about this time of year.

One third my life is spent in bed
Chasing elusive things in my head
I should be up and freely spending
The contents of my wallet and plastic bending
Then wrapping it up and sending
Toward this penultimate ending
Spending of the fiscal year.
While your fan club gives a rending
always somebody offending, holiday cheer.

Hating as I do all this detritis
January bills will come back to bite us
If we first don't die of appendicitis
Or date a Greek named Encephalitis.

One twelfth of your life is spent in December
As you are so loath to repent, remember
Cold it is and dark and inner
And you are just another sinner
Sent to bed without your dinner
Hoping maybe this will make you thinner.

Viagra won't help with resurrection
Or give your sorry life direction
In this festive tortured vivisection
That we call this time of year

Now we have these halls to deck
(At least we have many friends in heck)
Be sure to send that charity a check.
Now we have these bells to jingle
As we anticipate Kris Kringle
Or was this red suited Nick a saint?
Considering the havoc created? No he ain't
Or maybe he was Santa Claus?
(I'm so confused, and don't
remember rightly who he was.)

Visiting the graves of some poor dead Uckers
Preferring dead to living motherf-----rs
All this merriment sure does one tucker

For the old one I won't shed a tear
Even if the new one is very queer.
Sleep will I to the brand new year.
And drink my last four cans of beer.