You ever meet someone who doesn't hate anyone or anything? Me neither. But there are some who just hate. How does that happen? Well, imagine that the full spectrum of human expression is one big pie. There are lots of slices that represent everything from love and pleasure to hate and horror. In some people, the hate slice is enormous. It dominates the whole pie. A pie full of hate for everything and everybody. But then of course, all the other slices are that much smaller. Problem is, when you hate everything, sooner or later you'll come to hate pie. Which is yourself. This pie is you. We are all pies. Ok, did that make sense?
October 2, 2016
I submitted a proposal that was outrageous, creative and completely outside the box. The suits across the table asked if I was serious. I asked them if they wanted to turn out the same old crap they had been doing or establish a new reputation as a bold, innovative production company with flair, style and substance. To a man they said they wanted to keep making crap. In retrospect, that's where I lost the room.
October 3, 2016
He was brilliant in school. Upon graduation he had a choice of jobs. One of the offers paid way more than the others, but he would have to move to a foreign country and as a requirement of the job, learn that country's language. He went for the money, got sent to Poland, and became miserable. The Polish language is a brute to learn. He couldn't get the grasp of it. He was flailing at his job because he couldn't speak the language. The company fired him, ruining his reputation in his chosen field. He moved back to Manitoba and went to work on the family farm where the uselessness of spending all that money on a college education was thrown in his face every day by his brothers and father while they worked the fields and resented him. Dranie.
-- He sucks. He's been trying to learn that tune for ages.
-- Who plays three different guitars in the same song?
-- I know! That was ridiculous.
-- I think I had the longest solo.
-- No way, I killed in the second stanza.
-- Yeah? Then how come he finished the song with me?
-- Look sharp, here he comes.
-- Wait, where's he going?
-- Oh great, he's gonna stop and noodle at the piano.
-- I hate pianos. They're like elephants in the room.
-- Ok, who will he pick up first?
-- Obviously me. I'm his favorite.
-- No way. It'll be me.
-- Oh great, now he's at the drum kit.
-- He can't play drums.
-- He can barely play us.
-- He's avoiding us.
-- The other guys are getting pissed that he can't figure this out.
-- Is this a band or what?! I'm ready to rock and roll!
-- Me too.
-- Is he going to avoid us all day?
October 5, 2016
I know that lifetimes are simultaneous and not linear, but at some point, there is a final one; a last lifetime lived in this reality. When you reach this point, it doesn't mean you're a guru or even that you're particularly enlightened. It just means that you have grasped the simple fact that you are responsible for everything you do while living in the present. You make your own life, which means you are living your life with intention - whether you realize that or not.
October 6, 2016
Overheard at a gas station convenience store.
-- The lottery is at 12 million. Maybe we should buy a ticket.
-- Those things are rip offs. Besides, even if you do win, the government swoops in and takes about half for taxes and then they pay the rest out to you over the next 20 years. And then they tax it again!
-- That's not how it works.
-- Well that's how it works in Indiana.
-- Not up here. In Canada, the lottery is tax free and you get paid out all at once.
-- What?!
-- It's totally fair.
-- You mean I could buy a ticket today and have 12 million dollars in my hand tomorrow?
-- If you win, yep.
-- And not have to pay any tax on it?
-- Yep.
-- That is incredible. INCREDIBLE! Americans don't know that.
-- So maybe we should buy a ticket.
-- Oh, we're buying tickets all right.
October 7, 2016
A friend had been using an online calendar for a decade when it suddenly wouldn't load anymore. It seems the calendar company went kaput, erased everyone's data, including the backups, and turned out the lights. My friend lost his personal and business calendars and has no idea how to reconstruct any of it. He has no verifiable past and no clue of the future. If you hate to see a grown man cry, look away, look away now.
October 8, 2016
It's quite difficult for poor people to imagine being rich and it's painful for rich people to imagine being poor, thus their inability to relate to each other. If you can't imagine yourself in the other guy's shoes, then you'll have no compassion or empathy for their plight. Thus, rich people despise welfare, seeing those on it as indolent and parasitic, while the poor blame the rich for being privileged and the source of all the world's ills, including their own. Shall the twain ever meet?
October 10, 2016
Happy Thanksgiving Canada.
October 12, 2016
Last couple of nights have been well below freezing. It's not even mid-October. If someone wanted to pay me to guess about this coming winter, I would say it's going to be an early one. I would say it looks like it could be a very cold and snowy winter. Then I would ask for 50 dollars, even though we never discussed exactly how much money would be paid or how detailed my forecast had to be.
October 13, 2016
If I were suddenly plucked up to the mothership by some passing aliens and my office was left exactly as it is at this moment, what would people make of that? I mean all my personal junk is in here. All my sports equipment, my file cabinets, my computer and all its data, my family pictures, my books, my papers... All of it just left where it is, waiting for my return. Well that is exactly what happened with a dear friend of mine, except he was a furniture maker and carpenter and he just left his work shop and projects and tools and wood and all his machines and to this day they are just sitting there, waiting. Only he didn't go off with aliens, he died.
October 14, 2016
There was a mouse in the house and it was driving Bernard crazy. It had skillfully avoided all the traps, and even evaded the cat he had borrowed from his brother but couldn't keep any longer because he thought the mouse was brainwashing the cat to kill Bernard in his sleep as sometimes he would suddenly awake in the middle of the night gasping for air only to find the cat sitting on his face and the mouse close by snickering.
But the last straw was when Bernard awoke to the tingling of his skin and the popping and crackling sound of what he assumed was an impending electrical storm, leastways until he discovered the Tesla coil outside the mouse hole that was, according to Bernard. slowly frying what was left of Bernard's beleaguered brain. Even more amazing, it was wireless. Bernard had no way of shutting it off. Afraid of getting electrocuted, afraid of burning down the house, he had no way to move it and no way to live with it. Grudgingly, he had to admit that the mouse had won. Bernard moved out the next day. Naturally, it was hailed as a splendid victory for mice everywhere.
October 16, 2016
If for whatever reason, you felt the need to grow your fingernails long enough so that it was impossible for you to pick things up, I doubt you and I would be BFFs. I'm just sayin'...
October 17, 2016
A father says to his 16 year old daughter as they enter the dealership, "Pick any car on the showroom floor and it's yours, honey." She immediately gravitates toward the smallest, cutest car there, but Daddy wasn't happy with that. "You can pick any one here, sweetie. You don't have to go for the cheapest littlest one." He went from coupe to sedan to pickup truck to SUV extolling the virtues of each, but she wasn't having any of it. He resorted to graphic descriptions of small cars in terrible accidents and how she would be much safer in a bigger vehicle, but she was 16 and didn't care about mortality rates. So he bought her the little car. Did she die in a fiery accident or just have fun in it?
October 19, 2016
Overheard two women at a bakery.
-- This place makes me fatter just walking into it.
-- I know. Look at those éclairs. Umm!
-- It's not even my cheat day.
-- Me neither, but I'm willing to make an exception for those Napoleons.
-- We should just leave and pretend we never walked in here.
-- Just smell this place! How can you leave? Ooh, sticky buns!
-- I feel so guilty.
-- Get over it, Marcie.
-- I'm just so conflicted. One part of me wants to dive into those bear claws, but the other part knows it's wrong.
-- Wrong?! You're starting to bum me out.
-- I gotta lose this weight or some guy will never love me.
-- What?!
-- No Danish will ever compensate for me being alone at 40 in my rocking chair knitting sweaters for my cats.
-- Good christ, Marcie.
-- Well you tell me how being in here is doing either one of us one bit of good.
-- You mean besides the awesome pleasure of eating delicious pastry? Ok, how 'bout if we're here because your future husband is a baker who works in the back and happens to love large women only you guys haven't met yet?
Pause.
-- That's a good one. That's really good. We should make this place a regular hangout.
-- I don't know about that, Marcie. Maybe every once in a while-
-- Like I'm gonna miss out on my future husband because you're afraid of gaining a few more pounds?!
-- Good christ, Marcie.
October 20, 2016
I took a time out from work and one by one considered each of the family pictures around my office. I studied the faces of my wife, our dogs and cats and took the time to place when and where each was taken. In the end, though none of them were here, it made me feel closer to all of them. Warm and fuzzy, I went back to work.
October 22, 2016
Through the simple act of reading her autobiographical poem she alienated an entire group of people. Yes the poem was epically bad, but the worst, the absolute worst was the fact that she had planned to read all 671 stanzas before the crowd implored her to stop and think about what she was doing to them. Everybody's hands were over their ears, one epileptic fit had been triggered, some were singing la la la to themselves to drown out her voice while others, with mouths agape, were recording her on their phones in order to post it to YouTube because no one would believe this if they didn't see it for themselves. I wish I could tell you that she went on to become a famous poet.
October 23, 2016
ANSWERING SOME MAIL
How come my girlfriend won't let me sleep with her sister?
Obviously, your girlfriend is intolerant and cruel. Perhaps if you let your girlfriend sleep with your brother first?
I have tried to elevate my consciousness but to no avail. I want to become more aware, how do I do that?
You're not going to believe this, but you become more aware by literally becoming more aware. Of what? Your thoughts, your actions, your motivations and reasons.
I know you get this question like a thousand times a year but it's happening to me and I need help. My wife is adamant about naming our new baby Gunther. What kind of goddamn name is Gunther?! You think that maybe Gunther was her father's name or a family name or something but no! She likes Gunther! That's it! There is no other reason! I'm going crazy and she refuses to change her mind. What can I do?
Use a nickname. Instead of calling your son by his birth name, you could go with the generic Sport or Chief, or you could customize it by calling him Lil' G, or G-man, or give him a real manly middle name like Thor, Gunther Thor, and just call him Thor or GT. Just be prepared for the rest of your life to answer this question: Why in hell did you name your kid Gunther?
Is there really a God?
You bet, and it is you.
Have you gotten a ton of hate mail from guys named Gunther yet?
Let's just say some have made themselves heard and have even retaliated by telling me that Keith is nothing to strive for name-wise and who am I to go throwing Gunther stones. It was kinda cute actually.
Everyone's always giving me advice. Should I take any of it?
Why not. If it doesn't work out, you can always give that as advice to the next person.
I just got divorced. My ex and I are on good terms, we just can't live with each other anymore. The problem I'm writing about is our morning routine. He stops by every morning before work and we have a quickie. But I'm wondering, what if I pick up a guy and he spends the night and my ex comes over and I'm in bed with someone else?
You said you were divorced, so doesn't that give you free reign to do whatever you want with your sex life? Yes? Then make it go whatever way you want it to go.
The political situation in America makes me want to throw up. Oh, and get this, my mother just preordered some crappy book of George Bush's shower paintings or whatever as my birthday present. That really makes me want to throw up. Why is it that stupid politicians make me sick to my stomach?
It's called the gag reflex. Yours is sensitive to stupidity. Stop watching the news, because there will never not be ignorant politicians or books by war criminals who paint shower pictures.
October 24, 2016
Roses are red
Violets are blue
If I have to watch that commercial one more time, you know, the one with the actor who professes his love for a household cleaning agent - wait a minute
It's on DVR! Oh joy! Buzz.
October 25, 2016
We live on a big lake in a tourist town. For years, a friend has been throwing cryptic messages in bottles into the lake so that tourists will pick them up and not know what they mean. For instance, here is his last note:
KL-645 we have received your transmission. Everything is set to go. We need a six minute window to generate anti-gravity, please advise. DeCarlo is anxious. We are also carrying ZXclausterns 13.44 HJ. Do we use them or save them? Please advise. After much effort, have found that the gold is interfering with the avionics. Have determined we can't take current stash with us. Have decided to bury the hoard in the sand at Calisto Beach sixteen paces from the large Willow tree. (Hopefully the humans won't find it.) End of message.
October 26, 2016
Three tired looking coyotes came walking down our driveway this morning. I was on my way up to open the gate at the top of the road when we all caught sight of one another. Normally, the coyotes would have run into the bush, but these guys were exhausted, tongues hanging out, mud all over their feet, so they just stopped. I stopped. We stood there looking at each other. Then I turned around and went back to the house so they could continue their bedraggled march down our driveway, past our barn, and into the bush beyond. Ah, the rural life.
October 27, 2016
Overheard a man and woman at the doctor's office.
-- You had sex with my sister?!
-- Shhh. Not so loud. Listen, I may have given you an STD.
-- What?!
-- I think Ella has herpes. She said the cold sores were from eating citrus. But the more I think about it... Do you know if she has herpes?
Pause.
-- The whole thing was her idea.
Long pause.
-- Aren't you going to say anything?
-- This is hardly the place, Roger.
-- Actually, it kind of IS the place, Debbie.
October 28, 2016
A friend was telling me what a great businessman someone else was and I said, So? The guy's filthy rich! he explained. Again I said, So? He was taken aback that I wasn't interested in how much money somebody else had. Come on, don't you want to know how much he's worth? Nope. Eight million dollars! He's worth eight million dollars! Gee, I said, thanks ever so much for respecting my wishes. No problem, he says, friends, he says, and tries to fist bump me, but I wasn't having any of it. He shrugged his shoulders, sipped his beer, eyed the blond two stools over.
October 29, 2016
Does this stuff only happen to me? I walk into a drug store that had just been robbed. The police weren't even there yet. People were still getting up off the floor. Some were in shock, some were freaking out. Everyone had PTSD. There was no way to get what I came for so I left. While walking away, police cars pass me going in the opposite direction and suddenly I realize how it will look on the security cam footage - me walking in immediately after the heist, surveying the place as if verifying that my boys had done the robbery correctly, and then leaving quickly all before the coppers arrive... Does this stuff only happen to me?
