My Sick Mind

A nice horizontal lightning strike from my back porch tonight.

  "And I'll say it again, I need a brand new friend." Jim Morrison Hyacinth House For about the tenth time in the past three years, I have abandoned Facebook.  Mostly because it has abandoned me.   Oh Facebook, why hast thou forsaken me? I know why.   It's because Facebook is a happy place.  It's a place where people can say, "Hey, Look at me! See what I'm doing!"  And mostly, I'm doing it without you.  That's where the forsaken part comes in. We have real friends (or most of you do) and we have our Facebook Friends.  Facebook friends are mostly acquaintances that we otherwise wouldn't associate with if it weren't for the Internet and its so-called social interaction skills.  Part of those social interaction skills are supposed to bring together people with like interests.  What it really does is bring us together with people with whom we have one thing in common, and Facebook software links us up with others who ...

These things usually aren't about me.   They are rants about what is going on in the world or what nonsense has affected my life that reflects on what is going on in the world. However, the recent events in Colorado and some ancillary events have convinced me that we can't change the world one person at a time.  We can't even change it a thousand people at a time.  The world is a big place, and changing it has lost its purpose.  We won't change it. We won't keep people from talking on cell phones while they are driving. We won't keep people from buying assualt weapons.  We won't keep people from throwing trash out of their car windows. [Sidebar:  I saw a Prius driver throw a cigarette out of his window. If a Prius driver doesn't get the "World-as-One" concept, what hope do we have?] We won't keep people from parking in the fire lane at the Shop Rite.  We won't keep people from singing-along at concerts.  We won't ke...

The (Men's) U.S. Open golf tournament is going on this weekend.  Among the topics being discussed is that Tiger Woods was still in contention for the win, and it appears as though a lot of people are cheering for him to win. I understood the "Tiger Love" at the beginning of his career.  He was a guy who was going to challenge Jack Nicklaus' records at a time when no golfer appeared to be able to dominate the tour.  I get that.  But in the ensuing years, he developed into a petulant brat who would spit on greens, chastize spectators and generally be a sore loser.  When he won he was gregarious, but losing turned his true personality on. Once his wife chased after him with a 7-iron, I thought America's fascination with him would have ebbed.  But instead, it waited for his return and now, when he is in contention for a title, thousands of fans line the fairways to cheer him.  That, I don't get. It is difficult to count on the favor of the Am...

For almost 5 years I updated this blog every day.  I had opinions on everything from trash to soap , and couldn't wait to get to my computer to type-in a rant.  At some point, I realized that the world wasn't changing, and in fact, it was steadily growing worse, and my thoughts and ideas were more social anathema than socially acceptable. So I shut up. Then, along came Facebook and Twitter.   So-called Social Media sites that seem to have settled into a realm somewhere between corporate marketing and personal promotion.  Companies use it to promote television shows and products and people use it to tell us about all the grand things they do with their lives - presumably without us, or else why would they need to broadcast it to the Internet? After all, I thought most people hated those Christmas cards with the "Yearly Update" letter that told us about Junior's baby teeth or Aunt Selma's sciatica.  What makes a daily Internet update more pala...

Paula Creamer's bag in the foreground while Paula putts during the Pro-Am at Seaview Country Club on Thursday.  Photo by me. Two of the least spectator-friendly sports are taking place locally this weekend. One, the Shop Rite LPGA Classic , has been going on for a week.  The other, the 28th running of the Philadelphia International Championship , takes place on Sunday.  It has changed sponsors more than most people change their heater filters.  So much so that I had to look it up.  It probably should have been called the "International Championship" from the beginning.  CoreStates bank and whatever other institutions lent their name to it had nothing to do with cycling. Golf is a goofy sport to follow.   The courses are usually in the back woods somewhere, which means that spectators have to shuttle-bus in, as though they were being taken to another world - which is the reality. Golf courses were made for golf, not for watching ...

That is a photo of an ad running on TV.   It's a loan shark outfit called Western Sky that will gladly loan you $10,000 at an interest rate of 89.68% with 84 monthly payments of $743.99.  Where do I sign up? My guess is that, because it's a "Native American-owned business" that is "operating on a Native American Reservation" they can get away with charging 90% interest on a loan.  Otherwise, they would probably have the Federal government questioning their practices.  Finally, we have closure on the whole "Indian Reservation" deal.  This is how they get even with us white-folk. It's also nice that there are "no fees for early pay off" as though you could pay off a 90% interest loan early. I wonder how many phone calls they get?   Like the kid who sells lemonade for $50 a glass, they only have to sell one.  I can't be the only person who paused his TV mid-stream to read the fine print on the ad. Or am I?

One of the themes I've been meaning to write about is the growing gap between the "have's" and the "have-not's."  That is to say, the One-Per-centers and the rest of the world.  More and more, we are faced with luxury suites at sporting events, up-scale mall stores and automobiles with more accoutrements than most of our homes have.  Disregarding that premise for now, I am left with these: Boston Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett was booed after being removed from a game, after it was found that he played golf after being disabled because of an injury.  His response: “We get 18 off days a year,” Beckett said . “I think we deserve a little time to ourselves.” A little time to yourselves?  Your work year goes from March to October.  You have more time off than schoolteachers.  Games start at 7:05pm.  What are you doing all day, besides sleeping and eating?  My cat has it harder than you. Shut up and play. Terrell Owens recently appea...

It's a lot easier to piss people off than it used to be.  Or perhaps it's the advent of social media that makes it seem that way? After all, our identity and proximity influences the volume of our opinions. It's easy to be angry and anonymous, but difficult to be confrontational in person.  Either way, making political statements on Facebook, Twitter and other such portals is the latest way to vent anger over something we find offensive. The latest one is North Carolina's vote on "Amendment 1" which defines marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman.  It has turned the North Carolina Tourism Facebook page into a battleground of profanity, where critics have lashed out on the measure.  Many have said that they will no longer visit North Carolina because homosexuals cannot marry each other.  That makes good nonsense. Of course, it's a tourism page, so one would assume (logically) that the visitors to the page are also visitors (i.e.: t...

While I'm listening to Cocteau Twins I am thinking about my musical influences and how I came about them. The Beatles were unavoidable.  Their music was everywhere, and even a 7-year old couldn't avoid them.  Lucky for me. Their subsequent British Invasion clones and American counterparts would shape my thought as a young person of the 1960s, and I found myself drawn into pop radio and its influences, mostly because I exhibited no independent thought.  Once I did, however, my mind wandered. Chicago Transit Authority would be later (and better) known as Chicago, and their music was foist upon me by their radio popularity and their popularity among the young hipsters in my high school. That led to bands like Focus; Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Grand Funk Railroad who became popular among my high school friends - and me, in the case of Focus and ELP.  I remember being on my school bus one morning asking a seat-mate if he had heard "Hocus Pocus" by Focu...

The National Football League is a marketing machine.  They have figured out how to make working out (The Combine) and choosing-up sides (The Draft) into prime-time television programs that run for several nights on big-time cable television stations. What is more amazing is that people watch. It reminds me of the saying:  Nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the general public. Is he really going to have GRIFFIN III on his jersey or was that just a prop for the draft? I love the coconut water drinks that have started showing up over the past year or so.  I wonder if it's real coconut water or just a mix of chemicals designed to simulate coconut water?  I saw "Cast Away" and it didn't look to me like Tom Hanks was getting a lot of water out of those coconuts.  At least not enough for somebody to think that they could bottle the stuff and earn a profit. We're a conflicted people.  Every day (or so it seems) we hear about h...

I picked up my bag, I went looking for a place to hide; When I saw Carmen and the Devil walking side by side. I said, "Hey, Carmen, come on, let's go downtown." She said, "I gotta go, but my friend can stick around." Take a load off Annie, take a load for free; Take a load off Annie, and you put the load right on me. Levon Helm died on Thursday.  It prompted a lot of airplay for "The Weight," one of The Band's most popular songs.  One DJ said that hearing the song makes him cry.  I have heard the song a number of times and frankly, never had that reaction.  Mostly because I never knew what it was about. I found the lyrics online and read through them and I still don't know what it's about.  That got me to thinking. Tons of people love that song [pun] and if you asked them, I'd bet that either they don't know all the words or, if they do, they couldn't put their finger on exactly what the song means.  While it appears...

I was interested today in this story about a 94-year old billionaire who is marrying for the fifth time , to a woman some 30 years his junior. I was born during the day, but not yesterday, so I understand that the primary reason that she is marrying him is because, in actuarial terms, she feels as though she will outlive him by enough years that she will be able to enjoy her inheritance.  I'm guessing that she will attempt to kill him sexually. My interest went beyond the issue of money - because I haven't any - and transcended into the area of age and how it relates to whom we are attracted and how that attraction manifests itself into romance. I feel as though the mind ages more slowly than the body, as evidenced by the fact that I feel as though I am still in my 30s even though my body tells me that I am significantly older. That's a shame. It's a shame because neither I nor any woman I would meet at this point in my life would be interested in...

I've been thinking about updating the entries here for a while, but every time I come up with some brainstorm, I realize that (a) it's just me griping about something and/or (2) it's something I've already griped about.  I could put up a link to some old essay and be done with it, but I really don't have the interest in it and besides, if you have a horrible gripe about something in your life, you can search it in the window and up will pop a wordy version of your 30-second version of whatever you are upset about. In the meantime, I went to the Phillies' home opener on Monday.  In some ways I question my judgement and in other ways I feel the need for some sort of Internet intervention that would keep me from clicking on junk that I should just Add to Favorites and lie down until the feeling passes. Part of the reason I wanted to go was because "everyone else was going" (which, of course, was only partly true) and because I was anxiou...

As a kid in the latter half of the 1960s, the only thing that beat the Mister Softee truck traveling through the neighborhood was the mosquito truck. The one that ran through our town was yellow with a flashing yellow light on the top, presumably to differentiate it from the police cars, who had red lights and didn't frighten mosquitoes at all. The lure of the mosquito truck was the plume of cloudy mist that spewed out of the back.  It smelled like gasoline, and everyone knows that gasoline kills mosquitoes.  Like the fresh mimeographs that were handed out by our teachers, we couldn't resist getting our noses as close to it as possible.  Although, to my knowledge, the only thing the school's mimeographs killed was our will to live.  Mosquitoes lived merrily on. When we saw the truck off in the distance - or smelled it, which usually happened first - we would rush to a strategic launching place and ride behind it on our bicycles.  In the mid...

The Mighty Thor, who had a bad day today.  I'm posting this here rather than on Facebook because there just aren't enough characters to properly explain it all. Thor has the gingivitis.   Ever since I brought him home a little over 2 years ago, his gums have been red and his teeth are tartar stained.  Try as I might with over-the-counter remedies and other such things, his gums stayed red to the point that, at his last checkup, the vet suggested I bring him in for a teeth cleaning and possible (probable) tooth extractions. This morning I dropped him off.   The tough part about that was that he wasn't allowed to eat anything after 8:00pm Thursday night.  That made Thor an unhappy guy this morning when he couldn't get his regular breakfast.  He whined and moaned at me and wasn't at all excited about being put in his transporter box and carted 10 miles to the veterinarian.  At around 5:00pm I got a phone call from the vet saying that he was "doin...

In the trailer for the new film Band of Misfits , the Grant-voiced Pirate Captain lands on a ship demanding gold, but is told by a crew member: “Afraid we don’t have any gold old man, this is a leper boat, see.” After issuing the explanation, the sailor’s arm drops off. Leprosy groups expressed concern that the scene could increase the stigma and discrimination felt by people suffering from leprosy . Aardman (the animation company who made the film) has said it will change the scene in the wake of the objections. Watch the trailer.  The highly offensive material emerges at around the 30-second mark. First of all, who even knew there were leprosy groups.  Secondly, wouldn't you think that people with leprosy already know there is a stigma attached to their disease?  Apparently not. Thirdly, making a statement that "this is a leper boat" and having the sailor's arm drop off is hysterical.  I think it's hysterical because (a) I have a sense of hu...

SEPTA Market East Station One of the things I enjoy about photography is making otherwise mundane things look appealing. With some fancy lenses and an odd perspective, you can bring some life to something that perhaps you haven't seen before. It's why I enjoy going out at night and using my little tripod placed on the floor. A favorite spot for these types of photos is train and subway stations. Generally, they're kind of dingy, but with a little color they can look bright and shiny. Usually, I can do these things with only a few odd glances from the commuters. On Saturday, however, I got more than a few odd glances. I took about a dozen photos at the SEPTA Market East station -- trains leaving and arriving, wide-angle perspectives and junk like that. The whole operation took about 15 minutes. When I went back up the stairs, waiting for me were two uniformed transit officers. They asked who I was and what I was doing. I figured the camera bag an...

Try as they might to get people to stop using their cell phones while they're driving, our legislators are fighting a losing battle against the automobile manufacturers. This is the dashboard of the 2012 Hyundai Veloster .  It features something called blueLink, which synchronizes your smartphone to the car to allow you to navigate and communicate with your fellow drivers as you speed along the highway. Every day, states are sponsoring legislation to make it illegal to keep drivers from texting while driving and some are outlawing using the devices at all.  Some have said that it is hazardous to use hands-free devices as well. While lawmakers claim to be looking out for our greater good, it is the duty of the auto makers to provide people with what they want.  Apparently, what they want is a cell phone in their car. Perhaps our government needs to switch its focus from the driver to the manufacturer?  Why outlaw the use of cell phones when we ...

The "social media" thing has been quite interesting.  As a migrant from being "pen pals" and actually speaking on the phone to someone, I have watched this revolution in personal communications and marvelled at the relationship between being personal and impersonal simultaneously. The most interesting (debatable) part of it is the relationship that us commoners have with the so-called celebrities.  In the Twitter language, we are "followers."  On Facebook we are "friends."  I think that's what separates Twitter from Facebook.  On Twitter you are either followed or a follower.  On Facebook, there is a friend relationship that at least places the participants on a somewhat equal footing - even though one or the other might know it isn't so. Take, for instance, a recent Tweet (a strange sequence, to be sure) from my "friend" Paula Creamer, in which she discloses her " Christmas present to myself " in Twitpic ...