Guns...And Other Four Letter Words

       An acquaintance of mine posted the following on facebook:

             "Re-Post if Your Home Is NOT a Gun-Free Zone"

     Allow me to make myself clear: If you plan on coming to my home packing heat you had damn well better ask my permission first. I serve adult beverages to my guests and if you are strapped on you just became the designated teetotaler. I have been out drinking with cops who turn into heavily-armed assholes after the third scotch, and they are "trained professionals". That doesn't stop them from dropping a "butt crack .22" into someone's drink for a laugh or emptying the magazine of their Glock into the air in the parking lot just so they can laugh at how high you jump.

    You may have the right to bear arms, but once you cross my threshold, I make the rules.

   
     

She Walks Among Us

     Some months ago I relocated from Sacramento to Woodland in order to regroup. Shortly thereafter I gained survival employment ...back in Sacramento. As a result I commute there to work, but shop here as a rule. Still, now and then I venture back to Sacramento to visit friends or to shop for things hard to obtain in the smaller city.

     It was on such an occasion that I happened to be driving past the once-mighty Country Club shopping center, so-named before they thought to call them "malls". I saw a woman in perhaps her late fifties pushing a heavily laden shopping cart which bore canvas luggage along with the usual plastic bags and such. A German shepherd trotted by her side, its tongue lolling. Upon the top of the basket sat a large orange tabby placidly watching the scenery roll past him.

     I was reminded of the story of how the Hindu Saint, Ramakrishna, experienced an awakening when he saw a prostitute transform into Parvati. The woman still bore herself proudly as she walked. She carried her dignity about her yet. I could see the goddess within her with the right kind of eyes.

     The Greeks told stories of how Hermes used to walk among men in disguise as a beggar and reward those he encountered according to the treatment he received.


     Maybe He does, and maybe so does Athena and Diana and all the rest of that great dysfunctional family.

     The world would be a better place if we behaved as if it might be so.


     Peace.

Notes From The Belly Of The Beast

I haven't been posting much of late.

   I have recently started a new job and the training is 4PM to Midnight. The internal clock is still recalibrating. So it has come to pass that I am working for a major telecom company again. Back to the House Of Pain, back to the land of trite motivational slogans and of sports metaphors, And on that great day as I stare into the abyss of Black Screen DOS, oh let my name be given back to me.

    Meanwhile, having at last cashed a paycheck, I cooked dinner for my niece and her husband, with whom I have been staying the last few months.I went forth into the streets of Woodland, California in search of a simple bottle of Moselle wine. Not a one was to be found,, not in either grocery store, nor in the local caterers, nor in the liquor store. The problem is that German wine labels tend to be plain and descriptive, while most of the people who buy wines for your average grocer or liquor stores buy bottles with pretty modern art labels or that are from vineyards owned by celebrities...or both. To be fair, that is what will sell. This is, after all, America.

     If you want to make a quick million or two, all you need to do is buy a tanker truck full of Mad Dog, bottle it, slap a label on it with a picture of a Kardashian holding a kitten, and charge $20 a bottle.

     Come to think of it, that pretty much describes the election.


   

     

Not Exactly The Emerald City

   A newly minted University graduate with a degree in music has been reduced for the nonce to playing cowbell for an unappreciative audience of birds.


     Jamie Fox spends all day in a farmer's field, dressed all in orange, ever at the ready to repel partridges with cowbell, accordion or ukulele. All for 250 Pounds a week. Actually, he says it is not bad work. He gets a lot of reading done and claims that many of his better-paid friends with more demanding jobs are a bit envious of him.

     For more.


    Be seeing you.

Wonderful Touching Pro-Equality Ad

Living Graffiti

    Under the cover of the ubiquitous San Francisco fog, the Guerrilla Grafters strike, grafting fruit tree branches onto fruitless trees and bringing pears and plums and cherries to working class neighborhoods. 

     San Francisco, you see has long banned the planting of fruit-bearing trees for fear of messy sidewalks and messy law suits. Tara Hui thinks that is silly and, with a small cadre of cohorts has set out to do something about it. Then group only grafts onto trees that have been selected by a neighborhood steward who promises to care for it. Likewise they only graft onto similar species: apples to apple trees, for example.

     For more about this delightful project see The L.A. Times.

     Be seeing you.

     

It's A Dirty Job, But...

   Peter Houison Craufurd, 28th Laird of Craufurdland Castle, and Washer of The Sovereign's Hands, has died at the age of 82. For years he has awaited the pleasure of Her Majesty with a with a silver ewer, bowl and salver holding a linen towel on permanent standby. 

     “We used to have to write to Buckingham Palace to offer to wash the monarch’s hands every time they were in residence at the Palace of Holyroodhouse,” said Houison Craufurd.

    The eldest son in the family line has held the position at court ever since one of his ancestors saved James V  from a pair of murderous thugs. In gratitude the family was given a farm on the condition that his family always be ready with water and towels to wash the hands of the monarch.

    For more see: telegraph

    Be seeing you.