Who on earth reads this stuff anyway...

I think my wife may have turned in her notice at the children's acting school today. I don't know. I haven't talked to her yet. She had pretty much decided that is what would happen as of last night, anyway. Whereas I only lasted 3 months in the chaotic clutches of the 'AFK', she has held in there for just over a year. Is she better for it? I'll tell you down the road, when it's all safely out of sight.
The fun thing is, I have no idea what she's going to do, or how we'll recover financially, or whether or not a slightly banged up brand new Saturn Ion will soon be on the market. 'Cause you know, I can't sell my truck. I live in the South. That would be like trading in my manhood. Actually, like selling my manhood. Trading it in would mean I, too, would get a Saturn Ion. Not going to happen.
In other news, I actually put more effort into voting for the next American Idol than I ever have in voting for the next president of the United States. Perhaps if Kerry had pushed away the podium and launched into a feel-good version of 'Sweet Home Alabama' during one of the debates, or if Bush would for once just put on some polyester and give us a soulful rendering of 'Vehicle', I might actually be tempted to chime in. But alas, it is unlikely.

A friend of mine wrote a quick entry a couple days ago about 'moral relativism'. I thought I would mention it because I appreciate that people still stop and smell which way the wind is blowing. If I had to venture a guess at the popularity of moral relativism, I would suggest it has to do with every person's strong desire to make a god of themselves. To be in control, to be the final word on ethical and moral judgments, at least for themselves. Of course the next guy is entitled to his own godship and moralmakingness. As the pendulum swings, it seems, all-powerful godship has been scattered to mankind, each individual receiving just enough to pilot their own crafts into oblivion. Perhaps when it swings up again, our individual godships will be carried up to millions of individual gods who will carry with them our ideal images of self and being. Only this time around, each of us will have our own god-race to mythologize about. PolyMEism. They will romp and play and fuss about in an environment of our own choosing, and they will reign all-powerful in the lands between our ears, which will by that time be the only true free and unoccupied territory left in existence. Literally. Think about it (while you still can...).

What am I waiting for...?

One of the few questions I have always, no matter what, been able to ask myself. My ability to hold back and analyze the situation, to stall and stammer, to stand stock still like a boring piece of human art, has been honed and developed into a veritable matrix of motionlessness.

I'm a writer. What do I write? Beyond this, not too much. My song lyrics have a half life of about two years, then they get recycled. My stories get to around page 5, and my dialogue drops off after a handful of exchanges.

I'm an actor. What do I do? The occasional community theatre piece. Paid? Yes, I went from 8 years of getting nothing to just over one year of getting around $150 per show. By the year 2034, I'll be able to pay my rent. That is, if it doesn't go up before then.

I'm a comedian. Do I have a routine? Can I tell jokes? Can I demonstrate it in any way? Not really. If you stick around long enough for me to be comfortable, I may do some muppet voices, or throw myself around a bit. Loose fruit means juggling, but if I get self-conscious, that's it.

I'm a musician. Can I read music? No. Can I sit and play you a song? Perhaps. Can I take requests? No. Unless you request something I wrote. Can I sit and jam? A little riff in 'E'? No. I don't know what that means. Can I hear it and just get by? Yes, but once I find the note, it's the only note I'll likely play.

I'm a dishwasher. Ahh, now we're getting closer to the heart of it. Dishwashing is the only job I ever left and came back to...twice. I washed before and after getting a college degree. In fact, the restaurant is still there. My mother sees the owners from time to time. They left me a standing offer and you know, I may yet take them up on it again. Does that sound ridiculous? It would to me if I weren't completely jaded with the work-a-day world. Consider...have you ever seen the movie 'The Razor's Edge'? An early 80's Bill Murray venture, one he stubbornly insisted on, at a time when the film executives were trying to rope him into more caddyshacks and meatballses. There is a scene where Bill Murray comes upon a man in India who is washing dishes on a boat. He wants a ride, and asks the man who owns the boat. The man says he does. In fact, he owns all the boats in this particular area. Bill asks why he is washing his own dishes. The man tells him that a better question would be 'what is your intention in washing those dishes?' He explains that his intention is to think. Washing dishes is a behaviour that frees him up to do that. I've come to find that I agree.

Let's consider some artists and thinkers of impact who also washed dishes:
Woody Guthrie
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Andy Kaufman
I suppose I should be content to have the brilliance of Wittgenstein's toenail, or the inventive humor of Kaufman's ear lobe, or the songwriting ability of Guthrie's left kneecap. But you know, I still probably wouldn't.

Anyway, I'm fully aware that Adam was cursed to work the land and to not have an especially easy time of it, and I respect the ethic that must accompany such labor. I'm descended primarily from farmers, you see. But I'll say this--sitting in front of a computer all day, regardless of whether it's mindless and frees me up to think, does not a worthwhile activity make. And considering the value corporate America places upon it's work force these days, I'm starting to really miss the old wash basin.

If there happens to be any restaurant manager reading this, and you're looking to pay someone $100 a day to do a deeply contemplative and bang-up job of cleaning your wares, do drop a comment.

12 months in the trenches...

This weekend was my first wedding anniversary. That inexplicable twinge of guilt you all felt late Sunday evening was from not contacting me. Unless you're Catholic. That's a different twinge. But it's all right. Next time you'll know.
We celebrated by going to the Shakespeare Tavern, where of all things, we didn't see any Shakespeare. We did see The Rivals, however, and got a chance to hear the only Irish accent in the world that's worse than my wife's. The funny thing was, the actor was doing a perfectly good Irish accent. It's one of those dialects that sounds worse the more accurate it is. Not the lilty Southern kind, but that jarring, billyclub swinging, Paddy O'Riley gibberish. Good stuff.
Actually, the only Shakespeare in the tavern that night was my Rogue Shakespeare Stout, which I must say, earned equal billing with the sperherd's pie as "the most pleasant thing I've put in my stomach in quite some time".
The atmosphere was quaint enough, though remarkably inauthentic. Not once did I spy a toothless wench. There were no underage children being tossed about by dirtyfingered members of local office. No gaunt and patchhaired dog lay itself upon my shoe in wait for a bit of crust to fall from the plate. No rats in the wine vats. No lost teeth in the beef. Bathrooms free of Elizabethan STD's. And I paid with plastic. No suspension of disbelief here.
I did enjoy the play, though. It didn't occur to me before, but this is where the oft imitated but never truly emancipated Mrs. Malaprop came from. The actress did a remarkable job in perturbing Mrs. Malaprop. It was a full-bodied and hilarious catheterization. Although the other actors held their own, when she was on stage, she owned the stage, and did so with knish.
Well, that about wraps up our Tavern adventure. Tune in next week when Eric describes his day at the petting zoo.

Pre-History Rewritten! For the First Time!...

At a recent time traveling expo in Boston, New Canada, audiences bore witness to a truly unique event. Kung, the keynote speaker and a member of the class of early hominids known as Homo Erectus, raised eyebrows and shattered the common notion of 'before recorded time' by explaining what a typical day was like for him. Highlights included forging simple tools, sweeping the moss from his cave, and fiddling around with himself. Journalists and reporters scrambled to be the first to get the groundbreaking news on air and in print. We were able to get some early impressions from members of the eclectic crowd:

"I was surprised how much I could relate to [Kung]. He was talking about life 1.2 million years ago but he could have been describing my average weekend."
-Phil Crowder
Time Travel Enthusiast

"You know, we have this image of early man as being beast-like and primal, but Kung is really quite a gentleman."
-Nancy MacPherson
Event Coordinator

"Blooooo fffp ffffp ###eegm HUP!"
-#^%...ler
Mercury Based life-form
from planet Zappa-8

In the end, the event was quite successful, for the promoters and the travelers alike. Boston proved so attractive a location that it has already been named as the site of the next Time Traveler's convention, scheduled tentatively for May of 1788. Keynote speaker Kung reportedly came away with a good deal of promotional materials including CD's, Ray Bans, a Juicer and a pair of Nike's. Unconfirmed sources say that he also agreed to do a 10 episode reality series with the working title "Dawn of Man".

Stumbling absently upon enlightenment...

Finally, a faith for the masses. Something for readers, writers, gamers, idealists, anarchists, celebrities, free-thinkers, convention-casters, fetishists, dilettantes, politicians, Californians, amputees, ombudsmen, and red-headed stepchildren. But not this one. I mean, I've dabbled, but let's face it: Captain Caveman may have been a great teacher, but I'm not ready to go following him into the Iron Age. Batman is great, and we all feel good when we see the signal in the sky 'cause we know in the morning that papers are going to have stories about the butt he kicked the night before, but who else is seriously going to put on a hard rubber bat suit and jump around on the buildingtops? I would love to share Garp's world view, but who can relate to him? I don't have Romeo's passion, or Achilles' hunger, or Columbo's intuition, or Wolverine's cool adamantine enhancements and matching stubborn rage. I'm just me. Quiet, unassuming, pondersome me.

Wait a minute.

I'll make myself a god. I'll worship myself! What a great idea. And there won't be any annoying people to have to sit next to, because no one will know about this religion because it will all be in my head. It's perfect. I wonder why no one ever thought of this...

Mexican Revolutions, yard games, and postnasal drip...

Well, we're back. Back from the land of leatherskinned elders. Back from the land of reptiles and refugees. Back from the land, apparently, of intense sea-grass allergies. The weather was lovely, but I got a sinus infection. We went to the beach, but we both got sunburns. We purchased a lovely coffee table, but the cute antique bench wouldn't fit in the car with it. Every coin has two sices, you see. I did, however, learn to play bocce ball without any drawbacks. It's like curling, only you play on sand and you don't get the kid with the little broom to run in front of your ball. If you don't know what curling is, watch Canadian television. A tournament will begin very soon.

I just found out we're having a Cinco de Mayo lunch downstairs. I don't really know what Cinco de Mayo is, aside from a date, and an opportunity for a bunch of American office types to cater in tacos. I think it's a celebration of some type.

OK, another stride has been made in thwarting my ethnocentrism. Cinco de Mayo is like presidents day--it doesn't have a literal significance as much as it points towards something more general and quite important. That's my understanding, anyway. After all, you can't believe everything you read on the internet...