War. What is it Good for?

Today on Twitter, I was privileged to see this quote: “Wars are not won because of hatred for the enemy. They are won because of love for what is being defended.” from @Jennichad217. The quote is originally from “The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter III” by Jennifer Malone Wright whose Twitter handle that is.

There is a ring of truth in that, but there’s a knot of instant reaction in my gut that leaves a sour taste in my mouth about it, too. See, I’ve had long, detailed discussions with a professional, career Army officer who has a very, very different opinion about what war is. When you’re the one asked to point the gun at other human beings, you develop a different perspective.

When you’re “in the shit” ideology doesn’t matter. That just cause that propelled you to defend your tribe is lost. The high ideals debated in some distant Capitol are empty rhetoric. When you and your buddies are faced with the choice of imminent death or murder, you think of only one thing: survival.

I knew that old Army man very well. He was my father. I knew his core ideals. I knew he was a man of peace and it confused me why he chose the military as a career. So I had to ask him and the answer he gave me defined my perception of the military and military personnel for the rest of my life. He explained that the people asked to carry the guns are absolutely the very last people who want war. He said, “The reason for a military is to prepare for a war that you never have to fight.”

When yours is the life in immediate danger, the human response is to survive, to fight, to live. However, if we live life to the fullest first, we truly don’t fear death. If the ideals you are defending are the core of your soul, you have no need to fight. Gandhi proved that pretty well. So did my dad. They approached it from different angles, but achieved the same outcome.

Wars are won by not being fought. No, I won’t let someone take what is mine or hurt my loved ones, but they will know well before they try that I’m willing to escalate the incident to mutually assured destruction and that is usually enough avoid the altercation.

Sun Tzu wrote “All war is deception.” Whether he meant the actual tactics of conflict or the events that lead up to a conflict, I’ll let you decide. I’ll believe the latter. Life is like a big Poker game. Sometimes you bluff. Sometimes you go all in. In either case, you win not by conflict, but by making your opponent believe they will lose.

Man, I miss that old Warrant Officer.

Why You Need a Large Musical Repertoire

You need a decent musical background to enjoy life. That is my theory and my practice.

I’ll give you an example. Four leaping, howling dogs crowding the backdoor can be the perfect opportunity to stretch your musical lungs. You just need the perfect song to marry to the occasion. If your musical repertoire is limited, you’re going for the obvious Who Let the Dogs Out? and I can only say, “I hate you. That was too easy, just stupid and I hate that song. Oh, and I hate you. I hate you with a white, hot heat.”

So you don’t want to be lame and hated, do you? You need to get some more music under your belt. You need to needlessly hum melodies while standing in line at the DMV or the KFC. You need to put lots of music in your brain so it will come out at the opportune time. You need everything from Bach and Mozart to The Killers and (insert nameless rapper to be named later because I want to appeal to the kids, but can’t figure out why rap is considered a musical genre. It’s just bad poetry with a bass beat which speaks to the primal soul, but sucks when dressed in bling). But I don’t want to get to far afield. Back to our four-dogs-longing-for-a-tree example. What song comes out as you open that door and release the hounds?

Quick! Access the library: flip cards, microfiche, vinyl discs, cassettes, 8-tracks, CDs, DVDs, scramble, turn, flip, No! Don’t struggle. This needs to roll off the tongue as if you just curiously tasted one of those hard candies from the dish on you grandmother’s coffee table. (Put it in your pocket. You can just throw those pants away.) The answer is…Run for the Hills. I’ll hate me for doing this, but link. Ron “dooshie” Dio said he wrote this song only to take advantage of some musical crap I don’t understand because I don’t read music, fifths and forths and so. Son of a…

I can’t satire it better than Jack Black as Tenacious D.

Here, you must know that 80′s metal was never my forte. I was a punky, new wavy dumbass. But if I hadn’t gotten out of my comfort zone, if I hadn’t explored other musical genre, I would have missed a golden opportunity. I was able to throw open the door, point dramatically to the sky and scream, “Run for the hills. Run for you life.” I did it as perfectly as Rock Band 3 could have expected.

The dogs were slightly confused and seemed to mill about in a circle until the repeated chorus propelled them out the door. Fourteen pine trees adorn my backyard. What dog can resist?

P.S. While typing this, I was listening to the Electric Six. I’ve adopted them as my life’s soundtrack. “Every hero needs a soundtrack,” but that’s movies and that’s a different topic.

10 Questions from Inside the Actor’s Studio

This is one of the tag games going around Facebook. It’s the ten questions James Lipton often asks his guest on Inside the Actor’s Studio. I thought I’d share it here since my blog feeds to Facebook as “Notes.”

1. What is your favorite word? —– “Dictionary.” I love words and that way I get them all.
2. What is your least favorite word? —– “Empty”. Empty plates, empty cups, empty people…they all make me sad.
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually, or emotionally? —– Music. Good music changes your mood instantly and oils the gears of imagination.
4. What turns you off? —– Whining.
5. What is your favorite curse word? —– Fucktard.
6. What sound or noise do you love? —– A snoring dog.
7. What sound or noise do you hate? —– Whining.
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? —– Sit-down comic because stand-up comedy would be hard on my back. I could see myself teaching, too.
9. What profession would you not like to do? —– Any job that hurts my back.
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? —– “It’s about time you got here. We’ve been waiting a long time for you. You weren’t supposed to live for 1200 years.” But I’d settle for, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

As always, new videos are still being posted to I Eat Lemons, my Youtube channel. New tee-shirts and other swag are available at teeBarefoot.

Merry Christmas, y’all!

Surprise and Demand

I tried to explained this to my daughter, who is way smarter than me, and she looked at me like I had a huge honking zit on my nose. But when you want to analyze something, start with the basics. Come with me down the logical path, won’t you?

Given: It’s always all about the money.
Given: The first law of economics (that’s money, Bubba) is “Supply & Demand”. Simply put, if there is a large supply of something, the price drops, until the demand for the item reaches equilibrium.

But what if the item in question is money? See, money has a price, too.

If you have insurance, read your pharmacy receipt sometime. It usually says, “You save $125″ or something like that. You paid a little copay and your insurance company picked up the difference. But why did those little pills cost so much to begin with? I thought the insurance company was so big it could negotiate lower prices.

That’s bull. The medicine cost so much because of supply and demand. The insurance company is a gigantic money depository. The drug companies set the price of the drugs based on the supply of money available from the insurance companies.

If the average person had to pay the full cost, the price would be $20, $30 tops. Remember way back before there were insurance companies and you could pay the doctor with a chicken? It’s the same concept.

Now, what if the supply of money available for drugs and medical services was unlimited? What would the doctor, hospital, and drug companies charge?

The formula is simple: Supply of money = unlimited; Demand for said money = unlimited.

That’s essentially what the U.S. government is…an unlimited supply of money. If they are going to supplement insurance with tax credits, etc. or eventually become the insurance company, prices are going to go up, way up.

I almost wish we had gone in the other direction. Instead of universal health care, I wish Congress had abolished the insurance companies. Without that massive, mesmerizing pool of money floating in front of them, the medical industry would have to lower prices so the average person could afford them because some money is better than no money.

And that, kids, is the law of surprise and demand. I wonder how much Oxy10 costs. I seem to have a huge, honking zit on my nose.

For Everyone Who Ever Knew a Dog

Canis fidelis

When my toes are not exposed
On my fingers you do linger
With your little lapping tongue.

When my door is not ajar
With your paw you make a scar
An echo of your tiny “Let me in.”

When my day is not the best
In my lap you ask to rest.
Tell me all is well my warm and furry friend.

If you could you’d crack a grin
Instead, your leg begins to bend
As you roll and ask to have your tummy rubbed.

And when the day turns into night,
You don’t bark nor do you bite.
You know exactly where to lie and be on guard.

You were my fine and faithful friend.
We were together in the end.
I hope the same is said of me when I am gone.

For God’s Sake, Don’t Google That

My three-day bout with some sort of nasty bacillus-er-other has come to a close. Thank y’all for the many get-well wishes. What ever this thing or things was, presented a new symptom every day. I won’t go into the gory details, but to say, “For God’s sake, don’t Google your medical symptoms.” I did and it really messes with your head.

The body’s natural defenses have to get rid of all those nasty bugs so it’s natural that things smell differently at some point. I plugged in “odor” into Google and its handy “I’m guessing what you’re thinking based on things other people searched” feature filled out all sorts of weird guess. Just a side note, people who use Google, and that means everyone, are curiously dreadful people, including me.

After visiting a couple of the the top hits, I determined that I have one of the following:

• Celiac Disease though I’ve never had it before and it’s a genetic disorder.
• Advanced, Stage 3 liver cancer though you’d think I’d have noticed some other symptoms before now.
• Any one of several heavy metal poisonings from eating large amounts of certain fish which I don’t eat.
• Am possibly pregnant. Call the National Enquirer.

For now, I’m going with “it’s just my body getting rid of all the nastiness.” But all this got me thinking. It sure would be helpful if there were people out there who could make heads or tails out of all this mess. Sure, it might take a little more college to learn this stuff, possibly four years or more. In the end, these people would be able to help us figure out what’s ailing us and maybe even help us get well. They could even dress up in funny costumes like white coats and whatnot. Yeah, probably a pipe dream. Besides, when you’re sick, you don’t feel like getting out to see people anyway.

So kids, learn from my mistakes and stay off the Google for medical advice. If you believe everything you read on the internet, you’ll be doing surgery on yourself with a power drill and Swiss Army knife in your garage out of the fear that some ganglionic mass has taken over your pituitary gland. All because WebMD said you may have Nakajo syndrome. Well House, if you do have Nakajo syndrome, your parents were siblings and no amount of warnings will dissuade you from your self-surgery.

As for the rest of you, be well.

Oh, and if your armpits smell like tacos, the cure for that is “take a shower.” That’s a freebie from me to you.

Well, We’re Movin’ On Up

I’ve bemoaned my crappy digital camera for about as long as I’ve had it. The whining didn’t fall on deaf ears, either. My wife is a good listener and when she saw a good deal on a Kodak M420, she thought that would make the perfect “that’ll shut him up” Xmas gift. I’m glad she told me about it because I was about to buy a new camera for Xmas.

I was concerned that this one would be a piece of junk, too. You see, the one we have is one she got a really great deal on, too. So Xmas came early when it was delivered today. We needed to take if for a test spin so we would know whether to return it during the 30-day trial period.

In just four snaps, I was convinced to keep it. Not that any camera would have to do much to be better than the crappy Mustek we have, but this Kodak M420 takes pretty decent pictures.

It has:

• about 20 pre-set modes for various situation
• a tight/wide toggle under the right thumb
• a 27 second video w/ sound recorder (sound isn’t great)
• a big 3.5 inch (diagonal) LCD screen
• and best of all, a motion/blur stabilizer

The blur stabilizer is the feature I like best. With the old Mustek, I had to hold my breath for 5 seconds to get a decent shot. Plus, the Kodak takes much better close-ups than my old camera. Getting a good close-up is invaluable when putting pictures of items for sale on the web, which I do for my daughter’s craft site.

For a comparison here is a shot of my then-newly planted Angel Trumpets shot with the Mustek from about 4 feet away.

Angel Trumpet

Here is one of the Angel Tumpets today shot with the new Koday M420 using the zoom from about 18 feet away

Angel Trumpets in Bloom

Keep in mind, this was the third picture I took with my new camera, but I can already tell it’s going to take better pictures than my old one. Obviously, it’s not a professional’s camera or even a great personal piece of equipment, but when you’ve struggled for as long as I have with that Mustek P.O.S, anything is a step up.

I wish I had taken some before pictures of my chimney repairs, but here’s the after. You have to look closely to see that the side, which was what was replaced, isn’t exactly like the old siding (on the left and under the light). Much thanks to my cousin who gave me a family discount on the job.

Chimney Siding

Where Does the Crap in My Head Come From?

Seriously.

I woke up this morning with song lyrics in my brain. Woke up, mind you. I did not acquire these from my recent environment. I haven’t heard this song in years. Yet, there it was spewing out of my mouth as I made coffee, as I read my email, as I showered. It wouldn’t stop.

This brain worm would be understandable if it were something recent, but this song was released in 1968. It got jammed into my cerebellum sometime in the 1970s, probably from an album (yes, vinyl) I inherited from my sister. Why did it decide to produce itself fully formed this morning?

Now here’s where you laugh. The song is Tapioca Tundra. Never heard of it? I’m not surprised. It was written by Mike Nesmith. Yes, that Mike Nesmith of the Monkees. So I still have to wonder, why is there a Monkees’ song stuck in my brain at 6:40 AM?

Maybe because it’s really good poetry. Maybe because I was exposed to it as an impressionable youth. The specific lyrics I woke up with are:

And softly as I walk away
In freshly tattered shoes.
It cannot be a part of me
For now it’s part of you.

Sunshine, ragtime
Blowing in the breeze.
Midnight, looks right
Standing more at ease.

That’s all I could remember until the shower water hit my head. Then suddenly the first verse started gurgling out from under the water:

Reasoned verse, some prose or rhyme
Lose themselves in other times
And waiting hopes cast silent spells
That speak in clouded clues.
It cannot be a part of me
For now it’s part of you.

I was sure that no one else in the world remembered that tune. I had to be the only one who ever heard such an obscure song. So I went to our modern repositories of all things cultural, Google & YouTube. There were the lyrics as big as day on multiple lyric’s sites. YouTube is devoid of any original Monkee’s recordings, but a few covers exist there.

I’m not alone in my insanity. That’s comforting.

When Sparkly Vampires Kick Your Ass

Last night, my wife breezed through the living room asking for something. I wasn’t really clear what it was. She has a tendency to start our conversations before she enters the room and finish them from the kitchen, usually all while I’m either writing, proofing (ha), or intensely playing poker. Normally, I hear, “Blah…Blah…So don’t forget to buy that.” Huh? What am I supposed to buy?

It turned out to be the September edition of National Geographic. Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. Where did that come from? But being the good and faithful husband I am, I stopped by Books-a-Million while out-and-about today and grabbed the September Nat. Geo. for her.

The woman ahead of me at the cash register was buying something from the tree-killing Twilight series, but the best part of her transaction was the gushing coming from behind the counter. This kid was way, way, way too into Twilight. Then he got all forlorn and misty when he said, “I probably won’t get to see the new movie since I’m going off to basic in October.”

As some of you know, I grew up Army. I have the greatest respect for our men and women in uniform. I wanted to give this kid some encouragement. I wanted to tell him I was proud of his sacrifice. I wanted to give him some sage wisdom to carry with him, maybe even onto some foreign shore some day. Something that might save his life. I wanted to, but this is what came out of my mouth:

“Kid, I want to give you some advice for boot camp. Keep that thing about liking the sparkly vampires under your hat. Trust me on this one. You’ll have a much better relationship with your drill sergeant if you just don’t bring it up. Just keep that to yourself, unless you want a nickname you’ll never shake.” He agreed that was probably the best course of action.

I hope that young lad starts the new phase of his life a bit wiser for meeting me. I hope one day he thinks back on a random meeting with a stranger in a book shop and thinks, “That guy really changed my life. In fact, he saved my life.”

I hope my words prevent him from letting it slip over evening chow in the mess one night, just how great he thinks Twilight is. I’ve got to tell you, once everyone in basic training knows you like sparkly vampires, you’re going to get the sparkly-vampire crap knocked out of you for the next six weeks.

And you’ll never shake the nickname, “Sparkles” or “Twilight Toes”. That crap will haunt you forever. No one ever wants to be in the thick of a fire-fight and hear, “Get Sparkles on the radio! We need fast movers!” or “Lay down some Willy Peter, Twilight Toes! We need smoke!”

So I think I did him some good. I may have save a whole platoon of men. You never know just what effect a butterfly’s wings will have.

Oh, and Nat. Geo.? Totally worth a peek this month.

A Lullaby for Mr. Spanky

There are one hundred reasons I am annoying. Number 54 is, I’m an absent-minded singer. I hum. I whistle. I sing. I get a tune stuck in my head and it randomly comes out during the day. I’m sure it’s annoying, but people don’t say anything. Their silence is probably born from fear. I guess they think I’m a bit mad. If I’m uninhibited enough to just burst into song, you can’t be too sure what I might do or so the logic goes.

Distractedly singing in public can get you some funny looks, not to mention, in all sorts of trouble. Today was one of those days.

I was in a great mood and Led Zeppelin was my all-natural, rhythmic Prozac. It started innocently enough. Nobody’s Fault But Mine popped into my head on the way to work. A simple whistle escalated to full-blown, belting-’em-out-at-the-stop-light car tunes. By the time I got to work, I needed a real fix. So I slapped it up on YouTube while I read my morning email. By the second chorus, the guy who shares my office was probably fantasizing about jamming a letter-opener into my neck, but I didn’t care.

YouTube, being what it is, suggested more Led Zeppelin for my enjoyment and others annoyance. I selected Since I’ve Been Loving You from the video jukebox and prepared for my morning meeting. All prepped, I decided to grab some coffee and hit the head.

Now kids, if you’re a singer like me, what you don’t want to do is find yourself in a crowded men’s room, belly up to the bar so to speak, singing Since I’ve Been Loving You softly to yourself. It’s not a great career move to have your boss catch you with your hands full, melodically swaying to, “Lord, you know it ain’t right. Since I’ve been loving you, I’m about to lose my worried mind.” In this situation, people get all sorts of the wrong impressions about your relationship with Mr. Spanky.

Now kids, if this ever happens to you, don’t not panic. Panic leads to only one thing … quickly replacing the song with another. Panic freezes the brain and since it’s stuck on Led Zeppelin, panic makes the conspicuous transition to Whole Lotta Love, complete with guitar intro. Panic fails to obfuscate what is obvious to every suit in the vicinity. All panic can do is:

“Badantdahdandant. Badantdahdandant. You need coolin’, baby, I’m not foolin’. I’m gonna send you back to schoolin’. Way down inside honey, you need it. I’m gonna give you my love. I’m gonna give you my love.” Badantdahdandant. Shake. Badantdahdandant. Shake. Badantdahdandant. Zip. Badantdahdandant. Flush. Wash. Badantdahdandant. Hi Bob. Way, way down inside honey, you need it. I’m gonna give you my love.”