Farts and Clapping

Cloud Cult

2010-07-07T04:46:00.001-07:00

Cloud Cult is bizarre, quirky, and whimsical. Since it is appropriate to remove "Cloud Cult" from the previous sentence and replace it with my name, it is not difficult to understand why I love them. In the great words of Bender, "It is impossible to hate what is essentially me."

They recently released their sixth LP entitled "Light Chasers." (Note: This album is only available on their website.) Under the large blanket theme of discovering meaning in a seemingly meaningless life, they explore some very interesting existential issues in their peppy, yet eerie melodies. Tracks like Exploding People and Room Full of People in Your Head are comical and thought provoking. I also recommend their fifth LP, "Feel Good Ghosts." I promise that you will not be disappointed.

A Quick Thought to Be Considered: Exclamations

2010-07-06T19:56:00.000-07:00

I have a new exclamation of which I am fond: ZAMO!

ZAM! can also be used in abbreviated situations. Also, SWISH! and BLOUWEE! are acceptable.

In an unrelated story, I enjoyed a piece of red velvet cake from California Pizza Kitchen this evening as a nine year date-iversary treat. This was in lieu of watching an advanced screening of Despicable Me. You can keep your dumb screening AMC and your need of "physical evidence of receipt." My email on my phone is as physical as it gets these days, Buster(s).

Also I am thankful to still have hands after the fireworks that were so ruthlessly unleashed upon the dripping, bat-riddled sky of Grain Valley, MO.

Enter the Digital Age: A Cautionary Tale

2009-12-06T18:22:00.000-08:00

Alright, something that I need to quickly convey. This weekend my wife, Darin, and I bought a Bluray Player. This event in and of itself lacks any semblance of humor. However, there was a keyword that caught my eye. For $199.00 one might procure a Bluray player that is wireless ready. But, if one is willing to pay $100.00 more then the Bluray player won't just be ready for wireless, it will be wireless capable.

Now, it is not this "ready" and "capable" differentiation that caught my attention; rather, it was the device that made the system "capable". The name of this device? Well I am glad that you asked. It was, of course, called a DONGLE--yes, a dongle. Despite all of my reserved maturity, set aside in banks for such situations, I was unable to make a withdrawal and found myself giggling like a goon.

The purpose of pointing this out is twofold, my friends. First and foremost it is for those of you who have yet to be confronted with the dongle in public. May you hear it now and giggle, thus saving yourself from an embarrassing display in front of a seasoned electronics clerk. The second, and I believe the most important, issue is addressed to the electronics companies. The message is this: Dongle? Really? Dongle was the best option you could come up with? Not...I don't know...wireless receiver? I was not aware that the genius who decided to call a planet Uranus was still in the "biz", but I think that it is about time to make a graceful exit. My friend, your track record is abysmal.

So, beware of the dongle this holiday season. It lurks in the dark corners of your local electronics stores, waiting to incite sophomoric laughter amidst your members.

Feline Intruder

2009-09-29T06:40:00.001-07:00

It started like this:
Day 1: Darin and I walked out of our apartment and there was a cat with its head hanging underneath the railing of the upstairs balcony. (Quick aside: This "balcony" is indoors because it is freaking cold in Kansas and the door to our apartment is enclosed within another building kind of like a hotel. In fact, come to think of it that makes our apartments upscale. We aren't some crappy motel-like apartments, we are hotel-like). We were intrigued but not concerned enough to see if it was stuck or in danger.

CAVEAT:
You see, we have a general dislike of felines. When I say we, I mean me. Cats are unpredictable. Here is the logic: dogs are scary; but, if one is approaching a human being showing clear signs that it wishes to leave said human being a bloody mess at least this unfortunate fellow has the chance to give the dog a square kick in the chops. However, with cats this square kick is no guarantee. Cats are stealthy. One minute they are purring and rubbing up against your leg, then they are scurrying up your leg and clawing you to kingdom come. The worst part is you don't even get a clear shot before they pounce. They're tricky and seem to lose the necessity of being earth bound when in a fight. Truly, they are kind of like a combination of a spider monkey and a flying squirrel. I have never actually seen either of these animals, but the description seems accurate. Cats posses an omnibus of indecipherable qualities and abilities that they can and will use.

When we finished our errands and returned back to our hotel-like-apartment, we noticed that the cat was in the same position making typical cat sounds that really can't be described as a "mew" or "meow"; rather, it was like the cat was saying the first three letters of "mouse" over and over again. So I decided that maybe I should go and make sure the cat wasn't stuck.

Here was the plan:
1) Begin to walk up the stairs.
1a) If the cat moves from under the railing, book it back to my door because it was probably a set up and the cat might utilize the skills previously adumbrated
1b) The cat would try unsuccessfully to remove itself from its current position and I would then return to the apartment and declare, "Darin, the cat is indeed stuck.
2) Sit on my couch and wonder who would un-stick that cat.

The scenario played out this way: 1.1.a. So I followed the prescribed course and proceeded immediately to my apartment: heels ablaze with unprecedented speed.

End Day 1

Day 2: At this point I figured the crisis had been averted. However, I noticed that there was a very strange tray sitting underneath the stair case on the first floor with some opaque liquid in it. In the moment I thought nothing of it. The cat continued to saunter around upstairs unattended.

End Day 2

Day 3: There was a napkin with a small chicken thigh sitting next to the dish of opaque liquid. I made an off hand comment to Darin and we moved on with our lives. The cat continued sauntering.

End Day 3

Day 5: The dish and the chicken thigh were not enough, but when the cock crowed the third time in the form of an open can of cat food, my eyes were opened and my synapses were firing. I became aware of the fact that the 8 apartments that comprise the unit in which I live were conspiring to aid and abet this feline intruder. I then realized that this cat was probably being let in and out by our neighbors and slowly but surely making our hallways apartment number 9: cat house.

End Day 5

Day 6, 6:25 am: The cat tried to exit as I was leaving for work, no sir, not on my watch. It purred and rubbed up against my leg as I gently shoved it inward while I moved outward. But at least it seemed fairly even keel, though I was fairly convinced that it would bare claw and fang at any moment.

Day 6, 8:00 pm: We hear the first three letters of "mouse" being repeated on the porch outside of our sliding glass door. I part the blinds to see that fat freaking cat staring at us through the glass as though it wanted to enter its new abode through an alternate gateway. That would be a double negative, cat friend.

End Day 6

Current day: Well the cat has been here for a week now; I suppose it is time to throw in the towel and make peace with the critter. It was standing on the steps to the upstairs apartments when I brought Petey (our Dachshund) in from a walk. I decided that I should take a few pictures of the apartment family pet. I still don't trust that thing as far as I can throw it but as long as I don't wake up one morning with that cat telling me that somebody brought three witches back to life and that I have to stop them before they ruin our town, I think I can peacefully coexist with a potential ninja spider monkey/flying squirrel.

Several Important Points

2009-01-14T12:21:00.000-08:00

Several things have occurred to me this day that I think I should share:

1) This has two parts: a) when I die, don't dedicate anything to me unless it is a statue; b) do not make a statue of me. No offense to those that have participated in such activities but I find it disturbing when I sit in a pew at church and read someone's name. The pew is for my butt. I don't like sitting on some dead someone's memory. Come to think of it, those memories are generally rigid and uncomfortable. It just makes me assume the worst of the person. So, unless you find me rigid and uncomfortable, please restrain your dedications.

2) I love eggnog. It's thick. It's milky. It's spicy. It also makes a hell of a latte. And yet, as incomprehensible as the time limitation for a McDonald's breakfast, it comes and goes so fast. It is there from the middle of November to the first of January and then those high-horse dairy dictators unmercifully usurp that beautiful beverage. Why? Is it to drive demand? Well here is my demand: I want eggnog all year. I will buy it all year. I DEMAND IT! And since I used it as a simile, McDonald's (yeah, I am talking to you), I want breakfast all the time.

So Dairy Docents and McDonald's Moguls, give the people (and by people I clearly refer to myself assuming that I represent the bulk of the population. I know it is egocentric, just work with me. If you forgot what I was saying because of this long parenthetical [sorry, there is no option for footnotes] remark go back up and read the beginning of the sentence and I will meet you on the other side of the parentheses.) what they want.

Write with Diversity

2009-01-08T11:30:00.000-08:00

Alright friends (enemies are invited to come along too, though, they are harder to pluralize than friends): we are shifting gears. No more boring, hodge-podge, clear sentences, and fluffy happiness. There is a new verbal sheriff in town and it is time to instigate some new tendencies in prose (note: tendency is also annoying to pluralize).

Suggestion 1: Expand the use of colons.

Sure semi-colons are all the rage, but when you just don't have two independent clauses to work with throw in a colon; they make phrases more fun.

Take this example into account: colons are the perfect weapon of choice to slay the "that that" monster. You know the one. When someone says, "Then I realized that that was the wrong thing to do." Join me in silent revulsion and fright before we move on from here. [Pause.] Okay, would it not be so much more peaceful and economic to hear, "Then I realized: that was the wrong thing to do." Oh, sweet beauty. Just look at it. Do you see how the colon just crept up and slapped that extra "that" right out of the sentence. Glorious!

Suggestion 2: Make more noise by employing onomatopoeia in your writing with italics.

For example: "Schink," said the knife as it emerged from its leather house with no view. Sigh, finally it would receive the fresh air it needed to rend objects into separate entities (once again, annoying pluralization).

Or perhaps: Everything in the room combined to emit a cacophony of sound, simultaneous and a-rhythmic. The clock: ting; the snake: hiss; the croquet stick on the back of the man's head: thwack...and so on.

Hiccup: Pardon me I just took a drink.

Finally, look what onomatopoeia did for Rice Krispies. They write down three sounds and all of the sudden they have become three individual spokespersons for a product. Now that is an example to follow.

That is all for now; but, I urge you to explore the potential of colons and onomatopoeia. They are fun and good for your psyche.

Of Goose Poop and Dachshunds

2008-08-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

While I was walking my dachshund, Petey, the other day I came to an astounding realization: dogs should be eternally grateful to the services that geese provide.

Let me explain. As anyone with a dog will know, they exhibit a very strange behavior when confronted with a stomach ache. Namely, they eat as much grass as they can stuff in their mouths until such a time that they proceed to vomit said grass. The purpose: everything else that was once in the stomach rides that forest green cab from hell right back out the chute. Oh, the beauties of chemistry. You see, dogs simply cannot digest grass, thus making it the perfect emetic substitute for ipecac.

I had always assumed that this use of grass was of pure necessity until my wonderful friend Petey offered me a sensible alternative. What if dogs really love to eat grass? How did I come to such a hypothesis? Simple: my dog is a connoisseur of goose poop. And, as we all know, goose poop is simply a short time of digestion away from just plain grass.

A quick aside: My dog will eat many things. However, these consumptive actions quite frequently follow a slight bit of deciphering by smell before the decision to masticate commences. In the case of goose feces, apparently, no such deliberation is necessary. If we happen to pass by the stuff it is in his mouth immediately. No time is wasted.

With this in mind, I have come to posit the hypothesis that dogs actually long to partake of grass. It is like the Oreo cookie of the dog world. Sure they urinate and defecate upon it with reckless abandon, but perhaps this behavior stems from the dissatisfaction that they are unable to digest something so wonderfully tasty to their pallets. Furthermore, it follows that they eat it when they are already sick because if they are going to go down, why not go down swinging?

If indeed this is the case then it naturally follows that whatever the goose intestinal tract does to grass as it is piloted through somehow makes this once forbidden treat suddenly digestible for canines. What a wonderful thing.

At this point I will shift subjects without necessarily shifting points. I would also like to preemptively apologize for the crude analogy that is about to emerge. In the past three years I have had a growing discomfort with the church as it enacts the mission of God. The way I understanding God is that God has something for us. However, that something is genuinely difficult and sometimes downright impossible to comprehend. For a long while I expected and demanded that the church was responsible for processing and manufacturing a product from this raw God-ness. When it failed I fumed.

Then I found something that helped me as an individual process through some of this raw material. The thing I found was called faith. Faith provided a counter-logic by which I could reintegrate my experience into the reality of God. This new aspect of my relationship with God by no means solved my every problem, but I could forgive myself these few shortcomings because at least I was getting somewhere. My initial reaction to this discovery was frustration with the church for failing to properly cultivate such a trait within me. Then I realized the irony. They had introduced me to this and tried to demonstrate it to me in their actions. I was just too dense and self-occupied to forgive the church for its shortcomings as they, as we, began to sort out these inconsistencies in communion with one another and with God.

My dachshund, Petey, loves grass but it is just not ready for consumption. Likewise, we long for God. We long to experience God in a tangible way. My dog finds grass processed by geese to be acceptable to digest; likewise, with wisdom, we find God tangible, digestible by the faithfulness enacted by the body of Christ, the Church.

Here is the real insight: my dog HATES geese. If he sees a goose, it's go time; fur is up, teeth are bared, ears are back. He has no clue what a wonderful service these creatures provide for him. So let's realize some important things as members of small faith communities throughout the world: 1) The Church offers us a place where we can consume the very nature of God in tangible and specific ways; and 2) Often the shortcomings and difficulties that emerge as faith is discussed, demonstrated, and perfected only mirror our own problems that we are more than happy to forgive in ourselves, and so must forgive the body as a whole. The moral: Let's call the goose what it is and realize what it is doing for us.

(Before your eyes leave this short exhortation let me answer a few of your questions. 1) Yes, I am serious; 2) Yes, I really did just make the Church's processing and presentation of God analogous to a goose digesting grass and the defecation produced therefrom. Pardon the crudity, but it seemed relevant; 3) I promise never to use this as a sermon illustration.)

Awkward Pauses and Hiccups

2008-03-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

I recently spent a morning in a coffee bar attached to a Barnes & Noble Bookstore. I was there to read. However, I also depended on the random distractions to call me away from my rapture momentarily so that I could approach the text once more with renewed fervor. I was reading To a God Unknown, by Steinbeck. As I approached the end of the book some old coot meandered in the store and sauntered up to the counter. He ordered a drink slowly and scratched his cheek. He looked disgusted. As an avid people watcher, the several separate sections of my brain offered speculations as to his unrest.
"Perhaps it is the fact that he is sixty to seventy pounds overweight ?" posited my temporal lobe.
"No," countered my parietal lobe, "it is clearly his eczema. Just look at the skin he lost from that scratch."
The cerebellum, always the pretentious goon inserted, "My vote is for his dental hygiene."
The occipital lobe was smugly silent as always. I went blind for a moment. This was the occipital lobe casting his vote with parietal. It never fails.
The man removed from his wallet a method of payment. It was a Starbuck's card. The clerk regretfully informed him that they only served Starbuck's coffee but were not actually a Starbucks.
I chuckled to myself and returned to the story. In the book, the main character, Joseph, had recently witnessed the death of his wife Emily. He was eerily calm and collected as he picked her up from the ground, her broken neck dangling over the side of his arm. Disturbing, no?
My brain decided that the angry patron previously described would be a better occupation. I turned toward him. His flaky face was red. His white shirt made him look like a giant teapot. If only he had a whistle, the clerk would have known to take him off of the stove. He was steaming. We should all have steam whistles when we turn into teapots. I suppose he kind of whistled, but it more like chirping and gasping-much like and old automobile. For a few moments the Great Teapot with an automobile inside stared at the young lady as she made his coffee.
The clerk stammered and hiccuped as she attempted to placate this Mighty Teapot God. This was her response: "Um, sorry."
The man walked out of the store without his coffee. The clerk asked me if I wanted it instead. "Yes," I said and chuckled again.
"I was just reading about a man named Joseph Wayne who watched his lovely wife fall from a rock and break her neck," I told her. "He didn't seem to give a hoot that it happened, imagine that."
She smiled hesitantly without venturing a comment. Then she clicked back into her "clerk" mode. Tilting her head slightly to the left and pasting a big fake smile across her face she exclaimed with seeming exuberance, "Enjoy the drink!"
And there I thought she was vulnerable. I thought perhaps we could have a genuine conversation about Steinbeck, or death, or what have you. Alas, I had misread. No pasty white giant teacup with an automobile inside was going to shatter her attitude. "Good for her!" I thought.
I then returned to my reading. Joseph died at the end. Poor boob. For some reason he thought that it would only rain on his dying land if he killed himself on the same rock that his wife had fallen from earlier. Well, apparently he was right. It just rained and rained as his blood slowly drained from his body.
So I was wrong on two counts. Joseph apparently wasn't as stonewalled as he seemed. His suicide shows just how shaken up he really was. It must be terrible to lose someone like that. And the clerk-well-she didn't have a care in the world once the Magnificent Teacup left. She was as apathetic as a goose in front of a honking car.
"Perhaps I should work on my interpretive skills," I pondered. I added that to my list along with this side item: "Install a whistle".
I wonder where I would install it? Ha, imagine that! Or don't.