Michael Kindt's Blog, page 83
December 7, 2015
Hangtown Fry1. I’m in cleaning mode today, Monday....
Hangtown Fry
1. I’m in cleaning mode today, Monday. I’m mopping floors, taking apart and scrubbing fridges. I even sanitized and rinsed out garbage cans. Lookit me go! The whole time I been thinking, Is this what it’s like to be on meth?
2. The other night I got knee-walking, end-of-days drunk, which is what the picture is from. Been a long time since I did that, but as the picture clearly attests, old friends were in from out of town. I, perhaps, had no choice. Usually, I am in bed by midnight doing crossword puzzles or reading my Bible, but that night I woke up in the backseat of someone else’s car, four in the morning, freezing my hairy little nuts off. Apologies to anyone, male or female, whose nipple I flicked or ass I grabbed.
3. I made hangtown fry this past week, and between you and me, I don’t I get along with oysters, gastro-intestinally speaking. Hangtown fry is a venerable old dish from the the California gold rush days, and is basically a uniquely seasoned oyster omelet. Oysters, I read somewhere, are supposed to be an aphrodisiac, but who wants to fuck when you’re about to hurl?
4. Got a new neighbor downstairs this past week. Young guy. He has a dog he locks up in the entryway of his pad when he’s gone and it whines and whines. Very annoying. Dude, you have a fenced in yard and the temps are in the 50s. What the fuck? I may have to have a fatherly talk with him. “Hi, I’m Mike. I live in the other part of this duplex. Knock it fucking off.” I’m a pretty easy going neighbor, really. I can and have tolerated wild parties, loud music (except rap; rap fucking sucks), fireworks, screaming matches, even, in one case, opera, but a whining dog is just too much to bear. It tears at my heartstrings and when I am relaxing at my home posting on the internet how we should save the refugees, the last thing I want is my heartstrings torn at.
5. I got a buddy who’s been trying to smoke me up on the pot for like 3 years now. I always tell him no and he just churns and churns. It really drives him batshit haha. Well, he just texted me and said he’s on his way. He ain’t taking no for an answer anymore. So, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of cream cheese to buy.
Ben Franklin is my favorite founding father.
He seems like a guy you could talk to, a congenial older gentleman, sharp as a tack. He seems down to earth, like a person. The other founding fathers are statues, dramatic paintings. I wouldn’t even know how to approach Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington scares the shit out of me. James Madison, though, was a pipsqueek. At 5"4 and 122 pounds, I could probably take him if I wasn’t a pacifist. Such a short man would never be elected president in this day and age. We are more vulgar, simpler, image-oriented, and the depths of our shallowness knows no end.
I just got done reading Ben Franklin’s autobiography in one sitting, but that ain’t no thing. It’s not very long and is written with a directness and clarity that had me eating my own liver in jealousy. Plus, it was fascinating. What a fascinating guy, Ben Franklin. When he wasn’t inventing stuff or studying the Universe, he was organizing the postal service, serving abroad as an ambassador, and being hilarious. His autobiography is littered with funny little anecdotes that really bring him and his world, which previously seemed so distant and ancient, to life.
One time when he was a younger man, he was crossing the Hudson in a small boat with two other friends. One of the friends got annoyingly drunk. Ben drank, but not to “elevation”. He was a firm believer in moderation in all things. Anyway, so annoying was this drunk (“elevated”) friend, that Ben picked him up and threw him overboard. Then they rowed the boat a little ways away. Every time the drunk friend swam close to the boat, sputtering and cursing at them, they rowed a little farther away. They didn’t want to row too far away in case the poor drunk started to drown, but they also didn’t want his annoying ass in the boat–he had earlier taken a swing at Ben. In this way, piecemeal, with the guy swimming closer to the boat and the boat rowing further away, they finished crossing the river. When they had reached shore, according to Ben, the drunk guy was very exhausted and had “quite sobered up". Haha.
Ben Franklin was the shit. A total autodidact, he followed all his life a carefully thought out program of study, even into his 80s. One gets the sense that he had no real special talents, just an insatiable curiosity about absolutely fucking everything. He became good at things, knowledgeable about things, the master of things, simply through his own efforts, because he wanted to. One hears in this gray and doomed age people saying shit like “I don’t like algebra” or “History is boring”. Such whiny, self-indulgent laziness was unknown to Franklin.
Melville said Frankin “was everything but a poet”, but I must disagree. His whole life was poetry and his autobiography is a good story, well told–of a good life, well lived.
No wonder we stuck his mug on the best of our bills.
December 4, 2015
Check out what I got in pizza change just now. It’s a penny...
Check out what I got in pizza change just now. It’s a penny that’s worth, like, two cents. I think it’s super cool, though. I’m going to put it in a jar somewhere and forget about it.
It’s all about the moment, people.
By the way, is this cultural appropriation?
December 2, 2015
What we are actually witnessing, here at the end of 2015 in a very diverse America, is the emergence of a white ethnic group.
You know how the black folks have traditionally supported the Democratic Party? It’s along those lines. Soon, whites will no longer be a majority in the country. Do you think this will shut white people up? I contend it will make them talk louder, just like any minority. Perhaps we are seeing, with Trump, the emergence of a white voting block. Now, I understand that white people are evil and a white voting block is racist, just like how black people are good and a black voting block is not racist, but yadda yadda yadda blow me. I’m totally looking forward to minority status. And I also want my action to be affirmative!
The more I study the political landscape of this fucked-up nation of ours, the more I am convinced that we do, indeed, have a two party system.
Donald Trump on one side, and the Republicans and Democrats on the other.
No longer will the bullshit spectacle of social and value issues serve as the pretense that the Republican establishment and the Democratic establishment are two different things.
The jig is up.
No matter what you feel about Trump, there is no denying that he is transformational, politically speaking. It’s Trump against the world, and the world is losing.
I said a mouthful there, didn’t I?….no matter your views on Trump (or the world).
Xmas List:
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
Any and all writings by Charles Sanders Peirce (spelled correctly; it’s pronounced ‘purse’)
Punk rock vinyl
Beethoven’s 9th Symphony on vinyl; my dog stepped on my other copy and scratched the living shit out of it
Any and all Erik Satie on vinyl
My engraved silver pocket watch fixed, and a real belt-loop- connecting fob for it
A case of pomegranate Izze
Boxers
Thick, warm socks
Get on it. Let me know if you need my address.
December 1, 2015
Well, aren’t you a drain on everyone else? Here’s...
Well, aren’t you a drain on everyone else? Here’s a bill for being a drain. Nothing is free, skippy, even sitting on your ass.
Always remember, kids: we don’t get what we deserve in life. We get what we work for, fight for, or steal. If you are doing none of these things, my invoice will be in the mail.
And I expect you pay it.
November 30, 2015
What the hell time is it really?
Before the railroads, every town sat its own time. Then the railroads came and dumbed time down. Generalized it. Made it potable to mass consumption.
“Popularity,” says Niles Crane, “is the hallmark of mediocrity.”
So entire states and sections of states had the same time, when time is an extremely local thing.
Then LSD was discovered in Switzerland. It subsequently got into the water supply of Washington, DC and Daylight Savings time was invented.
Beginning tomorrow, I am launching a new project: WHAT THE HELL TIME IS IT REALLY. Using a piece of plywood, my yard, and the sun, I am going to determine actual real high noon (everybody pray for sun).
Once I have determined what the hell time it is really, I’m going to set my watch by it and the rest of the world can blow me.
