Wednesday, September 19, 2007
a philosophical question
If a tree fell in a forest and neither of the following were there-- Lindsay Lohan, Brittany Spears, Paris Hilton or O.J. Simpson-- would it make a sound?
Sunday, September 09, 2007
return of the prodigal
“Jimbo? Jimbo who?” You are probably asking. Then, you are probably answering your own rhetorical question with another.
“Where the hell have you been, Jimbo?”
I’ve been busy, I guess. Today, though, I have something to say so I am saying it.
You’ve all heard the old joke. The parents of a young child are trying to teach their youngster to speak. He looks at them and pays attention, but when it comes time to say something, he is mute. They have him examined by a physician and he appears to be physically able to speak, he just doesn’t. A year passes and the speaking lessons continue without success.
One night at the dinner table, the child suddenly says, “The beans are cold.”
The parents are shocked.
“We didn’t think you could speak,” says his father, excitedly.
“What made you finally decide to talk?” Asks the mother.
“Well, up to now, everything was all right,” replies the child.
While everything certainly has not been alright, I figured I had said enough, but something in the news this weekend has caused me to speak. And, what caused me to complain is a visit from that grizzly old buzzard—camel jockey number one—Osama bin Laden.
Osama wants all of us to convert to Islam and he wants us to give up capitalism.
Yeah, right, ObL. Right after we give up apple pie, mom and the flag.
And, that is not going to happen as long as I’m here.
The thing that most struck me about what Osama had to say, was what he didn’t say. And, what he didn’t say—his body language-- told us all who is influencing him most.
Keith Hernandez and “Clyde” Frazier.
Osama’s new look told us all that he had been watching the television commercials that Keith and Clyde do. You know the ones I’m talking about. The one where the graybeard walks up to the good-looking young woman and she laughs him off. As she turns away, the graybeard’s eyes glaze in a look of tired defeat. However, this is one graybeard who snatches victory from the arms of that defeat by using the beard coloring that Keith and Clyde recommend. The next time we see him, his beard is dark; he is a young firebrand, and the next attractive young woman he meets greets him with a passionate look that almost certainly guarantees he will not go home alone.
Yes, Osama may be holed up in some prehistoric cave somewhere, but he obviously has the ability to violate his anti-capitalistic credo and purchase some of Keith’s and Clyde’s beard darkening stuff. I guess Osama wants to impress the young women, too.
It appears that Osama, despite the prehistoric conditions under which Bush supposedly forces him to live, can still get in a video crew and get his inane caterwauling plastered all over al Jazeera and the rest of the world media.
Still, it is good to see that Osama still cares about his appearance, because when his man is no longer in the White House, he may have to show up in a court of law to explain what he has been up to.
Until that time, I think I’ll stick with my non-Islamic beliefs and I think we’ll keep capitalism. I could go on and on, but right now I am heading over to mom’s house. I wonder if she’ll have apple pie and if the flag will still be hanging on the front porch like it was last week.
“Where the hell have you been, Jimbo?”
I’ve been busy, I guess. Today, though, I have something to say so I am saying it.
You’ve all heard the old joke. The parents of a young child are trying to teach their youngster to speak. He looks at them and pays attention, but when it comes time to say something, he is mute. They have him examined by a physician and he appears to be physically able to speak, he just doesn’t. A year passes and the speaking lessons continue without success.
One night at the dinner table, the child suddenly says, “The beans are cold.”
The parents are shocked.
“We didn’t think you could speak,” says his father, excitedly.
“What made you finally decide to talk?” Asks the mother.
“Well, up to now, everything was all right,” replies the child.
While everything certainly has not been alright, I figured I had said enough, but something in the news this weekend has caused me to speak. And, what caused me to complain is a visit from that grizzly old buzzard—camel jockey number one—Osama bin Laden.
Osama wants all of us to convert to Islam and he wants us to give up capitalism.
Yeah, right, ObL. Right after we give up apple pie, mom and the flag.
And, that is not going to happen as long as I’m here.
The thing that most struck me about what Osama had to say, was what he didn’t say. And, what he didn’t say—his body language-- told us all who is influencing him most.
Keith Hernandez and “Clyde” Frazier.
Osama’s new look told us all that he had been watching the television commercials that Keith and Clyde do. You know the ones I’m talking about. The one where the graybeard walks up to the good-looking young woman and she laughs him off. As she turns away, the graybeard’s eyes glaze in a look of tired defeat. However, this is one graybeard who snatches victory from the arms of that defeat by using the beard coloring that Keith and Clyde recommend. The next time we see him, his beard is dark; he is a young firebrand, and the next attractive young woman he meets greets him with a passionate look that almost certainly guarantees he will not go home alone.
Yes, Osama may be holed up in some prehistoric cave somewhere, but he obviously has the ability to violate his anti-capitalistic credo and purchase some of Keith’s and Clyde’s beard darkening stuff. I guess Osama wants to impress the young women, too.
It appears that Osama, despite the prehistoric conditions under which Bush supposedly forces him to live, can still get in a video crew and get his inane caterwauling plastered all over al Jazeera and the rest of the world media.
Still, it is good to see that Osama still cares about his appearance, because when his man is no longer in the White House, he may have to show up in a court of law to explain what he has been up to.
Until that time, I think I’ll stick with my non-Islamic beliefs and I think we’ll keep capitalism. I could go on and on, but right now I am heading over to mom’s house. I wonder if she’ll have apple pie and if the flag will still be hanging on the front porch like it was last week.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
waiting for a train and something entirely different comes along
Today is rapidly on its way to being yesterday. Tonight I can say that today I had an epiphany, but in an hour I will have to say it was yesterday. I looked into the present and saw the future while I was looking at the past.
“What the %$#@ have you been smoking, Jimbo?” many of you are probably asking. “We haven’t heard a word from you in a whole %$#@*+(& month, and now that you are communicating again, it sounds like you’ve gone off the &^%($*@ deep end.”
Well, I guess I better start at the beginning.
I was thinking this morning of the song Waiting For A Train, by Jimmie Rodgers, so I went online to download the lyrics to the song. While I was looking for them, one of the search results I found was a link to Jimmie actually singing the song. After I printed the lyrics, I clicked on to the link and it took me to You Tube, where I watched an eighty-year-old film clip of Rodgers singing the song to a couple of elderly women.
Jimmie sang:
My pocketbook is empty and my heart is full of pain
I’m a thousand miles away from home, just waiting for a train
I was able to follow along with the lyrics I had just printed off and look at the chord changes he made and made note of the key in which he played the song and the chords he played. If one knows the basic major cord fingering patterns, it is easy to read them while watching the video of a guitar player. Rodgers did a little fancy stuff with alternating basses, but he played primarily using major chords—no diminished chords or seventeenth-suspended chords, or anything like that.
Now, I can anticipate your next question.
“How does watching film from the early 1930s of some yodeling hillbilly plucking on his guitar for a couple of old ladies help you see into the future?” some of you are asking right now.
Well, posting videos on You Tube is the latest in-vogue thing, and all of this crap that people are posting on line is just that—crap. But, in among the crap is some important video and it is becoming a permanent record that will remain for years. Instead of just reading about someone or something in a book and maybe seeing a picture of them, future generations will be able to see them move and hear them talk, and dance and sing. And all those people that are posting all that crap—and that little bit of important video—are leaving a walking, talking video record of our time. Someday all that video—because it is so easily searchable, will become our history.
At least that is the view from here in Jimbo’s world.
“What the %$#@ have you been smoking, Jimbo?” many of you are probably asking. “We haven’t heard a word from you in a whole %$#@*+(& month, and now that you are communicating again, it sounds like you’ve gone off the &^%($*@ deep end.”
Well, I guess I better start at the beginning.
I was thinking this morning of the song Waiting For A Train, by Jimmie Rodgers, so I went online to download the lyrics to the song. While I was looking for them, one of the search results I found was a link to Jimmie actually singing the song. After I printed the lyrics, I clicked on to the link and it took me to You Tube, where I watched an eighty-year-old film clip of Rodgers singing the song to a couple of elderly women.
Jimmie sang:
My pocketbook is empty and my heart is full of pain
I’m a thousand miles away from home, just waiting for a train
I was able to follow along with the lyrics I had just printed off and look at the chord changes he made and made note of the key in which he played the song and the chords he played. If one knows the basic major cord fingering patterns, it is easy to read them while watching the video of a guitar player. Rodgers did a little fancy stuff with alternating basses, but he played primarily using major chords—no diminished chords or seventeenth-suspended chords, or anything like that.
Now, I can anticipate your next question.
“How does watching film from the early 1930s of some yodeling hillbilly plucking on his guitar for a couple of old ladies help you see into the future?” some of you are asking right now.
Well, posting videos on You Tube is the latest in-vogue thing, and all of this crap that people are posting on line is just that—crap. But, in among the crap is some important video and it is becoming a permanent record that will remain for years. Instead of just reading about someone or something in a book and maybe seeing a picture of them, future generations will be able to see them move and hear them talk, and dance and sing. And all those people that are posting all that crap—and that little bit of important video—are leaving a walking, talking video record of our time. Someday all that video—because it is so easily searchable, will become our history.
At least that is the view from here in Jimbo’s world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)