Month: June 2019

Sexy Fruit

 

65006785_2142893482669352_6729203464854831104_n

 

Is it just me, or does this mangosteen turn you on? I can’t figure out if it’s the plump, juicy ripeness of it that reminds me of an eighteen year old girl in the blush or her beauty, or the resemblance to the swollen nether regions of a baboon in heat. In both cases, it’s instinct on rampage that makes me find this so attractive. The fact that I’m 69 years old has little effect on my perceptions. My actions, yes, but not my perceptions.

 

In some ways, this dirty old man is more appreciative of the beauty of youth than ever before. I even find the bodies of athletic young men pleasing to look at. I haven’t a gay bone in my body, but I think I would spend a happy half an hour gazing at Michaelangelo’s David in the Uffizi in Florence. I was there last year, but the crowds of Chinese tourists dissuaded me from paying the entrance fee.

\

 

 

Non-Conformity Rocks

 

 

thumbnail_65547963_3409556249055329_7710601357392084992_n

When you realize what a delightful thing analogies are, you start to see them everywhere. They allow for explanations that are succinct and easy to grasp. The same holds true for paradoxes. Suddenly the world is chock full of “contrary to what you’d expect…” statements. Everything becomes revolutionary and new.

I have always taken great comfort in being an iconoclast. I despise orthodoxy in all its guises. As a sideline, I also hate most religion, because it is everything I don’t like about theater, magnified. It’s arbitrary but pretends to be necessary, artificial while claiming to be real, and oppressive while supposedly liberating the human spirit.

It’s theater for squares. It’s Disneyland. It’s Mormon. It’s Paul Harvey. It’s ROTC. It’s white men in crew cuts in charge of everything.

Center of the Universe

56603180_10213779412340648_1941616747287150592_n

 

Sometimes I catch myself thinking that my life, my plans, my grand enterprises, my little schemes are more important than those of the people around me. The woman washing her face in a  commercial on TV in this coffee shop in which I am sitting is a common fool, but I am an undiscovered genius.

 

If only there were justice in this world, I would be the one on TV! Somebody would be paying me big bucks to peck away on my laptop.

 

Then, in saner moments, I realize that there is beauty all around me. That other people are often more diligent and hard-working than I, and quite often more physically beautiful. The fact that I’m creeping up on age 70 allows me this new glimpse of humility.

 

What if I’ve already lost the race for money, prestige and power? Would admitting that be so bad? Would I become crestfallen, humiliated, utterly defeated? Probably not. Sure, I can still entertain reasonable hopes for a future, but it’s time to let the other fantasies go.

The Pendulum Swings

42788059_2223498097974528_8049928916514635776_n

If you scratch the lens on your glasses, your brain will eventually adapt and not see the scratch. Likewise, if you live around a constant or maddeningly repetitive noise, you will eventually tune it out. I once asked an airport porter how he could stand to hear the automated “no parking” announcement that came from speakers all around the area in which he worked. His reply was “what announcement?”

We humans can find a way around a lot things we can’t easily go through. This latest novel turn of events, having a low-class mobster as a President may not be one of them. We may have to stand up against this decided turn to the right, this new fascism and racism packaged as “Making America Great Again.” I don’t think it will go away if we ignore it.

The shocking fact is that a substantial number of Americans would vote for him again, and will, unless something changes. That change won’t be incremental and it won’t happen without risk. Trump and his Toadies are quite pleased with themselves. They have defined their critics as “libtards” who need to run to a “safe space” when threatened. There has always been a current of anti-intellectualism bubbling just under the surface, but now it has erupted like a geyser. We all stand to get burned.

I guess Obama was just too educated, well-spoken and black. Now the pendulum has swung the other way, and it seems like there’s a good chance the clock mechanism is broken. Since this has never happened before, nobody knows if the clock can be repaired. The Saudis, Israelis and Russians are all hovering anxiously nearby, offering to take that old piece of junk off our hands and substitute a new much cheaper electric clock. It keeps better time and never needs winding.