Sipping Talk

Sipping Talk
Sometimes it doesn't even qualify as bar chatter. Half thoughts that you mumble between sips of a good bourbon or whiskey. Sipping Talk. It's like your minds on auto, and your mouth doesn't know not to work. Because of the really good bourbon or whiskey.

Φ Well, football season is pretty much over. I mean, maybe they can get it back this season, but that's a long hard row to hoe.
φ Need a new celly. I like the blackberry, but I want more functionality.
δ The PS3 is about to go into the closet until December. It's NEVER just 5 more minutes.
φ Why do I still get status updates from the person who unfriended me on Facebook? [the one that mattered anyway]
Φ I would really like...a slice of pizza. I'm so ready for this part of my weight loss program to be ovah!
φ Tired. Tired of so many things. So tired.
φ About time to saddle up and ride. Finals are right around the corner. The corner being a month from now.
δ I'm going to start going to bed earlier.
Φ At 18, I should have just packed a bag and moved to South America or the South Pacific like I dreamed of.
δ Pizza and Chicken wings. With fries.
φ Slim hit me up out of the blue talking about brunch on Sunday. I didn't go. Diet.
Θ If you don't think you've won, you haven't won. The score is immaterial
Φ I'm not going clothes shopping until I'm done. And I'm not done.
δ Cole Haan stop making the shoe style I liked. The term classic means nothing to them.
Φ I think I've finally stopped believing in love songs.
Θ NPR's contribution drive always irritates me.
Φ I would really like to go sleep tonight, wake up and it be 1975 and I'm a kid again.
Θ Ice cream sandwiches
φ The only thing I've ever really measured my life by I'm woeful short on.
Φ Started yet ANOTHER new story I'm never going to finish.
Θ I think I need a hug. Okay, I need more than a hug, but I'll settle for a hug.
Φ Going on eight years, still haven't taken a vacation. But I got nobody to go with, so I'm not missing anything.
δ Maybe I should have been a rapper.
Φ I'm not where I expected to be at this point in my life. Not even in the worst case scenarios.

FDR? Never heard of him...

This is a political post.

I'm all for crazy. Crazy can be fun.

Suddenly the appeal of Netflix is crystal clear.

Rush Limbaugh believes that Obama tanked the economy on purpose.

Never mind that the economy stalled, then stopped under the previous administration and its economic policies, months before Obama was even elected, much less the half a year until he was sworn in. So how a person who wasn't even assured a victory was somehow in control when Lehman Bros and Merrill collapsed is beyond me. But the secret time traveling communist socialist Kenyan agent of the Secret Liberal Cult that runs the world, Obama might also be responsible for impotence, the sinking of the Titanic and the black plague in the Middle Ages. I'd really like just five minutes of Rush's time so that he can lay out the time line for me that makes this Obama's fault, because I is confused.

Micheal Steele believes that Obama invaded Afghanistan.

It's Obama's war NOW. Okay, maybe the president really is a time traveling socialist Kenyan agent, because if I'm not mistaken, we invaded Afghanistan BEFORE we invaded Iraq. I mean, this is the war everybody was for. The September thing was still fresh and the guys who did it weren't ashamed to say they did it and were literally spoiling for a fight to prove America was a shadow of its former self. So with the backing of pretty much the Western world, and the quiet understanding of everybody else, President Bush sent the troops in. So exactly how did Obama, then ...well, I don't even think he was the junior Senator then geez, so what math is Micheal Steele using? Or is this more of Micheal the mole? And when the GOP stop liking war?

There is nothing wrong with a little creative re-envisioning of events to justify a position.

There is however a problem with an influential person lying outright for financial, political, or personal gain.

What's happening in the current political landscape isn't a reimagining, or a reinterpretation of things that happened in a better light, i.e., the "I'm glad I got sick because it means I got to take a few days off and sleep". This is more like selling people a janky used car or the Brooklyn Bridge. In a normal bit of parlance, this would be called fraud.

Some of the current logic escapes me. Extending tax breaks are okay, but extending unemployment insurance is not? The former merely allows those who already have to increase their wealth, pay less into the system already in dire need. The latter is a nearly direct injection of capital into the economy. Which is more needed?

My new irk is the idea you can't buy yourself out of an economic malaise. The only economic model we have to work from - the period after the Great Depression - says that pretty much only the Government can save the country. Republicans hate this for some reason, even when they're in charge.

It was World War II television pundit Republicans cry, not the useless Government that brought America out of its economic mire after the Great Depression.

So, the war was hiring? The war created jobs?

Saying the War transformed the economy is like saying "Cow go moo" A cow does much more than just go moo. That thinking is piecemeal logic. The economy had suffered a decade long spiral until the war. The government had tried multiple programs with little effect. Then war occurred. Powered by factories producing planes, ships, and other items for our soldiers and allies, the economy righted itself. So, who do you think paid for all those planes and ships? Did industry build them out of the goodness of their hearts? No, these were all built on government contracts. The War gave the government the ability, the carte blanche, to borrow enough money to get the economy jump started. The US government finally injected enough capital into the system to get it working again. The previous measures simple weren't enough, more was needed. Plain and simple.

Unfortunately, because the Bush Administration used the war card - twice - to pump money to their industrial military complex cronies in the past decade, and because of the change in the makeup of the American economy - from a production economy to a service one, throwing money at industry isn't going to do it. Creative minds need to find new ways to pump money directly into the hands of the people. But that's a different post.

In my limited opinion, the Republican establishment seems bound and determined to take their country back. Back from who I'm still trying to figure out - I mean, we're all Americans - but the means they're undertaking to do it, the lies, the ridiculous and insulting revisionist versions of history, the outright misrepresentations, indicate to me, that maybe we may have made the right choice in kicking them out in the first place.

Stand up and Admit it

Ramblings Post #143
There are times in a man's life when he must own up to those things he is. I have no other belongings, my actions and my beliefs are my sole possessions, for all else is gone, those will be what I have to live on. I am what I am. That is all that I am.

I am a Dallas Cowboy fan.

These are not good times.

I have been a Cowboy fan since I first started watching the game, for reasons I'm not quite clear about. Raised in South Carolina before the Panthers existed, and when the Falcons were...let's just say before the Falcons were who they are now, the Sunday football packages were limited. Probably because we only had three channels. Well, five channels, but one was PBS and the other a Christian broadcasting station, so...we had three channels. And they broadcast the Cowboys a lot. There was something about the team, the crisp precision of team execution and Coach Tom Landry, with the phone in his jacket

Did you know that a coach now has to get special permission to wear a suit on the sidelines?


The reality that they are now in the midst of a losing season does not deter my loyalty at all. Yes, I said losing season, because until they reach .500, it's a losing season. I made it through the one win season that Troy Aikmen's baptism by fire, I'll make it through this. I cannot believe I trusted Wade with my team. At times like this I can't even watch the games, as the frustration would raise my blood pressure and endanger my furniture. There was time that my mother would put off her Sunday night call until Tuesday or Wednesday because she knew I'd be upset after a Cowboy loss.

I am very passionate about some things.

I also am very aware that my fine tuning is a little rusty. As a youth I had trouble modulating certain expressions of frustrations (i.e, I used to get very angry and break stuff) so I dialed it all the way back to point where for the most part I appear aloof. Its not that I don't feel things, I'm just not very good with them.

Which is why I'm writing this, to vent my frustration at the random Cowboy hate that seems to be free floating about. Okay, it was funny when people say something like, "My team is the Redskins, and whoever is playing the Cowboys" or some variation thereof when the 'Boys were winning. Yep, all fun and games until somebody gets a penalty that negates a game winning pass. But now it looks like its kind of deserved: racking up stupid penalties, uninspired playing calling, etc, although they were really only a penalty or three away from winning a couple of those. And maybe now I'm only just seeing the ire, but there are people whose team isn't even playing the Cowboys who just want to see them lose. Okay, I give Sporty a pass because although her team doesn't play Dallas, she is actually in Dallas, so the comments do have a bit of an outsider defensive rationale. That and I'm stupid for her. The rest of these mugs, especially those whose teams aren't even in the same division mystify me.

I don't think I'm being sensitive either, I lived through a whole season in college with two rabid Redskins fans, I've heard the Cowboy criticism, both deserved and not. But ragging on the Cowboys who were picked to win it all and failing? They didn't anoint themselves, the sports writers picked them. And now things aren't going the way they planned, which happens in football. A lot.

No, these are not good times.

But I'm still a Cowboy fan. Good or Bad.

Barkeep. One Tall Texas beer. Hey, maybe they can still pull it out!

At the Center of All

Ramblings Post #142
This must be what a mid-life crisis is on the cheap. No purchases of exotic cars, or pneumatic girls in the twenties, just enough neuroses to make Woody Allen say "Man, you've got problems!" Well, at least I got my health. Ooh, what was that twinge?

Shade called last weekend. She had no issues. She was very happy to report that.

Shade had developed a bad habit of only calling when something was wrong, so fresh from her vacation, she called to let me know that nothing was wrong. Nope, her interview at a dream job just happened, just bought the new Coupe, new man acting right, she was all good. It was a nice change of pace from the coaching her though whatever man/life problem she was currently "suffering" through during previous calls. I just knew once she found a guy who lived in the same...zip code? area code? Oh, wait, in the same state! ... she'd settle down. And since her new beau now is talking rings, it's sounding kinda serious.

Funny, I don't think Scoop is gonna take that one too well.

In any case, since we didn't have her issues to to talk about, we talked about mine. But since her issues are usually concrete - do this, feel this, come to a conclusion and embrace it - and my issues are a lot more esoteric, it wasn't a long conversation. She had no answers. Not one. My current issue is dealing with who I am to become.

At my last weigh in, I had lost 47 pounds. I'd slimmed down, gut was on it's last legs, sucking in my stomach actually resulted in something akin to a six pack, face looked thinner and it suddenly occurred to me I wasn't the same person. Now I just might be becoming "the Star". Let me explain.

In the story of our lives, we should each be "the Star". Although the star doesn't have to be in every shot, dominate every scene, they are the reason the story continues. This is where self confidence is bred. In my own life, I've usually considered myself more as ...comedy relief. Or at best, Daffy Duck to someone else's Bugs Bunny. It's an odd concept, where you keep putting others first, but its who I am in a large part. Although I've been like that for as long as I can remember, a great deal of that kind of thinking lately I attributed to my weight. By lately, I mean the last two decades or so. By the way, it's a great cop-out for why things aren't going your way.

Now the weight is going away. So ...who is left?

Think about it like this: My knee hurts, and the doctor said that as you lose weight, fat the formerly stabilized the tendon is diminishing, so my knee has to adjust. Well, to some degree a great deal of fat used to stabilize a number of my own social shortcomings[ex: Women like aggressive, I'm not aggressive, I was fat...I didn't have to be]. Now that the fat is going, I'll have to adjust other things. Mental things. And what if the weight wasn't the actual reason for a number of personal social inadequacies? Then what?

As I told Shade, the consideration of such a life change when I started this process was not an element of the planning. I'd lose a few pounds, get some new clothes, poof, done. I joked I would suddenly be sexy, and all that, but it all looks a little different somehow at this point. One of my great skills is adaptability, which I am good at in small doses, but this is a fundamental shift. Its one thing to talk "big shit" from the bench - where I mentally had placed myself, but now it looks like I might get in the game. And what if it turns out, I should have stayed on the bench? Considering all the other things in flux in my life, now is not the optimal time for ethereal truths to come to light.

Or what if get to where I'm going, and it's just the same as where I was? Questions like I shouldn't have sprung on someone fresh from vacay. I should call her and apologize.

Life is funny. I hope.

Barkeep. What I really want is a Vanilla shake with Caramel and Chocolate sauce, but I'll take a Crystal Light Green Tea.

Mind Games

Ramblings Post #141
First you need a main character. They need to have a flaw or two, nobody likes perfect, but a redeeming quality that makes them likable. They need to be whole people, not just cardboard cutouts to perform the fictional action, but a background needs to be devised. If the background is good enough you won't have to write the story...it will write itself. Oh, and they need a distinctive name. The kind that makes you repeat it to yourself. That's how you start.


Sometimes I wish I didn't have so good an imagination.

As I've indicated, I write a lot. It's like a valve to let all the various thoughts in my head out, because if I don't commit them to paper...um, digital file... I just keep rehashing them over and over, tweaking and honing it into infinity. But that really doesn't help much, because each old idea out is replaced by a new idea or concept. I wrote up something yesterday and today I came up with a new idea for something else I'm have to gonna put together at some point. I'm like a older black version of Barry Ween, I just can't stop thinking.!

The stuff I feel I can commit to paper is just the part of it. A great deal thought involves Sporty, in the various ways a man thinks of a woman. Use your own imagination.

And if that was it, I might consider myself normal. Well for most of the stuff. The vast majority of the stuff. We're both adults. But, before I digress too far, my mind also puts together the bad possibilities as well, playing out worst case scenarios over and over making me question what's going on with my psyche. Why would I entertain these incredibly unpleasant, painful thoughts? Is my mind preparing me for what it sees is inevitable?

In my mind I've imagined incidents that bruise the soul: angry phone calls, fights, screaming, rejection, that day that one day I may have to experience, growing old alone and running into her years later, and many other moments I never want to see in reality. In real life our disagreements are so rare, end so quickly, it's odd. My mind is playing tricks on me with this. Not that I don't imagine other good possibilities: the trips, cooking for her, and sometimes even mundane activities, but the mental horror compilation is playing on far more cerebral movie screens than the romantic comedy in which I cast us [side note: Sporty likes horror movies]. What am I doing to myself?

One of my great inhibitors with Sporty, was that I never could figure out why she liked me. I was in essence a slovenly hedonist at the time we started hanging out. Some women liked me because I was smart, some because I was funny, some because I was nicer than the guys I hung out with. But because I couldn't figure why Sporty claimed me, a lot of my actions were based around the idea that too bold a move would drive her away. I had seen it before, and she'd become too important to me. As a consequence, I imagined the most typical bad situations and how to avoid them. Still didn't work. Now for some reason I can't stop thinking about the bad things.

But where there is life, there is hope.

I live on hope. I have lived on hope pretty much all my life. Hope, bravado and quick thinking.

Vince Lombardi once said, we don't lose...we just run out of time. There are a lot of things you can cut your losses on, this ain't one of them. Play to win baby. Play to win.

Barkeep. You know the drill.

On my own terms

Ramblings Post #140
Sometimes we all need raise our vision to take stock of the world around us. And sometimes, we need to duck our heads and keep at the grind. The trick is knowing when to do which, and keeping it all straight in your head. Here is a parable.

There was a race held one day, and three men participated.

The Allen ran a steady race, and in the end finished first among the many participants.
The Bob ran a steady race, but finished in the middle of the crowd.
The Chuck ran a poor race, and halfway through, thoroughly tired, gave up.

That night each the three men met, and each wanted to share with the others the story of his triumph.

How was that possible?

Allen had run the race many times before, always doing well but never quite winning. He'd finally come in first after many years of trying.

Bob had always done poorly. But this time he'd prepared properly and run a good race, beating his best time and finishing well ahead of where he'd finished in other outings.

Chuck had never run the race. He'd often thought about, but had always found an excuse. This time he'd actually gone out and run. He hadn't finished, but he'd started, and that was a beginning of something he knew he could continue.

The moral here? Bob might have had a hard time understanding why Allen wouldn't have been happy with third or fourth, and Bob might not understand how Chuck's not finishing is considered good. But everyone's triumph is different. Everyone's victory is defined on their own terms. We all need to stop trying to judge other's lives by our own standards. Makes things easier.

Barkeep. I have educated the masses. Something brown.