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« Aug 2005 | Hilstonblog Main | October 2005 » Hilstonblog
Archive • September 2005 September 30, 2005 ANYTIME PHRASE™ HIJACKS OBSCURE SONG LYRICS “Poop goes in the potty.” ~Over
the Rhine, The Poopsmith Song The
Poopsmith Song page September 25, 2005 HIGH ABOVE THE MUCKY MUCK I have special powers. Some of which I talk about often. Others of which I don't talk about very often at all. The special powers that I talk about and am sometimes asked to demonstrate include the uncanny ability to write backwards. The only way to read what I've written with this special power is to hold it up to a mirror. Although this special power is indeed remarkable and something I wield with a keen and clear awareness of the great responsibility that comes with great power, I am unable to read what I've written without the aid of a mirror. That is to say, the great and special power of writing backward did not come with the ability to read it. This makes my special power somewhat useless to me, unless I happen to have a mirror nearby when it comes time to actually read what I've written. I am also able to dislocate my left thumb joint at will. But alas, I cannot do it with the right thumb joint. That special power is apparently relegated to the left-side only. Special powers are kind of funny that way. There is one special power that I'm currently unable to accomplish, but I've been working on it. That is the ability to chew on my elbow without dislocating my shoulder. Stay tuned for updates. In the meantime, please join me in a moment of transcendent contemplation, by which we shall rise above the mundane viscissitudes of life, high above the mucky muck, to our castle made of clouds. Not
much to say when you're high above the mucky muck. September 19, 2005 ANYTIME PHRASE™ GOES TO THE MOVIES Sometimes my originality and creativity need to be shut down for maintenance and cleaning. This is one such time, what with my hot water tank being on the fritz and all. So I offer the following Anytime Phrases™, lifted from the script of "I [Heart] Huckabees." Is it a crime to look at Lange? ~Albert Markovski, from I [Heart] Huckabees (2004) OR, alternatively Shania cares! ~Brad Stand, from I [Heart] Huckabees (2004) September 12, 2005 MUST ... STOP ... THOUGHTS ... MUST ... STOP ~or~ TALK RADIO RITALIN I have a thinking "problem." My mind races constantly. It darts from one subject to another, not unlike a honey bee moving from flower to flower (which smell fake, by the way), lightly touching upon each one, almost randomly bumping along, until one grabs my attention and I plunge into it. I'm not really trying to do this. It just happens. It won't stop, actually. But I don't really see it as a problem per se, except when I have nothing to write with, or on. I have a fear of having an important thought that I don't want to forget, and finding that I have nothing with which to write it down. What exacerbates this fear is the fact that some of the most amazing ideas emerge from my brutally creative and terminally keen intellect when I'm doing things that do not normally involve having a pencil and a notebook handy. For example: (a) mowing the lawn and (b) taking a shower. In the case of (a) I've learned that I need to carry a pencil and notebook (or a piece of paper) while pushing and turning and pushing and turning and emptying that 6.0 horsepower rear-bagger, cutting row after row, committing my weekly mass mutilation of the living organisms (the grass) that live on my property. To distract myself, I laugh with my deep menacing world-conquering evil-genius bellow of a laugh. MWAH-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaa. But this isn't enough to keep me from thinking. Various topics will float through my mind [push the mower, idiot]. And then one will grab my attention. Ah yes. Now that's interesting [straighten the mower, einstein]. Yes yes. Let's think about that [watch out for the rhodadendron, descartes]. So I mentally dive headlong into it, [move the bike, copernicus] deep into every nook and crevice I can find in that topic [not so close to the rose bush, peggy]. I set forth a proposition [another crooked row, kepler]. I take the affirmative and defend it [missed a spot, jackass]. I take the negative and attack it [bag full already. crap.]. I ask the difficult questions [empty clippings into large garbage bag]. I put myself in other people's shoes [move the frisbee, dude]. I turn these thoughts over and over [wind up the hose. stupid hose] and over in my mind. And then, without warning, something strangely different, [push] something weirdly profound [the] and something -- dare I say it? -- wickedly original [mower] will meander into my mind-space. Holy crap. Is this something? This could be something. It certainly seems like something. Worth. Writing down. I stop the lawnmower. I fish for my pencil in my back pocket. I dig for that scrap of paper I jammed in my front pocket. And I start documenting. Rinse. Repeat. Once someone told me, "You spend way too much time in your head." I didn't disagree. But how much is too much? And how do I stop it when I really need to? Answer: Talk radio. I can't take a pencil and a notebook into the shower with me. I've tried. It gets messy. The water makes it difficult to write and the wet paper doesn't take pencil or ink very well. And it just figures that I sometimes have some amazing ideas when I'm in the shower. Several years ago I started taking a radio into the bathroom with me when I shower. I thought perhaps the music would distract my thoughts. It doesn't. I found I can still sing along and multi-task well enough for incredible, mind-blowing realizations, razor-sharp observations, rapier-like wit and creative connections to be born. Let's face it, sometimes I solve the deepest mysteries of the universe when I'm in there. It's no wonder that I practically glow in the dark after a quiet shower. But it's such a waste when I can't remember exactly how I solved these ultimate mysteries during any given shower. I realized that I simply had to stop the thinking process, lest I waste anymore of my brutally creative and terminally keen intellect. Music wasn't the answer. Bad music couldn't do it. Not even NPR could sufficiently distract me. I found that talk radio was the answer. Listening to political pundits and their callers blather on about things they know nothing about (like the mysteries of the universe) has a weirdly quieting effect on my mind. For some reason, perhaps because I'm concentrating on what's being said, how it's being said, trying to ascertain their motivation, to study their dialect, their vocal timbre and syllabic cadence, evaluating their personalities and intelligence, and being flat-out judgmental [you SUCK!], that brutally creative and terminally keen aspect of my intellect just shuts up. It's like Ritalin. Talk Radio Ritalin. September 5 , 2005 BILINGUAL CALENDAR*
Calendars provide useful information. Beyond the basic days and dates and months, it's nice to have the occasional inspirational quote ("Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire." - William Yeats) and trivia ("A cockroach can live for up to a week without a head"). What I especially enjoy are the multicultural, multi-lingual features the calendar designers saw fit to include. For example: Boxing Day. Why doesn't the U.S. see the value in taking just one day out of the year to put on the gloves and to pummel one another to our heart's content? Looking at today's date on the calendar, I was especially pleased to see that Canada, the foreign nation to the north, was represented, and in Canada's native language! Strangely enough, despite our vast differences, Canada shares a holiday --the same date even! -- with the U.S. We call it Labor Day. But in the Canadian tongue, it is called Labour Day. *Originally posted in August 2004. September 3 , 2005 WALK IT I've done my part. I've made a sizeable contribution to society and I feel real good about myself. You see, there are needy people in the world. And there are those of us who fill those needs. Let's face it. We're heroes. For example, I was riding my bicycle to work in my customary manner, that is, butt on the seat, feet on the pedals, hands on the handlebars, fingers on the brakes. You get the picture. As the result of a major watermain break Downtown and the extensive flooding of Gateway Center that ensued, I've had to alter my usual route. Sometimes I ride down Stanwix Street. Sometimes I cut through Gateway Center, carefully avoiding the pumping equipment and various personnel, which happen to be few and far-between -- far enough to navigate my bicycle without any fear of running into someone. But does the fact that there are not many people in the area matter to a overzealous security officer? Of course not. As I'm cutting through Gateway Center, I see a barrier. "Hm. Can't go that way," I say to myself, slowing the bike to a stop. Suddenly someone in a white shirt, dark pants, shaved head, moustache, wearing a shiny badge moves into my line of vision. He's about 30 yards away and he's coming at me like he's going to come up and smack me for peeing on the rug again. He is walking briskly, cigarette in hand, finger of authority extended and pointing at me, or at the bike. "Walk it!" Huh? The security officer sees me pause. He raises his eyebrows and tilts his head slightly as if to say, "Oh, so you don't think I'm serious?" "Can't go that way, huh?" I ask rhetorically, attempting a pleasant dialogue with the security zealot. "Walk it!" he commands again, still coming toward me. I stop and prepare to dismount the bicycle as I ask, "Which way can I go?" He stops, puts his closed fists on his hips in a superhero-pose, then points scoldingly to my left. I'm swinging my leg around to dismount the bike and say, "OK, Th-" "Walk it!" he barks, yet again, the finger scolding me again. "-anks" I finish the word of feigned gratitude as I roll my eyes behind my sunglasses. At first, I'm annoyed that this man, the security zealot, thinks it's ok to treat another human being, whom he doesn't know from Shinola®, like a child. In what conceivable universe would anyone have to be told three times to walk their bike? I was tempted to just stay on the bike and dare the jackass to shoot me. It's not against the law to ride my bike, and Security Officer Dipwad doesn't have the authority to create laws on the fly to feed his delusions of grandeur. But then I'm amused by the human condition; the need to be important; the need to be respected; and warped notions about how that is achieved (note: I did not say 'earned'). In this man's case, it was achieved the day he was given that shiny badge to pin on his underachieving chest. How dare I be so bold? What gives me the onions to make such a seeming classist and prejudiced statement? Two things: (a) Personal experience and (b) affirmation from the "inside." I have a source who will remain nameless. He used to be a reporter and he had an inside connection with the local police department in the city where he lived at the time. In particular, he was friends with the human resources administrator in the department. One day, my friend walked into the human resources administrator's office for a visit and found him shaking his head, looking at a stack of applications. "What's up?" "All these guys want to be cops. And every single one is an underachiever." According to how my friend told me this story, the HR administrator was clearly in a funk over this; really bothered. My experiences with police officers -- not including State Highway Patrol officers -- have confirmed this. The Power-mad Zealot I refer to above was only a security officer, not a cop. If cops are typically underachievers, what does that make security officers? Sure, there will be exceptions. The security guys in my building don't seem to be so self-important or drunk with power. But this guy proved his unachieving mettle with the utterance of two words (three times). Fantasy conversation with Power-mad Zealot Security Officer
Although I wasn't fortunate (or crazy enough) to have the above dialogue, I did my part nonetheless. I made my contribution to the needy. I helped a small man feel bigger. I gave this underachiever yet another opportunity to justify his existence and to feel important about himself. But who knows, maybe somewhere on the badge in tiny print is an inscription that says: Entitles wearer to behave like a power-mad zealot and an overall jackass and to treat others like rebellious children with impunity. An Anytime Phrase™ is a sequence of words that can be inserted anywhere, anytime, into any conversation. To appreciate the power of Anytime Phrases™, you just have to try it. It can even be done alone, in complete solitude. Patent pending. ©2005 James Hilston |
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