What are we here for? Why were we placed on this tiny planet? Why did we
evolve into this species?
It is all about the SEX.
So here is the Almighty sitting back on a fluffy cloud smoking a Regius
Double Corona and listening to cathedral angels playing harp versions of his
(or her?) favorite renditions of what would become gospel, when he (or she?)
decides to make the universe.
It was an interesting project that took him (or her?) a week to complete.
Probably a side hobby from what God’s do normally.
In his (her?) ultimate wisdom he (she?) decides to take this one planet
and give it LIFE. Why not all the planets?
That is for Neil deGrasse Tyson to figure out.
So, as the story goes, the Creator selects this one planet and makes a
zoo out of it, populating it with all sorts of creatures big and small. These
would have been nice pets in a Garden of Eden to romp and play and entertain
the Lord of Lords, but he (or she?) wasn’t satisfied.
So here comes Adam (in the image of the maker) to wander this Earth alone
with all these animals that would declare him dinner, but God still wasn’t
finished tinkering with his (her?) new invention.
He (she?) may have become bored with watching Adam beating off or
whatever perverted things this little horny was doing with the other animals
so…God created Woman. Check it out. It is an interesting movie. It’s got
Bridget Bardot. God knows his (her?) stuff.
Seems he (she?) had a logical intention of procreation of the species (I
guess he (she?) told the animals and insects and stuff how to do it before?)
but then things got out of hand.
While the Lord got distracted with a phone call or dinner or whatever else
Yahweh does, the universe went all to hell.
Some will say it was a snake. Others will point to the genitalia
difference but for whatever the reason, the couple did not favor the
Omnipresent and were caste astray to wander this blue marble without
instructions.
Now God, being a busy deity, had other things to do that were far beyond
our comprehension. Who knows? Maybe he (or she?) had another universe with Klingons
and Capt. Kirk or some Disney park to entertain him (her?) but he (she?) left
this little marble for the descendants of A&E to maintain and keep clean.
So it is written that many adventures of floods and plagues then we
started to kill each other and our creature neighbors became our history.
Just another button on the Lord’s remote to watch or skip; our actions
have become an adventure channel of mayhem and disasters.
The sons and daughters of Adam and Eve have not done a very good job.
We may have become the Porn Channel for the Father (Mother?), Son
(Daughter?) and Holy Spirit.
Until the Lord become’s bored with his failed experiment and deletes us
into his sun shredder, our channel will continue to bungle and fumble along
without commercials or fund raising interruptions.
These Homo
sapiens are incredible. Mixed in with all the other creatures and life forms on
this spinning marble in space, these folks are not just satisfied to eat, sleep
and have sex like all the others.
No, they are
curious beast that not only wants to know how something works but also are
inventive enough to build skyscrapers, rocket ships, highways, transportation
devices, handbags and high heels.
They have
created languages and written forms to communicate to each other without having
to sniff each behind. They have even found a method of visually recording each
event to share with the others around the globe.
These guys
and gals never have a dull moment for they slide down mountains and then climb
back up again, they dive the deepest waters and fly with the birds. They also
like to taste the fruit of the grape to excess and speed into a tree or jump
off roofs just to prove they are not as smart as they think they are.
They are kind
of quirky too. They bury their dead (rather than just let them rot like
everything else) and then later dig them up calling it archaeology.
Oh, what a
lot, these Homo sapiens are.
Got to love
them or there would be no reason to watch YouTube.
It is true. I love the Internet. It is such a fun game. It has pictures
and movies and sound and even silly connections between people. You never have
to leave the chair.
I’m still an amateur to this technology but have watched it grow from its
infancy to this bright and colorful mess of cyber annoyance. I saw the
potential but waited until I found certain applications that were not just
foolish children’s games and avoid much of the new nonsense.
Not much of a reader at an early age, I did enjoy the Encyclopedia.
Anything I wanted to know was in their volumes of printed knowledge that was
not the Bible. Unfortunately, like any printed piece, once the ink dries on the
page, it is out-of-date.
So this new fangled Internet gives me instant weather reports, news of
the world updates, entertainment that does not require purchasing and
communication without the use of a phone. I still have to pay for the delivery;
the same as water and electricity, but the hours spent on reference alone is
worth it.
The reference material is more than useful. As unfamiliar with social
culture as I am, I get lost in conversational topics, beyond my understanding.
There is the Internet, where I can immediately search and find a
multitude of information (true or false) but at least a seedling of an unknown
subject.
Today’s example is someone had posted a meme on a Facebook stream about
“If complaining about the polar vortex, seen apologies to Elsa”.
I do know about the chilly weather bundled in my sweater and seeing those
images of foolish weather personnel standing outside to tell their viewers it
is cold outside, but what is Elsa?
So to Google and sure enough a list and photos show that “Queen Elsa of Arendelle is a fictional
character who appears in Walt Disney Animation Studios’ 53rd animated film “Frozen”.
She is voiced primarily by Broadway actress and singer Idina Menzel. At the
beginning of the film, she is voiced by Eva Bella as a young child and by
Spencer Lacey Ganus as a teenager. Elsa has the magical ability to create and
manipulate ice and snow.”
Now I know. I do know who Walt Disney was and have seen remarks about
“Frozen” (though not a frame have I watched, for I have no kids) but if I was
on some quiz show and was asked who “Eva Bella” was, I’d loose the chance at
the washer/dryer unit without another call to Google.
Celebrities come and go but the news (fake or opinion) has to be compared
by several sites to fact check. When television news became entertainment, I
turned it off. The same could happen with the Internet?
Everyday, using different devices but maintaining contact to certain
site, there are different nuances that show I am not alone. If I order over the
Internet, I wait another month before ordering something else to make sure the
monetary contact did not get hacked (past experience). My monthly bills are
paid by paper check just for a reminder rather than convenience. The rest of
the time is trying to block spam and realization that cyber knows more about me
than I know about it.
Still on cold days of being caged inside, this Internet offers some fine
entertainment that I can somewhat control.
Oh, what a large cavern of elegance to be allowed into for the price of a
ticket.
Leaving behind the sunlight and heat and noise, life was transitioned to
a fancy, almost a gaudy brothel, world of glittering gold and red velvet and soft
lighting.
When the lights deemed we all went quiet with our cardboard boxes of
greasy popcorn and sweet colas amazed at what was being shown to us on the big
screen.
At first all the color went away as the fuzzy black and white newsreels,
cowboy adventures, foreign monsters and cartoons drew us into an adventure that
would take hours away from our parents babysitting us.
The weekly transport from reality to whatever Hollywood could produce for
us to stare at became a ritual.
The gentleman (a white lad just a bit older than we were) would stand at
the door in his almost military garb and a pile box hat and take our tickets
before entering this chamber that was almost ethereal.
He’d (for there were no ladies to perform this duty) walk us down the
carpet to the row of seats and then point out our selection with a flashlight.
As we scooted our way to our folded seat trying not to trip over feet or knees
and avoid spilling our munchies horde, the usher would walk back to the door to
direct the next patiently waiting ticket holder.
He was the usher.
The usher was a sort of police of the theater.
If in the dark if you started acting up making too much ruckus, the usher
would walk down the aisle and point the flashlight at you. It was a shame
factor that made all the patrons to shish your bad behavior.
If you continued to cause a stir, the usher would point you out and
escort you out of the theatre.
The usher ruled.
“The Fall of the House of Usher”
is a narrative short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published
in 1839 in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine before being included in the
collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840. The short story is a
work of gothic fiction and includes themes of madness, family, isolation, and
metaphysical identities.
Narrator
In “The Fall of the House of Usher”,
Roderick Usher calls Poe’s unnamed narrator to visit the House of Usher. As his
“best and only friend”, Roderick tells of his illness and asks that he visit.
He is persuaded by Roderick’s desperation for companionship. Though sympathetic
and helpful, the narrator is continually made to be the outsider. From his
perspective, the cautionary tale unfolds. The narrator also exists as Roderick’s
audience, as the men are not very well acquainted and Roderick is convinced of
his impending demise. The narrator is gradually drawn into Roderick’s belief
after being brought forth to witness the horrors and haunting of the House of
Usher.
From his arrival, he notes the family’s isolationist tendencies as well
as the cryptic and special connect between Madeline and Roderick. Throughout
the tale and her varying states of consciousness, Madeline ignores the Narrator’s
presence. After Roderick Usher claims that Madeline has died, he helps Usher
place her in the underground vault despite noticing Madeline’s flushed
appearance.
During one sleepless night, the Narrator reads aloud to Usher as sounds
are heard throughout the mansion. He witnesses Madeline’s reemergence and the
subsequent death of the twins, Madeline and Roderick. The narrator is the only
character to escape the House of Usher, which he views as it cracks and sinks
into the tarn, or mountain lake.
Roderick Usher
Roderick Usher is the twin of Madeline Usher and one of the last living
Ushers. Usher writes to the narrator, his boyhood friend, about his illness.
When the narrator arrives, he is started to see Roderick’s appearance is eerie
and off-putting. He is described by the narrator: gray-white skin; eyes large
and full of light; lips not bright in color, but of a beautiful shape; a
well-shaped nose; hair of great softness — a face that was not easy to forget.
And now the increase in this strangeness of his face had caused so great a
change that I almost did not know him. The horrible white of his skin, and the
strange light in his eyes, surprised me and even made me afraid. His hair had
been allowed to grow, and in its softness it did not fall around his face but
seemed to lie upon the air. I could not, even with an effort, see in my friend
the appearance of a simple human being.
Roderick Usher is a recluse. He is unwell both physically and mentally.
In addition to his constant fear and trepidation, Madeline’s catalepsy is also
a cause of his decay. He is tormented by the sorrow of watching his sibling
die. The narrator states: “He admitted [that] much of the peculiar gloom which
thus affected him could be traced [to] the evidently approaching dissolution
[of] his sole companion”. According to Terry W. Thompson, he meticulously plans
for her burial to prevent “resurrection men” from stealing his beloved sister's
corpse for experimentation, as was common in the 18th and 19th centuries for
medical schools and physicians in need of cadavers.
As his twin, the two share an incommunicable connection that critics
conclude may be either incestuous or metaphysical, as two individuals in an
extra-sensory relationship embodying a single entity. To that end, Roderick’s
deteriorating condition speeds up his own torment and eventual death. His
mental health deteriorates faster as he begins to hear Madeline’s attempts to
escape the underground vault she was buried in.
Like with his sister, Roderick Usher is tied to the mansion. He believes
the mansion is sentient and responsible, in part, for his deteriorating mental
health and melancholy. Despite this admission, Usher remains in the mansion and
composes art containing the Usher mansion or similar haunted mansions. Roderick
falls to his death out of fear in a manner similar to the House of Usher’s
cracking and sinking.
Madeline Usher
Madeline Usher is the twin sister and doppelgänger of Roderick Usher. She
is deathly ill and cataleptic. She appears before the narrator, but never
acknowledges his presence. She returns to her bedroom where Roderick claims she
has died. She is entombed despite her flushed appearance. In the tale’s conclusion,
Madeline escapes her tomb and returns to Roderick, only to scare him to death.
According to Poe’s detective methodology in literature, Madeline Usher
may be the physical embodiment of the supernatural and metaphysical worlds. Her
limited presence is also explained as a personification of Roderick's torment
and fear. Madeline does not appear until she is summoned through her brother's
fear, as is foreshadowed in the epigraph, a quote from French poet Pierre-Jean
de Béranger: “Son cœur est un luth suspendu; / Sitôt qu'on le touche il résonne”,
meaning “His heart is a tightened lute; as soon as one touches it, it echoes”.
Poe’s inspiration for the story may be based upon events of the Hezekiah
Usher House, which was located on the Usher estate that is now a three-block
area bounded in modern Boston by Tremont Street to the northwest, Washington
Street to the southeast, Avery Street to the south and Winter Street to the
north. The house was constructed in 1684 and either torn down or relocated in
1830. Other sources indicate that a sailor and the young wife of the older
owner were caught and entombed in their trysting spot by her husband. When the
Usher House was torn down in 1830, two bodies were found embraced in a cavity
in the cellar.
Another source of inspiration may be from an actual couple by the name
Mr. and Mrs. Luke Usher, the friends and fellow actors of his mother Eliza Poe.
The couple took care of Eliza’s three children (including Poe) during her time
of illness and eventual death.
German writer E. T. A. Hoffmann, who was a role model and inspiration for
Poe, published the story Das Majorat in 1819. There are many similarities
between the two stories, like the breaking in two of a house, eerie sounds in
the night, the story within a story and the house owner being called “Roderich”.
As Poe was familiar with Hoffmann’s works he certainly knew the story and
cleverly drew from it using the element for his own purposes.
Another German author, Heinrich Clauren’s, 1812 story The Robber’s
Castle, as translated into English by John Hardman and published in Blackwood’s
Magazine in 1828 as “The Robber's Tower”,
may have served as an inspiration according to Arno Schmidt and Thomas Hansen.
As well as common elements, such as a young woman with a fear of premature
burial interred in a sepulcher directly beneath the protagonist's chamber,
stringed instruments and the living twin of the buried girl, Diane Hoeveler
identifies textual evidence of Poe’s use of the story, and concludes that the
inclusion of Vigiliae Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae (Vigils
for the Dead according to the Use of the Church of Mainz) is drawn from the use
of a similarly obscure book in “The
Robber’s Tower”.
The theme of the crumbling, haunted castle is a key feature of Horace
Walpole’s “Castle of Otranto”
(1764), which largely contributed in defining the Gothic genre.
In the low-budget Roger Corman B-film from 1960, known in the United
States as House of Usher starring Vincent Price as Roderick Usher, the narrator
is Philip Winthrop (Mark Damon), who had fallen in love with the sickly
Madeline (Myrna Fahey) during her brief residence in Boston and become engaged
to her. As Roderick reveals, the Usher family has a history of evil and cruelty
so great that he and Madeline pledged in their youth never to have children and
to allow their family to die with them. Winthrop tries desperately to convince
Madeline to leave with him in spite of Roderick’s disapproval, and is on the
point of succeeding when Madeline falls into a deathlike catalepsy; her brother
(who knows that she is still alive) convinces Winthrop that she is dead and
rushes to have her placed in the family crypt. When she wakes up, Madeline goes
insane from being buried alive and breaks free. She confronts her brother and
begins throttling him to death. Suddenly the house, already aflame due to
fallen coals from the fire, begins to collapse, and Winthrop flees as Madeline
kills Roderick and the falling house consumes both her and the Ushers’ sole
servant. The film was Corman’s first in a series of eight films inspired by the
works of Edgar Allan Poe.”
Stumbling outside after hours of staring at the screen and eating junk
food, we’d shelter our dilated eyes from the blinding light.
As our lives became more casual and for these grand houses of
entertainment save some money, the usher was replaced with first come, first
served seating. The lush interiors were replaced for plain walls with giant
over-volume speakers and smaller theaters and screens. The atmosphere of
silence was replaced with continual laughter and heckling and throwing popcorn
at the screen. The actors in the seats competed with the actors on the screen.
As television screens became larger and home entertainment amplification
became more qualified and a full movie could be recorded to a disc or
downloaded that could be watched at anytime and paused for those potty breaks.
The ease of never leaving your comfy recliner, in your cuddly jammies, drinking
your favorite adult beverage what was always a one out became an easy binge
watched over and over again.
I knew it
would happen. The Tummy Temple has built an invisible wall around the perimeter
to stop the wire carts from running away.
It seem not
only do our congregation load up these wire baskets on wheels to move around
inside the temple, but they don’t always park them in the designated area for
retrieval by some blue shirt who has to push them back into the cart parking
lot for the next consumer. It is a convenience that wasn’t always there.
These wire
baskets on wheels cost between $70 – 200 each. Think about how many of them are
roaming around the aisles blocking passage and holding screaming children.
Once
outside the doors, beyond the cameras and scanners, seems they wander off into
unknown places far away.
Next door
to the temple is a high rise, full of elderly folk who spend hours searching
the shelves for pampers and mucilax. They take hours getting through the TSA
lines trying to find their coupons and writing checks, and then they steal the
carts.
These
members of the Geezer Generation who lived through the regression, recession,
disco and double knit are just walking off with the carts for their own selfish
wants forgetting the other shoppers who will be standing waiting for another
load to be retrieved.
I’ve seen
this happen before.
At the
local Tar-gar, signs were posted that the plastic carts had been fitted with
sensors that detected the edge of the parking lot and the wheels would lock up
if once tried to pass the yellow line.
Seems this
is a problem for many of these carts wander away to become carrying instruments
for those who are not CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Though seeming well
constructed, these wire constructible take some wear and tear and wind up be
non-bio-gradable trash along the highway (just like automobiles).
I prefer
the little ‘zip’ baskets to weave in and out of the narrow canyons of gastronomical
temptations. With a little cart I can quickly exit a long phone conversation or
a detail study of ingredients and I don’t have many items to get.
I understand
the ‘new’ regulations of keeping the carts close at hand but I am waiting to
see one of the old ladies wheels getting suddenly locked up and taking a spill
with all her bananas and cucumbers and colas spreading out on the pavement.
In the end,
it is just another change and not my worry. I guess the cost of an ambulance is
cheaper than hundreds of carts wandering off needing to be replaced.
I’m sorry
that Katy and Keith and Kandi and Hillary and Chris and George will have to
endure the barbs from the congregation on yet another change they do not
approve of.
Just another
joy of daily visiting the Tummy Temple.
I mean like (like ‘I mean’?) this stuff happens in front of you and you
never notice. Are we so busy with living that we don’t notice the surroundings?
Perhaps this is life and why we are not more appreciative of our little blue
marble?
Sure fashion comes and goes and automobiles expanded from the practical
to the extravagant, but when did we stop speaking to each other?
This morning on the screen there reads a shooting in a house where a
young kid dies. Is this new? Domestic violence has been around since eternity.
How many great-great grand pappy’s grabbed their squirrel rifle after a verbal
bout and a round of moonshine to blow off cousin Luke’s head?
I semi-remember the buildings getting taller and the roads becoming
wider and being asphalt instead of dirt. Airplanes became a nascence instead of
a wonder. Police became feared. Giant barriers were built around public
buildings. Churches and schools were no longer sanctuaries.
Not an “It was much better way back when…” but a realization of the
current and how it has evolved.
Learning how to use the porcelain throne is better than changing dumpy
diapers as long as the t-paper is placed the correct approved method.
Today I did my usual daily venture to the Tummy Temple to refresh but at
a slower pace. The traffic patterns were not much different but the atmosphere
was different. There are more street graffiti paintings indicating the
infrastructure is failing. The asphalt patches are more plentiful. The once
affordable houses are becoming monstrosities. The kids playing in the street
are protected by green warning plastic statues for now rather than yellow tape.
No more broken bottles or dogs running free due to fences or civility?
There was some point where honest talk became politically correct garble
that meant nothing. At some point we withdrew from each other in fear or
desperation.
Transition is the
process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another.
Transition is
to change, move, passage, transformation, conversion, adaptation, adjustment,
alteration, changeover, metamorphosis; shift, switch, jump, leap, progression,
progress, gradation, development, evolution, transfiguration, flux, mutation,
transmutation, etc. and so on.
We all go
through transitions.
We transition
from a crawling blob to a toddling terror.
We transition
from a pants pooper to a sit down and flush.
We transition
into puberty.
We transition
from being told what to do to deciding for you what to do.
In the end, we
will transition from breathing to whatever comes next.
Other than your mom and dad and siblings, your cousins are your first
friends. The kids of your mom and dad’s siblings are still family, even though
they have a different last name.
Before school or church or camp or teams, your cousins are the ones you
first learn how to interact with who isn’t an adult.
Unless living in the same town, only family reunions or holidays brings
cousins back into your life, still you have to send Christmas cards and keep
track of birthdays of almost strangers.
Still there is a special bond with your first friends. Maybe the first
dancing partner or a dirty little secret or a kissing cousin, these folks are
different because they are family.
While other friend’s come and go, cousins are always connected by blood.
There seems to be more than enough cash out there to feed wanton request
for dollars.
Think about your taxes.
You pay your fair share and for what?
So social media starting popping up sites for all kinds of good causes
to separate you from your precious dollars and everyone fell for it.
Used to be funding to ‘save the whales’ or ‘help our vets’ or ‘little
Timmy’s dog is sick’ or….. Well you get the idea.
Now I see them pop up asking for donations so ‘Sally can have a really
swell birthday’.I don’t know
Sally and why should she have a good birthday on my sawbuck? Sally, it’s time
to grow up and stop asking strangers to buy you a Chatty Cathy.
Our compassion takes over when we see puppies and sad children. Then we
are exposed to families who have burnt out of their town and after the news
feed moves on, they are off the front page.
We all assume that the government will step in and give them our tax
bucks to rebuild and everything will be right again. Really? Those bucks got
other destinations than to be empathic.
The NPOs can step in but the Red Cross and your local worship
establishment live off of donations as well. Hand out some blankets, bottles of
water, a hot meal or two, give some comfort and then move onto the next
disaster.
So I figure while all you kind folks out there are looking for a spot to
toss your greenbacks, I’ll get in line too. Never miss the opportunity with a
sucker.
What should I call this GoFunMe?
#HelpAnOldManOut? Nah, that
sounds like a pathetic cardboard roadside sign. #BringJoyToThisGeezer? No, that is what I used for Tinder. #DoubleYourLoveWithCash? Sounds like a
bank and I’m not giving any of it back.
Oh I got it!! #WasteYourMoneyHere.
At least it is honest.
So I build a site and start promoting it with pictures of horrible
injuries, abandoned animals, starving children and some flash videos of people
running and explosions (Note: make sure it doesn’t look like the Super Bowl
halftime entertainment). Cover it all with some weird music like Philip Glass
or something classical that no one will understand, then maybe a slicked back
haired preacher crying about the misery. No, that’s gone too far.
How about a travelogue of wanderings through the Tummy Temple, for
realistically, that is what all this money will go to. No grandchildren college
funds or bail bondsmen fees.
It is familiar and relatable and if only filming the store brands looks
desperate. Cut to puppy face for effect.
So let’s see, what do I have to do?
1. Start your campaign
·Set your
fundraising goal
Hummm? Let’s see. How much coin
should I expect those suckers to send me? $5,000? No, that would not buy much
of nothing. $100,000? Well, that would be a nice home improvement, but let’s
think long distance. $500,000. That’s a nice round number. Not to audacious and
a good philanthropy institution could just cut a check.
Should I go higher, like a
million? What would I do with a million dollars? Do I have enough time in life
to spend a million dollars?
Think I’ll stick with $500,000.
·Tell your
story
What would the sad sacks out
there go for? How can I pull their heartstrings? What would they believe to
part with their hard earned cash?
I’ll try this…
“Dear Friends,
He started after the big war, but has never lived
without war. As a child was migrated from place to place until there was
nowhere else to escape the threat of the Cold War.
Trained in basic survival tactics and taught
enough to write a name on a social security application, he went through the
shock of the 60’s with it’s drugs and loud music and long hair and the 70’s
with it’s double knit fluorescent clothing and disco and the 80’s with the
powders and crashing market and the 90’s with digital reformation before the
Y2K threaten to end the world until bubble burst.
Where is your empathy?
Failing to understand dangling participles
but getting enough paper to avoid the draft, he spent nearly 40 years in an
established conservative news media drawing pictures until he was unrepentantly
cut loose.
He lived through the War on Poverty, Segregation,
Equal Rights, Women’s Rights, Gay Rights, recessions, monetary depression,
9/11, and the introduction to gangsta rap. Presidents shot, students killed,
traffic jams, gentrification, white flight, credit cards, foreign cars, fern
bars, craft beer, gender fear and the return of polarizing politics all
happened to him.
Never drove on a highway or traveled to
Paris or New York City. Doesn’t have an air conditioner or a drone or a gun or
a passport. Hasn’t had a haircut in years.
Are you getting the picture yet?
Barren without child and abandoned by one
marriage and widowed by another, house downsize move to the north side of the
river in an ancient neighborhood where neighbors came and went like the wind.
Orphaned by both parents dying.
Oh woe is he.
An old man left alone without an automobile
and living in a small-dilapidated house in the woods of a war torn city. Barely
able to read without glasses this scruffy hermit lives meal-to-meal cooking
over an open fire alone and forbidden.
He doesn’t have a working television and his
phone is sporadic. His only relief is to wear his shabby ragged decade-old
flannel into the sunshine to feed a few seed and nuts and berries to his
neighbors.
(Put a sad faced puppy here)
A donation to this fund will give a few of
God’s graces to this poor soul and his pathetic life before he meets his maker.
For his remaining years he only wishes for
the simple life of strumming his old guitar and listening on an antique radio
the news of the world. Have pity on his decrepit soul.”
·Add a picture or video
2. Share with family and friends
·Send
emails
Reply: All
·Send text
messages
Note: See #1
·Share on
social media
HEY WORLD!! Send some dough!! Hurry!!
3. Manage donations
·Accept
donations
Francs, Euros, Lira, Pecos,
Yens, Kronas, Shillings, Yens…. All accepted, but no confederate money please.
·Thank
donors
“To one and all, my most
heartfelt thanks for you and your entire generous donations to this most worthy
fund that will bring sunshine to a miserable existence and fill a bank account.”
·Withdraw
funds
Small bills, in various
denominations, in paper bags and cardboard boxes that can be easily carried in
a rented truck and the rest wired to an offshore account.
DON’T WAIT! TIME
IS A’WASTIN’
DONATE TO
THIS NOBLE CAUSE FOR THERE IS NOT MANY MORE YEARS LEFT
I’ve written
so much about destiny and legacy, but reflection is something that happens with
age.
Unless a
monument or library or listing in a history book, what did you do?
What will be
on your headstone beside last name and dates?
There, of
course could be the classification of partnership to the person lying next to
you in the ground.
If you had
an impressive title or a high rank that could be etched in stone for eternity.
If you sex
was successful to produce other human beings, you could list them for that is a
contribution.
If you were
an inventor or a creator or a performer (either for entertainment or politics)
your contribution could be listed below.
If you were
a scoundrel and cause havoc and dismay, which could be written on your
gravestone as, ‘S.O.B.’ and your coffin would be put in upside down.
We’ve all
made some sort of contribution that should be remembered.
Being an
artist and a musician, I’ve often been asked to work for free.
“It’s good
exposure.” “It’s just drawing pictures.”
My answer
has always been, “…then you do it.”
Everyone who
fills out a job application, sits through an interview and signs onto a vow to
perform a task for monetary rewards knows what needs to be done to be able to
find shelter or eat or care for a family.
Besides the
minimal wage scale or the title to the occupation, people work for wages.
In these
remarkable times of shutdowns and furloughs, many are given a long unpaid
vacation (with the promise of reimbursed pay) or ordered to work for FREE or be
fired.
“I’ll gladly
pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
Try that and
see if it works.
Banks or
merchants or restaurants or automotive dealerships or hospitals or churches or
even governments need their money on time to keep their budgets, purchase new
inventory, buy insurance and pay their rent.
If employees
wish to strike to make a point, the employer can negotiate or hire scabs. If an
employee decides to ‘volunteer’ they don’t expect to be paid but work for the
experience. If an employee declares their work agreement is to be freelancing
for a particular time and project, benefits may not be in the package. If the
employer decides to downsize, they can layoff workers unannounced, but that is
final.
When the
employer says you have to come to work and do you job because you are
essential, but you won’t get paid until later. (Wonder if those back wages are
getting interest bonuses?)
Raises and
titles are all rewards of an employee exceptional performance, so what is a
furlough?
If one is
‘essential’, then why not get a paycheck?
If everyone
worked for FREE, we could barter our skills for food or shelter without money.
Guess we wouldn’t have to pay taxes?
Throughout
history there have been workers who were not paid. They were called ‘slaves’.
From what I hear, education is the fuel for success.
I don’t readily know, but I’ve been through it, to some degree.
Wonder if education comes along with the mom gets tired of you hanging
around the house?
Well if you are going to be here, it is probably better to be able to
read and write from a professional than your parents. How educated are them?
So one day I was walked to a nearby building and introduced to people who
I’d never seen and they walked me into a room full of strange kids my age and I
was pointed to sit at a desk. I think this is somewhat the same as they do in
prison?
At that time there was one adult lady person ruling over us at a big desk
calling our names and her job was to educate our blank minds. There were about
two-dozen of us from different families but similar backgrounds.
She read out of books and scribbled white chalk on black slate boards and
then gave us test to see if we were listening. It we didn’t pass, we didn’t
move on.
Education also exposed us to science, history, mathematics, physical
education and sharing bathrooms. Education was the attempt to socialize the
youth.
After learning elementary skills, like reading and writing, some passed
onto higher education. Some didn’t.
Manual labor didn’t have many educational requirements.
After years and different buildings and kids coming and going and every
year an new teacher to break in, a cap and gown (like a church choir) was
handed to the winners as they were paraded on stage before family and all the
world to be given a piece of paper for their accomplishments.
We were educated.
Not so fast.
We could move into some retail or manufacturing, but there was much more.
To sell insurance or real estate or automobiles was fine, but to be a
doctor, lawyer or Indian Chief, require higher education.
Away from the community schooling and into industrial university, a price
was paid. Still, at the time, it kept one out of the swamp.
Philosophy, psychology, sociality, mentality and many more ‘ality’ were
open for discussion. This was new, for your opinion was listened to.
These years would be cherished, not so much from the books or the
lectures but of the age when exploration is possible and experimentation is
accepted.
Once you finally escape the hollowed halls to find a vocation that will
pay for your iPhone, a mentor will have to retrain you for everything you were
taught was wrong.
Years go by and more teachings are made, but no diploma.
We are God’s porn channels. 
