886. people who describe stuff

it's a long story but keaton got us involved in scotch futures (buy a share of a barrel now and get four bottles in eight years).
it sounds kind of russian-mafia shakey to be honest, but we love a good, peaty scotch, so what the hey.
anyway, i think what sold keaton on the investment was the desciption of the young scotch, octomore, that is aging to become a future libation of the bob and keaton household.

the description: "intense smoke on the nose and palate, with notes of freshly tarred road, cigar smoke & ash, licorice root, bacon fat, kalamata olive & smoked seaweed. struggling to emerge are youthful orchard fruit, honeyed malt, brine & soft vanilla. long, smoky finish - like licking the walls of a peat-infused kiln. a very invigorating whisky. i think octomore will be very good in another 5 years, and amazing after another 10."

"freshly tarred road", "bacon fat", not just any old seaweed, "smoked seaweed", "licking the walls of a peat-infused kiln".
are you kdding me?
did we just invest in scotch or a lost hemingway manuscript?
who are these people who write these things?

i have just got to get me one of these jobs!

in fact, let me demonstrate my talent for such.
it just so happens that yesterday i bottled six cases of home brewed beer.
let me describe it to you.

"flirtatious vidalia sweetness to the nose and palate, with traces of musty floor dust, dried mouse bits, spilled coffee and freshly read sports page. Struggling to emerge are rare irish moss, really expensive hops and second choice grains. a long, pensive finish of earthy root—akin to chewing on rotted casket pine. i think this beer is somewhat drinkable today but will emerge to become a great compost emulsifier three weeks from now."

where do i sign the job offer?

885. strict constructionist v. judicial activist

i love how the rnc (rush, newt, cheney) use clever wordsmithing to lure us into their alternate conservative universe.
such is the case with strict constructionist v. judicial activist.
of course, in the alternate conservative universe, a strict constructionist decides based on the rigid, unyielding application of the constitution (the mother of all rulebooks), only to be overruled on occasion by the bible (the father of all rulebooks).
they are god's supreme referees, who, if they do their "judging" correctly, should construct unanimous decisions a hundred percent of the time—after all, they are strict.
then there are the lowly, subversive judicial activists who legislate from the bench, which i guess means they make the law up as they go.
scoundrels in our midst!

what a beautiful alternate conservative universe.

except it is alternate.
way alternate.
planet bizarro really.

now to the world of commonsense.

judicial activist?
doesn't that translate to one who actively judges?
isn't that what we want from ... um ... judges?
and the reason one needs to actively judge is because the law isn't always so black and white—well white anyway.
if it only read like a pga golf rulebook, maybe.
but it doesn't, which is why law school is so damn hard, lawyering so conflicted, and judges required.

don't get me wrong.
judges need a healthy understanding of law, but to actively judge requires so much more.
and the right dose of empathy and "living in my shoes" can be a useful asset.

as far as strict constructionists are concerned, what exactly does that mean anyway?
sounds like guys (and gals) who build things and are pretty damn strict about it.
i have no idea what that has to do with judging.
i suppose in the alternate conservative universe it sounds pretty constructiony but in my world it sounds ... well ... it sounds pretty alternate conservative universey.
not my cup of tea.

884. a new anxiety

anxiety attacks are strange affairs.
they visit infrequently, thank god.
but when they do, it's like the uninvited knock at the door by an army of jehovah's witnesses armed with a boatload of watchtower pamphlets.
if i answer, i'm in for a long, exasperating go of it.
so instead, i hide in a locked bathroom until they disappear.

such is what occasionally happens when i watch news clips of forest fires.
my mind races to an overwhelming vision of a world burning out of control.
my heart and breathing not far behind my speeding thoughts.
sometimes i get the same unexpected, irrational rush to uncontrolled mayhem when i drive the jersey turnpike through the refineries, flanked by newark to the west and manhattan to the east.
my thoughts spiral to the pollutants we are pouring into the skies, and i start to sweat as i imagine this across the globe with no end in sight.
but these anxieties go as quickly as they arrive ever since i learned not to answer their ringtones and delete their voicemail messages.

it is comforting to know i'm not alone in this.
different triggers for different folks i suppose.
some of us manage better than others, but they come and go just the same.
and always at the core, that same helpless feeling of loss of control.

which brings me to my latest bout.
north korea.
now this is the stuff of anxiety.
a dying, out of control psychopath, with nuclear capability and a penchant for world drama.
when my irrational mind begins to churn about this, it does not take long to see the path.
a north korean cargo ship purposely behaving badly in the wild hope it is stopped and searched.
then the immediate, strike into south korea with one nuclear bomb (or two if not turned to glass before hand).

but unlike other anxieties, i can't shake this one so easily.
probably because deep down i know it just ain't irrational—the vision is as sharp as hd.

it's so bad that i have stooped as low as to ask benny to cheer me up, which is less likely to occur than obama asking cheney to head up a torture truth commission.
if there is anything good from all this it is that raging forest fires and a hole in the ozone the size of trump's ego have become child's play.

883. Dr Thomas Bridges (1941-2005)

it's graduation time.
from time to time i find it an occasion to think about teachers who had great impact on my life.
and when i go there, like i did today, there is always one name that sits atop a rather small pile.
dr. thomas bridges.
he taught philosophy 101 at montclair state university.

more importantly he introduced me to thinking.

and while he probably would have preferred to be almost anywhere else but teaching an "intro" class to sleepy minds just trying to pick up three required credits of liberal arts, he carried on in painful fortitude and with great self-effacing wit.
and while i was so much more comfortable resolving triple variable differential equations, i willingly wrestled with sartre's play "no exit" and typed a required ten pages to answer the simple question, what did jean paul mean by "hell is other people".
and to think he had to read and grade thirty of these marvels.
it's a wonder he didn't hang himself by leaping off a stack of nietzsche's best.

anyway, i once wrote somewhere in this blog: "just when i think i have an answer to all this life stuff, i think some more and realize, i don’t have an answer, just a resting place."
that is what dr. bridges taught me and honestly, i'm a better person for it.

unfortunately he passed away four years ago.
too young for sure.
regrettably i never had a chance to thank him.
i feel bad about that.

do you have a favorite teacher?

(from the files) 417. benny needs a laugh

benny said, i'm having a really bad day. my secret porn dvd is so scratched up i can't get past the fbi warning. say something funny to cheer me up, will ya.
i said, did you hear the one about the astronaut that got a severe case of missile toe?
benny said, no.
i said, it’s a joke. get it. astronaut? missile toe?
benny said, hmm ... i see. yeah, well i haven't heard that one.
he paused a moment and then said, i still miss playing my porn dvd.
i said, sorry, can’t help ya.
he lamented, it’s like losing a lover.
then i said, well, if by lover you mean someone who contorts her limbs like a pretzel, sucks the chrome off a studebaker bumper and screams like a cornered banshee at the mere touch of the pudgy man paws of other men, while all you can do is watch a video of her loving ways.
benny thought for a moment.
then he said, yeah, like that kind of lover.

882. electricity

sometimes i wish i knew more about electricity so that i wouldn't be so shocked by it.

881. i have a problem with food

i have a problem with food.
i eat it.
i'd be so much better off it i played badminton with it.

880. but bob you are no so much

we had our good friends from holland over last night for dinner.
one thing i like about the dutch, they can be blunt and they can be quick about it.

we had just sat down when marja said, keaton you look so tan and healthy but bob you are no so much. you look ... what's the word? you look of paste. why is that?

now i had to laugh because i had just spent the last two days weeding in the unscreened sun.
i was as burned as i could be.
but she was right.
i don't get color.
i just get ... well ... more of paste!

well more of paste or not, what a great night of blunt conversation we had!
and i wouldn't trade it for the world (or a coppertone tan for that matter).

879. not in my backyard? spare me!

ya know what i don't understand?
politicians of all types spewing this "not in my backyard" nonsense.
they are the same spineless bunch that carry on about supporting the troops, but when it comes to asking their constituency to ante up and sacrifice a bit, they take the politically expedient way out.

"not in my backyard".

if we need to house a bunch of american hating loons in the homeland, so be it.
don't like it?
too bad!

move!

we have a juvenile detention facility just down the road.

put them there.

in fact, put them in the mayberry jailhouse and place barney fife in charge of security.

we'd still be safer than sending them back to their homelands for incarceration.

what these politicians are really saying is "don't ask me to ask for sacrifice!"

552. a brief conversation with jonathan schwartz

i asked jonathan, so when you finally get home from a long day of playing the most obscure songs one can imagine for NPR, what does jonathan schwartz listen to for relaxation?

jonathan said, it seems to me that what appeals to me most, what strikes me to my soul, what satiates my need—no, my desire—to be in harmony with those funny odd shapes brilliantly planted on a few pages of scored paper, is a note that plays with my inner ear in a way that is almost anti-atonal, as if placed against my eardrum by the hands of god, like the precise strum, for instance, of perfectly tuned, bronze steel wires that cascade in wavelengths of wonder, awashed in instant syncopation with the grandest of sounds, life—or so i believe.

he slowly sat back to glow in the satisfaction of an answer well spoken.

i said, holy smokes! i think that was one sentence.
he thought for a moment.
then leaned forward and added, yes, i agree in the most grammatical of ways.

and i thought, gee ... what happened to the guy who just played endless quicksilver messenger service sets and rambled on about the boston red sox on wnew-fm in 1969?
i would have asked but i had other obligations i could not afford to miss later in the week.

876. so many roads

there is the high road, the low road, the fork in the road, the road less traveled by, even the road to tipperary (or timbuktu for that matter).
more roads from which i care to choose.
unfortunately though, i'm at one of those pivotal places where a choice needs to be made.

hmm ...

maybe i should just hot air balloon the whole thing.

872. tea for mood

the tea bag label read:

good earth®
pharmaceutical quality herbal teas
authentic european herbal formula in use for over 75 years
tea for mood™
helps maintain a positive emotional outlook*

apparently it has st. john's wort, which strikes me as an ingredient that i'd keep a secret—it sounds like a catholic skin fungus to be honest.
and that little thing about pharmaceutical quality?
it smacks in the face of good earth!

but what the hey!
god knows i need to keep a positive emotional outlook these days.
so i steeped the tea bag real good to get as much of that wholesome wortiness as i could.

oh yeah, that asterisk at the end pointed to a footnote at the bottom of the label that required an electronic microscope to read.
it pretty much said in not so many words, not really.

anyway, i had enough tea to burst a dutch levee, which is to say if i've maintained anything positive it's that my bladder continues to prove to be of sturdy stock and my prostate of healthy size.
but as far as any positive emotional outlook is concerned, unless one considers waking up in the morning such optimism, like the footnote says, not really!

(from the files) 541. a couple's deadly face-off

keaton was struggling with a twist cap of some sort, using her trusty rubber gripping pad to no avail, unless you consider the explosion of blood vessels in her forehead an objective.
so i stepped in as i have done so many times before to offer my twist cap removal skills.
i announced (with a hint of manly swagger), let me help you with that me lady.
she said, oh my knight thank you.
(at least that's how i remember the exchange)
then she handed the jar over to me—her parting words, it goes the opposite way from what you'd expect.
as i gripped it in my man paw, she restated, it's counter-intuitive.
i began to apply serious, man-grunt pressure, when she scolded, turn it the opposite way.
i immediately reversed direction and off it came cleanly.
i handed it over to her.
i think she was pleased with the result but i'm positive she was stupefied by my listening ability.

i could tell because she makes a face for stupidfied—a face i have observed countless times before, to which i pleaded, what?
she answered, well, it's not me. that's what.
to which i made my smugness face, leaving us locked in a couple's deadly face-off of sorts, even though all the while we both knew she was right.

871. so i'm sitting in an internet cafe ...

so i'm sitting in an internet cafe, pretending to be an important writer because that's where they hang out, when it dawns on me.
what does an important writer look like anyway?
and that's when it struck me that plaid pants with a dandy pink polo shirt may not be the right look.
especially in manhattan.
more specifically, bleeker street in the west village.
i mean, i think people took note of me but unless they thought i was writing for golf digest, i don't believe i fooled nary a one.

so i came home and wrote this because i got really bad golf digest writers block amidst my peeps at the cafe.
and i couldn't be positive but i think i heard someone yelling "fore" from the dark recesses of the room, followed by the subtle snickers of important writers.

869. good hearts/bad brains

why is it that good hearts more often than not are subservient to really bad brains?

(from the files) 433. something’s up

i’ve been listening to nat king cole recordings recently—not a little, a lot, and liking them.
i’m concerned.
can lawrence welk be around the corner?
because if that occurs, keaton is under contract to run me over from behind in her silent prius, which she made clear at the signing she’d gladly carry out.

(from the files) 126. cranelegs mothers day wish

i wish all mothers a fun packed day.
i also wish all mothers would like to watch a lot more golf, baseball, and stanley cup hockey on tv, making the fun packed day a little more inclusive.

867. about writing

a simple truth about writing: the rewriting phase is not one with a definitive ending.

as a result, consider yourself reading work-always-in-progress around here.

862. free coke and adolescent bliss

before i go any further, i'm talking soda.

it was the summer of 1965.
i was invited to stay at my best friend's house on cape cod for a week.
now other than never having been away from home for more than a night nor further than a fifteen minute car ride, there was one other sticky wicket.
flying in an airplane would be required—a first.
alone—a monumental first.

let me explain something.
i was a reluctant oldest child.
i wasn't big with always being the first to try something.
my younger brothers were all so much better suited than i.
i was a better choice for the last position.
"let everything be tested out by others more equipped", was my thinking.
but those were not the cards i was dealt.
and this particular deck was stacked up for a big "no way".

regarding the potential homesick rating, it was drastically reduced by the presence of my best friend's twin sister and her girlfriend who would be visiting at the same time.
they were probably just about the two prettiest girls allowed to be at the same place at the same time—legally.
the thought of hot pink bikinis and wild games of beach blanket bingo surely outmuscled any homesickness potential.
the truth be told, this charming fantasy of mine was not reciprocated.
in fact, knowledge of my visitation could put the kibosh on the whole same place, same time, bikini, bingo delusion.
having said that, keeping my guest appearance a secret was the least of my problems.

the flying thing was a heavyweight in the "no" department.
that is until mom told me i could have as much coke as i wanted on the flight.
free!
coke!
as much as i wanted!

yup, the real thing, which we never had in the house, ordaining it the wellspring to so many of my boyhood friendships, leading me to some of the most serious moochings i had unashamedly participated in.
coke!
when it was at the top of its sweet game!
when it made upstart pepsi a pedestrian pop by comparison—no better than hoffman or rc cola really.

i owe so much to free coke.
that turned out to be some vacation.
not that any romances blossomed.
there weren't even any bikinis or blankets or bingo for that matter.
quite the opposite actually.
but they were awful pretty those two lasses, and forced to eat dinner with us no less.
some nights even in public, pretty much giving me the appearance of quite the lad about town.

ah ... coke.
and now i think you have to pay for it on flights.
what a shame.
how many young teen boys in the throes of youthful exuberance are stranded home bound because the coke isn't flowing free anymore.

too bad because it really is the real thing.

(from the files) 526. future history

it seems fair enough that what we do today will be fodder to future history, but what seems unfair is that we won’t be around to make sure the right fodder is studied.
so there’s a big risk the fodder researchers will end up writing all this bad stuff about us because we’ll be lumped in with the shenanigans of some of the fodder boneheads we have running loose around here.

and we all know who they are.

(from the files) 509. home alone - episode five

store bought sauce with store bought meatballs on a bowl of pasta that didn't start out green, accompanied by a store bought container of leaf debris, drowned in store bought salad dressing, all washed down by an ipa, long past its born on date, and purple wine.
what a belly full of pleasure before i settled in to watch hostel II on pay per view.
i'm not sure what kept me awake more all night, the indigestion or the flood light i mounted at the foot of the bed.
personally, this home alone stuff isn't what it's cracked up to be.
but i'll never tell keaton that.