QUOTESSAYS

  " The Sea Squirt is one of our most ancient relatives. Its primitive nervous system makes makes it more closely related to humans than the sponges and corals it resembles. As a juvenile, the Sea Squirts tiny brain helps it move towards nutrients and away from harm. Once the Sea Squirt grows to adulthood, it attaches itself permanently to a rock or a boat's hull or pilings. It no longer needs to monitor the world as it did as a juvenile because the passing current provides enough nutrients for it to survive. The adult Sea Squirt becomes the couch potato of the sea. In a surprisingly macabre twist, the Sea Squirt digests its own brain. Without a need to explore or find sustenance, the creature devours its own cerebral ganglia. " I have actually known a few people like this in my life. They even smoked pot out of pipes that kind of looked like Sea Squirts......

  Another character I worked with at McCarty Paint 40 years ago back in the 70's was Roscoe. He was in his late 50's at the time but seemed like an old man to me back then. Boy howdy, would I love to be in my late 50's again! He was born and raised in Shamrock, TX, a little nothing of a town in the Eastern panhandle. I have driven through it a couple of times and it is about as nowhere as one can find. Roscoe was in the Coast Guard during WW2 and spent the whole war guarding the Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk from a Japanese attack. Not bad duty if you could get it. He did a good job too. I don't recall one Japanese soldier landing on the beach. He spent the entire war flirting with Beach Betties and riding the Boardwalk rides for free. Like so many others, Roscoe decided California looked like a pretty good place to go to after the war, so he packed up and moved here. Him and his new wife bought a little house on May St., just up from the old DMV. I enjoyed hearing Ros

  Want to start meditating? A new generation of scientists want to change how it’s done - Vox A long and chewy read on secular meditation I found interesting. It is nice that meditation is finally being put under a scientific microscope, but as the article points out, it is still a difficult subject to quantify. The old 'using consciousness to study consciousness' conundrum.  I do know that on a pragmatic level, meditation has made a huge difference in my life. I equate it to clearing the brain's cache daily of unnecessary mental junk. That is important in an age where our attention has become a commodity, and we are under a bombardment of media distraction 24/7. 

 50 years ago I got my first of many VW's, a 54 bug that was a twin to this one. At just 32 hp it burned way less gas than my hulk of a 56 Plymouth Suburban V8 station wagon. It was one tiny car though, even smaller than the bugs that came after it. I can't imagine driving one on the road these days, though at the time I did not notice a huge deficit. That transmission was geared to get every ounce of performance out of that little sewing machine motor. I was very lucky that my late brother-in-law, Mick, owned a garage that specialized in VW's. He got me this one. I probably would not have even had a car if not for his influence. One of my great memories of that time was being able to go down to his shop when it was closed on Sundays and change the oil and service my car in a professional garage with a real lift and all the tools. It was a shame this opportunity was wasted on a none car guy like me, but not really. I needed exposure to that side of life and it has helped me

  I went to the facility after my lunch date with the 'Widder's Club' to say goodbye to the only two residents left from the 'old days' when I first started working there. Things change real fast at that place. One was a dentist who is now in his mid 90's and was pretty spaced out even back then. The other was a retired attorney I had many an interesting talk with back in the day. He had been a '90 day wonder' and ended up the Captain of a sub-chaser in the 'Donald Duck Navy' during WW2, having never been on a boat before in his life. He told me he spent the whole war chasing subs and being sea sick and had not been on a boat since. He went to law school later on and eventually worked as in attorney for JFK's administration and was heavily involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis, among other things, and had some fascinating insights into JFK and his regime. He had a great scrapbook of photos of him and JFK and a bunch of other pols from that era

  More advice generated from AI's Inspirobot. AI is doing a bang-up job of leading us down the road to becoming idiots too. Facebook has pretty much become void of any original content. Instead of a culture of individual creativity that Facebook could have become, we have now reverted to hunters & gatherers, combing the internet for unoriginal content to drag back to the communal campfire.  Something popped up on my computer during one of its weekly updates that was interesting. Now whenever I compose anything on my writing app. a pop up called 'Copilot' asks me if I would like it to rewrite what I have just written. I experimented with it a couple of times and it instantly made the writing sterile. I decided a good example would be to take one of Jack Kerouac's most famous quotes and give it to Copilot to see what happens. Jack's original: " The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of eve

 That has always been the problem between me and any organized religious belief system. They always seem so obviously a way to deal with the fear of death with a made-up intricate storyline no one could possibly know is real. Belief in Hell or Karma is a scary way to live. I have learned to never ask God the way to Heaven, as he will show you the hardest route. The best I can do is stick with some basic, pragmatic ethics that seem to make some rational sense to me and throw in some daily meditation to clear the brain's cache.  One really creates their own meaning as they stumble along through life. Without a full stomach it is all academic. 

 I have always thought the wisest career move any rock star could make was becoming a member of the 27 Club. You are frozen forever in time at the very zenith of your creativity and youthful appeal, instead of living long enough to become a parody of yourself and a heritage act. For sure all the members of the 27 Club's best work were behind them when they exited stage left. I even question Bob Dylan's statement about “artists tend to write their best songs between the ages of 23 and 27”. I am apt to agree more with Pete Townshend's belief that the best rock music is made by unsigned, drunken 19-year-olds in garages. Back in the day I always went by the rule as soon as a band came out with a 'rock opera', or even a double album, it was probably time to bail. Luckily, my complete lack of any natural talent in any of the performing arts saved me from this fate. Plus, I just know I would have been a condescending asshole to everyone once I got famous and died of drug o

  335 million people in the United States, and this is the best we can do? I don't post a lot of political posts, as I am not a real partisan at heart, but this Presidential election is beginning to feel a little surreal. These are my observations on these two candidates. Hey, at least it won't be a canned political 'bad guy/good guy' meme written by a 3rd party. There will be something for everyone here to love and hate. Just concentrate on the parts you like and forget the rest. That is what most people do anyway. Biden: As a lifelong stutterer and having worked in a lockdown dementia unit as a CNA, I can assure you Joe is suffering from dementia, and it is progressing fast. I know the look in the eye and gait by heart. Blaming his verbal stumbling on stuttering isn't cutting it. Looking at any old videos of Biden shows he was very verbose and fairly articulate. He was never the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was the perfect running mate for Obama to placate th

 30 years ago today Charles Bukowski left the building. I handprinted his observation on life and death to an index card and have had it folded up in my wallet for years now. He was 73, which is amazing considering the life he lived. Looks like I may outlive him if I can hang on for another year. I read this quote whenever I have a decision to make. It has worked out very well. Thanks Buk..... “Your life is your life; don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. Be on the watch. There are ways out. There is a light somewhere. It may not be much light, but it beats the darkness. Be on the watch. The gods will offer you chances. Know them. Take them. You can’t beat death, but you can beat death in life, sometimes. And the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. Your life is your life. Know it while you have it. You are marvelous; the gods wait to delight in you.”

  "By this time the soma had begun to work. Eyes shone, cheeks were flushed, the inner light of universal benevolence broke out on every face in happy, friendly smiles. Even Bernard felt himself a little melted." Brave New World 10 years ago at this time in 2007 I gave up smoking pot. I decided I had gotten everything I needed from 40 years of getting high. I had just lost a wife, a house, and almost all my money and thought it prudent to maybe change course. Pot is a funny drug for me. I remember reading an interview with Jim Morrison back in the day and him talking about how he liked drinking because you got drunk and then sobered up, whereas pot just kind of stuck with you all the time in a semi-stoned state. I could appreciate that description. I had a fairly sophisticated grow room for its time in Detroit and had even built a better one in my new Florida house under the pretense it was a 'hurricane safe room'. It had a dedicated circuit, it's own AC, exhaust

  About 20 years ago right now it was looking like getting out of Detroit might be a wise idea. The wheels were starting to come off the honorable Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's very corrupt political machine in the Big D. Even by Detroit city government standards Kwame was one slick hustler and thug. Some fellow agents and I, collectively known as 'The Rat Pack', had made a fine living skirting the law under Kwame's free for all raping of the city's housing program coffers. Our broker even had his lawyers draw up different real estate contracts for us so he would be in the clear if the shit hit the fan. We were all getting a little nervous as Kwame's luck started to run out south of 8 Mile. Kwame came from the Kilpatrick dynasty in Detroit politics. His mother and father were both career politicians in the mean streets of the Big D, and Kwame learned the ropes early on. Detroit had a long history of winning the state for the Democrats, even though the rest of the sta

20 years ago my father passed on. He was briefly in a nursing home and the writing was on the wall. He had just turned 86 a few days before, so he had a pretty good run. He had no bad habits, but like so many men of his generation, he didn't have many good habits either as far as exercise or diet. I remember going in that night and seeing him for the last time. He had an old man's best friend, pneumonia, and was pretty well out of it. I hand spoon fed him some ice cream, one of his food staples, and he ate it. Luckily his nurse was a customer from his shop and knew him well. She showed me all the signs that he was going soon that I later learned so well as a CNA. I sat with him awhile saying nothing. As per the nurse's suggestion I whispered in his ear that it was OK to go. I learned later on just how powerful those few words can be. Some people hold on until they are given permission to let go. I went home. Later that night they called me and said he was gone. I really fel

  Facebook Nicely put. I have paraphrased something similar to this when people start gushing about how wonderful the work I do is. I have witnessed many a good hearted, loving, sensitive person fold like cheap lawn furniture at my job when it gets ugly. Death is tough to be around all the time. It hardens you no matter what. And that is necessary. Alot of what passes for sensitivity in Facebook posts is just bleeding-heart virtue signaling from very comfortable people.

  How self-centered and selfish. I once had a girlfriend in LA that threatened to kill herself if I walked out the door. It wasn't because I was such a great catch, she had mental health and drug issues. But I was a gentleman and offered her my belt to hang herself with. That's just how I was raised, to be helpful and considerate. She did not hang herself and I never got my belt back. No good deed goes unpunished...….