Basket Case

I’m not much of a holiday person. I don’t decorate, don’t plan parties, don’t send cards, generally don’t observe. I’m happy to just have a day off and get to pillage the holiday sales at the mall. The rest of the whole holiday hoo-ha I can do without. 

But there are a few holidays I find fun.

I like Halloween. I like dressing up like some hungry, undead child-eating creature and scaring the bejesus out of the neighborhood kids. I like lying in wait for them to come home from trick or treating so I can jump out from behind a bush and grab their candy bags. Those screaming little voices and the patter of horrified feet running away down the pavement just warm my heart. Yes, Halloween is a great holiday.

The other holiday I like is Easter.

It’s not the sentiment behind the day. It’s not the vacation time from work. It’s not Easter egg hunts or picnics. It’s not getting together with family – crap, that’s the last thing I want to do on a holiday.

Nope.

It’s the chocolate.

Notice I didn’t say ‘candy.’

Chocolate.

You can keep your peeps and your jellybeans and your marshmallow rabbits. Just give me the chocolate.

Any chocolate. I don’t care if it’s shaped like a bunny, a chick, or an International Harvester. Don’t put a lot of time into selecting just the right work of chocolate art. The artistry of chocolate sculpture is lost on me; I am not going to stop to appreciate it before I rip Mr. Bunny’s ears off. 

And it better not be hollow. Don’t even TRY to slip one of those hollow chocolate travesties into my basket. There’s more chocolate than that in the center of a tootsie pop.

Hollow chocolate is a cop out; it’s for people who don’t really care enough to spend money on the good stuff, or for people who need a place to stash their contraband. I want solid chocolate. Solid dark chocolate. And make sure there’s no nuts in it – they just take up space where more chocolate could go. Yes, fill my basket with solid dark no-nut chocolate.

Then you’d better put said basket in plain view where I will see it immediately upon waking Easter morning. Hiding a person’s basket of solid dark no-nut chocolate is just plain mean. Trust me, you do not want tell me first thing in the morning that I must look for chocolate that you’ve hidden from me. I’m not going to look for it. I’m going to put you into a chokehold until you tell me where the hell it is.

Don’t bother cooking some extravagant Easter meal. I’ve got chocolate. I’m not going to waste perfectly good stomach capacity on ham or green bean casserole when I can fill it with solid dark no-nut chocolate. I’ll eat your meal when the chocolate is gone.

Finally, don’t even think about asking me to share any of my solid dark no-nut candy. There are two things I refuse to share: Men, and chocolate. The reasons for this should be evident. If you have to ask why, you are probably the kind of person who also thinks hollow chocolate with nuts in it is a good idea.

I might sound demanding, but really, I’m not high maintenance. It’s not that difficult to keep me happy. Don’t get hollow chocolate, don’t get nuts in it and don’t hide it. Do this and nobody gets hurt. It’s that damn simple.

Happy Easter.

 

 

Barn Cars

 I drive a species of vehicle known as a Barn Car.

A Barn Car can be any make, model or year. It can be any color – color, in fact, doesn’t matter, since all Barn Cars are eventually the color of dirt. Barn Cars can be old and beat up, or new and suped up.

My Barn Car is quite nice. It gets great gas mileage and has cruise control. Drives great in all kinds of conditions. It has a lot of trunk space, enough to transport an entire body without the need for messy, time consuming dismemberment. It has room for four people, two hound dogs and three bags of feed. Other Barn Cars may have more trunk space or less, seat fewer or more humans and canines, have less or greater feed capacity. There are no firm criteria.

But there is one characteristic that all Barn Cars have in common.

A Barn Car is never clean.

I mean, never.

As in, not ever.

Even when it’s just been washed it’s not clean. And as soon as I drive it to the barn one time, well…I may as well have not “cleaned” it at all.

At any given time you are likely to find hay, mud, shavings, grain, horsehair, dirt and other stuff in any part of it. I can only assume that all of the above entities get into the car by hitching a ride on me. Once you’ve been in the car, you are likely to get home and find any or all such items have also hitched a ride on YOU. Which is fine with me, because the more crap that leaves attached to you, the less mess in my car.

Paint is missing from various parts of my car. I don’t know where it went. It’s possible that some animal ate it when I wasn’t looking. I’ve scraped up all the hubcaps on fence posts and had multiple flat tires from running over barn implements and mis-navigating potholes. The trunk is filled with dirty boots, sweaty saddle pads, smelly blankets and a Hazmat suit.

If I drive through the Eucalyptus grove where the giant white Herons nest, my car emerges looking like somebody napalmed it with white paint. I have to make haste to wash it off before it eats its way through the roof like that gelatinous thing from The Blob. The hard water at the barn is just as likely to eat its way through the paint as the bird doody is. The doody usually comes clean. The bug splatter on the front of the car, I’m afraid, is permanent.

If you want me to give you a ride someplace, I hope you’re not in a hurry.

I wish it were as simple as opening the door to let you in.

It’s not. Not with a Barn Car.

Opening the door is the final step in a long, arduous process. First, I have to create room in the back seat. This requires removing objects and stuffing them into a trunk that is already filled to burstin’ with the aforementioned barn necessities.

Only after I have done this can I begin the process of transferring the stuff from the front passenger seat into the precious small space I’ve cleared in the back. This may or may not result in items being stacked so high that visibility from the rear window is wholly or partially blocked. It may also result in objects flying at you from the backseat should I need to slam the brakes on suddenly. I’ve probably got a hard hat in the car; I suggest you wear it.

Then I’ve got to brush hay, grain, rice hulls, dirt and horsehair off the passenger seat, and make room for your feet on the floor. You might have to sit with your knees hiked up under your chin or shove your legs into the small space between the bags of horse cookies and the center console.

As for the smell…..well, you’re stuck with that. If you don’t enjoy the aroma of leather, grain and horse, I hope you don’t mind riding with your head out the window like a big ‘ol hound dog.

Oh, speaking of dogs….if I’m dog sitting, you’re going to have to share the seat with the Dog of the Day. Some of them drool more and have worse smelling breath than others. Hopefully the day you ask for a ride will be Lapdog Day, not Rottweiler Week.

Finally, you’ll have to deal with the embarrassment of being seen getting out of a Barn Car, trailing hay and rice hulls and horse hair.

I’d like to be apologetic, but I can’t – it’s a Barn Car, and that’s just the way a Barn Car is. I’ve gone so far as to put a “Barn Car” bumper sticker on the back. Consider it fair warning. Next time you need a ride, think real hard before asking me. You might want to call a cab.

 

 

 

Meals on Wheels

Not long ago I visited the sector of San Francisco known as Chinatown. There, I discovered the most useless of all useless items I have ever seen.

It was a tiny, plastic wind-up rice bowl.

Yeah, I said rice bowl.

A plastic wind-up rice bowl.

At least, I think it was rice. I suppose it could have been couscous or tabouli or risotto…It’s somewhat of an art to distinguish between varietals of plastic grain.

The colorful plastic bowl had tiny little plastic wheels on the bottom. Wind it up, set it down, and you were rewarded by getting to see it scurry across the table. If the wheels were on straight, the bowl wobbled away in a somewhat straight line. If not, it careened in drunken circles. It made a little panicky buzzing sound like a fly with one wing. It stopped when the winding mechanism wound down, or when it scurried off the edge of the table. This was usually the end of the plastic rice bowl, as the Plastic Rice Bowl Quality Assurance department had obviously overlooked the all-important impact test.

There were four exciting versions of wind-up rice bowls to choose from - I guess for people who like variety in their plastic diets. Or, I suppose one could purchase all four and have Rice Bowl Races.

The concept of the plastic wind-up rice bowl begs the question: What the fu*k? 

How many natural resources were exhausted and how many man (or child) hours were spent creating and marketing such an item? How much time was spent brainstorming, designing, building prototypes and conducting QA testing? How many meetings were held to discuss what color the bowl should be? What kind of rice should be in it? Three wheels or four? What shape should we make the windy-uppy thingy?

The plastic wind-up rice bowls (which were about two and half inches in diameter) were five bucks each. Five bucks. I can get a real bowl with real rice in it for less than that, and it won't run away from me when I try to eat it. 

Although, I must admit, if more people had to chase bowls of food it would probably solve much of the country's obesity issues. Perhaps if our cheeseburgers and onion rings and chicken fried steaks came in bowls with wheels and we had to chase them around the kitchen we’d all be in better shape. And if they scurried off the edge of the table before we caught them, well…….better luck next meal.

Now that I think about it, I didn’t see any overweight people in Chinatown. Hmmm, maybe they’re on to something.

Addendum: I have just stumbled upon the wind-up rice bowl's sister product. 

The wind-up walking Sushi set.

I swear, I'm not making this stuff up.

Drive

I admit it. My life is a mess. Literally. My studio is always cluttered, my car is always dirty. I don’t eat right or exercise regularly or sleep normal hours. I eat way too much chocolate. I’m always late, for everything, no matter how hard I try. There are always things left undone, loose ends never tied up, bills that should have been paid last week, errands overdue.

I’ve quit making New Year’s resolutions to try to mend my ways. They’re simply my ways, and that’s all there is to it. Who’s to say there’s anything wrong with them? Let someone else live in a spotless house, drive a pristine vehicle and tick everything off their organized little checklist every day. I’ve got more important things to do.

I’m one of those weird creative freaks of nature. It’s who I am, it’s what I am. I didn’t choose it; it chose me. When I’m overtaken by the creative muse, I am 110% consumed by the force. I pursue my creative endeavor to the exclusion of everyone and everything else. Food is uneaten, living space is uncleaned, obligations are unkept.

It’s not my fault.

Blame my muse. Yes, I’ve got one. Every creative soul has one. Anybody who thinks creativity doesn’t flow from a greater source than one’s self suffers from extreme narcissism. I am at the muse’s mercy. I am the conduit and when the energy flows it has its own life, it’s not mine to direct or inhibit. When I attack a creative project I’m not doing it because I need to do it, or because I want to do it, but because I must do it. I don’t have a choice.

It’s an impossible concept to explain to anyone who hasn’t sat awake for 24 hours with a paintbrush, pen or instrument in hand, never noticing the passage of time, nor being touched by fatigue or hunger. The creative force provides everything necessary to sustain its servant, until finally cutting them loose into an exhausted and famished but sublimely satisfied vestige of themselves; a husk, a shell, physically depleted but spiritually fulfilled. We often step back from the work of art, or  written words, or musical composition that has manifested itself on the once-blank page, and think, ‘okay…how the hell did I do that?’  And we never have a really good explanation; at least not one that would stand up to logic.

Nobody else ‘gets’ it. Well, nobody except a kindred spirit, another soul equally stricken with the irrepressible drive to create. To them, no explanation is necessary. They understand instinctively, because they are spun from and connected to the same source. When we find each other, it’s a communion of souls. An automatic, instant connection on a level far below the threshold of ordinary awareness.

We know how to reach into those hidden depths. We know highs and lows and nuances and shades that mere mortals can’t fathom. It’s our blessing and our curse to experience greater joy and more profound sorrow, for to surrender to the muse is to reach for and lay open the deepest parts of one’s self.

The rewards are great, but the muse is a harsh master. So when my refrigerator is empty, my house is cluttered, my car is dirty and I totally forget that I promised to meet you for lunch, kindly remember that it's not my fault. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

I don't like spam

I don't like spam.

I'm not talking about the mystery meat-in-a-can that you fry up with eggs and bacon.

I mean the stuff that gets served to my email inbox every morning, afternoon and night.

I try to stop it, but it's like trying to keep ants out of my house. Every time I block off one place that they're coming from, they find another way in. I must get a hundred junk emails every day.

I do not need penile enlargement (although I have to admit that I know several people who do.) I do not want to buy prescription drugs from "reliable" overseas pharmacists who have no vowels in their names and whose license numbers are suspiciously similar to the format used by San Quentin for prisoner IDs. I do not believe for a moment that there is a sick child in Spain who has been collecting emails for fourteen years as his "dying wish." Nor can you convince me that I've won three million dollars in Nigerian Lottery, that Mr. Nivranskinashak Minrovernia of Flakelovakia has left me his estate and only needs my bank account number to deliver my funds or that I will receive a free computer simply by forwarding an email to two hundred people. I do not need to be warned about going to a party, getting drunk and waking up in a tub of ice water missing my kidneys. I am not falling for your claim that someone in Peru tried to use my Visa card, my Paypal account has been locked or that my Facebook password needs updating so that I can sign on to your un-secure server and supply you enough personal information to arm you for identity theft. And no, I do NOT want to 'meet my soul mate in seven days', 'hook up with hot studs in my area' or 'see what Bambi is doing on her webcam.'

Offers and spam. Warnings and spam. Spam, prizes, porn and spam. Spam spam spam spam spam.

I don't like SPAM!

Songs of the Season

I didn't write the music, but I am The Master when it comes to bastardizing lyrics. I'd like to apologize to the composers and original performers of the following songs. I'd LIKE to.....but if the shoe fits......

To the Tune of “Winter Wonderland”

Where's my truck

I can't find it

What the fuck's

All this white shit?

You can't see the grass

It's a pain in the ass

Riding in a winter wonderland!

 

Gone away is the pasture

Haven't seen it since last year

There's horses out there

They're buried somewhere

Out there in that winter wonderland

 

We'll just have to hibernate all winter

Cancel all your outdoor plans til May

Make some extra money in the meantime

And rent your horses out to pull a sleigh

 

Forecast said shouldn't worry

Just a chance of a flurry

"Partly cloudy", alas is now up to my ass

Riding in a winter wonderland 

-----------------

To the tune of “Love me or Leave me”

 

This damned stuff is killing me

I can’t stand this cold you see

Tell me now, ‘cause I’ve got to know

Whether this weather will stay or go

 

Turn up the heater and fetch me a sweater

It’s the west coast, WTF’s with this weather?

If I wanted winter I’d move to the freakin’ North Pole

 

You might think December’s the right time for white time

But I’m not the Christmas-y cold snowy night kind

I’d rather be bitchin’ than hitchin’ my horse in the cold

 

There’ll be no fun unless unless there’s some sun and sooooooooooooon

I’m just waiting and hibernating ‘til Juuuuuuuuuuuune

 

If temperatures keep heading in this direction

You weathermen better get witness protection

 

For I hate the mud and the rain and the snow

and the ice and sleet and the cold winds that blow

My pain is your pain there’s no fun for nobody else