Saturday, June 25, 2011

Within that cell as well, Nell(and isn't that swell?)


Of course, it's perhaps too early to tell,
but what the hell.
By the way, what's that smell?

Well things don't always jell
at the ring of a bell(which could put you under a spell).

Resuming transmission here at Roger U Roundly after some time away from blogdom. Once in awhile I fade from the airwaves, into temporary dormancy- but always seem to bounce back. Very busy on the 9-to-5 front these days, even more than usual. The dayjob kicketh my ass(and doth taketh names).

The office where I work is more often than not a charged atmosphere, rife with emergencies big and small we're called upon to handle. Nerves can wear thin and tempers can flare. In this past week we had the equivalent of a 5- car pileup on the Interstate:

Person A was trying to organize some send-off cards for a number of people leaving, and person B was trying to interject another way of doing it(which he should or shouldn't have done, all things considered, but he did it nonetheless); person A gets pissed with person B for interfering and throws up their hands in exasperation. Person C later lands on Person B for what they did to Person A, as Person B is relating the story to Person D. So you have both Person A and Person C pissed with Person B, who is possibly pissed himself at Person A but definitely at Person C for interfering themselves(and vociferously at that).

A bit later, Person C lands on Person E for something work-related. So you now have Person A pissed with Person B(yeah yeah, we knew that); Person B possibly pissed with Person A but definitely at Person C; Person C pissed with both Person B and Person E; Person D is, I figure, neutral in all this; and finally Person E, along with Person B, pissed at Person C.

Oy...No wonder I need rest and relaxation on my weekends. This one featured merriment, and I was just too damned tired. Feeling a bit more spry now though, with a bit of sit-on-ass time in today.

That's reality for now. Always something entertaining going on someplace.


Thursday, June 09, 2011

The Twin Cities of Normal and insane


Some years back, a friend told me about one of his crazy clients who had left his grocery store job because he was getting subliminal messages about the grapes. Now this being second-hand information, I don't know the point of origin of these communications, whether it was other produce items(say, the mangoes- I hear they can be a bit twitchy)or perhaps another psychic vector to which this person is attached, but he was definitely getting the vibe on those grapes.

I don't mean to make light of this poor guy's dilemma. This stuff obviously caused him a great deal of psychic distress, being all too real to him. We all have our demons. There are days when I feel I myself should get a room in the Hoo-hah Hotel.

Case in point: this is my view from the throne in the upstairs bathroom. Now is it just me, or is there something going on here between the space heater and my tennis shoes? It sure looks like there's talking going on. I think they stop the minute I come in there. My brother used to record the activities of his pets in their house while the humans were out, and said it was quite entertaining. I'm sure between them, my dog and cats kick up their heels a bit in my absence. Add to that the space heater and tennis shoes, though I'm not sure the two entities interact.

Kinda makes life one big Flintstones cartoon, with the anthropomorphic appliances(all talking- just like the animals), though I don't know if that extended to fruits and vegetables. Even on the Flintstones, that's pretty "out there".

I have no idea where I was going with all this. That's my view from the upstairs throne though. Hope the grapes guy got some help all around. I guess, from my view it's easy to see how someone could enter that world. A distinct but fine line.

The Institute for Piss Removal- and other harebrained ideas


Seems like I've always had weird shit floating around between my ears. At the age of 8 or 9, I had a dream that I had a disease called funk, in which my eyes would blur and I'd levitate. And at the age of 56, I still have goofy bizarre-ass ideas that pop into my head. So of late I've taken to carrying around this "idea book" with me.

And so far it's yielded one blog, which I posted a week or so ago, called Anima/Animus. Plus this here blog. So far, the only new idea is one of those cerebral UFOs that just kinda appear between the ears: a business called THE INSTITUTE FOR PISS REMOVAL.

Hey, don't blame me. I didn't think of this. Well, I did, just not in any kind of conscious formulation is all. Just kind of occurred to me, and with no connection: I hadn't had to clean up any piss(I have three pets)and haven't been in an institutional setting, and don't think I need to be Institutionalized(you may disagree with this by the time you're done reading, however..). A mental non sequitir, got nothing to do with nothing.

The Institute for Piss Removal. It sorta works because it's both quasi-important sounding and completely stoopid. Pompous and hollow. This wasn't from a dream, just a midday sort of "reverie", if you can call it that- although it sounds like something from the world of dreamland.

I love the "place" these ideas come from, and am grateful that I have an occasional pass to there, to bring something back on my ephemeral visits. The imagination. I can't imagine life without it. So hopefully this little book will bring about more such ideas, which have little or no application in real life but are funny to read later.

The Institute for Piss Removal. Urine- you're out!

Okay, sorry for that one...

Thursday, June 02, 2011

More on Movie Night


I've talked about movie night in here for awhile now, and in two different contexts: a solo experience, initially an alternative to beer-drinking of a weekday evening; and a shared experience of a weekend evening, watching the show from the cozy confines of a couch barely big enough for one person let alone two.

The coziness is of course very much a part of movie night for both of us, but still the movie has to be right. We each have our tastes in films, which we've brought into alignment at least thusfar: she likes Vampire films and horror in general; I am amenable to these but am more of a dark comedy and/or drama kinda guy. And, being a guy(and a typical one in this sense)I also favor adventure movies. We watch all of the above fare in the course of movie night.

One of the things about converting movie night from a solo to a duo experience is that you want to share movies you've enjoyed by yourself. And one of the movies I shared on this past occasion was the old James Bond film From Russia with Love.

I like all the old Sean Connery Bond films, but this one is my favorite. I first saw it as a little kid, maybe 10 years old(1964)in the theater, and have loved it ever since. I know every bit of action, and every bit of dialogue, but still watch it over and over all the same.

One of my favorite scenes is where Bond and Tanya are aboard the ferry boat outside Istanbul, and he's recording information from her on a little reel-to-reel tape recorder about the Lector Decoding Machine:

BOND: How large is the machine?
TANYA: Like a typewriter. In a brown carrying case. Brown, like your eyes..
BOND(sternly): Keep it technical!

When viewing this film in the privacy of my movie room, I say this last line along with Sean Connery. It got a startled laugh from the person sharing the couch with me. I guess I've seen this movie so many times, it's turning into a Rocky Horror Picture Show kinda thing with audience participation on certain lines..

One other thing I was able to share with her is a detail from the scene where Kronsteen and Klebb are standing before Number One(whom you never really see, just hands petting that white cat)--these are probably my favorite scenes in the old Bond movies--getting their comeuppance for Bond getting away. Always the old switcheroo as far as who gets it- in this case a poison boot right in the shins. The henchman pivots from Klebb, Kronsteen gets kicked, goes down to his death. Kronsteen obviously makes some kind of face from the floor up at the SPECTRE henchman who's just kicked him, as you see him stifle a laugh. It's very quick, but it's there.

Movie night is one aspect of my life these days that makes it worthwhile.