Blunt Wit

Dear BC,

So the good folks at Blogcatalog are offering a moochers pass to Blogworld and New Media Expo for the person who is most worthy.

I am here to state my case as to why it should be me. Unlike the previous winner, I am not good looking woman nor can I sing worth a darn. I do, however, have a distinct advantage over other wannabes. I am mentally deranged. Not dangerously so. I just have five other personalities inhabiting my wiry frame.

Thus, I am both more fun to be with and a great bargain in these hard economic times.

By sending me, the folks at BC will be sending six fascinating individuals to a single bloggie event for the price of one. Hell, that’s like killing SIX birds with one stone. Hoo-rah!

By sending me, BC is essentially performing a public service. Bloggers are ALWAYS on the lookout for interesting angles to write their posts. They love to reveal the strange and the macabre, uncover the silly and the sanctimonious. My rather eccentric brethren and me would thus become fodder for the blogging community at large. We’d be the toast of Las Vegas.

And, it just so happens that I am also a damn good luck charm. People around me seem to win at everything: gambling, love, Parcheesi. Stand beside me at a craps table and watch the dice roll you sweet numbers.

So in conclusion, pick me!

Sincerely,

JD, Billy Bob, Pepe, Abu, Jimmy John, Thurston Winchester III

Another silly blog where I muse ponderifically on the art and science of wording thoughts.

So what is blogging to you?

To me blogging is all about all about lending cogency to a thought, breathing life into a whim.

Some days the swirling ideas, the tornado of life, whips up the mundane and transforms it into the sublime. At other times, it morphs the exquisitely divine into the muck of everyday existence.

We gather here in this space to share our observations. We laugh, we cry, we titillate, we entertain one another mightily. We commune, we share, we sympathize, we blog each other our humanity. We take the high road, the low sexy road and all the paths that criss-cross like silk-laced panties in-between.

In the final analysis, we are but scribes, bloggers bearing witness to the grace and glory of our own life stories. But always there is a thought, an idea, bursting to be expressed. An intention itching to leak out onto the blog and into our, sweet reader’s, consciousness.

So what is blogging to you?
Can you link an especially nice blog here today and share the love. I, for one, have been absent much lately and would love to meet some new blogging talent.

So I came damn near close to not writing this blog. In fact I have been taking my first extended break from blogging in like, forever.

Today’s topic is about the feeling of apathy. Some people would call it lazy but that’s just apathy with intention. Others would say insouciant but that’s just plain lazy without caring. Lassitude is too dang slow to describe the feeling.

Half-heartedness. That’s it! Apathy is all about heart, really. Or lack thereof. You see when your heart wanders you lose sight of your goal. Without a goal you flounder. Like a flat fish on dry-land flip-flopping for water you gasp for meaning. You need a purpose. A destination maybe. A reason to compel action.

Sometimes you take these for granted. You never notice them. You work to earn a living. You love and create to feel alive. When times are good you function on autopilot and all is right and good with the world.

When crisis erupts, however, you lose your bearing. Like a drunk, you stagger woozily. Disoriented, you sometimes lose sight of your goal. Instead of action, nothing. A profound sense of sadness or frustration or carelessness typically underpins apathy. The result is non-action. Time drags by slower. The world dims. You have urgent desires to eat chocolate or watch re-runs of “I Dream of Genie”.

So what to do?

Turn on all your lights? Ramp up your heat? Or shake it off like a dog waggling off water? Yeah, spray everyone around you. Piss them off. Will yourself into the world and the world will kick you in the shins and it will hurt. But the pain will focus your attention on the big questions: What am I doing? Why am I doing it? The feeling of apathy then becomes a gift of sorts. An opportunity for you to re-evaluate those questions and reinvigorate your response to them.

So have you ever suffered from the feeling of apathy? What brought it on?
What was your response? How did you beat it?
What is Truth North on your life’s compass?

So life’s been swamping me of late. Don’t you hate it when your real space encroaches on your blogging.

Today a little updating of Shakespeare “All the World’s a Stage” soliloquy similar to my last attempt (“To Blog or Not to Blog”) for your reading and commenting pleasure …

All the world’s a blog,
And all the men and women merely writers:
They have their posts and their reposts;
And one blogger in the Blogosphere writes of many farts,
His acts being seven ages.
Like a kid in fact, he spews and pukes on other’s blogs.
And then like the wine-drinking schoolboy, blogging with his Gallo
And red morning face, creeping like a drunk snail
Unwillingly to school.
And then the lover, signing the girl’s privates guestbook, with a sad blog dedicated to T and A.
Then a soldier, full of Iraq angst and bearded like the bard, jealous of Petraeus’s seat, secret and quick in quarrel, seeking no trouble or reputation.
Even there be a sharp comment near Bush’s mouth.
Ah the justice, on a fat tummy, a capon (castrated cock),
With a tough guy visage and a bikers beard,
Full of shit and modern contrivances;
And so he writes in his blog. The next,
Old man, thin in fuzzy bunny slippers,
With spectacles on nose and paunch of belly,
His unyouthful member, Viagra driven, a world too long
For his shrunk shank; and his manly blog,
Turning toward kid again, music players
Crank out the songs. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful blog,
Is second childishness and the internet down,
Sans readers, sans comments, sans blogs, sans everything!

The question for today is which of the Bard’s seven parts (kid, schoolboy, lover, etc.) are you playing these days?

Oh yeah, here’s the original passage from “As you Like It” so you can see for yourself how badly I butchered it …

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Clark and I had been friends since our youth back in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It was there that Clark and I began our epic rivalry. It revolves around hot, spicy, ethnic food. You see in Tennessee we grew up thinking that kind of fiery food only came from Taco Bell.

When we left those sylvan environs we had lots of lost meals (and burrito supremes) to make up for so we both became ravenous foodheads. This particular misadventure takes place years later in Samezu, (literal translation: Shark Country) a working class Tokyo suburb that sits on the inland waterways off Tokyo Bay.

So flash cut a few years after Tennessee but a few years before Shark Country to a small apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Clark was in grad school on his way to being a world famous biologist and I was on a fast train to nowhere. So one fateful evening we decided to home cook a Thai meal. We procured the necessary ingredients and set about making our curries. So if you’ve ever cooked Thai curry you know to add a small spoonful of curry paste from one of those distinctive small Maesri cans.

Well, we started drinking and cooking (a practice i highly recommend you not engage in) and bragging about how manly we were and one thing led to another and we ended up adding the entire can!

Youch. Neither of us would admit it as we forced down the oh too spicy and not really fit for human consumption curry. At that moment our macho ‘hotter than thou’ rivalry was born!

Ok, so a little about Clark. His real name is not Clark. I’m using that pseudonym to protect his identity as he as currently teaches biology at UC Berkeley and I figure there’s a high probability that one of his students might be reading this blog.

Why Clark you ask? Like the eponymous Clark Kent, he too wears glasses and has a folksy down to earth mild manner. But underneath that slide-rule-pocket-protector-aw-shucks exterior lies is a man of steel. A fierce competitor. A worthy opponent!

So now to our story. He came to visit Tokyo for some worldwide biological save the kelp meeting and we decided to get together since I was then living (in Shark Country) and working (in a salt mine of sorts) in Tokyo. I suggested a little Thai restaurant some 15 minutes from my apartment next to a Sony factory (where many Thais worked).

It was a little late when we walked up and I was afraid they were closed. As we stepped in we saw a bulky Japanese man with a big smile and a white bandana wrapped around his head standing next to a petite woman with an evil glare. There was no one in the restaurant. He said in Japanese they had had a long day and that they were planning to close but since we were there, what the heck, he’d whip us up some dinner.

We sat and death-beam-lasers-for-eyes dropped our menus on the table. I said something to her in Japanese but it only seemed to incense her. The man walked over to take our order. Clark had already started trash talking:

“I’ll bet their curry’s not even hot. If you were a spice girl your name would be ‘wimpy spice.’” I drowned him out to concentrate on what the man was saying.

Apparently there had been a TV crew in not but a few minutes before we arrived filming one of those inane shows you so often see on Japanese TV. In this case they had been taking five contestants around Tokyo to various restaurants to eat ‘the hottest foods’. His restaurant had been chosen and his Thai wife had made a Tom Yum Kung (soup) that, in his own words, would make a Thai blush.

I immediately said we’d like some. He glanced nervously back at his wife. “Well, we do have some left, but I would not recommend it. Really.” I explained in Japanese that my partner was afflicted by a rare disease and his suffering could only be lessened by spicy foods. The spicier the better. That’s why we had come to his restaurant in the first place.

Kicking Clark underneath the table and I hissed at him to frown glumly. Which he did. The proprietor finally acquiesced and the game was afoot.

When he finally brought the small earthenware pot on a small flame to our table it looked rather innocuous. We each poured some and the carnage began. The moment, nay, the nanosecond the soup touched my lips I knew I was in big trouble. It was soooooo hot. Spicy hot. Temperature hot. Ungodly hot. The pain impulses raced down my backbone such that even my toes hurt. I tried to control the pain but it was all consuming. Tears welled up in my eyes.

Thank god Clark was crying too. The big baby. Yet neither of us would give in. Another spoonful of agony. The woman came over and with a look of raw compassion placed a box of tissues on the table. But neither of us would reach for one. My eyesight blurred. Then Clark blurted out, “Dude, your lips are as big as grapefruits!”

Indeed they had swollen to five times their normal size. I felt like a freakoid. A huge lipped monstrosity. I could eat no more soup. Or dinner for that matter. Even the air began to hurt them. I had to concede defeat. Et tu labia. Betrayed by my own flesh and blood. Damn lips.

So have you ever been engaged in an epic rivalry? Did you win or did you lose? Was it a graceful win (or loss) or was it ugly?

Maybe you’ve heard that old saw, “Laughter is the best medicine?” It’s not that I don’t trust the wisdom of grandmothers and reader’s digest. Let’s just say I’m healthily agnostic about what canards I choose to believe in.

So I decided to investigate this claim in my typical pseudo scientific method for you gentle readers. Herewith are my findings:

The first question we must ask ourselves is what malady is laughter the best medicine for?

I mean, I guess if I had a gangrenous foot that needed lopping off I might get by with a good Saturday Night Live skit or The Onion. But I daresay a good anesthetic might be a tad more efficacious. Then again, the most common anesthetic, is nitrous oxide after all.

So then let’s assume laughter is the best medicine because it remedies the most common illness afflicting the human species. I would have guessed that to be turf toe but according to the internet that would be hypertension.

Previous scientific studies have proven that laughter:
- reduces pain and allows us to tolerate discomfort.
- reduces blood sugar levels.
- improves job performance.
- synchronizes the brains of speaker and listener so that they are emotionally attuned.
- will eventually bring about world peace

And now comes hard new evidence from American College of Cardiology member Michael Miller, M.D., of the University of Maryland that laughter helps your blood vessels function better.

It acts on the inner lining of blood vessels, called the endothelium (I’m not making this word up, I promise), causing vessels to relax and expand, increasing blood flow. In other words, laughter is good for your heart and brain.

Now I know what some of you are thinking. How can laughter compete with the likes of drugs such as Prozac, OxyContin, weed or ecstasy for ‘best medicine’ honors? I guess it boils down to cost performance.

Laughter comes ostensibly for free, whereas both legal and illicit drugs cost a pretty penny. Just try selling laughs on a street corner for a morning and then drugs in the afternoon and you’ll soon understand my point if you’re not gunned down in a senseless act first (and I do mean in the morning).

So in conclusion I guess Laughter IS the best medicine after all. So next time you’re feeling blue, take two (laughs) and call me in the morning.

What do you believe is the best medicine?