So why do you read anything anyway? Great literature, newspapers, magazines, blogs; every word we digest builds up emotional muscle, laughable ligature, spiritual sinews.

Like calories, we intake words to live. They inform us, educate us, entertain us and on rare occasions even enlighten us. Unlike bricks and mortar, they do not crumble and crack with age. They hurdle us back in time. They transport us forward in time. They come to us always at just the right moment.

Words create parallel realities just askew from our own. These imaginary universes look, taste, smell, sound and feel much like the one we currently inhabit. Yet something’s just not quite right. No words can capture the blue in the sky, the clashing sweetness and sourness of Tom Yum soup, the aroma of freshly baked sex, the anguish in Morrissey’s voice or the rapture of the beautiful game. Words form only close approximations.

But alas, today I’m not here to contemplate the what or the how or the why of words. No, today, it is all about the where. Where do you like best to take in your words? Do you like to slurp them with your morning meal? Do you prefer to caress them in a well lighted place? Or do you blatantly voyeur them through the window of your computer?

Me, my favorite place to cavort with words is on the toilet. Yes, that’s right, sitting upon my very own thrown, I find it soothing to sink deeper into the muck of a story. There exists a certain regularity that breeds peace of mind, a solitude conducive to the sweet release of the day’s troubles in the reverie of a tale well told.

How about you, where do you most like to read your words?
What words do you inhale the most?
Is there any book/blog/article that has enlightened you in the last little while? Please share!

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Anyway, I thought given the overwhelming magnitude of his task I would write him an open letter and offer some sage yet practical advice …

Dear Interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability Kashkari,

Felicitations on being named head of the Office of Financial Stability. Couldn’t have happened to a more stand up guy. If anyone can save the capitalist system from collapse, it is a hot-shot 35 year old rocket scientist turned Goldman Sachs money wizard from Akron, Ohio. I am reminded of the saying, “It takes a thief to catch a thief.”

After feeding Bear Sterns to the bears at JPMorgan, proffering up an $85 billion liquidity facility for AIG, taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and letting the Brothers Lehman go bankrupt, your boss finally got his chicken little on and cried the sky was falling. The subsequent passage of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 put a cool $700B of taxpayer funmuny into your lap.

Your boss told congress that you would come up with a comprehensive strategy that is both immediate and specific and would have broad impact to stabilize the economy and improve liquidity. His buddy, Bernanke, further said your plan would pump up investor confidence and have positive impact on the broader economy and GDP.

So I know you’re trying to figure the best way to spend that money and save the world (economy). At first you proposed using your monopoly money to buy up illiquid mortgage backed securities (MBS) with the intent to reduce potential losses encountered by those same financial institutions you used to work with. You do realize in any other universe, the whole financial instrument ponzi scheme these institutions ginned up would be illegal. Hell, it goes without saying it was unethical. Now you’ve abandoned even that idea and are looking at cash infusions into the top banks (who also happen to be the top offenders).

So before you go a givin all that money to the idiots who got us into this fine mess in the first place, I’ve got an even spiffier idea, one that better aligns with aforementioned stated criteria for the bailout plan.

Given your high-falutin Wharton education you know that $700B works out to be a little over $2000 per taxpayer. So just think, for $2000 you could outfit each and every man, woman and child in America their very own virtual reality iglasses.

These award-winning Head Mounted Display Image Monitors are used by the United States Navy, NASA and porn aficionados alike. They give their users a delicious 70 inch HDTV experience.

Just think of the possibilities. Joe six pack, Joe the plumber, hell, even Joe the investment banker no longer need angst about our deteriorating economic conditions. They can just veg out to the latest movies or escapist TV. Hell, who needs reality when they can have virtual reality!

This, of course, will also create incredible economic activity in Hollywood as they drum up newer, stupider, happier pap for their virtually real audience. Everyone can star in his or her own reality TV series. Everyone can be the center of his or her own virtual universe. Everyone can do his or her part to help bailout the financial system by simply wishing the mortgage crisis never happened.

My proposal is both immediate and specific and would have broad impact to stabilize the economy and improve liquidity. It would clearly pump up virtual investor confidence and have seemingly positive impact on the broader economy and GDP. It would restore the hegemony of capitalism while simultaneously exploiting America’s greatest national treasure: Hollywood!

So do you have any bright ideas to solve the financial crisis and rescue capitalism?

Disclosure: author holds 45% ownership stake in Ultimate3DHeaven, makers of iglasses, but this fact in no shape or fashion colors his analysis.

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I recently read a statistic that more people had moved out of the great state of California than moved in over the past year.  This has gotten everyone from governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to my local paper boy nervous.  “What if you all move away, what happens to my route,” a young distraught Jeremy said to me the other day.  I reassured him that we, at least, would wait until after the next big earthquake before we ever bolted out of the state. 
 
So I thought to help out and write a public service blog trumpeting all the good things about California in the hope that some of you gentle readers will become enamored and move out here.  I even caught wind of a letter circulating in the Governor’s office with a proposal that he shake the hand of every newcomer upon arrival.  So besides all of the other wonderful advantages, you might even get to meet the Terminator himself!

So why leave the cold, wet, snowy, hot, humid environment where you currently live elsewhere and come to California you ask?  Well, in sunny CA you get the best weather in the country.  It does take some getting used to however.  Perfection, that is.  Sometimes it can grate on you.  Like some divine practical joke, for instance, the surrounding hills turn green in the winter.  Lush, verdant, in the Damn winter!  And when summer comes they toast brown and wither away (like plants do in the winter in the other 99% of the world).  Hence the constant threat of forest fires like the rager that is currently threatening hot bed of liberal values, Los Angeles! 

Another big advantage is the absurdly high cost of living. 
“How, JD, can that be an advantage,” I can hear you scratching you head and muttering? 
Simple, it keeps you hungry, motivated and lean.  Ever notice how many fit, sexy people there are in CA on the TV.   One reason is because food costs twice as much there as the rest of world.  And don’t get me started on housing.  That’s three times as much. 

However, that’s a good thing according to the ‘Koi theory’, a recent line of scientific thinking that holds that some people, like the eponymous fish, grow to fit their surroundings.  Thus buy a big house and you yourself will get subtly bigger.  Stuff yourself into a small box of a house and you stay small, fit and trim.  These key advantages to your physical health and sex life can’t be overlooked.

Another advantage is the multi-cultural smorgasbord that lives in CA.  It is soooooo convenient.  Let’s just say it’s the middle of the night and you absolutely, positively need to have that odd paragraph translated into Pashtun, Urdu, Chinese, Japanese, Romanian, Russian or Spanglish.  There is always someone hanging around the local Home Depot or Quickie mart that can help you.  Most likely for free.  It’s a veritable United Nations in sunny Californigh-yay.  In fact, in parts of LA your probability of catching a stray bullet are the same as, say, in Iraq.

And finally another point I hinted at in my opening.  Your proximity to the stars!  Since roughly 40% of the State works for Hollywood, the chance that you run into your favorite star while out and about runs very high.  Hell, just the other day I ran into Christian Bale’s gardener’s niece.  She fixed me a double mocha frappuccino AND gave me her autograph.  Cool! 

So how about it, are you sold?  Ready to move to the land of milk and honeys? 

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Some ardent junkies never ever leave their widescreens because so many exciting shows get broadcast week in and week out on US TV. Little beknownst to them, however, these choice shows are but the lucky survivors of a brutal Darwinian whittling process. You see, prior to each season, studio execs screen a multitude of pilot shows. They cull the pap and spoon off the cream of the viewing gems. Thus, alas, many a great show never sees the light of daytime, much less primetime, TV.

I thought to bring this viewing tyranny to an end and give you, the discerning public, the opportunity to possibly rescue a few of these top flight TV shows by creating a word of mouth campaign or an email blizzard to bring them back into the popular consciousness.

The first show that got unfairly and summarily axed was “CSI Billings,” a fast-paced drama about a team of forensic investigators trained to solve crimes by examining the evidence … in Billings, Montana.     They are on the case 24/7, scouring the scene, collecting the irrefutable evidence and hootin it up at the local dive bar, usually too drunk to put together the missing the pieces that will solve the mystery.  Interestingly enough, CBS originally pitched this as a “Reality CSI” series to augment their CSI franchise.

The next show to find the cutting floor rather than a coveted spot on the Food Network’s schedule is Rachael Ray’s  “Cooking your Pets.”  This idea was originally proposed to extend her bubbly franchise hits like “Cooking on $40 a Day,” “30-Minute Meals,” “Inside Dish,” and her syndicated daytime show.  While the show pilot got subpar ratings in the US, it played very well in certain East Asian countries.

Next to get bobbited was primetime soap with a truly contemporary take on the “happily ever after,” “Desperate 2nd Cousins” takes a darkly comedic look at suburbia, where the secret lives of kissing cousins aren’t always what they seem.
The series began with Mary Jo leaving her perfect house, in the loveliest of suburbs, and ending it all. Now she takes us into the lives of her family, friends and neighbors on Histeria Lane, commenting from her elevated P.O.V.  You know the axiom about Hollywood – “nothing new under the sun” this little experimental show was viewed by many audiences as too sophisticated for the average “Desperate Housewives” fan.

Well, if any of these shows catch your passing fancy then I suggest you get your stalk on and call, email and otherwise harass the offending network (execs) until they agree to reinstate the shows to their upcoming Spring slate.

Do you watch much TV?
What are your favorite shows?

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What mundane activities spawn high drama for you?
Have you ever been fly fishing?
Or in grave, mortal danger?  How did you escape?

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What goes around comes around, funny how life has a way of balancing everything out.

Several years ago when we were visiting my brother in California his young panicky cat slipped under his car and refused to come out. After a watching the entire family try to coax the timid kitten out, I sauntered up and with no uncertain amount of bravado blustered, “Let me get him out, I speak Cat.” So I squatted down and let loose an authoritative “Meow.” “Darn if I don’t sound like a cat,” I thought to myself. And then, wouldn’t you know it, Boots came tumbling right out. My young kids looked at me in awe. Being totally within character, I took full credit for this feline rescue.

So from that point on M and S actually believed that I spoke Cat. I’m not kidding. At the zoo they exhorted me to translate for the Tigers. To laugh at the Lions. I told them, “Lions are proud creatures that wouldn’t admit to speaking lowly House Cat,” while suppressing a big chuckle. They implored me to yell at the Jaguars to come over and bare their fangs. This myth not only perpetuated for years, but in fact, grew in stature. One day not long after the original “Boots incident” while at the park M, knowing that I already spoke Cat, on a lark asked me if I also barked Dog. “Well, heck, once you purr a little Cat, what’s a little Dog,” I thought to myself. So I said “Yes,” barked at a dog to come over and wouldn’t you know it – he did! This marvelous myth persisted for years. I teased them mercilessly and laughed and laughed (on the inside). I became so full of myself.

But then life has a way of slipping away as air slowly hisses out of a holey bike tire. I don’t know exactly when or how, but sort of like the invisible deflating of the Santa Claus or Tooth fairy myths, one day I woke up to find that my kids didn’t believe I spoke Cat or Dog anymore. In fact, in a rude turnabout, they had taken to piteouslessly teasing me about it when I continued to “meow” and “bark” away at rogue pets. Which stung mightily because, truth be told, after so many years of them believing, I had come to the inexorable conclusion that I actually could speak to animals.

To this day, I still believe with all my heart that my perfect pitched purr will get through to those cats without the odd hearing impairment or personality disorder.

“Meow.” “Meow.” “Prrrrrrrr.”

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Always Look on the Absurd Side of Life

I am physically nondescript. Boring, really. I don’t really stand out in a police line-up. And, knock on wood, I’ve survived more of those than it is probably prudent to share here. I don’t have any good stories to tell about my experience to tug at your heart strings or mist over your eyes. Although I have been known to contract curable cancer on occasion and carry around stray puppies in seek of sympathy. I don’t even have a discernible philosophy of life. Well, that is if you discount the ultimate redeeming spiritual value of soccer and beer. In fact, I don’t know what crazy idea possessed me to try to answer that question.
Ah, wait, I do know, there is one thing that I believe in! I believe in the absolute absurdity of life. I mean how else do you explain the world today: grand triumphs such as the microchip or edible underwear; and sullen tragedies like abject poverty, war and Reality TV?
Having grown up down south, middle class in the 1970’s I am unabashedly a child of the earlier TV generation. I grew up on a steady diet of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and M.A.S.H. I have never wanted for much of anything. But conversely, I have never given that much either. I have drifted through life like Huck Finn down the Mississippi - without so much as a care bout nothin. But along the way for some unexplainable reason, I developed a deep affinity for this world and its inhabitants.
In my late teens I traveled to China and saw great suffering up close and personal for the first time. Later I visited other countries and saw other people a thousand times less materially well off than me. I taught English as a second language in Japan and made more money in a day’s wage than half this earth’s population made in a year. The only rational reason I could come up with to explain this was, well, looniness.
Later still, I married and we had kids. And now my daughter and son are growing up in a post 9/11 world. A much more dangerous world where wacko terrorists kill and maim innocent civilians; and where we traipse off to war in faraway lands full of bravado.
I fear that a group of nations is ultimately like a class of unruly kindergarteners. And somehow we’ve cast ourselves as the class bully. I fear the hubris of our generation today will only beget sorrow and suffering for that of our children’s generation tomorrow. And that makes me a bit sad.
But hey, I try to never despair too much while thinking about these things that remind me the ludicrousness of life. Why, you say? Because, in the immortal words of Eric Idle, “Always look on the bright side of life!”

Now for today’s question, I’d like to create a new ‘this I believe’ tag. Hell why not! So I would ask anyone who reads this and feels so inclined to please write an any-length essay on what they believe. Hell you could even submit it to NPR! I think I might even submit mine.

Here are the NPR stated guidelines: “Tell a story: Be specific. Take your belief out of the ether and ground it in the events of your life. Consider moments when belief was formed or tested or changed. Think of your own experience, work, and family, and tell of the things you know that no one else does. Your story need not be heart-warming or gut-wrenching—it can even be funny—but it should be real. Make sure your story ties to the essence of your daily life philosophy and the shaping of your beliefs.”

So consider yourself tagged - what do you believe (be sure to link back here)?

Brian (Eric Idle) on the cross …

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This sent my two seat mates into rapid, perpendicular leans away from me. No feigned concern registered on their faces. Just abject terror. As the spasm subsided, I figured I might as well milk it and spent the next few moments moaning theatrically.

Finally, the woman to my right, a tastefully dressed, frizzy haired blonde with a vacuous stare and slippery black boots managed to find her tongue.
“Are you OK?”
“Musta been the salmon mousse.”
“Huh?”
“I’m fine, really.”

The businessman on the aisle had the hardened look of a wronged road warrior.
A barfer. I was his worst nightmare personified.
I could see him frantically scanning for an empty seat, however, being a full flight he unfurled a monster scowl

he had probably perfected from years of his wife’s relentless hen-pecking.

Around this time I felt something kicking me through the back of my flimsy chair. At first it felt a bit like a tickle. But after several minutes of incessant booting I managed to twist a view of the young girl behind me merrily pedaling her little feeties into the chair in front of her. She kept this up the entire flight and after an interminable passage of time, I began to empathize with pregnant women the world round.

Then I noticed something on the bag.
It read Patent 7041042. Damn, some son of a britch somewhere is collecting a check every time one of those bags swells up with barf. What a life. Getting rich off the misfortune of others. (Well, sounds like most of the successful business models of the world!)
Which got me to thinking. What simple device could I patent that harvests others’ pain for my own personal gain? What invention would allow me to sit back and rake in the bucks on the backs of other poor schmucks?
And then it hit me.
A kid taser!

No, I’m not talking about a Mattelesque taser FOR kids, but rather a souped-down version to use ON kids. Just think. I could have zapped goody miss two shoes behind me and enjoyed relative peace and bliss the entire trip. She would have gotten just a minor shock and her parents would have been glad to have her unconscious for the duration. There is no end to the potential uses. Teachers, parents, aggrieved travelers can all zonk unruly tykes into stunned obedience.
Now to file my patent.

So do you have a horrible travelers tale to tell?

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2. Receiving a guided tour of Gitmo.

If my name, Joe Blow (note, changed here to protect my true identity), makes the terrorist watch list (which sadly, it does) then you can easily claim that yours does too. This way any random airport screening or innocent traffic infraction can result in a special rendition where are whisked off the sunny Cuba for a ‘debriefing’. In this day and age who would not believe you had your basic rights trampled in the name of the GWOT.

3. In a drug (or alcohol) induced fog.

Use this when life has dragged you into the gutter and your only coping mechanism is chemically induced euphoria. Think of it as the excuse of movie stars! You can further imply that you went to some faraway ‘treatment center’ and got all better. The beauty of this one is the well documented relapse.
So I hope you find my excuses valuable. Remember, two wrongs don’t ever make a right, but they make a damn good excuse.

What’s your best excuse? Did it work?
Have you ever been abducted by aliens, whisked to Gitmo, or lost to a chemical fog before?

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So I’ve decide to change all of that here today and show everyone once and for all that I have ‘Blogging range’ and can write about serious, technical subjects that matter as well. I too can incite real passions and make cutting edge revelations that educate and enlighten. I too can expose corruption at the highest level and right the wrongs of society!

What I’m about to write is highly sensitive and confidential and could damage national security if it got into the wrong hands so please keep it to yourself.

I have recently become an anonymous test subject in a top secret government experiment. I decided to release my own test results here because it is becoming increasing apparent the government just plans to cover up the entire project like McCain’s womanizing past.

It all began in Peter Pan’s office. (He’s my dentist and I think he’s originally from Hong Kong.) I’m not kidding, that’s really his name. Apparently Walt X, one of his patients who will remain incognito because I think in real life he’s a porn star, left a copy of the test procedures on the waiting room table and thank god I, as opposed any other riff raff who might have come along, found it. Truth be told, I don’t even know this Walt X character but he must not be overly trustworthy if he let such an important document fall out of his possession.

This document was fascinating. It outlined a specific test procedure and hinted at an amazing discovery. We’ve been taught since high school biology that we each have 23 chromosomes. For some of us the 23rd happens to be XX, others XY and still others, say if you’re in the porn industry like Walt, for example, XXX. But what if I told you that in some people there was actually a mysterious 24th chromosome! Yes, they’ve identified this illusive chromosome as the ‘H chromosome’.

I have become obsessed with this ‘H chromosome’. I have done extensive research on the topic. What I uncovered is highly disturbing. Obscure scientists writing in an obscure journal (I’m sorry I’ve forgotten the title as it was some long unpronounceable technical jargon) stated that this mysterious chromosome is found in certain individuals while lacking in others.

Returning to the paper, it also outlined previous recent experiments on a range of test subjects that positively confirmed the existence of the ‘H chromosome’. While it is particularly prevalent in fishermen, there is also high incidence rate reported in pubescent girls, zealous lab rats and CEO’s.
The paper also outlined very explicit and confidential testing procedure. It gave the address of a local testing site, “The Sports Page” in Mountain View. I went there and gave the secret password, “Give me a test tube baby.” Thereupon I was served a creamy, viscous test elixir. And don’t you worry there were no real test tube babies harmed in the process that I know of. I would not recommend this test for the faint of heart. The foul magma burned as it went down.

Following the procedure further, I repeated the process several times and recorded the following results.
(X) Test subject begins to feel dizzy
(X) Test subject speech slurs
(X) Test subject tries to kiss neighbor’s wife (or husband)
(X) Test subject exaggerates the size of various body parts
(X) Test subject dances on the table
( ) Test subject arrested

I did not check the final box as to my knowledge I was not arrested but things did get a little fuzzy towards the end of the experiment and I woke up at home the next day with a terrible headache.
According to the results I tested positive for the ‘H Chromosome.’ This has me worried. But so far scientists are unsure as to the extent of any negative symptoms resulting from the ‘H Chromosome.’ There is common consensus, however, that there is very little upside to being afflicted with it.

This is big folks. I think the government is wrong to put a lid on this. People with this chromosome have a right to know. Any and all comments to this Blog will form the basis of a petition to the government. Your support to get this heinous cover up out in the open would be greatly appreciated!

For you cybersleuths reading this, what does the ‘H’ in the “H Chromosome” stand for?

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