A Mime Is A Terrible Thing To Waste
Good morning and greetings, rock and roll fans. Music is my mistress, as many days I walk around with a certain song playing over and over in my head, drowning out the voices that I normally hear and cherish. And cherish is a word I use to describe all the feelings that I have for you cyber readers inside.
Speaking of cherish, not to be confused with cherries, which are bursting with flavor and sweetness this time of the year, it was the first song played when my wife and I hit the dance floor at our wedding. It was either going to be that or the Guess Who’s’ American Woman,’ but “American woman, stay away from me,” really didn’t set the tone for what is an ongoing, twenty-four year journey of love, trust and Tivo, and definitely not in that order.
My wife and I have become inseparable, like two snow peas in a pod. She makes sure I’m balanced and rotated, like a good set of Michelin tires. I’m not sure she feels the same way, as the other day she quoted feminist Gloria Steinem, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” She then followed with this doozy from the former undercover Playboy Bunny, “The surest way to be alone is to get married.” I broke down and I cried. Hallmark couldn’t have said it any better.
After dropping off our daughter at school in the morning, we walk together on beautiful West Cliff Drive. It’s a magnificent way to start the day. She tells me about her hopes, dreams and aspirations, while my mind wonders about what I’ll be making for dinner that night. But through my nodding and inane comments she knows that I’m listening, a trait that is not easy for me, as my mind races faster than the earth rotates around Oprah. As she once told David Letterman, “When I look into the future, it’s so bright it burns my eyes.” And that’s why I wear sunglasses, because I’m finally getting the feeling that at this belated date, my future is ahead of me.
But stop the presses. Five minutes after I wrote the line about my brightening future, I had to remove my shades, as I received a phone call from a long time compatriot that put a damper on my previous statement. I found it somewhat ironic that less than 300 seconds after I had written the most optimistic sentence in my blogging career, I was suddenly no longer in that moment of joy and excitement. I was in a place that I had visited way too often in my life, where I didn’t need to make an appointment as it seemed they were expecting me. The future just ain’t what it used to be.
The situation brought to mind a scene from Woody Allen’s “Play I Again, Sam,” where he’s in a museum, attempting to pick up a woman who’s looking at a painting. Woody: That’s quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn’t it? Woman: Yes, it is. Woody: What does it say to you? Woman: It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless, bleak straitjacket in a black, absurd cosmos. Woody: What are you doing Saturday night? Woman: Committing suicide. Woody: What about Friday night?
Life is so strange, but with all the good and bad, it’s really just how you perceive it between your two ears. It seems like every day I’m getting older. Pablo Picasso said it takes a long time to grow young. I don’t want to say I’m getting old, but the most exercise I get is looking for my glasses. I’ve already lived the lives of five golden retrievers. And yet I still want to chase that tennis ball.
However, for a young man in his 60’s, I’m great shape. Despite waking up to go to the bathroom 13,000 times a night, I’m always fresh and raring to go in the morning. I know I don’t get enough sleep, and perhaps that’s why I spend a good part of the day opening my mouth involuntarily while taking a long, deep breath of air. I believe the medical term is called yawning and is a result of stress, tiredness and extreme virility. Throw in the fact that I snore like a banchee and next to Lou Gehrig, my wife might be the luckiest man alive.
The most important thing for me is keeping my mind active and making sure my DVR is plugged in. That’s why week after week I pound away at this key board, like Mozart with a jump shot, trying to put together some words and sentences together that don’t violate the Volstead Act. And who knows what the future holds? I could be sitting on a gold mine. So stay tuned.
For today’s photo appetizer, I’m finishing what I started two weeks, ago, when I featured a gorgeous late January sunrise shot at Steamers Lane. The mid afternoon cloud action over the bay was incredible. Today’s photos are the second half of the daily double, which was the fabulous sunset I shot that same night.
I started out my photographic adventure at Stockton Avenue along West Cliff Drive, and then like Lewis and Clark without the services of Sacagawea, made my way up to Natural Bridges for the grand finale. Just a beautiful night from the winter of 2013 on Monterey Bay. Days like this is why God invented the sky.
No late night humor this week so I’m going with a few jokes. A guy is sitting at home when he hears a knock at the door. He opens the door and sees a snail on the porch. He picks up the snail and throws it as far as he can. Three years later, there’s a knock on the door. He opens it and sees the same snail. The snail says “What the hell was that all about?”
A guy enters a bar carrying an alligator. Says to the patrons, “Here’s a deal. I’ll open this alligator’s mouth and place my genitals inside. The gator will close his mouth for one minute, then open it, and I’ll remove my unit unscathed. If it works, everyone buys me drinks.” The crowd agrees. The guy drops his pants and puts his privates in the gator’s mouth. Gator closes mouth. After a minute, the guy grabs a beer bottle and bangs the gator on the top of its head. The gator opens wide, and he removes his genitals unscathed. Everyone buys him drinks. Then he says: “I’ll pay anyone $100 who’s willing to give it a try.” After a while, a hand goes up in the back of the bar. It’s a woman. “I’ll give it a try,” she says, “but you have to promise not to hit me on the head with the beer bottle.”
A newlywed couple moves into their new house. One day the husband comes home from work and his wife says, “Honey, you know, in the upstairs bathroom one of the pipes is leaking, could you fix it?” The husband says, “What do I look like, Mr. Plumber?” A few days go by, and he comes home from work and his wife says, “Honey, the car won’t start. I think it needs a new battery. Could you change it for me?” He says: “What do I look like, Mr. Goodwrench?” Another few days go by, and it’s raining pretty hard. The wife finds a leak in the roof. She says, “Honey, there’s a leak on the roof! Can you please fix it?” He says, “What do I look like, Bob Vila?” The next day the husband comes home, and the roof is fixed. So is the plumbing. So is the car. He asks his wife what happened. “Oh, I had a handyman come in and fix them,” she says. “Great! How much is that going to cost me?” he snarls. Wife says: “Nothing. He said he’d do it for free if I either baked him a cake or slept with him.” “Uh, well, what kind of cake did you make?” asks the husband. “What do I look like,” she says, “Betty Crocker?”
So that’s our first blast for June. We’ll catch you stepping up in the playoffs and showing NBA fans why you’re the best young center in the eastern conference. Aloha, mahalo and later, Roy Hibbert fans.