Playing My Soul Out of My Body

Kurt Vonnegut was a POW in Nazi Germany and survived the Allied fire-bombing of Dresden by taking shelter in the underground meat locker of a slaughterhouse. This loosely formed the basis of Slaughterhouse-Five. Here's an excerpt from Cat's Cradle:

“Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.

“I do not mean to be ungrateful for the fine, martial show we are about to see—and a thrilling show it really will be..."

He looked each of us in the eye, and then he commented very softly, throwing it away, “And hooray say I for thrilling shows.”

We had to strain our ears to hear what Minton said next.

“But if today is really in honor of a hundred children murdered in war,” he said, “is today a day for a thrilling show?"

“The answer is yes, on one condition: that we, the celebrants, are working consciously and tirelessly to reduce the stupidity and viciousness of ourselves and of all mankind.”

...

Memorial Day 2018, Trump tweet:

In honor of Memorial Day, we are doing 25% off all #MAGA gear! Use code REMEMBER. https://bit.ly/2s7U10R

Never forget, that ridiculous tweet. It completely gives the guy away.

...

Sam Harris- "Only the atheist realizes how morally objectionable it is for survivors of a catastrophe to believe themselves spared by a loving God while this same God drowned infants in their cribs."

...

Playwright Christopher Marlowe was stabbed to death at the age of 29 on this day in 1593, over an argument about a bar tab. That's a short life, but here I am quoting him over 400 years later.

"All live to die, and rise to fall."

Speaking of rising to falling, Patsy Cline's I Fall To Pieces was at the top of the charts when she died in a plane crash. It almost seems like that was written by some madman. 

Similarly, Christopher Marlowe said this in Edward II, the last of his great dramas and considered by many to be his masterpiece:

"You must be proud, bold, pleasant, resolute,

And now and then stab, when occasion serves."

Yeah, this stuff must have been written by some maniac.

...

French philosopher and author, Voltaire, left us on this day in 1778. "Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all."

...

I keep thinking back to very early on in this pandemic to the weekend that our government put $1.5 trillion into the stock market to stop its slide. How different would have things been if they used that same money to give every American household $1,000 per month for a year? Even if their intent was strictly to stop the stock market slide, wouldn't that have done it too? Wouldn't we be poised to enter a new dawn of prosperity? 

If so, maybe sooner rather than later Biden should announce Andrew Yang as labor secretary. Biden's campaign has focused on what so far, basic competence? Last I checked, enthusiasm and inspiration win elections. Go Rooseveltian on Trump's ass.

May 30, 2020

...

16 Cognitive Distortions, Positive Psychology, by Courtney Ackerman

9. Should Statements

Another particularly damaging distortion is the tendency to make “should” statements. Should statements are statements that you make to yourself about what you “should” do, what you “ought” to do, or what you “must” do. They can also be applied to others, imposing a set of expectations that will likely not be met.

When we hang on too tightly to our “should” statements about ourselves, the result is often guilt that we cannot live up to them. When we cling to our “should” statements about others, we are generally disappointed by their failure to meet our expectations, leading to anger and resentment.

...

Remember in the mid-1980's when someone would have a sleepover and watch Faces of Death? Who would have thought the 2020 equivalent would just be watching the news?

When I was in Junior High, we had a small apartment above our garage, and when the long-term tenant moved out, I convinced my parents to let me sleep there for the night. It was the worst night's sleep of my life. I kept thinking I was hearing things creaking in the attic, and I dreamt about public executions on TV. It was like the knight who got his arms and legs chopped off in Monty Python and The Holy Grail, except it was real.

Except for the specifics, here we are.

May 30, 2020

...

From Sam Harris's preface to a conversation with David Frum:

Imagine you're on an airplane cruising at 30,000 feet, and at the end of the flight the captain comes stumbling out of the cockpit visibly drunk, or maybe insane. Let's say he gropes one of the flight attendants, gets on the PA and starts bragging about how rich he is, he starts insulting some of the passengers. He says, "if you want me to land this plane you better start being nicer to me," something completely out of keeping with his role in safeguarding the lives of the people on that plane. He launches into a conspiracy theory, stating that the airline is really run by a shadow group of maintenance employees who are working to undermine him, and he thinks they've been monkeying with the instruments in the cockpit. He fires the copilot and sends him to the back of the plane. He could do a dozen similar things within the span of an hour that proves that this is not a normal situation, he's not a normal pilot. Now when it comes time to land the plane there are so many possible things that could go wrong, so the danger has been horribly magnified. You are quite reasonably horrified and appalled that the responsibility for so many lives, yours among them, has been given to somebody who is so obviously unfit for the job, monstrously unfit for the job. 

You find yourself worrying about this out loud, and you find that there people on the plane who are actually inspired by the pilot's antics and are goading him on. He's saying that maybe he should punch some old woman in the face and people are yelling for him to do it. People are turning to you as you worry about this and they're telling you that you've pilot derangement syndrome and that you should just stop whining and enjoy the flight, and that Captain Trump is making flying great again. 

So this is our situation, we're worried about obvious incompetence, and distraction from the task at hand, and coming at a time that we can least afford it- during the pandemic and a global economic emergency. Now the question is, and I'm posting this to our listeners, how much of our concern over landing the plane is due to partisan politics? It's obvious that is just not a variable.

The conversation David and I are about to have is coming from a place of believing our society needs to respond intelligently to real risks, and it's our view that we're being led by somebody who is obviously a fraud, and a con man, and an incompetent, and a morbidly self-interested person.

...

Emma was disappointed that the lemonade I bought only had 11% juice. Yeah, that's a bummer, and it's just like she always says, "When life gives you lemons, make 100% lemon juice."

May 30, 2015

...

Watching a documentary and just heard the sentence, "Things don't grow that don't have growabilitiness to them." Love that kind of thing.

May 30, 2015

...

I love the definition of "hypocrite" in Ambrose Bierce's, The Devil's Dictionary: "One who, professing virtues he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he despises."

May 30, 2015

...

Played my soul out of my body today. Feeling like I'm in hell is the only way I know I'm still alive.

May 30, 2011

...

This world is becoming stranger each day... Gnome Chomsky.

May 30, 2013

...

Zuzu has been a chatterbox since the second she woke up screaming for me. I was worried but she just had a very funny dream she needed to share. "We lived in a castle and I put fish in a bucket and hermit crabs in a bucket, and they had a window and when you and me looked in, one hermit crab farted on the other one." Yeah, pretty good. 

Since then, it's just been one question after another after another after another. At one point she asked, "Daddy, why do our brains think so many things?" Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing. 

She went on to say that she thinks the brain is in charge of the body because it's biggest part. That's interesting, a Machiavellian view of the body... might equals right, to the victor goes the spoils. I asked her why the skin wasn't in charge since it's bigger. She said skin is just to keep everything else in. Reasonable enough.

I do my best to genuinely entertain her questions but I just caught myself answering mindlessly, "yeah...yeah... yeah..." and next thing I know after seeing her slightly startled expression, I had just agreed that yeah, the wind is alive. We're in a graveyard with genealogy papers spread around, and the wind blew one of the papers over to me. So yeah... it seemed alive and she asked if it was.

She's drawing pictures of candy and dandelions, and looking at the clouds. So far she saw a shark head and a ghost in the clouds. Is this stuff coming directly out of my own subconscious?

Meanwhile Gretel's walking around all grumpy, because she lost a beetle. She's scouring the graveyard for it. Look too closely at the details and you miss the big picture. She missed out!

May 30, 2020

...

Bigfoot's less hairy, more colorful cousin. As a bonus she's blurry, like the Mitch Hedberg joke.

May 30, 2015

...

Churches Can No Longer Hide the Truth: Daniel Dennett on the New Transparency

http://religiondispatches.org/churches-can-no-longer-hide-the-truth-daniel-dennett-on-the-new-transparency/

May 30, 2015

...

...

The Daily Banter, Sam Harris Exposes Noam Chomsky as a Pedantic Contrarian Unwilling to Debate Seriously

I love these guys, and this could have been such a great debate, but unfortunately it was sabotaged by Chomsky before it began. This article is a great summation of the exchange, which includes the unfortunately true sentence: "Chomsky’s world view is now so set in stone that he cannot and will not even entertain the notion that he might be wrong."

May 30, 2015

http://thedailybanter.com/2015/05/sam-harris-exposes-noam-chomsky-as-a-pedantic-contrarian-unwilling-to-debate-seriously/

...

For anybody doubting the actual number of covid-19 deaths, a much left politically charged number is the number of deaths above what you would expect for this time of year compared to other years, no matter the cause. I'm sure some non-covid-19 deaths were attributed to it, and certainly there were deaths attributed to other things (i.e. old age) that were actually covid-19. Using data from from previous years we passed a 100,000 deaths weeks ago.

May 30, 2020

...

On this day in 1883, a stampede on the recently opened Brooklyn Bridge killed twelve people.

Our fear itself is at times more dangerous than that which we fear.

...

"The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated on this day in 1922, 100 years ago today.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us ... that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion ... that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain ... that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom ... and that government of the people ... by the people ... for the people ... shall not perish from this earth."

...

Howard Hawks, American director, producer, and screenwriter was born on this day in 1896. Here's the gayest scene in the history of the movies, from Red River... two guys showing off their guns to each other and playing with them. 

Cherry: That's a good looking gun you were about to use back there. Can I see it? [Matt hands his gun over] And you'd like to see mine. [Cherry hands it to Matt] Nice! Awful nice! You know, there are only two things more beautiful than a good gun: a Swiss watch or a woman from anywhere. You ever had a good Swiss watch?

Matt: Go ahead! Try it!

[Cherry fires a shot and knocks a can into the air. Matt also hits the can in the air with a shot of his own]

Cherry: Hey! That's very good!

[Matt shoots at another can, knocking it into the air. Cherry hits it in the air with a shot of his own.]

Matt: Hey! Hey! That's good too! Go on! Keep it going!

The film also represents a paradigm shift from the classic Hollywood star, John Wayne, to a new Hollywood star Montgomery Clift.

...

Ted McGinley was born on this day in 1958. He created so many likeable characters, and has said, "You have to like the characters you play."

...

The poet, Alexander Pope, left us on this day in 1744. From An Essay On Man:

"Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,

A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

...

Other notable birthdays- Irving Thalberg (1899), Agnès Varda (1928), Wynonna Judd (1964), Idina Menzel (1971)

...

Another notable deathday- Wilbur Wright (1912)

...

William Clarke survived sinking of Empress of Ireland and The Titanic.

...

Holy shit... I just found out my grandpa took a sabre off a dead Nazi!

May 30, 2022

...

On this day in 1956, Mickey Mantle supposedly hit a 620 ft home run off the facade at Yankee stadium, 18 inches from leaving the park.

...

Pete Rose on coming to the Phillies. 

"I didn't ask for respect. I played like I thought I deserved it and let the rest take care of itself."

He settled for $810,000 a year even though Ted Turner of the braves offered him a million dollars a year and $100,000 every year for the rest of his life. He thought the Phillies could win the World Series in the Braves could not.

Art Spander in the San Francisco Examiner:

"That's the way Pete Rose plays. That's the way he's always played. Baseball is not a game to Pete Rose, it's an obsession. He goes after it like a missionary goes after pagans."

How many millions of dollars did the Phillies' 1980 World Series cost Pete Rose.

...

"I am not afraid... I was born to do this." 

Joan of Arc left us on this day in 1431. 

We could all do well to approach life the same way the Pete Rose and Joan of Arc approached their obsessions.

...

Vulture- The Many Faces of Mad Men’s Peggy Olson

My favorite actress.

http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/peggy-olson-mad-men-faces.html

May 30, 2014

...

Palindrome- Eva, can I see bees in a cave?

...

...

Thomas Paine- "He who dares not offended throughout the honest."

...

Zeno- "The goal of life is living in agreement with nature."

...

Anthony Bourdain- "I often say wealthy cultures that are lucky and fortunate and prosperous generally don’t cook very well because they never had to. It’s the countries that struggle that make the most of what they have who, over time, learned to make wonderful things."

...

Michael Caine, as Alfred in The Dark Night- "Some men are not looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."

...

Paulie Walnuts- "They got any just coffee?"

Barista- "Our cafe du jour is New Zealand peaberry."

...

Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines:

The Bushman, who walk immense distances across the Kalahari, have no idea of the soul's survival in another world. 'When we die, we die,' they say. 'The wind blows away our footprints and that is the end of us.'

Sluggish and sedentary peoples, such as the Ancient Egyptians - with their concept of an afterlife journey through the Field of Reeds - project onto the next world the journeys they fail to make in this one.

...

Albert Einstein:

"Ego=1/Knowledge

More the knowledge lesser the ego, lesser the knowledge more the ego."

...

George Orwell- “Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac…We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.”

...

Emerson- "The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next."

...

Thoreau- "Men have become the tools of their tools."

...

Seneca- "Value your time more than possessions."

...

Chelsea Peretti:

If you really want to piss off a really hot girl, like a model-hot girl, go onto her social media, find a photo where she looks smoking hot, and you're just a regular girl. Go onto her comments and just be like, "People say I look just like you."

She'll be like, "No!" 

...

Dylan:

Disillusioned words like bullets bark

As human gods aim for their mark

Make everything from toy guns that spark

To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark

It’s easy to see without looking too far

That not much is really sacred

...

That's all folks. (Mel Blanc was born on this day in 1908.)