Silence v. Noise, and Other Miscellany
I really enjoy listening to my kids' conversations with each other. I just overheard them discussing whether or not one of their stuffed animals believes in God.
July 14, 2018
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My kids were using over with my breath smells like tonight. They each asked me to breathe in their face. Zuzu started it off innocently enough with, "wet bread." Gretel turned it for the worst with, "rotten chicken," and then shifted toward the absurd- "rubber."
July 15, 2023
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Oh my, that Wimbledon final, wow. The first time I saw Federer play, I thought he was the best player I had ever seen. A few years ago I thought the same about Alacaraz, and we just witnessed one of the all-time great performances. Winner after winner, highlight after highlight. Four grand slams and only 21 years old.
July 14, 2024
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Maybe the best tennis I've ever seen... Federer/Djokovic, getting ready for the 5th set.
July 14, 2019
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National Shark Awareness Day. I'm very well aware of sharks every day.
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Harry Dean Stanton was interviewed by David Lynch on his 91st birthday.
David Lynch: How would you describe yourself?
HDS: As nothing. There is no self. (Laughs.)
David Lynch: How do you want to be remembered?
HDS: It doesn't matter. (Smiles.)
Lynch smiles too, knowing.
David Lynch: What were your dreams as a child?
HDS: Nightmares.
I'll take that at 91.
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1As5Ej9vvC/
He was born on this day in 1926. That means he was 60 in 1986, the year that Pretty in Pink was released. Molly Ringwald was 18 that year. That would mean that Harry Dean Stanton would have been 42 when she was born, approximately the same age as I was when I had my kids. I'm not sure what this means, but it might be best to not think about it too deeply...
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David Lynch shared this world-class anecdote about him in his autobiography, Room To Dream:
"After the screening we all wanted up at the Petit Bar at the Hotel Carlton. Angelo and Pierre and Harry Dean and I and a couple of other people were sitting at one end of the bar where it was kind of quiet and we ordered drinks, and we're sitting there and Harry Dean said a sentence. None of us can remember exactly what it was- something about chocolate bunnies and a dream Harry Dean had- but he said this sentence and we laughed, then he said a second sentence and we laugh twice as hard. We are thinking that's the end of it, but then he said a third sentence, and a fourth sentence, and each sentence topped the previous one, so we were really laughing, and he went on for eighteen more sentences! You know how they should compress the air in your mouth and your cheeks expand? That's how my head felt by the ninth sentence. I was dying laughing and my tear ducts were dry from crying-laughing. He just kept topping himself, and nobody can do that! Something will break it! But the delivery, the timing, the words, the sequence of words, it was fucking flawless, unbelievable- I've never seen a stand up comic do anything like what Harry Dean did. We could hardly stand it we were laughing so hard, and by the end of this we were dead. We still talk about this thing. If Angelo and I are together for more than fifteen or twenty minutes we always get back to that night, but neither of us can remember what Harry Dean was talking about. Harry Dean is so pure, pure self, pure Harry Dean."
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From a meme- The Bible predicted that Christians would follow a false prophet, and that they would wear his mark on their foreheads.
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Onion Politics, July 14, 2016:
Donald J. Trump: "I will rely heavily on the exceptional recommendations of whatever just pops into my head."
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George Orwell:
To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed.
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Plato- "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
If he were alive today, I think he would have included women too, just a hunch.
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"Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know." Lao Tzu (or if my voice-to-text would have its way, "Loud Sue")
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Japanese proverb- "The wind howls but the mountain remains still."
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The Chicago Fire of 1874 took a place on this day in 1874, burning down 47 acres of the city, destroying 812 buildings, killing 20, and resulting in the fire insurance industry demanding municipal reforms from Chicago's city council.
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Adlai Stevenson left us on this day in 1965. Soldier, politician, 5th United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Endlessly quotable.
"You can tell the size of a man by the size of the thing that makes him mad."
"We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil, all committed, for our safety, to its security and peace. Preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft."
My favorite political quote of all time is from Stevenson. When he was running for president against Eisenhower, a supporter said to him: “Every thinking person in America will be voting for you.” He replied, “I’m afraid that won’t do — I need a majority.”
There's a reason that you never heard of President Stevenson. Eisenhower beat him twice. Here's a picture of him conceding one of those times, which was the style of the time.
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Jerry Rubin was born on this day in 1938.
"Most men act so tough and strong on the outside because on the inside, we are scared, weak, and fragile. Men, not women, are the weaker sex."
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In a decree called the Gleichschaltung, Adolf Hitler abolished all German political parties except the Nazis on this day in 1933. On the same day, a Nazi eugenics program began with the proclamation of the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring requiring the compulsory sterilization of any citizen suffering from alleged genetic disorders.
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Gerald Ford was born on this day in 1913. What a moral quandary, pardoning Nixon. What was the best course - justice, or moving on? A better question, why would they be mutually exclusive? Nixon won in a landslide, but he stole McGovern's plans. We needed justice, and we needed to move on. One first, then the other.
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Pema Levy, writing in Mother Jones, after Jeff Sessions lost his Senate primary.
"Here lies the political career of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, named for two confederate heroes like his father and grandfather before him—the only monument to the Confederacy that Trump was eager to remove."
July 14, 2020
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Chimpanzee Day. On this day in 1960, Jane Goodall arrived at the Gombe Stream Reserve in present-day Tanzania to begin her study of chimpanzees in the wild.
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Tragedy in this day in 1966, the Richard Speck murders.
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Aristotle- "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought while not accepting it."
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Austrian painter, Gustav Klimt was born on this day in 1862. "I have the gift of neither the spoken nor the written word, especially if I have to say something about myself or my work. Whoever wants to know something about me -as an artist, the only notable thing- ought to look carefully at my pictures and try and see in them what I am and what I want to do."
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Woody Guthrie was born on this day in 1912. This Land Is Your Land has my vote for national anthem. It would make it an even better human anthem.
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
As I was walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me.
I roamed and I rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
While all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me.
When the sun came shining, and I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
A voice was chanting, As the fog was lifting,
This land was made for you and me.
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
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Robin Ventura was born on this day in 1967. As they say, he was the only player to ever get seven hits off Nolan Ryan in a single inning.
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The outlaw William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett at Fort Sumner, New Mexico on this day in 1881.
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Ingmar Bergman left us on this day in 1918.
"Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls."
Taste of Cinema- lists no fewer than 20 masterpieces!
Passion of Anna
Shame
Scenes From a Marriage
The Magic Flute
Smiles On a Summer Night
Through a Glass Darkly
Hour of the Wolf
Prison
Summer With Monika
Sawdust and Tinsel
Summer Interlude
Fanny and Alexander
Cries and Whispers
Autumn Sonata
Virgin Spring
Winter Light
Wild Strawberries
Seventh Seal
The Silence
Persona
I've watched embarrassingly few of those, and I own the box set!
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From Wikipedia:
Quentin Roosevelt I was the youngest son of President Theodore Roosevelt and First Lady Edith Roosevelt. Inspired by his father and siblings, he joined the United States Army Air Service where he became a pursuit pilot during World War I. He was killed in aerial combat over France on Bastille Day, 1918.
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I interviewed a guy a few months ago, and I still might hire him, but others have had more experience so I've hired them instead. He checks in with me every few weeks to see if anything is available. The email I got today was a bit out of the ordinary:
"Just checking in. Hope things are going well. Thought I'd shake things up by adding a bit of Star Wars trivia R2-D2, in addition to being in the original and prequel trilogies, appears in three other sci-fi/fantasy franchises: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (part of the Mothership) Raiders Of The Lost Ark (hieroglyphs in the Well of Souls) Star Trek (2009) (space wreckage over Vulcan) Hope to hear from you soon!"
It's not like we talked about Star Wars in the interview or anything, this was out of the blue. So I read that and I thought, almost out loud, "What a nerd!" And then my R2-D2 ringtone went off.
July 14, 2015
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Collected Insights From Across the Internet:
-Thanks To Phone Alarms, Millions Of People Wake Up At Exactly The Same Second
-If You’re An Identical Triplet, You’re Simultaneously One Of The Rarest And Most Common People In The World
-Everyone Values A Human Life More Than The Life Of A Fish, But No One Values A Single Human Life Over The Lives Of All Fish. Meaning Everyone Has A Certain Number Of Fish That They Would Prefer To Be Alive Than A Person
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Adlai Stevenson II again- "A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation."
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Interviewer : Is it the feeling that you're damned if you do, and if you don't, no matter what?
Robert McNamara : Yeah, yeah, that's right. And I'd rather be damned if I don't.
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It's a good idea to watch this chimpanzee joke every so often. I have to think that if they could comprehend it, they would find it hilarious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNU_F-DFaJw
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I'm listening to the new Bob Dylan book, Philosophy of Song. He says this about The Platters:
They carry their soul with a cooler-than-thou looseness, offhand and urbane, exuding hipness like James Dean exhaled cigarette smoke, and they broadcast from a station out among the stars where it is always twilight time."
WOW!
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Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience- "Your church is a baby house made of blocks."
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Freud- "One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful."
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Salman Rushdie- "When a reader falls in love with a book, it leaves its essence inside him, like radioactive fallout in an arable field, and after that there are certain crops that will no longer grow in him, while other, stranger, more fantastic growths may occasionally be produced."
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Ernest Hemingway- "You must be prepared to work always without applause."
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Marcel Proust- "Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were."
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E.B. White- "I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all."
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Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being- "He suddenly recalled from Plato's Symposium: People were hermaphrodites until God split then in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost."
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Jean-Luc Picard- "With the first link, the chain is forged."
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The greatest letter in history of the country was written on this day in 1861, by Sullivan Ballou.
Headquarters, Camp Clark
Washington, D.C., July 14, 1861
My Very Dear Wife:
Indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps to-morrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write a few lines, that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.
Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine, O God be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battle-field for any country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American civilization now leans upon the triumph of government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution, and I am willing, perfectly willing to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this government, and to pay that debt.
But, my dear wife, when I know, that with my own joys, I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with care and sorrows, when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it, as their only sustenance, to my dear little children, is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country.
I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death, and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country and thee.
I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a wrong motive in this hazarding the happiness of those I loved, and I could not find one. A pure love of my country, and of the principles I have often advocated before the people, and "the name of honor, that I love more than I fear death," have called upon me, and I have obeyed.
Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables, that nothing but Omnipotence can break; and yet, my love of country comes over me like a strong wind, and bears me irresistibly on with all those chains, to the battlefield. The memories of all the blissful moments I have spent with you come crowding over me, and I feel most deeply grateful to God and you, that I have enjoyed them so long. And how hard it is for me to give them up, and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our boys grow up to honorable manhood around us.
I know I have but few claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me, perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, nor that, when my last breath escapes me on the battle-field, it will whisper your name.
Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears, every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot, I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.
But, O Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth, and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you in the garish day, and the darkest night amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours always, always, and, if the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air cools your throbbing temples, it shall be my spirit passing by.
Sarah, do not mourn me dear; think I am gone, and wait for me, for we shall meet again.
As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father's love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care, and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers, I call God's blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.
- Sullivan
He died a week later in the Battle of Bull Run.
https://youtu.be/1VK1KcZoDu0
Addendum:
Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie
WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN
When yer head gets twisted and yer mind grows numb
When you think you're too old, too young, too smart or too dumb
When yer laggin' behind an' losin' yer pace
In a slow-motion crawl of life's busy race
No matter what yer doing if you start givin' up
If the wine don't come to the top of yer cup
If the wind's got you sideways with with one hand holdin' on
And the other starts slipping and the feeling is gone
And yer train engine fire needs a new spark to catch it
And the wood's easy findin' but yer lazy to fetch it
And yer sidewalk starts curlin' and the street gets too long
And you start walkin' backwards though you know its wrong
And lonesome comes up as down goes the day
And tomorrow's mornin' seems so far away
And you feel the reins from yer pony are slippin'
And yer rope is a-slidin' 'cause yer hands are a-drippin'
And yer sun-decked desert and evergreen valleys
Turn to broken down slums and trash-can alleys
And yer sky cries water and yer drain pipe's a-pourin'
And the lightnin's a-flashing and the thunder's a-crashin'
And the windows are rattlin' and breakin' and the roof tops a-shakin'
And yer whole world's a-slammin' and bangin'
And yer minutes of sun turn to hours of storm
And to yourself you sometimes say
"I never knew it was gonna be this way
Why didn't they tell me the day I was born"
And you start gettin' chills and yer jumping from sweat
And you're lookin' for somethin' you ain't quite found yet
And yer knee-deep in the dark water with yer hands in the air
And the whole world's a-watchin' with a window peek stare
And yer good gal leaves and she's long gone a-flying
And yer heart feels sick like fish when they're fryin'
And yer jackhammer falls from yer hand to yer feet
And you need it badly but it lays on the street
And yer bell's bangin' loudly but you can't hear its beat
And you think yer ears might a been hurt
Or yer eyes've turned filthy from the sight-blindin' dirt
And you figured you failed in yesterdays rush
When you were faked out an' fooled white facing a four flush
And all the time you were holdin' three queens
And it's makin you mad, it's makin' you mean
Like in the middle of Life magazine
Bouncin' around a pinball machine
And there's something on yer mind you wanna be saying
That somebody someplace oughta be hearin'
But it's trapped on yer tongue and sealed in yer head
And it bothers you badly when your layin' in bed
And no matter how you try you just can't say it
And yer scared to yer soul you just might forget it
And yer eyes get swimmy from the tears in yer head
And yer pillows of feathers turn to blankets of lead
And the lion's mouth opens and yer staring at his teeth
And his jaws start closin with you underneath
And yer flat on your belly with yer hands tied behind
And you wish you'd never taken that last detour sign
And you say to yourself just what am I doin'
On this road I'm walkin', on this trail I'm turnin'
On this curve I'm hanging
On this pathway I'm strolling, in the space I'm taking
In this air I'm inhaling
Am I mixed up too much, am I mixed up too hard
Why am I walking, where am I running
What am I saying, what am I knowing
On this guitar I'm playing, on this banjo I'm frailin'
On this mandolin I'm strummin', in the song I'm singin'
In the tune I'm hummin', in the words I'm writin'
In the words that I'm thinkin'
In this ocean of hours I'm all the time drinkin'
Who am I helping, what am I breaking
What am I giving, what am I taking
But you try with your whole soul best
Never to think these thoughts and never to let
Them kind of thoughts gain ground
Or make yer heart pound
But then again you know why they're around
Just waiting for a chance to slip and drop down
"Cause sometimes you hear'em when the night times comes creeping
And you fear that they might catch you a-sleeping
And you jump from yer bed, from yer last chapter of dreamin'
And you can't remember for the best of yer thinking
If that was you in the dream that was screaming
And you know that it's something special you're needin'
And you know that there's no drug that'll do for the healin'
And no liquor in the land to stop yer brain from bleeding
And you need something special
Yeah, you need something special all right
You need a fast flyin' train on a tornado track
To shoot you someplace and shoot you back
You need a cyclone wind on a stream engine howler
That's been banging and booming and blowing forever
That knows yer troubles a hundred times over
You need a Greyhound bus that don't bar no race
That won't laugh at yer looks
Your voice or your face
And by any number of bets in the book
Will be rollin' long after the bubblegum craze
You need something to open up a new door
To show you something you seen before
But overlooked a hundred times or more
You need something to open your eyes
You need something to make it known
That it's you and no one else that owns
That spot that yer standing, that space that you're sitting
That the world ain't got you beat
That it ain't got you licked
It can't get you crazy no matter how many
Times you might get kicked
You need something special all right
You need something special to give you hope
But hope's just a word
That maybe you said or maybe you heard
On some windy corner 'round a wide-angled curve
But that's what you need man, and you need it bad
And yer trouble is you know it too good
"Cause you look an' you start getting the chills
"Cause you can't find it on a dollar bill
And it ain't on Macy's window sill
And it ain't on no rich kid's road map
And it ain't in no fat kid's fraternity house
And it ain't made in no Hollywood wheat germ
And it ain't on that dimlit stage
With that half-wit comedian on it
Ranting and raving and taking yer money
And you thinks it's funny
No you can't find it in no night club or no yacht club
And it ain't in the seats of a supper club
And sure as hell you're bound to tell
That no matter how hard you rub
You just ain't a-gonna find it on yer ticket stub
No, and it ain't in the rumors people're tellin' you
And it ain't in the pimple-lotion people are sellin' you
And it ain't in no cardboard-box house
Or down any movie star's blouse
And you can't find it on the golf course
And Uncle Remus can't tell you and neither can Santa Claus
And it ain't in the cream puff hair-do or cotton candy clothes
And it ain't in the dime store dummies or bubblegum goons
And it ain't in the marshmallow noises of the chocolate cake voices
That come knockin' and tappin' in Christmas wrappin'
Sayin' ain't I pretty and ain't I cute and look at my skin
Look at my skin shine, look at my skin glow
Look at my skin laugh, look at my skin cry
When you can't even sense if they got any insides
These people so pretty in their ribbons and bows
No you'll not now or no other day
Find it on the doorsteps made out-a paper mache¥
And inside it the people made of molasses
That every other day buy a new pair of sunglasses
And it ain't in the fifty-star generals and flipped-out phonies
Who'd turn yuh in for a tenth of a penny
Who breathe and burp and bend and crack
And before you can count from one to ten
Do it all over again but this time behind yer back
My friend
The ones that wheel and deal and whirl and twirl
And play games with each other in their sand-box world
And you can't find it either in the no-talent fools
That run around gallant
And make all rules for the ones that got talent
And it ain't in the ones that ain't got any talent but think they do
And think they're foolin' you
The ones who jump on the wagon
Just for a while 'cause they know it's in style
To get their kicks, get out of it quick
And make all kinds of money and chicks
And you yell to yourself and you throw down yer hat
Sayin', "Christ do I gotta be like that
Ain't there no one here that knows where I'm at
Ain't there no one here that knows how I feel
Good God Almighty
THAT STUFF AIN'T REAL"
No but that ain't yer game, it ain't even yer race
You can't hear yer name, you can't see yer face
You gotta look some other place
And where do you look for this hope that yer seekin'
Where do you look for this lamp that's a-burnin'
Where do you look for this oil well gushin'
Where do you look for this candle that's glowin'
Where do you look for this hope that you know is there
And out there somewhere
And your feet can only walk down two kinds of roads
Your eyes can only look through two kinds of windows
Your nose can only smell two kinds of hallways
You can touch and twist
And turn two kinds of doorknobs
You can either go to the church of your choice
Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital
You'll find God in the church of your choice
You'll find Woody Guthrie in Brooklyn State Hospital
And though it's only my opinion
I may be right or wrong
You'll find them both
In the Grand Canyon
At sundown
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