20 More Summers for Party Cake Hermit Crab House

Tom Waits as Benny in Rumble Fish, musing on time, 40 summers ago:

"Time is a funny thing. Time is a very peculiar item. You see when you're young, you're a kid, you got time, you got nothing but time. Throw away a couple of years, a couple of years there... it doesn't matter. You know. The older you get you say, 'Jesus, how much I got? I got thirty-five summers left.' Think about it. Thirty-five summers."

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Did anybody notice the presidential candidate who is saying he's allowed to be a dictator? Normal candidates don't beg for total immunity from prosecution, even for cases that "cross the line." This guy doesn't even believe his own words. He's not arguing that the current president could order the justice department to toss him in jail for life. He's arguing that one person has total immunity from prosecution, and that person just happens to be himself, the guy with four score and eleven criminal charges against him.

January 18, 2024

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Last night I finished watching Martin Scorsese's Fran Lebowitz documentary, and then dreamt all night that I was having a conversation with her. At one point she said something I found clever, but then I realized I was dreaming, meaning that I was the one who thought of the thing I found clever, haha. I tried to remember what it was but I think it was just some platitude masquerading as cleverness. 

To put it another way- my brain realized that my brain made up something that my brain thought was clever, but my brain now realizes it wasn't clever at all.

Anyway, since I can't remember, here's a great quote from her, in a column offering advice to 17-year-olds, yet widely applicable. 

"Think before you speak. Read before you think. This will give you something to think about that you didn't make up yourself- a wise move at any age, but most especially at 17, when you are in the greatest danger of coming to annoying conclusions."

January 18, 2021

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Just looked up one of my great-grandfather's birth certificates. Here's a smattering of critical data:

Sex- Male 

Twin, Triplet, or other?- Single

Number In Order of Birth- First

Legitimate? Yes

WHAT???

January 18, 2020

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I just got a free hermit crab off Facebook marketplace. Gretel named him Party Cake Hermit Crab House. Zuzu named him Grasshopper. 

After I left she said she has a 55 gallon tank I can have too if I want it. I said I'd take it. She said it's in her crawlspace, and might be a little difficult to get out. I said I could help. I'm getting it tomorrow. So apparently my fatal flaw is my gullibility.

January 18, 2020

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Zuzu told me something last night as she was going to sleep- "You are Mr. Baldhead, and you are made of meat." 

That's a little too true.

January 18, 2020

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Has the press even bothered to ask the press secretary about the pornstar scandal? By this point is it just assumed that he did it, and that he'll say he didn't? Why even waste the time asking? 

Even his true believers have to believe it's true. Certainly they cling to "there is no proof," but they need to solemnly ask themselves if they believe it like the rest of us- if not, would they bet money on it? I bet none would. And if they do discover that they believe it did happen, they need to admit that they believe the president is vulnerable to bribery and extortion.

But like everything else it probably comes down to "who cares," or "What About Bill Clinton?" You get the feeling that What About Bill Clinton? could forgive Trump for shooting someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue. What About Bill Clinton? has replaced What Would Jesus Do?

Jane 18, 2018

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The universe is expanding at an increasing rate, so gravity will never cause a Big Crunch where everything crashes back in on itself. That means we live during our universe's relatively short window in which it's possible to see other stars and galaxies. There will be an eternity when they are either too distant, or burnt up. Imagine living then, and trying to conceive of other stars.

January 18, 2014

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It's good to run out of heating oil once in awhile. It makes you appreciate it.

January 18, 2011

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In America's early days, some prisons had a limit on how often they could serve lobster to prison inmates. Lobsters were considered lower class food, and serving them more than once a week was seen as cruel and unusual.

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The magnitude 7.9 Tenshō earthquake struck Honshu, Japan on this day in 1586, killing 8,000 people and triggering a tsunami.

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The first uprising of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto took places on this day in 1943. Heroes, my respect.

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French lawyer and philosopher, Montesquieu, joined us on this day in 1689.

"I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve."

Charmed life! 

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A. A. Milne joined us on this day in 1882. 

"Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them."

That's my gardening philosophy. 

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Robert Anton Wilson joined us on this day in 1932.

Little Tony was sitting on a park bench munching on one candy bar after another.

After the 6th candy bar a man on the bench across from him said, "Son you know eating all that candy isn't good for you. It will give you acne, rot your teeth, and make you fat."

Little Tony replied, "My grandfather lived to be 107 years old."

The man asked, "Did you grandfather eat 6 candy bars at a time?"

Little Tony answered, "No he minded his own fucking business."

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Dave Attell join us on this day in 1965.

"Some people are against porno and I say, hey, whatever a man and a woman and another woman with a penis and a midget do to a donkey, that's their business."

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Other notable birthdays- Oliver Hardy (1892), Cary Grant (1904), Kurt Flood (1938), Jason Segel (1980)

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Rudyard Kipling left us on this day in 1936. Prior to that day, he wrote this to a magazine that incorrectly reported his death.

"I've just read that I am dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers."

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Curly Howard left this on this day in 1952, at the age of 48, the funniest guy to ever nyuk. "Wild hyacinth!"

Even if they have nothing else in common, our great-grandfathers and our great-grandsons will all find the Three Stooges hilarious. That's seven generations!

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Bruce Chatwin, the subject of Werner Herzog's Nomad, left us on this day in 1989. From What Am I Doing Here?:

"Walking is a virtue, tourism is a deadly sin."

The two of them were kindred spirits.

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Edward Abbey- "There are some good things to be said about walking. Not many, but some. Walking takes longer, for example, than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. Thus it stretches time and prolongs life. Life is already too short to waste on speed. I have a friend who's always in a hurry; he never gets anywhere. Walking makes the world much bigger and thus more interesting. You have time to observe the details. The utopian technologists foresee a future for us in which distance is annihilated. … To be everywhere at once is to be nowhere forever, if you ask me."

Reminds me of Herzog and Chatwin. Haven't some of my best moments been walking? Walks on the beach come to mind, along with walking home from school when my car was broken.

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Another notable deathday- John Tyler (1862)

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Dennis Hopper's photographs of the Selma March...

https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/photos/2010/01/mlk-hopper-slideshow-201001

January 18, 2010

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Every year edge.org asks a bunch of prominent intellectuals a provocative question, such as "What is your dangerous idea?", "What have you changed your mind about?", "What should we be worried about?", etc. This year they asked, "What do you think about machines that think?" Great answer from Sam Harris.

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/can-we-avoid-a-digital-apocalypse

January 18, 2015

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Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra- "One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure."

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Goethe- "Why look for conspiracy when stupidity can explain so much."

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Hegel- "What experience and history teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it."

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Ralph Marston- "Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open. You're able to benefit from the unique viewpoints of others, without being crippled by your own judgment.”

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Chatwin again, from The Songlines:

As a general rule of biology, migratory species are less 'aggressive' than sedentary ones.

There is one obvious reason why this should be so. The migration itself, like the pilgrimage, is the hard journey: a 'leveller' on which the 'fit' survive and stragglers fall by the wayside.

The journey thus pre-empts the need for hierarchies and shows of dominance. The 'dictators' of the animal kingdom are those who live in an ambience of plenty. The anarchists, as always, are the 'gentlemen of the road'.

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Muhammad Ali- "I'm a fighter. I believe in the eye-for-an-eye business. I'm no cheek turner. I got no respect for a man who won't hit back. You kill my dog, you better hide your cat."

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Martin Luther King Jr.- "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

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Franklin- "A penny saved is a penny earned."

That crosses my mind way too much!

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Groucho Marx- "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it."

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