What’s that? What am I talking about? Haven’t I said? Oh, sorry…. I am, of course, referring to that classic commodity so important to the creative process, a box of crayons. What else?…. Nothing in nature can achieve quite the same shade of irony that a copper colored crayon imparts, nor does Mother Nature come in shades of sarcasm, or angst. Only the genius’ at the Crayon Factory have perfected the range of colors that are uniquely literary, and can elevate even the humblest of tracts with pale pink sincerity, or darken the mood of star-crossed lovers with a deep green envy…. I don’t know about other authors, but I’d be lost without some crayons to lend that air of elegance and style only a box of crayons can achieve….. shall we then Pearl?….. color me amazed (bright silver), at my own chutzpah…..
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A customer was bothering the waiter in a restaurant. First he asked that the air-conditioning be turned up because he was too hot, then he asked it be turned down cause he was too cold and so on for about half an hour.  Surprisingly, the waiter was very patient; he walked back and forth and never once got angry.  So finally a second customer asked him why he didn’t throw out the pest. “Oh I don’t care,” said the waiter with a smile, “we don’t even have an air conditioner.”

Smart waiter….. I am reminded of 1973, when my friend and I took a vacation to Mazatlan, Mexico. We went the first night to a famous restaurant called Señor Frog. While there, a party of four senior tourists came to the door, laughing and carrying on. A waiter approached them and said, “Follow me, please, and I will take you to the best table in the house.” Turning his back to them, he proceeded to lead the increasingly bemused group in a boisterous parade, through a winding path around every table in the place, finally ending up standing before a table right next to where the party had come in. Laughing, they sat down, as my friend and I just grinned in appreciation of his talent.

This guy was a real pro, very sharp. When the first course of soup was served, one of the women, seated on the aisle, looked down at her bowl, and said, “Oh my, it’s so hot my glasses have steamed up!” The waiter instantly whipped out his serviette, placed it dramatically over his hand, and carefully wiped off the glasses, still on her face, to the accompanying hilarity at both their table, and ours…… Truly, a waiter who knew the basic desire of every restaurant customer, to have a good time…..

Observing this interchange served me well in later years, when I spent my own time in the front of the house. One night, the perfect opportunity occurred and I was lucky enough to have the following exchange: Woman customer: (near the end of the meal, ordering dessert…) “Ned, do you know what I’d really like?” Inspiration struck, and I immediately fell to one knee, crossed my hand over my heart, and cried, “My life and honor would be complete, if only you were to tell me this!”  It took her and her companion almost five minutes to stop laughing (along with the rest of the room’s occupants) and complete her order.  I was glad we had what she wanted on the menu; it would have been somewhat anti-climatic to have to disappoint her after that interaction….. good tips that night, too…
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“Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on “I am not too sure.” — H.L. Mencken

Hence the full user name that I took when I first got involved in cyberspace, to wit: “gigoid the dubious”, no caps….. to my mind, that says it all, and humbly (hence no caps). Every time I affix my sig to another file, or piece of work on a computer, I am reminded of what is most important to the continued success of the journey on the path toward excellence upon which I travel. (Whew! Sometimes, though, it forgets to remind me to be less complex in my sentences; no sense in losing the audience while wandering around one of the initial points….)  In short, my user name reminds me of two principles essential to efficient computer use…. GIGO, and doubt.

“Well,” said Programmer, “the customary procedure in such cases is as follows.”
“What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?” said End-user. “For I am an End-user of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me.”
“It means the Thing to Do.”
“As long as it means that, I don’t mind,” said End-user humbly. — Chris Mathes, uunet@metter.chris, with apologies to C. Robin And W. T. Pooh
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“When you have shot and killed a man you have in some measure clarified your attitude toward him.  You have given a definite answer to a definite problem.For better or worse you have acted decisively. In a way, the next move is up to him.” — Raphael Aloysius Lafferty

What a wonderfully curmudgeonly re-statement of the old saw about making the best of a bad situation, and about keeping a positive outlook in the midst of conflict!…. Maybe also, one could say that every problem is an opportunity to do good in the world….. I am reminded of the Mark Twain quote: “It must be noted that (blank memory for the name) aimed and shot at an editor, but missed and killed a publisher. But we recall with charity that his intentions were good.”…… But, then, what can one expect from a man whose three names were obviously the mark of a long-standing dispute between his parents…. which was resolved with an obvious compromise…. much to Raphael’s chagrin, I’m sure, until he learned to pronounce Aloysius without stuttering…..
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Some primal termite knocked on wood.
And tasted it, and found it good.
And that is why your Cousin May
Fell through the parlor floor today.
— Odgen Nash (1902-1971)

Admit it…. you smiled, at least for an instant…. it’s hard not to smile when under the influence of Ogden’s unique style. Many people, whose noses are typically set higher than their common sense, or their morals, tend to pooh-pooh his poetry, calling it “common” and “too simple”….To them I say, with relish (sweet pickle, it’s the best…) “You have pooh for brains…”  To my mind, perhaps the most telling mark of good poetry is how accessible it is to the “common man”; if only a few, over-educated snobs read a poet’s work, I can’t call it “good”, for it ignores, or even sneers at, the common man. Without appeal to the entire gamut of human types, it fails the test of universality.

Ogden Nash’s work could never be seen as derisive, or even mildly ironic, toward the commonality of human experience; instead he reveled in that baseness, that closeness to his fellow men, and wrote for them about that experience, in simple words and rhymes they could appreciate, without ever becoming smarmy about it. In the process, he thumbs his nose (with a polite smile) at all those foolish pseudo-intellectuals who are missing out on the joy of life in the streets, in the homes, and in the hearts of the common people……
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“He probably just wants to take over my CELLS and then EXPLODE inside me like a BARREL of runny CHOPPED LIVER!  Or maybe he’d like to PSYCHOLOGICALLY TERRORIZE ME until I have no objection to a RIGHT-WING MILITARY TAKEOVER of my apartment!!  I guess I should call AL PACINO!” — Zippy the Pinhead

Much of what Zippy is quoted as saying approaches the pinnacles of sheer nonsense. But, sometimes, such as with this short statement of paranoid ideation, he is eerily accurate in placing a finger on nightmares common to everyone in society who has more than two active neurons operating in their brain. When I read this, I immediately conjure an image in my inner eye of Rick Santorum, or Newt Gingrich…. and it’s terrifying!

The possibility that one of these flaming idiots will ever get to the White House, though very slim at best, is just enough to have me seriously contemplating arming myself with what some might call an over-abundance of powerful weaponry, like maybe a bazooka to go along with the rifles, handguns, and explosive and incendiary devices of varying destructiveness I already ordered. (Don’t want to cause collateral damage to my fellow citizens, just the ones who want to increase their own freedom by trying to take mine…..)

This being the U.S. of A., that is still my right, and I will be sufficiently well-armed to competently protect that right before they can get organized enough to come for me… We only have those rights we can defend… If not, well, I don’t plan on going quietly, and I have a long history of learning to deal with violence, especially in ways to turn it’s own energy back upon itself. Zippy can rest easy…. Al Pacino is in the house…..
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I think, all things considered, that it is a good thing that I don’t sit down each morning with a defined plan of what I will write about. If I did, I’d probably miss out on a lot of the cool stuff that pops up during my morning dives for pearls, and would most likely end up talking about economics, or fashion, or some such sleep-inducing topic….. since I can’t say “God forbid” with a straight face, I’ll just say, “may William of Occam forfend”, and light a candle for the saving grace of a mind resistant to external influences and dogma…  Y’all take care out there….