Rant #3

Some things and some people drive me crazy.  Here are three examples:

1.  People who think they are better than you because they are early risers

"What time did you get up today?"  Amazingly, I hear this question often and when I answer they say: "Eight o'clock?  The day is half gone by then!"  No people, it's not.  So I ask them what time they go to bed and I usually hear:  "Oh, about nine...maybe 9:30."  What?  Ridiculous!  You were put to bed that early as a child!  Still hearing mommy and daddy in your head are you?  True, they are going to bed at that time now if they are still around...because they are old!  Are you eating dinner at four thirty too?  "Well" you say sheepishly, "I do get up at 5:00 AM."  You've got to be kidding me!  How is getting up in the dark a good thing?  So you're up early.  Who cares?  If you get up before dawn you're either milking the cow or going to some god-awful job.  Personally, I am rarely asleep before before 1:00 AM.  That's early enough for a civilized person.  You're missing a lot in life you know.  Do you realize that most personal fun happens after the sun goes down?  It does when you're young anyway.  Hey Grandpa:  getting up early doesn't make you better than me.  Face it, there are only three reasons to rise before dawn:  golf, fishing, or that other reason.

2.  Giant dripping sloppy sandwiches from hell

Recently I ordered, in a popular restaurant, a hamburger.  This hamburger had a lot going for it:
a generous portion of perfectly cooked ground beef, a thick slice of good cheddar cheese, ripe tomato, mild onion, apple wood smoked bacon, spicy guacamole, and butter lettuce topped off with a chipotle chili infused sauce.  Delicious.  However, it couldn't be eaten as a sandwich.  It was too thick and sloppy.  A hamburger is supposed to be a sandwich, held in your hands.  I have been accused of having a big mouth when discussing politics but it was not getting around this monstrosity.  That chili infused sauce and guacamole dripped and slopped all over my shirt and pants.  Finally, I gave up and used a knife and fork.  This is just wrong people!  It's an outrage, really!  And please, don't get me started on those colossal deli sandwiches consisting of five inches meat between two slices of bread.  I have to remove four of these inches just to get it between by jaws!  What a waste.  Get real restaurateurs!  Sandwiches were invented so that people could eat conveniently.  No knives, forks or spoons needed.  Here is what Wikipedia says about them:  "Initially perceived as food men shared while gaming and drinking at night, the sandwich slowly began appearing in polite society as a late-night meal among the aristocracy."

Please note the phrase above:  "food men shared while gaming and drinking at night".  Early riser, you missed all the fun because you were in bed already...probably dressed in your "Little Engine That Could" pajamas.  Get a life.  Be a man.  Loser.

3.  People who don't like cats

These are usually dog lovers.  Now don't get me wrong, I do like dogs.  I especially like other peoples dogs.  You see, dogs are lots of work and I don't really want to have a pet that makes me work.  Dogs can't even bathe themselves for gosh sakes, and they're always at your knees looking for attention and slobbering all over your pants!  They are so dependent.  If I had wanted more kids I would have had them.  "Well" you say, "you can't take your cat for a walk."  You are correct.  I can't really do that.  Nor do I want to.  You won't see me with my cat on a leash walking around the block and carrying a little plastic bag of cat shit.  Nope.  And dogs want to lick you all the time too!  This licking wouldn't be so bad but please, your dog just licked his gonads and now he's licking your lips!  It's gross.  Oh, and I've never had a cat hump my leg.  That's a dog thing.  What's wrong with you people?  Weirdos.

4.  People who don't think farts are funny

Come on.  They're hilarious!  Here's a good example:  You are well known by your family to be a prodigious farter.  After your gigantic Thanksgiving meal you all move to the den to watch your Cowboys get annihilated by the Forty Niners.  Fido is lying peacefully at your feet.  You squeeze out a silent one.  No one would notice if it had no fragrance but his one does and every head turns your way.  You purse your nose, look down and say in a loud voice:  "Bad dog Fido!"

Tell me that's not funny!  Here's another:  You are meeting a potential business client for the first time.  Something you've eaten earlier in the day though has given you a giant butt-load of gas.  You're desperately trying hold this in.  You stick out your hand and introduce yourself.  The second your hands touch a resounding fart escapes your pants.  This is quite embarrassing for both of you and unfortunately, you just lost this client...forever.  Seriously, if you saw this happen to someone else you would be telling this story to your friends and you'd all be crying and rolling on the floor with laughter.  If you don't think farts are funny then maybe you think bodily functions are "dirty".  My guess is that you don't even think Fidos' farts are funny either.  I don't blame you for that though.  Nothing stinks more than dog farts.

***

As an aside:

My cat Jasper has been training me for years to participate in certain of his rituals and he communicates clearly when he wants something from me or desires to give me some attention.  It's good to be wanted...and loved.  Cats don't love everyone though.  If you want your cat to love you that love must be earned.  Cats are intelligent and sensitive animals with very sharp teeth and claws.  If they see in your eyes that you don't care about their well being they will not be your friends and they will mess you up.  These last few weeks Jasper has been training me to pet him when my alarm goes off before dawn. (8:00 AM of course.)  Jasper is nine years old now but this is new behavior.  When he hears my alarm go off he jumps up on the bed, walks over my body a few times and nuzzles my hand with his head.  If I ignore him he will snub me the rest of the day.  Dogs now, they'll love you no matter what...mostly.  I love this old joke about dogs:

Q:  How can you prove that a dog is truly a man's best friend?  A:  Put your dog and your wife in the trunk of the car for an hour.  When you open the trunk, who is happy to see you?

***

Another fun fact from Wikipedia:  "During the Middle Ages in Europe, thick slabs of coarse and usually stale bread, called "trenchers", were used as plates.  After a meal, the food-soaked trencher was fed to a dog or to beggars at the the tables of the wealthy, and eaten by diners in more modest circumstances.  Trenchers were the precursors of open-face sandwiches."

Remember this next time you visit Denmark.

***

References:

Sandwiches:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandwich

Dog Owners:  

Repeat the below sentence as fast as you can ten times each day after meals:

Fidos' farts are funny.

***

© Steve Stewart and SeeNextRock, 2013 Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Steve Stewart and SeeNextRock with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Beautiful Bush

I found myself staring at a bush a few nights ago while sitting in the outside dining area of our local Thai restaurant.  Stars glittered above, palm trees swayed in gentle breeze, a large white duck preened in a gurgling brook.  But I was focused on this bush.  I don’t know why.  It wasn’t in my direct line of vision and it wasn’t particularly attractive.  It was just your typical boring patch of greenery nestled between two leggy cement paths.  But as I sat there I wondered:  How much bigger would it get?  If it encroached over those legs of cement, would the gardener do a little trimming?  Did it like living close to that chemically infused imitation stream?  Did it enjoy smelling Tom Kha Gai Soup and Massaman Curry every day or would it really prefer Italian?  Other than to convert CO2 to oxygen for me what purpose could it possibly have?  Where did its' motivation to live come from?  I went through a huge bottle of beer thinking about it before moving on to my next thunderous bullet train of thought:  my jade plant.  Now THIS is a beautiful bush:

I call this “my” jade plant because I bought her when I was in college and she’s been with me for almost 45 years.  Her role in our relationship is to inject a little beauty into my life.  My role is to make sure she stays alive and healthy as she endures the bondage and discipline I impose upon her being. You see, I make her live in a pot.  That way I can keep her with me when I move…which is often.  I won’t free her to the earth…not yet.  

We've been through a lifetime of change together, she and I:  I've shrunk about half an inch in height.  She used to five inches tall.  I've gained a few pounds.  She's become humongous.  I want to keep growing, mentally anyway, and she keeps getting bigger and bushier.  I’m a father of two. She has a dozen or more offspring.  My jade is brittle and when she loses a branch I just stick it in a pot or in the ground and a new jade is born. Every time I move her, an unsolicited amputation begets a new relative.

My train of thought derails here:  Is this new relative really her offspring or is this just her in a new location?   Can two be one?  If she dies in her pot, will she essentially live on as this other plant?  If this process keeps repeating, could my precious jade achieve immortality?

***

Please excuse my anthropomorphism.   It’s just a ruse.

Do plants think, see, smell, or feel?  Read this:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=do-plants-think-daniel-chamovitz

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© Steve Stewart and SeeNextRock, 2013 Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Steve Stewart and SeeNextRock with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Scum Ball

I live, as do many of you, on a planet we call Earth.  Earth is a wonderful place to live.  However, when you think about it, it's a pretty weird place to live too.  Consider these few examples:

1.  Our planet's circumference at the equator is 24,901.55 miles and its' diameter is 7,899.8 miles...less if you measure through the poles as the Earth is not perfectly round.  These seem like big numbers but  how big is a mile really?  We've imagined a distance and assigned a number to it.  I think we can cross off distance as a universal truth.  Anyway, if you compare our planet to the "known" universe we're living on a tiny speck of rock that has a creamy molten center- kind of like lava cake but not as chocolatey.  The true size of the universe is something I've never been able to get my mind around.  Some people think the universe is shaped like a figure 8.  It just wraps around itself.  OK, what's outside this figure 8 then?  If you know, please tell me.  As an aside, Mel Brooks once said that 13 out of 19 people revolve around the sun.  Sounds reasonable. (1)

2.  The highest point on Earth is the top of Mt. Everest at 29,035 feet.  The lowest place on Earth is at the Dead Sea: 1,369 feet below sea level.  Human Beings don't do very well at these extremes though.  Generally, we thrive between sea level and 6-8,000 feet.  8,000 feet is only about 1 1/2 miles.  Think about what landmark is 1 1/2 miles from where you are at this moment.  For me, it's about as far as the nearest cheeseburger from McDonalds.  I could walk there in 20 minutes or so if I wasn't so lazy.  Our livable space then is shockingly thin...as thin as the skin on that sweet Walla Walla onion you're peeling to chop up for tonight's salsa. (2)

3.  We are surrounded by other living things we call "plants".  The tallest plant we have on this planet is a coastal redwood named The Mendocino in Ukiah, California.  It's 367.5 feet tall...a little bigger than a football field if you include the end zones.  The smallest plants in the world are Duckweeds.  They measure 300 by 600 micrometers and weigh only 150 micrograms.  They float on or just beneath the surface of fresh water ponds.  Put a lot of Duckweed plants together and you have what you might call scum.

4.  When you are in a passenger jet flying from SF to NYC what is your altitude?  Let's just say, on average, around 30,000 feet.  When you're that high and you look straight down what do you see?  You see varying shades of green and brown.  On a hazy day it looks kind of scummy and moldy.   People don't even look like ants from that height.  We're too small to see.

So here we are.  Tiny beings living on a scummy rock spinning around a giant white hot ball of flame.  Just saying...fellow scum people.

* * *

(1)  From the recording:  The Two Thousand Year Old Man by Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner

(2)  Fresh Salsa Recipe:  chop these ingredients to your size preference and combine in a large bowl:

One medium sized onion, two medium sized tomatoes, one bunch of cilantro, and 2-3 Serrano peppers. Don't bother cleaning out the seeds- you won't notice them.  Add a pinch of salt and lime juice to taste.  I usually use one lime.  That's it...delicious and spicy hot...scooped up with warmed tortilla chips...a taste you had long ago at your favorite Mexican oceanfront resort before you were afraid to travel there.  A small table on the sand at sunset, a canopy of palm fronds waving overhead in a gentle breeze, the pounding surf, a cold cerveza......perfect.

© Steve Stewart and SeeNextRock, 2013 Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Steve Stewart and SeeNextRock with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Out Of My Mind

I am a naturally happy person.  "Sure", you say, "but what does that mean?  Are you saying that you are happy because you have happy relationships with friends and family?  Are you happy with your level of intelligence?  The shape of your body?  Your sex life?  Are you happy to be an American?  Are you happy with the scenery, the weather, your house, the clothes you wear, the food you eat, your politics, your football team or your religion, if any?  You happy with the direction your life seems to be taking?  How can you be happy when you see the horror happening all around you in this world?  The hatred, the intolerance, the selfishness, the killing, the corruption, the degradation of our environment...You happy with all that?  Are you stupid, or what?"

Haha, no.  I'm just saying that unless I am faced with some unpleasantness in any given moment or actually thinking about something unpleasant I look out at the world with a calm, satisfied, excited, and pleasantly optimistic feeling.  I've always felt that way too since day one- the day I became aware of myself, or you might say, became conscious of my existence.  It's hard to explain.  It just is.  I've noticed though that I am this happy being most often when I'm not thinking.

"What does 'thinking' have to do with it?" you say incredulously.  Well, consider this statement I came across many many years ago and still ponder to this day:  "You are not your mind, because you can control your mind with your will."  I know you know that this is true.  You know that sometimes you have to control your "self".  You use your will to do that.  Most of us consider our thinking mind as our "selves" though.  Remember that old saw?  "You are what you think."?  If you are what you think but have to control your thinking at times with your will, which are you?  Are you your thinking mind or your will?  Both?  Is there two of you?  To make matters worse, when you use your will you know what you are doing...don't you.  You observe your "self" using your will.  So, who you really are can't be your thinking mind or your will.  Well then, who or what are you?  Personally, I 'think' I'm just that happy awareness.  "Fine," you say, "So where does that come from?"

Try not to think about it too much.  See next rock.

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© Steve Stewart and SeeNextRock, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Steve Stewart and SeeNextRock with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Modern Art or Monkey Art? Rant #2

A couple of years ago while on vacation in Thailand I watched an elephant use watercolor brushes to paint a picture of a flowering plant.  She was pretty good too.   

Of course, elephants are very intelligent.  Usually chimpanzees are rated higher on the animal intelligence scale but I’ve never seen them paint anything.   Monkeys are smart though that’s for sure.  I saw an example of how smart they are years ago at a wild animal park near San Diego:  A crowd of 30 or so people were gathered in front of a mote.  They were pointing and laughing at a huge male gorilla.  This gorilla was sitting on the other edge of this mote, as close to these people as he could get.  And lying next to him was a huge pile of fresh gorilla poop apparently just deposited in view of this crowd.  I supposed this gorilla just had to go and wasn’t too concerned about who was watching.  Elimination of bodily waste is, after all, something we all do.  In this country we just have a bit of a problem doing it in public.  People in some other countries aren’t so fussy.  The laughter increased and that’s when the gorilla started glancing down at his pile.  He looked angry to me.  His head moved back and forth from his pile to the crowd, crowd to his pile.  He reached down and grabbed a huge gob.  His arm moved up and down as if he was judging its’ weight and possible flight path then looked back at the crowd.  I moved back a few yards in anticipation.  The rest of the people must have been dropped on their heads when they were babies as they just stood there.  Suddenly, as expected, he stood up and flung it at the crowd.   They screamed as they were splattered with gorilla crap and ran.  Too late.  The gorilla ran too… as fast as he could to his little house. 

Hilarious…and somehow this brings me to the subject of modern art.

I’ve been to the many of the best modern art museums in this world and much of what I’ve seen I’ve enjoyed and appreciated.  However, I’ve also seen much of what I (and maybe you too) refer to as “monkey art”.  Here’s my definition of monkey art:  I’m not all that creative and I can’t even draw a decent stick figure.  A monkey could probably do as well.   So, if I can do it, a monkey can too: monkey art…as creative as gorilla crap.  Here is picture of a recent example I just viewed at the Tate Modern in London a few days ago:

This was painted by Philip Guston 1913-1980.  Born in Canada but worked here in the U.S.A.  It was described this way:  “A dark shape, suggestive of a head, emerges from a grey background.  Guston referred to this and other paintings made in the early 1960’s as ‘dark pictures’ and also as ‘erasures’.  As he explained, “I use white pigment and black pigment.  The white pigment is used to erase the black I don’t want and so becomes grey.  Working with these restricted means as I do now, other things open up which are unpredictable, such as atmosphere, light, illusion – elements which do seem relevant to the image but have nothing to do with colour.”

Nope.  What a load.  Monkey art.  I could do it.  Heck, a first grader could do it.  Quit trying to bullshit me Mr. Guston.  Tate Modern:  you suckers.

Here is another one probably costing the museum thousands of dollars:

Three blank all white canvases?  Please, I don’t care what this “artist” says about this.  It’s crap.  Monkey art.  I could do it.  Tate Modern:  you must have had your head up your asses to buy this.  Fools. 

Finally, this:

This “sculpture” was done by Thomas Hirschhorn, a Swiss, born in 1957, works in France.   It’s called:  Candelabra with Heads, and was done in 2006.  It’s made of wood, brown tape, bubble paper and painted plastic heads.

Tate Modern says this about these pieces of  “art”:

“Hirschhorn is known for his sculptures and installations made from everyday materials such as cardboard, plastic and paper, bound together with brown packing tape.  This work was originally part of an exhibition called Concretions, a term from geology and medicine that suggests the gradual growth of a solid mass.  Hirschorn related the theme to a broader social and spiritual petrification.  Here the faces of mannequins seem to be emerging from – or submerged into – larger biomorphic forms.”

Tate Modern:  you’re a biomorphic and petrified solid mass coming out of my ass.  What a load of gorilla crap.  I could do this but it would entail sitting on the toilet for hours.  My legs would fall asleep.  It’s monkey art.  You clowns.

© Steve Stewart and SeeNextRock, 2013 Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Steve Stewart and SeeNextRock with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.