I See Your Lawn Flamingos And Raise You Two Cranes

 

Things Worthy Of Wonder

 

What Was Not Thought Upon Awakening

 This morning, like just about every other morning of my entire life, I did not wake up and think to myself: "Self, you are only going to have so many days in which to experience the joys that life has got to offer without having to be pushed around in a wheelchair, or worse."

Nope, didn't say that to myself at all. The only reason I'm thinking it now is due to the short biographical sketch of Brandon deWilde I had written down in one of my sketchbooks several years ago.

And the only reason I was leafing through that sketchbook was to find the phone number for an Ebay seller that I can no longer locate on Ebay.

Before I digress further allow me to try to stay on topic and explain about the short biographical sketch. See, this smart beautiful woman I know who has great taste in movies, once sent me a text one afternoon that stated she was watching the movie Hud, which starred Paul Newman, and elaborated upon how gorgeous she thought Paul Newman was.

I responded to that text by stating that, while Hud was one of Newman's best works, what I always remembered about that film was the young actor Brandon deWilde who had tragically died in a car crash less than twenty years after he acted in that film.

The reason I always remembered Brandon deWilde was due to the fact that the accident that took his life happened on the onramp from Kipling avenue to 6th avenue here in Lakewood, which at the time (of the text) was an onramp I utilized almost every single day, and had been utilizing on almost a daily basis for the past 15 or so years.

Brandon deWilde was only 30 years old at his passing, and had accomplished much in those few years. He acted in almost 500 performances of the Broadway play The Member of the Wedding starting at the age of 7, winning a Donaldson award along the way (as well as a Golden Globe for his performance in the film adaptation), and had been nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in the movie Shane (he played the hero worshipping character Joey Starrett, at the age of 11). 

His resume before the age of twenty rivaled the careers of actors who had worked in film for decades - he starred in his own television series (Jamie, cancelled due to a contract dispute), and co-starred in films with the likes of Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Jack Palance, James Stewart, Louise Beavers, William Brennan, Sydney Poitier, Audie Murphy, Lee Marvin, Carol Lynley, Marsha Hunt, Warren Beatty, Angela Lansbury...you get the gist, he was quite the prodigy.

To cut this diatribe short, one of the things I wrote on that page in my sketchbook was the Latin phrase "Fac vitam optimam dierum, quos habes, numerator" which translates to "Make the best life of the days you have, for they are numbered" (approximately - not like I'm a Latin scholar you know).

It may not be as succinct as Carpe Diem, but it is a phrase I've always liked for both it's inspirational and ominous warning qualities.

But truth be told, I've never uttered it upon awakening.

Tailgate Me Harder...

 

The Painting No One Was Allowed To See

 It was kept in a locked room in the back of the old farmhouse that had been built in the northeast corner of a 10 acre plot of land located about 16 miles from the nearest town of any size.

It was worth at least 4 times what the combined value of every piece of property - land and buildings and contents - within a 50 mile radius of the old farmhouse would be worth (if a buyer could be found for some of the fallow lands and derelict buildings that is).

A buyer could readily be found for the painting, should it ever be put up for sale. Several buyers actually, possibly thousands of buyers.

The very existence of the painting was a closely guarded secret however, known only to a few people. Three people to be exact.

Two brothers and a sister, the offspring of the man who had brought the painting back from Europe with him when he was discharged from the Army following the end of World War II.

After their parents had passed away (tragically, in the crash of a large airliner), the then twenty-ish siblings had agreed to keep the painting in the small locked room, just as their father had for 33 years. 

The room had been intended to be used as a bedroom when the farmhouse was originally built, but was converted into what their Father called his "Den" after he had bought the property after graduation from the University.

The interior of the den resembled the library of an English manor home, or at least the Hollywood version of what a library in an English manor home would look like. Wainscoting featuring dark mahogany panels, wallpaper that may have been designed by William Morris in one of his darker periods, a coffered ceiling without a light fixture, a small fireplace with a tiled hearth and a heavy, rough-hewn oak mantle.

Large sconces with electrical lights (some of the first ever installed in the county) were mounted on all the walls, and they provided ample light for the windowless room.

Two large, comfortable leather club chairs on either side of a round drinks table were positioned in front of the only wall that wasn't covered in framed photographs of family and friends.

It was on this wall that the painting hung. It was a fairly modest size, approximately 28.5 by 36 inches, and was secured to a simple, unornamented frame.

The paint was thick, and looked as if it had been sculpted onto the canvas. The colors bright, vibrant, almost as if to suggest the flowers depicted were in a state of alert.

The painting was, as their father had often stated, devastatingly magnificent.

In the lower right hand corner of the painting, at an angle that seemed to suggest it was trying to escape from the canvas through the bottom of the frame, was a signature in a light red hue.

"Vincent".

  

All It Cost Was The Center

 Personal experience over the past four decades has made a somewhat disturbing cultural reality very evident.

And that is that there is no respect for the center. 

By the center I mean a point wherein two diametrically opposed sides of an argument can agree to meet. 

It is no longer considered polite, or reasonable, or intelligent, to settle a disagreement of any sort. These days one must absolutely win the argument outright, no compromise, no quarter, no middle ground.

Everyone has to be right. Everyone has to have it their way, or no way. 

People have lost sight of the gray, every side of every issue has become black and white. 

Which just plain sucks.

Nonconforming Like The Norm

 Everybody is a non-conformist these days                                                               Or at least that's the way it seems                                            The way they're coloring their hair                                                   Putting cucumbers in ironic beer                                                       Posting agglutinative syntactic memes

Nobody wants to be just a part of the crowd                                          Gotta shout it from the boxtops, gotta scream it out loud

            Look at me, see me, listen to me

Sporting a tattoo like a brand                                                                                      Got to be noticed and propped                                              Can't be seen with the wrong shoes on                                              Can't be seen without the right trope                                                    Can't be seen as basic                                                                           or you'll get dropped  

Nobody wants to be just a part of the crowd                                          Gotta shout it from the boxtops, gotta scream it out loud

Doing Only What It Has Been Programmed To Do

 

The Sovereign Fraud?

 

Tonight

     She was in the next room on the telephone                           In his head she may as well been a thousand miles away        Maybe, she thought, he would actually turn off the television                     Tonight                                                                         Maybe, he thought, she would enjoy being alone together                                                  Tonight                                               Soon, they both thought, soon...                                                     It might be high time to pack it all in and say goodbye                                  Or not it's been a long time and a long way                     Hard to leave it all behind hard to call it a day                   Like a poor investment with little or no returns                                   Can't help but comparing the shape of the ship                     To all the friends in likewise situations who seem to have            A better grip                                                                        Though it's impossible to judge another's happiness                                      By the smile they wear                                    Could be just a mask hiding                                                                                              A warehouse full of fear                                       She fretted about after hanging up the phone                 Going to have to make a decision soon                                                 Just not right now                                                        He surfed few more channels then turned off the TV                             Going to have to make a decision soon                                                 Just not right now                                                                    Tonight would be the night for attempting                             One last time to get it right                                                                                   Tonight

Stay Golden

 

Hit The Road, Jack (Or Jill)

 

Significant But Not Influential

 His efforts, while genuine and somewhat admirable, produced results of little consequence, likened to the San Juan Expedition of 1780.

The Truth Shall Set You Free...After It Beats You Senseless

 Over the years he'd paid some serious dues and he was beginning to think it was about time a few lucky breaks should start coming his way but little did he know that just was not to be, just wasn't going to be, not in this lifetime, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it no matter how hard he tried, no matter how loudly he proclaimed that it was his turn to be on top or that it was his turn to ride in the stretch limo and sip the sweetest wines, no matter how demonstratively he plead his case or begged or demanded...it just wasn't going to happen...he had learned a lot over the years but he still hadn't learned the one true fact...the one inescapable reality...

The world owes you nothing.

Slowing The Roll, Drastically

    Most of us are at one time or another dogmatic. By that I mean we all can get to a point where we believe something is true, without a single fact to support the assertion, and nobody nowhere, no how, can change our mind about the belief.

    Being dogmatic is far from limited to people who are bereft of a formal education, or who are devoid of any appreciable intellect.

   In my experience quite the opposite is true - the more educated and intellectual types are nearly almost always as readily dogmatic about something or another as those that would be considered less than average.

   It seems to me there is no shortage of people who find it impossible to say "I don't know" - they come from all walks of life and are representative of every race, creed, gender identity and cereal preference.

   Saying "I don't know" about some things would seem to be a no brainer, but such is not the case. I meet people all the time who adamantly state they have a fair grasp of a subject or know something about some historical event, and when their info is questioned (or god forbid, proven in error), they get pretty dang defensive.

   Heck, I've even been one of those people on a few occasions. One or a thousand.

   Then one day it hit me like a thousand tons of liverwurst that I was prone to expressing myself dogmatically on stuff I had no business even opening my mouth about, and since that fateful day I've made it something of a crusade to self-censor whenever I'm asked about anything I'm not sure of.

   It hasn't been easy, to be frank. 

   It can especially be a challenge to bite my tongue when I want to expound on matters esoteric (I have a fatal interest in arcane minutiae, which sometimes deludes me into believing I possess knowledge about useless crap when in fact I do not).

   I am still not all that good about saying "I don't know" as often as I should, but I have become fairly good at expressing a caveat before I do make any pronouncements on a subject.

   That caveat is, "I could be wrong, but I think..."

   Not a lot of people like it when I say that, but it does cover my ass a little...at least I think it does. 

   Of course, I could be wrong....

Believe & Work (Not Belief & Work)

 There are those who pray, hope, wish that things, situations, life will get easier.

 And there are those who strive to make themselves more resilient, more tenacious, tougher.

 Which course of action will you choose?

In The World Proper

 

Not So Ordinary Joe

   There is a television show set to debut in September that explores the possible lives a man may have lived had he made specific live-altering choices based on either love, loyalty, or passion.

   The choices presented are all made after the main character has finished up college, and while my opinion of what the show may be like is limited to the published premise, I can already state unequivocally that I'm probably going to hate it.

   Why?

   Well, for starters, the main character gets a chance to attend college, which, while much more common than it was 40 years ago, is still not ordinary - as of 2019 (the most recent data I could find in my leave-no-stone-unturned 10 second Google search) the percentage of the U.S. adult population that has a bachelor's degree is about 32% - meaning 68% do not. Investing another 10 seconds in vigorous research reveals that worldwide, only 6.7% of adults have some college education.

   Which is far away from the ordinary Joe's obtained educational level.

   Second, the choices he makes lead to careers that are also not ordinary - the medical field (I'm guessing Doctor from the scrubs he's shown in), law enforcement (looks like he's following a family tradition of becoming a police officer if the trailer is to be believed), and the entertainment industry (he's shown on a stage holding a guitar surrounded by thousands of cheering/adoring fans, I'm going to assume he's an entertainer of some sort).

   Which are all careers that are far from ordinary (only 0.29% of Americans are Doctors - which is greater than the percentage of Americans that are law enforcement officers - approx. 0.22% - and far greater than the percentage of Americans that are successful entertainers - 0.0265% according to Yahoo answers).

   Too far from ordinary for my feeble mind to grasp.

   So why would those improbabilities motivate me to hate a show I have yet to see anything but a short preview for?

   Because you can only stretch the whole suspension of disbelief dealio so far. 

   Now, if the show as to bring in elements that are far, far more...ordinary...such has having to make a choice between struggling to make it through community college while living with your single parent, or working three jobs while dealing with a girlfriends unexpected pregnancy (and the subsequent choices that have to be made about that) or living in your beat-up piece o' junk 20-year old car while hoping to get some form of housing assistance that would allow you to live in an actual apartment and thus have an address you can put on a job application, well, now that would be a show I wouldn't have to suspend one single second of disbelief for.

Not So Whispered Words Of Wisdom