One Day In A House On Thomas & Noyes, August 1985

Facial Palm Ed 
                   Was wanting to slam
                   At the Zebra Club on Saturday night
Gary the Plant
                   Just sitting in the corner
                   Sipping on a two-hour warm Coors Light
Johnny D. Rockfish 
                   Passing the pipe to Big Meyers
                   Both of them feeling alright
Churchie Dawg
                   Pulled up in the big black Caddy
                   With a little blonde water sprite
Tommy the Iguana
                   In the kitchen slicing up hot dogs
                   Mixing up some bachelors delight
Foreman Scotty
                   Walking in with five tacos and guac
                   Everybody aching for a bite
Cripes on a Cracker
                   Waiting on Thibs and Flynn
                   Gonna go out and do it up right

11 Steps To Making Money On The Internet Without Really Having To Do Too Much Work

1) Create a website that ridicules people who act or dress or live a certain way you do not agree with. Label those people with a name that others can readily pick up on, such as "D-bags," "Fuglies," "Rednexx" or whatever can be defended from charges of rascism, sexism, etc. (Generally, you want to avoid any minorities - create a website that has as it's primary target heterosexual conservative white males and you'll be good to go. I was going to suggest "StupidWhiteMen" as a website, but I think Michael Moore owns that already). 

2) Generate a following. This is the easy part. Everybody on this planet wants to feel superior to someone, somehow. Your website will attract followers, no doubt about it - especially if you paste a couple of choice links on a few social media websites.

3) Allow your following to contribute to the content of your website. Once you have established your website as the place to poke fun at _______demographic, all you have to do is accept contributions from your followers (OC, as it's known).

4) Take advantage of the we-don't-like-these-types-of-people vibe your website generates by championing a historical figure who, while actually recognized for his or her contribution to a particular field, can be construed as having been marginalized due to being in the shadow of a contemporary who had a better PR team, was just much more adept at playing the publicity game, or was in fact just better. Examples are Tesla vs. Edison, Wendy Williams vs. Oprah, Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates, Lucille Ball vs. Carol Burnett, 9gag vs Imgur, etc.

5) Throw in references to fictional characters as if they somehow are more relevant to the real world than, well, than real people. Batman, Thor, Iron Man, Pikachu - who and whatever.

6) Add plenty of pictures of cats. Or dogs, or baby stoats, or anything that remotely looks like a dragon.

7) Idolatry never hurts. Throw some ludicrously attractive celebrities up, preferably stars of a movie franchise or TV series that appeals to the specific demographic your website attracts (example: If your website assails the artless demon beancounters at a major network that cancelled a favorite TV show, throw up images or gifs of the stars of that show). 

8) While the primary content should be family (and work) friendly, be sure to have other linkable pages on the website that are labeled "NSFW" or "FTW". These will generate mucho traffic. And you need traffic, because...

9) You need to post ads. There are several online companies that will pay you on a per click basis for having ads on your website. It's not a ton of money, but it is money, and if you learn the best traffic-generating techniques, it's possible to earn a few extra bucks.

10) If you get a big enough following you might even be able to sell your own merchandise on the site - T-shirts, coffee cups, toilet bowl brushes, etc.

11) If all that fails, porn.

Painting From The Early '80's

  Painted in the early '80's ( This was a decade or so before I legally changed my surname to my Mother's maiden name - I was 19 and enamored with the surfing lifestyle), Dr. Martin's dyes, watercolor, and acrylic.

How To Earn 1 Million Dollars By Investing $84.00 A Month

Here's an idea for earning a million dollars that requires a little bit of discipline, much patience, and 6 fully cooperating family members (or 6 very close friends).

But not a lot of investment dollars. If you eliminate going out for dinner and drinks just once a month, you pretty much have this in the bag.

Once you have assembled 6 able participants, draw up a contract that states as simply as possible that the 6 of you agree to participate in an investment club and do so with the intention of splitting the proceeds after a specified period of time. 

Then, every month have everybody contribute $84.00 to an account set up at an investment firm. It doesn't matter which one, though I do suggest strongly that fees for managing the fund be as minimal as possible.

That's it. That's all it takes. If you are able to maintain the fund for 30 years and you earn the historical average return of 9.4%, you will have $1,011,656.94.

By historical average, I mean the average return on an investment in a stock since 1900. 123 years is a fairly good extrapolation.

Let's say you open this account when the average age for the group of 6 is twenty. At the average age of 50, the 6 will have a collective worth of just over 1 million dollars.

That is when it will get to be fun. With a million dollars as seed money, your group can start buying commercial real estate.  Within another 10 years, if nobody gets stupid, the chances are good that every member of the investment circle will share in assets worth well over 6 million dollars.

Of course, if you are 20 now, and have an extra $504.00 a month to invest, you can just do this yourself for the next 30 years and avoid all the difficulties that come with being tied to a partnership.

If you are in a stable, committed, long-term relationship that is not going to ever be in danger of going south, and both of you work, this will be easy peasy.

You're welcome. 

A Realization About Myself And How I Interact With Some Of The Less Social People I Know

Ever known somebody who has gone through a ton of adversity and, instead of feeling like a victorious warrior for having persevered and made it through the rough shite, has decided to just step back from society and shut out the world?

I seem to know an unusually high number of these types. I refer to them as isolationist.

I'm not sure why I know these people - is it due to me being drawn to the challenge of establishing a relationship with people who have ostensibly given up on establishing relationships? Or is it due to the fact that I appear approachable to those types of people and they find themselves irresistibly drawn to me?

Whatever the case, it's a weird dealio knowing isolationist.

This past Christmas eve I considered making an effort to get a few of the isolationist people who live close to me together for a small party, just a little gathering of like-minded (or should that be "like-neurotic?") souls to share in a little bit of the holiday festivities.

No doubt my sudden altruism was motivated by what I had seen on the drive in to work that morning. I wanted to reach  out to the isolationist I knew and be all cheery and merry.

So I drew up a list of 5 people I consider isolationist. To be clear, the people I consider isolationist share the following behaviors:

1) Go from home to work to home without ever making detours - either before work such as meeting friends for breakfast, or after work such as meeting friends for social activities of any type - bowling, trivia night at a bar/pub, etc. 

2) Do almost all of their shopping late at night. Stores that are open 24 hours a day make their money from people such as this.

3) Rarely go out for reasons most people do - like concerts, movies, plays, etc.

4) If they do go out to a public (or even private) gathering, they tend to stay away from anybody they don't know, and they tend to stay away from the areas where the majority of the other people are (i.e., hiding in the kitchen at parties). 

5) Without exception, all of them have related to me a reason why they do not like to leave their respective homes, and without exception all of those reasons have involved being hurt emotionally by someone they were in a relationship with.

I'm certain that most of those traits are part of an avoidance personality disorder.

The argument could be made that those people might just be introverts, but I know introverts - artists and writers who need to be alone in order to enjoy life. They will go out in public though, and they will interact with people on a daily basis without looking like it's a painful or frightening experience. 

However, these 5 people I know, they chose to be alone not because it's conducive to being particularly productive in an endeavour, artistic or otherwise.

They all seem to chose to be alone because they have allowed themselves to believe there is nothing that can be gained by being around people, and they all seem to be intimidated by the world.

They allow fear to dictate their existence.

Then it occurred to me that it was not my place to attempt to change how people chose to live their lives, and that if they wanted to be alone at Christmas (and all other times for that matter) that was their business, not mine.

So I decided instead to go to a fav local hangout and buy a round for everybody who was at the bar. We toasted, the few of us in the place on the day before Christmas, to peace on earth to men of goodwill.

Then I went home and exchanged gifts with my friends and neighbors. It was great.  

Here it is, three weeks later...I related my little plan for an isolationist Christmas party to 2 of the 5 people on the list I had drawn up. The reaction?

Almost word for word from both of them, "That sounds like it would have been cool, let's do that next year."

Hah! 

A Vague Reference To A Party In The Hollywood Hills In 1965

A dragon with huge leathery wings

Jellyfish making a mess on the dance floor

Sitting on a sofa shaped like a woman's lips

The kid in the corner is the only one keeping score

Another teenager crashes and gets a DUI

Parents grateful because no one died

Leprechauns caught up in an uncivil war

An albatross eating potato chips

While beggars share a pizza at the shore

Flights of fantasy fill your head

Fonda bragging he knows what it's like

To be dead

Two Princes claim to be Kings

Sleeping in a dumpster next to the liquor store

Oreo cookies got Gene doing backflips

In a cardboard rocketship flying out the backdoor

Roger thought he was being followed by a private eye

And that was enough to make James say goodbye

Waiting for the end of the world is such a bore

Longing for a woman with serious hips

Quoth the barfly, "give me more!"

Flights of fantasy fill your head

Fonda bragging he knows what it's like

To be dead

Shut Up And Get Out Of The Way

In the the '80's a radio station pioneered classic rock
And back then, without Sirius or the Internet, I was stuck
Listening to oldies that had been old when I was young

I wanted to hear the new sounds, I wanted to hear Punk
I wanted to hear what the old folks were calling junk

Now everyday I hear music that I just can't stand
It's derivative, it's degenerate, with lyrics I can't understand

And I try hard to remember how much I hated old people
Who criticized the music I wanted to hear
I try to remember to shut up and get the hell out of the way

I hate when I hear myself say this sucks, they can't sing
Damn the need to compare everything to 1983
Every generation has it's own music, movies, and dance

The older generation has an obligation to the new
Step aside and let the next generation through

It's hard to remember I had my time, I had my day
There is no point in trying to live in yesterday

So hard to remember how much I hated old people
Who criticized the music I wanted to hear
Try to remember to shut up and get the hell out of the way

It's their time, it's their day
Shut up and get out of the way

Shut up and get the hell out of the way
Get the hell out of the way
Out of the way

Out of the way