RANDOM MEMORY
Which I Think Might Be Entirely Made Up
I once worked at this carpet store with these two guys, Vinny and Steve. They were stockroom workers, heavy lifters mainly, carrying those huge rolls around in the warehouse, loading up trucks then unloading other trucks. It was mostly a boring existence, with a lot of free time. Vinny was really into WWII memorabilia and spent most of his free time watching esoteric documentaries about specific battles. He knew everything there was to know about that era. He came up with an idea to re-enact his favorites battles with Steve in the stockroom when there was nothing else to do. Eventually it consumed them to the point where they had to be coaxed into doing their actual work. And a trip to the back of the store became an adventure as you took your life into your own hands risking capture or cross-fire.
What finally happened was a certain period of peace fell over the stockroom brought on either by battle fatigue or a type of cold-war where the two sides dissolved into an endless "arms" build-up in their respective secret lairs. The upshot was that the two of them were never seen again. They just disappeared into the rolls of carpet and plastic wrap. Two new guys were hired and Vinny and Steve were never spoken of again. Only those of us who have worked at the store for a long time live in an uneasy fear of one day finding skeletal remains among a few rolls of neglected nylon berbers. Or worse yet evidence of some neutron-bomb-like super-weapon, one that wipes out life but leaves inventory relatively undamaged.
I actually feel sorry for them and miss them a little. What's weird about that is that I think I imagined it all and what ever pity I'm feeling is totally unnecessary.

Who's He Kidding?
I was really into Sting and the Police and bought all the albums and all the best-of's etc. Sting started to go a little south on me in the late 90's and I started to not really understand him that much. But now I feel like I haven't been paying attention because I think he went off the deep end. He never ceases to surprise me with his weirdness:

In the early 1980s, Sting was first introduced to the music of John Dowland and
has confessed that his music has been "gently haunting" him for more than twenty
years. "About two years ago my long-time guitarist, Dominic Miller, gave me a
gift that he'd had made for me, a lute -- a sixteenth-century instrument with
lots of strings. I became fascinated with it and immersed myself in lute music.
It rekindled an interest I've had for a long time in the works of John Dowland,
who wrote a number of fantastic lute songs. Dowland was really the first English
singer/songwriter that we know of and so many of us owe our living to this man."

I guess it's just what happens when these people get so fabulously wealthy. That's what money does. Who has time to immerse themselves in lute music? I don't know if he thinks he's relevant or if he even cares but I imagine he thinks (like Madonna probably thinks) that he's still "down to earth" and still in touch with what he was like when he was younger and that he's just pursuing music the same way he always did but there's a certain amount of corruption to it, you know what I mean? The way being cloistered on some huge estate in the English countryside, wandering around stuffy rooms, diddling away on increasingly obscure instruments, twisting yourself up into yoga positions, feeling like you're so "centered" because you've checked every box on your self-actualization to-do list, can make you pale-skinned and atrophied like some eel at the bottom of the ocean that doesn't need its eyes anymore.

...AND THE OSCAR GOES TO...
oh, wait, it's just election day. Sorry.

I'm proud to say that my congressional district was one of the many yesterday that turned-out its Iraq-war supporting republican and elected this guy our congressman. He's actually a musician and founder of the band Orleans. I don't really know the band although I pretended I did when one of his campaign workers (with alcohol on her breath) stopped me at the Yorktown Grange Fair. Now that I think about it, this is not actually my congressional district now but the one I grew up in. Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.

A couple of other favorites I noticed - New Jersey's district 3 where voters had to choose between a guy named Saxton and another named Sexton. I'm sure they're vastly different candidates (yeah right) but it seems funny that their names are only one mere vowel different. I don't know why that's funny but it is. And also New Jersey's district 4 where the voters opted not to elect Gay to office - God forbid Gay should represent us!! We want Smith - yeah Smith. That's a name with character and integrity. Not like "Gay" - bleh.

Hillary got re-elected along with Arnold. New York has a new governor as does Mass. and Ohio - all democrats. Ohio with a democrat for governor...did we just elect Hillary as our first female president? Hmmm.

I KNEW IT!!!
I never got the Bob Dylan thing. I just never did. And I was willing to admit that it was me that was lame. He just never appealed to me. I can even see how he's talented, you can hear it in the music he writes now as an old man. The blues grooves are just there but in the back of my mind I wondered if maybe it was just that really cool and talented musicians would work with him beccause he was this legend. Then I saw this story. It all makes sense. You know what I'm saying. Tell me you don't. Go ahead, say it.