RANDOMNESS

I feel like eating a pizza tonight. I am thinking Pizza Hut or Cottage Inn. Hell, maybe I'll even go with Jet's Pizza. I'm thinking of getting a half-and-half: half supreme and half all-meat. I'll have them cook it extra, to make it crispy. They can keep their damned breadsticks, though. That's what the crust is, for God's sake (rice wine, served hot, nasty, do not drink it).

*-*-*-*

It is hot here, in Michigan; the temps are reaching the high-80s and the humidity is something that one could pluck from the air, if one so chose. That translates to one thing for me, at work: sweat, sweat and more good sweat. Hell, I was dripping before I even picked up a shovel! And, no, it wasn't because I was excited.

*-*-*-*

Better humid heat than earthquakes, though. So-Cal experienced a tremblor recently, and--damn. If I lived in Cali, I would be preternaturally-aware of the china in the cabinet rattling. Yikes. Thoughts and prayers to all (especially my Uncle Jimmy and his fam dambly, nestled in Berkeley, CA).

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(fiction interlude)

"I beg you."

McCallaster holstered his revolver. "Shut up," he hissed. "You're dead. Dead men don't beg for nothing. They don't talk. They just bleed out and then puff up and then shrink down. Make like a ghost, Joe." He paused, stroking his handlebar mustache, and looked at the skeletal trees. "And disappear."

Joe scrambled to his feet and nodded in acquienscence. "You'll never see me around here again, Mac," he said, running into the woods, holding up his pants from the waist, moving in prancing jackrabbit steps.

*-*-*-*

Creativity is frustrating. I wanna be a novelist, I wanna be a cartoonist, I wanna be a poet, I wanna be a painter, I wanna be a sculptor--but, too often, I am just too fucking lazy.

Where the hell is my sense of creative ambition? Huh?

Couldja answer that for me? Or do I have to answer it for myself?

I listen to Mozart, I read subdued brilliance by King, I listen to the bass-driven lyrics of Tupac, and I think to myself that I could do that, too.

And then I tell myself, "Adam? You could've done a lot of things, man, had you cultivated your Ambition Gene instead of letting it curdle and drip into Coma."

Then I think to myself: one, this world is a fucking journey; who knows what the next curve holds? Two, every day is a new slate, believe it or not. Three, I think to myself, I am happy and healthy and full of fucking energy (no jokes, please). That's gotta count for something, right? Four, I forgot what four was for, but five--five!--I'm alive, alive, alive. And six? Pick up sticks, hit some hicks, eat some Twix, sit betwixt--whatever...just do it.

*-*-*-*

Have you ever played Grand Theft Auto: Four on the Xbox 360? It is my favorite game, ever. I'm not even really doing the missions. The fun part, for me, is just driving around and wreaking havoc. Maybe it's my slightly curdled creativity that makes this so fun. I drive into people, send them flying over my windshield, I purposefully get into a fender-bender just so that the other driver will get out of his (or her) car, and then I blast them in the chest with a sawed-off. And then I kick their corpse and take their money and then outrun the Liberty City police so that I can do it again.

Listen: I am a grown man. One, I shouldn't be playing video games, right? Well, wrong. Two, for all those people out there who say that a video game will cause someone to...wait a second...Bill from next door is trimming his hedges. I think I may have to..... Wha' was I sayin'?

*-*-*-*

"The mind is a terrible thing to taste."

Who said that? Wasn't it a title for a Primus CD? I think it was. I'm not sure, though.

Anyway, I don't think that's holy, man. As a title, fine, whatever, but it is gleaned from the NAACP's motto, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste," and I am in whole-hearted agreement with that assertion.

Down with racism and bigotry and homophobia and xenophobia and sexism and ageism and intolerance.

Aren't we all carbon-based life forms? Don't we all hurt, sometimes?

Let's try to love one another. Let's try to spread good feeling to everyone we meet. Let's co-exist harmoniously.

It really ain't all that much to ask.

Am I naive? Of course, I am.

But I can dream, can't I?

*-*-*-*

Remember Barbaro, the horse that broke his leg during a horse race? (I think it might have been the Kentucky Derby--no, the Preakness.) Anyway, Barbaro busted his leg and, contrary to popular practices, he was not instantly "put down." No, he was soothed and taken immediately to a vet and--lo and behold--horse enthusiasts (and anyone that loves animals) were overjoyed when it seemed that he could, in fact, come back from what is usually an instant death-needle. He survived for months. Anyway, the only reason I bring this up is because every time I heard his name, Barbaro, I thought of this guy, Barbaro Garbey, a Cuban bit-player with the utterly-dominant 1984 Detroit Tigers baseball team, who led wire-to-wire and captured a World Series trophy.

My apologies to the equine Barbaro, assuredly an icon in his sport.