I am a moron.

There's nothing much to say after that. I am a moron, most assuredly. I have a lot of reasons for pointing the finger at myself, some of which you may quickly recognize in your own behavior. I purchase 3-way lightbulbs that last only a few weeks, then go out and buy the exact same wattage of bulb. I hold off paying the rent until the last possible day -- even though I have the money -- as if it somehow benefits me. I didn't look for other means of employment at one job until after the business went bust and they laid me off, though I knew damn well weeks beforehand we were doomed (I could talk for days about morons and that company). I dated my ex-wife. For a year. Long distance.

So, I am a moron. So what. No reason to feel shame over it. Lots of morons out there. Lots and lots. I am a moron, they are each a moron, we are all morons. We should start a club, or something.

Being a moron is no ones fault (except maybe through genetics, or in other words your parents, so yeah someone is to blame). When you're a moron, you're a moron, and there's nothing you can do about it. Well, perhaps one thing would be to gather together with other morons and gang up on the smart people. Fortunately, morons can know things. Being a moron does not mean a lack of knowledge about stuff, say something like contractions. Obviously, I know when to use your and when to use you're. It's not a gift, and I'm not some sort of genius because of it. You can be well edjukaytid and still be a moron.

Now, there are certainly many, many stupid morons out there, but there are just as many with some sense, and a little brains as well. Morons can be scientists and Webmasters and designers and short-order cooks and presidents and software programmers and traffic cops and ships captains and captains of industry and your mother. We're morons, not half-wits. Here's a simple test you can perform to find out if a moron is a stupid one or not: Tell them they're a moron. A regular, un-idiotic moron will agree with you, and may even be glad it's out in the open. A stupid moron won't, and will probably hit you in the mouth straight-off.

A (non-stupid, considerate) moron can often appear in many respect like an idiot-savant (not I, I assure you), except morons usually don't stand out in crowds. And morons only shop at K-Mart under duress.

I am moron. Hear me snore.

* Koyaanisquatsi is a Hopi term said to mean "life out of balance". Unsure why I copped it for misuse here. Never ask my reasons. Also, the bulk of this is reguritated crap I've posted elseweb. No links - I'll let you dig it up if you're really that bored.

I wanted to come in with a really good, profoundly deep, maybe even a blow-the-doors-off-the-roof topic for the day, but the best I could think of was something about the transitory character of Life. Not the magazine but the experience, as in a look at life in all of its... suchness (as underused a word as any I know). I was going to traipse on about how one goes straight from those disgusting leftovers of birth to a longish period where it tends to blow for most of us, then presto wango death shows up, usually unannounced. If life was a movie, I'd have a major bone to pick with the Writer.

Yeah, major downer! So instead, I'll list the names of people who have passed on, but I don't happen to miss all that much:

Chuckles the Clown
May seem unusual to start with a fictional character, but if not for Chuckle's death we would never have seen the funniest half-hour of television in the English language (and others when dubbed). Oh, and I certainly don't mean any other Chuckles the Clown. Now let us pray: "A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants."

Adolf Hitler
If you need a reason why I'm not crying over the loss of this guy, then you need to read more history. A lot more.

Josef Stalin
See Hitler. And why is it most 20th Century bad guys had two-syllable first and last names? A-dolf Hit-ler. Jo-sef Sta-lin. Ri-chard Nix-on. Strange, that.

Douglas Adams
I like Douglas Adams and his writings a great deal. (Can you truthfully say you've read both Dirk Gently novels?) However, I felt he shouldn't have written the fifth book in the Hitchhiker's trilogy (and perhaps the fourth as well). It certainly didn't turn out all that good. While alive there was always the chance he'd give into pressure from his publisher to write a sixth. His death quieted that concern somewhat.

UPDATE: Well of course the bastard was working on a sixth book in the series. Shame on me for assuming the best, or even bothering to look at his Web site. Even death won't stop some publishers from cashing in. There is a place for them.

Ms. Henchen, my fifth grade teacher
In all honesty I don't know if Ms. Henchen is dead or not (so no link for her!). I just never liked her.

Chris Gaines
I can't take Garth Brooks as Garth Brooks: country music super talent. So why would I want him around as a mediocre, fake rock star? Thankfully they've both been retired.

Pope Urban VI
In my estimation, he was a bad pope. Very bad. And nowadays very dead as well.

Albert Einstein
All I can say is, this guy's work screwed any possibility of a career in physics for me. Not that I had a good chance otherwise, but still! He'd also be really, really old, decrepit and senile if he was still alive. Not something I'd wish on my worst enemy. OK, maybe Hitler.

I rarely take time out to think on the nature of the universe anymore. For one reason, I find it unfair that I spend any amount of time considering that which most likely never gives me a second thought. For another, and perhaps more honestly, it's just too damn hard. I usually find it bad enough having to spend a few moments in the morning on the choice between a bowl of Cap'n Crunch or a bagel and cream cheese. I used to spend time on it, when I was younger and the issue held some importance to me. But eventually you come to realize there are no answers to discover. You'll know that if you ever find yourself deep in the heart of the matter. Believe me, I did. So, one might say -- certainly if that one is me -- why waste all the effort. It can be painful and headache-forming. It's a task with no ease of use functionality built into it. I can't click a button and understanding emerges. We need toggle switches for thought. Now that would be an invention to celebrate.

Don't take this to mean I'm against thinking. Not at all. Creative, independent, human thought is a very cherished thing to me. I wouldn't do without it. That I often do is something else entirely and a good thing because I have the option to put it aside, and don't just lack it in the first place. I'll let you decide the factualness of that last claim.

Daniel Webster once said "Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought is the process by which human ends are ultimately answered." Although I agree with old Dan on a lot of things, he was wrong here. Mind is not a lever, but a balance, a see-saw we must keep as level as we possibly can. Thought requires a steadiness, a focus if you will, to reach those ends he spoke of, and whatever answers they can provide.

Even if the answers don't exist.

• Kellogg's TesticO's


• Yellow Fever Crunch


• Microsoft Windows FU


• Monkey Brains (New Mint Flavored)


• Webster's Klingon Dictionary


• FloodAlert Panty Liners


• Chrysler Walkabout


• Crystal Spring Distilled Ice Cube Water


• Buck-A-Diamond


• Clam-Bacon-Oreo Chowder


• Campbell's Tomato Paste Anticoagulant


• Chalk'alots

Back when I was no more than a mite of a person, still rather preformed in body and mind, way back when a computer had to take up an entire room and Muskrat Love was only a form of deviant sexual behavior, I caught myself wondering what I was destined to become when I finally joined the ranks of the grownups -- in other words, what kind of job I'd get when I entered the legal workforce.

The question didn't form on its own. It was planted. By an adult. Damn them!

As I said I was young, too young perhaps to be considering what aim my professional life should take. The expected ones of policeman and fireman flipped up (police officer and firefighter; children were not yet taught the benefit of politically-correct thought). I had a knack at drawing, so perhaps I was destined for a life in art. There was an inclination to toy with mechanical stuff, as I had by then pulled apart and reassembled a couple radios, the gearshift to a bicycle, and our home telephone to figure out how they worked. Did the engineering world beckon? And I read everything, every book within range of my lowly, youthful reach. Sadly I was unaware of a job that paid you to read (I guess editor never bubbled up).

So there I was, a branch of a boy wracking my brain, trying to think of all possible kinds of employment available to me and testing as I leafed through them. I liked food (but don't we all): a chef? My father was in the Air Force, but that was more a deterrent than a lure to thoughts of a military career. A truck driver? A scientist? A teacher? A travel agent? There were so many choices, too many vocations I could take up. Never mind that there were few I'd want. So I gave up. It wasn't worth the confusion and the real sense that I'd failed at something, somehow, somewhere. I assumed it was better to be without a choice than to choose wrongly. From then on when asked about my long-term future career plans, I'd answer noncommittally and let the querier suggest options, each tending to lack a palpable taste. Thankfully, eventually, they stop asking you that question.

Often it's told in my family's lore how my older brother, back when he was no more than a barely shaped lad (and I a speckle in the womb), was asked the same question (Damn those adults to Hell!). Without pause and from an obvious conviction of belief, he said "I'm gonna be a journalist." Not a writer. Not a newspaperman. A journalist. How cute those precocious ones can be!

Sometimes we just know what we want, or get lucky and figure it out. Too bad I've never believed in luck...

"And they whirled and they twirled and they tangoed
Singin' and jingin' the jango
Floatin' like the heavens above
It looks like muskrat love"

So I go to my home page (just one of those colorfully stupid, custom personal portal sites that are neither much in the way of a portal, nor all that customizable) when I see a column banner claiming that Tax Season is now upon us. Wha? Tax Season? When exactly did Spring get replaced by Tax Season? And what exactly is a Tax Season supposed to be like anyway? Is it when W-2s start to bud from tree branches? If Punksutawney Phil fails to see his shadow, does that mean we all get to file with a 1040-EZ form? Say a hurricane hits during Tax Season -- do we switch over to a flat tax?

Truth be told, during this Tax Season I'd rather be in Vegas.

Well well my dear reader, when last we met (um, have we ever met before? Nah, somehow I didn't think so), I was wandering over that mountaintop eating Chicklets and Chock Full o' Nuts coffee beans and downing it with caffeine-enhanced raspberry juice (no connection to the mountaintop Web site) as you were attempting to slip on a pair of Nike sneakers while already wearing a pair of G.H. Bass hiking boots. Needless to say (yet I say it) I told you what a fool you must be, then immediately began choking on a bean. Thanks to you (and those boots!), I'm alive right now and mulching for an Antarctic gardening club. So to hell with the need for intelligence, yoga swamis, and tranformational grammar.

But I digress.

I really wanted to mention that my journal, Weblog, blog, whatever you want to call it, is up and running. Again, something that really needed no saying. If anything I'm good at blurting out the obvious. Talent comes naturally to me... But keep in mind this not just any online journal you've come across where you'll discover me chattering on about current life travails or linking to what I just stumbled across on the Net. Plenty of those to go around for centuries; and besides, my brain doesn't work in diary mode. Instead it's an experiment of sorts -- my gods yes another one!

Blurried Musings is an attempt at an article a day (barring interventions from technical glitches and real life), it's purpose a place for me to pump out of my head and hands and computer, something, anything of a creative nature for at least as long as my psyche holds out, and probably a good deal past that. Like a whacked-out New York City cab driver I'll be weaving in and out and pretty much everywhere across the road. No signage here, my friend. Things will get blurry, and often the subject matter shall take on the appearance of musings, but I'm spreading my bets wide to cover all the horses in this race. And humor is key to Blurried Musings. From broadest to barest, the thread of a comic sensibility will run through each entry, no matter how thin.

Whether any of them are actually funny doesn't come into it.