The sound quality is an issue here too. The pitch is a little low. It's a big difference from the crisp and clear 1940 files. But I'm grateful to have these at all.

A bit early for Valentine's Day. I must insure I'm getting the order right. The word "squabble" is featured prominently in the conversation between Fibber and Teenie, the little girl from across the street. Molly's three syllable pronunciation of "athletic" is a hoot. 

Back on Boogie Street today. It dawns on me that I work for a living, if you can call it that. Yesterday my work consisted of listening to much music, talking to some people, and watching others do heavy lifting. Today I would like to dispose of a car – my old Saturn, which I will give to Elizabeth. She – or her family – has the resources to put it to use. Sure and I once gave a car to a lady who had no way to get it on the road because she had no money, so it was useless to her. I would have to have taken it to the mechanic to become road worthy and register it myself, possibly even insure it myself. So that is precisely what I did – or started doing. When you embark on a particular path the steps become apparent. Ah but the mechanic said the car was unsalvageable. He bought it to run in a demo derby at the County Fair. I wonder how it faired? Er, I mean fared?

 

February postings may be scant. I will be living elsewhere for the month, in a country setting without cable or DSL, where satellite reception is also near non-existent. But I will be stopping by here every day – long enough, in any case, to post on occasion. There is a hill near to where I will be staying which is known by the locals as the only place they may use their cell phones in the region. When they hear the slogan “More bars in more places” it really raises their hopes that someday soon there will be a drinking establishment in their town other than the Legion hall.

 

That does give me an idea for a business.

 

My boy doesn’t have a Regents exam today. He is sleeping in.

 

I guess I don’t have much to write about this morning. I’d give you some pictures, but Imeem seems to be on the fritz this morning. Computer solitaire chews up some time between sentences. Often an inspiration comes from that mental wandering. All that comes this morning is today’s schedule, which I already know. Then my eyes wander to the time in the lower right corner of my screen. I think “We begin at nine-ish, and I’d like to shower, make some more coffee…” Well, that’s not terribly earth-shattering; that won’t entertain you.

 

I will say that yesterday I was overcome by the realization that the Internet is a lovely thing. I was listening to “Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast” from the ’71 Pink Floyd album, “Atom Heart Mother.” It was a download. I was a child when I loved it. It was in a different world.

 

Same world, says I. Music comes from the fountain of youth.

Click below to hear me read "Never Land" by Horatio Malvase. You may wish to disable the King Crimson widget below. I've been having a ball with the sound software Monsterbox installed on my computer. I think I may have found a way to record the Squabbler so you can listen without the sense of utter despair or uncontrollable ecstacy (depending on the hearer) that makes his voice so disconcerting. I'm still working on it, though.

I've also decided to purchase a digital camera - the type that takes good stills, rather than a camcorder that takes good movies and mediocre stills. I thought of the camcorder. It would be a novelty. But I realized I don't really like having things move. I prefer things to keep still. Easier to keep clean that way.

This "Suspense!" program originally aired June 24, 1942. As a bonus there seems to be another program mixing it up with this one. The quality is very poor. The story is funny, though.

*

Irish Spring soap is my honeymoon in 1985. Yup.

 

See, it’s like this: I used to have a terrible foot odor problem, and walking around London all day in leather shoes really brought it out. So, just as soon as we got back to our apartment I would wash my feet, and the hotel happened to use Irish Spring – which I had never used before that time – and so, there it is. When I use Irish Spring today I can smell diesel fuel exhaust and I can hear the sounds of the city circa ’85.

 

So anyhoo, I have this Cuisinart coffee maker without a carafe. Or, that is the carafe is inside the unit, and one presses on a lever to dispense the coffee into a cup. It’s OK. I might have gotten the Bunn. It was just so stylishly basic. But really, I regret not getting the KitchenAid with the thermal carafe. Even though the coffee remains within a holding tank inside the unit I have discovered that it still uses a warming plate to keep the coffee warm. The holding tank is not thermal. This has the effect of cooking the coffee, of course, which is precisely what one hopes to avoid and the reason thermal carafes are so wonderful. Oh well.

 

Krups makes a nice thermal carafe unit, but it’s bloody difficult to get the carafe out from under the whosawitchalator the coffee pours out of. I do have another Cuisenart that does have a thermal carafe, but it’s the ‘grind ‘n brew’ model. I don’t mess around with beans. I drink too much coffee to worry about it. The secret to fresh coffee isn’t just keeping it in bean form but having it freshly roasted. You can buy beans in the supermarket from Starbucks or one of these other biggies and it’s about as far from fresh as King Tut’s mummy. The stuff may have been roasted last year for all you know.

 

Starbucks isn’t in the coffee business. They’re in the milk business.

 

So, what I do is order my coffee from a local roasterie. They roast it the same day I pick it up. I have them grind it for me so I don’t have to make a mess at home – and I’m going through it long before the fact that it’s already ground becomes a freshness issue.

 

Also, I have a friend who roasts his own. It’s OK. Home roasting is more likely to bring out the oils a little too quickly, thereby giving the coffee a smoky flavor. Sure, I like it that way sometimes. I call it the summer roast. It’s like roasting on a campfire. I think he uses a popcorn popper.

 

We were there in the summer – London, I mean. The temperature hovered at around a pleasant 80 F, but to hear the Londoners carry on you would think the sun was swallowing them. The office buildings let out thousands of scantily dressed young women to hang around in the parks all day. Hubba hubba. Businesses were closed on account of the ‘extreme’ heat. The headlines in the newspapers screamed “What a Scorcher!”

 

The heel of my shoe broke off by Marble Arch. I bought a nice pair of Beatle boots in a corner shop for about $15 at the exchange rate of the day which was very favorable to our dollars. Starting salaries were being advertised at about 5,000 English pounds – the symbol for which I don’t seem to have on my keyboard. That would have been just over eight thousand bucks. Try living on that – Oy! But of course that was a starting salary. One cannot expect to buy a house, raise a family, and so on, with such a sum.

 

What did my brother do? My brother waited until he was 40 before he even thought about girls. It took him till then to ‘make his fortune.’ He wouldn’t have any wife of his working just to pay the government’s immoral income tax. I understand he has been traveling around Singapore, Hong Kong, and sexy places like that trying to put some kind of deal together. I hope it’s working out for him. Travel narrows the mind terribly, though.

 

Wives – goodness! The very thought sends a shiver down my back.

 

A customer of mine told me that being in a relationship, like as being married, completes and fulfills a person. I told her that it had been my experience that marriage depleted and diminished me. But you know, it’s interesting: I did it wrong. My marriages failed because I gave myself to them utterly without any expectation of a return, and so naturally I didn’t get any return. Well, that approach isn’t marriage. That approach is charity. That’s what we are supposed to do for strangers in need – to give (anonymously at best) without having any expectation of return. But a spouse should never be a needy stranger. In a marriage the expectation of return is so important that the marriage itself transcends the normal boundaries of a legal partnership and rises to the level of covenant.

 

Think of a covenant as a contract times ten, or times a million if you like. Times 440, 000? Yes, exactly.

 

I didn’t enter into my marriages that way. I had no idea. And apparently, just going through the motions isn’t enough. That’s why I really don’t care what society might wish to do with ‘civil unions.’ The best that such an arrangement could ever be – no matter what the sex of its participants – is a mere legal contract without any chance of becoming a covenant. Great – more money for lawyers. They’re so needy, aren’t they?

 

But you see it’s like anything else in a culture controlled entirely by material things – marriage is a consumer good, like a coffee maker. If more is better, if bigger is better, if greater variety and convenience is better, then… good boys will come home with clean fingernails in time for dinner. Of course it’s rubbish, but it’s not my rubbish. The world can do what it likes. And will – without my blessing.

 

Anyhoo, my customer told me living alone isn’t good for me. Living alone for a long time can turn a person into a curmudgeon. What do you think? Can that happen? I don’t know.

 

 

The personal stereo is really no different now than it was when Sony introduced the Walkman back in 1980-whatever. One night, years ago, I drove into town to walk my dog while listening to my Walkman. I was roaring drunk. Last night I walked the same dog, (and he is quite a bit older), without being drunk, with a digital personal stereo, also known as an MP3 player. There is no difference.

 

It had occurred to me just before Christmas to buy the White Tornado an MP3 player as a gift. It seemed that everywhere we went, at every job site, she sought out a music source, and whenever we were at a job site which was not an inhabited residence – an empty house or apartment, what-have-you – she suggested that I bring a boom box to help pass the time. It seemed an entirely appropriate gift.

 

The very same day I thought of it – in fact, within a few moments of our driving away from the job where I had thought of it – she said, “Santa Claus is going to get me an MP3 player this year.”

 

I wondered: How did she know? But I thought I had better ask: “Is it Santa husband, or Santa Mom?”

 

“One of them,” she replied.

 

So, I did not purchase an MP3 player for Elizabeth as it seemed she had it covered. It is fortunate that she was right about Santa – someone did. Her speed has improved overall, but the amount of on-the-job conversation has greatly diminished. In the mornings she comes over to plug her device into my computer, since she doesn’t have one, and she brings CD’s over so I can transfer the music for her. This expands my own library somewhat. She appreciates Rammstein. I prefer Einsturzende Neubauten.

 

You will find me waiting for you in the Garden

Unless it’s pouring down with rain.

 

You will find me at the banks of all Four Rivers

You will find me at the seat of consciousness,

You will find me waiting for you in the Garden

Unless it’s pouring down with rain.

 

 

Who is singing here? Well, obviously it’s the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Why is it interesting? Well, because here is a lyricist who has some familiarity with the same metaphysical interpretation of Genesis that the Squabbler passed on to me. I never dismiss what the Squabbler has to say about such matters. He was there. That’s got to count for something.

 

But I don’t really need a personal stereo to help pass the time. I don’t get bored. I may sometimes be boring, but I don’t get bored. What is boredom? Boredom is the desire to be in some place or time that you are not. It is a discontent with present circumstances, and like any type of discontent it inspires us to change something about those circumstances. A common way to treat a case of boredom is to pick up the telephone and call someone. Another way is to go for a walk. Anything that stimulates the mind may do the trick: reading a book, watching TV, listening to music, etc. But I never become bored. A long time ago I developed the ability to use parts of my mind to function in much the same way as can be accomplished by taking a walk or calling someone, only without having to actually take the walk or pick up the phone. In other words, I am a good self-entertainer.

 

Babe, I got the music in me.

 

I knew this from before – from the Sony Walkman days. I prefer to hear music on a stereo which allows the music to blend with all the other sounds the world happens to be making at that moment because that’s the way I hear music in my mind. There is always a soundtrack running in my thoughts, and I can ‘hear’ it just as clearly as if I were using my ears, only without sound, without vibration. See – the vibrations that make the sound have to go somewhere in order for us to hear them. Where do they go? Into the mind, of course. The mind processes the vibrations into a form we recognize as sound. All I have to do to ‘hear’ music in my mind that isn’t actually being vibrated from some external source is to stick a thought into that processing center where all the music is stored.

 

I can do this with pictures, too. Ears don’t hear; the mind does. Eyes don’t see; the mind does. Still, I am grateful to have both ears and eyes. The mind can function without them, but they cannot function without the mind.

 

Wow – where the hell am I going with this?

 

Prayer! How interesting. I am thinking now about prayer. Do you know that there are many people who worship but never pray? And there are many people who pray but never worship? There’s a difference. Well, that is to say I know there is a difference, but there are many who disagree. Worship happens in the act of ritual sacrifice. Prayer is merely talking to God. Many people have entirely removed the ritual acts of worship from their spiritual lives, and so they believe that their prayers alone are the equivalent of worship. Well, no wonder they think we Catholics worship Mary. No wonder they think we Catholics worship saints. Because we talk to them it does not mean that we are worshipping them – no, no more than I am worshipping you when I talk to you. We are defining the word ‘prayer’ completely differently.

 

And so, when I go to mass today I will probably see some people who are worshipping without praying. That is, they will be physically present at the mass but at those points where the celebrant says “Let us pray…” they will not be praying. Perhaps they will be too distracted by a crying baby, or too interested in whatever the lady in the next pew is wearing. It happens to me sometimes – sure it does. OK, it is far better to pray when one is participating in worship than it is to be distracted. The word ‘boredom’ means literally that the devil bores into the mind to distract us from the present moment, and particularly when what is going on in present moment is the act of worship the word ‘boredom’ finds its origin.

 

By the same token, right now this minute I can pray. Right now this minute I can stop my fingers running over the keyboard for a moment and lift my conscious thoughts to God, or to Mary, or to my own mother who is in Heaven, or to any number of other saints. I can do that at any time, as can we all. It is communicating – talking – to God, and to people who are not here on the material plane. I know they hear my prayers because God makes that possible. But in so doing I am not worshipping. I am not confused about that. Worship happens at mass.

 

Here’s the main analogy spelled out by way of a conclusion:

 

If I were to lose my ears I could ‘hear’ the music in my mind because it is really the mind that does the hearing, but it would be terrible to be cut off from those physical vibrations which are picked up by the ears – whether they come through the ear buds of a personal stereo or from the booming platens of my home speaker system. If I were to lose my eyes I could ‘see’ pictures in my mind because it is the mind that really does the seeing, but it would be terrible to be cut off from the physical light which refracts into my eyes to give me sight. It would be terrible to be deaf. It would be terrible to be blind. No matter how good I may be at mentally entertaining myself it would be terrible to be deaf or blind.

 

No matter how much I pray, it would be terrible to be cut off from worship. Not going to mass is like trying to watch a movie with your eyes closed, or trying to listen to music on mute. You can’t – not really, not completely.

 

But, anyhooooooooooooo I bought a personal stereo yesterday, amongst other things. It really isn’t any different than the old Walkman. OK – so it can hold a gazillion songs. More is better? Not necessarily. You can still only listen to one song at a time.